Af-Maay (Maay Maay): the language of the inter-river lands

Where it is spoken

Maay is spoken mainly by the Digil and Mirifle, together called the Rahanweyn, in southern Somalia. Its area runs from the Ethiopian border in the southwest to near the coast between Mogadishu and Kismaayo, and includes Baydhabo (Maay Maay, Wikipedia). Glottolog lists it as a language of the Somali branch of East Cushitic (Glottolog, Maay).

The Italian linguist Marcello Lamberti, who surveyed southern Somali speech in 1981, places Maay in the whole of Bay, Bakool, Gedo, Middle Juba and Lower Shabelle, southwest Hiiraan, the Jowhar district and eastern Lower Juba (Landinfo 2011, p. 13). In Gedo it shares the land with Ogaadeen, Degodiya and Mareexaan dialects. Lamberti also found that Maay is not only spoken by Rahanweyn: in Jilib, for example, the Jareer (Oojji) used the local Maay dialect.

Five dialects

Lamberti found the Maay dialects fairly uniform, with small, gradual differences, and named five (Landinfo 2011, p. 14):

1. Northern Maay, in northern Gedo and Bakool, with some Northern Somali influence.
2. Western Maay, in Baardheere and Diinsoor.
3. Eastern Maay, made up of Af-Eelay and Af-Begedi.
4. The Maay of Qoryooley to Jilib.
5. Southern or Lower Juba Maay, in Jamaame and Afmadow.

How it differs from Maxaa-tiri

Lamberti lists these Maay features (Landinfo 2011, p. 14):

• no throat sounds c and x;
• a central vowel, like the "e" in English "the", that Somali spelling has no letter for;
• sounds that merge: "you went" is batti in Maay, against baxday in Northern Somali; "we went" is banni;
• plurals that are grammatically masculine;
• many possessives built with haan-, as in haankey ("my").

Vowel length changes meaning, as in bur ("flour") and buur ("mountain"), and both subject-verb-object and subject-object-verb word orders are used (Maay Maay, Wikipedia). I. M. Lewis compared the gap between Maay and Northern Somali to that between Spanish and Portuguese (Saints and Somalis, 1998, p. 74). Martin Orwin of SOAS told Landinfo that most people in Maay areas also understand Maxaa-tiri, and that in Afgooye, close to Mogadishu, most speak both fully (Landinfo 2011, p. 14).

Legal status

Article 5 of the 2012 Provisional Constitution reads that the official language of the Somali Republic is "Somali (Maay and Maxaa-tiri)", with Arabic as the second language (Constitute Project, Somalia 2012). Maay is not generally used in schools or the media, and Maay speakers often use Standard Somali, learnt through radio, migration and town life, as a common language (Maay Maay, Wikipedia, citing Ethnologue).

Maay poetry

Maay has its own oral poetry. The anthropologist Virginia Luling recorded extempore verse at a festival in Afgooye in 1989. There the poet and the reciter, called laashin, were the same person, making the poem as they sang (Luling 1996, "The Law Then Was Not This Law"). The laashins Hiraabey, Muuse Cusmaan and Abukar Cali Goitow addressed Suldaan Subuge of the Geledi, recalling his Gobroon forebears.

Read more

• Somali dialects
• Digil languages
• Bay region