Language and writing
Somali dialects: Northern, Benadir, Ashraf, Maay and Digil
Linguists group the speech of Somalis into five dialect groups: Northern Somali, Benadir, Ashraf, Maay and Digil. The largest survey, by Marcello Lamberti in 1981, studied 52 dialect variants across southern Somalia. Northern Somali is the base of written Standard Somali; Maay and the Digil varieties differ most from it.
The five dialect groups
The Norwegian country-information centre Landinfo summarised the research on Somali dialects in a 2011 report for its immigration service (Landinfo 2011). It follows the Italian linguist Marcello Lamberti, whose book Die Somali-Dialekte (1986) is described by the SOAS linguist Martin Orwin as the most relevant publication on the subject (Landinfo 2011, p. 4). Lamberti sorts Somali into five groups that form a chain, with fluid transitions between neighbours (Landinfo 2011, p. 6):
- Northern Somali: the northwest, the northeast, the Somali Region of Ethiopia, northern Kenya and the Lower Juba.
- Benadir: the coast and hinterland from Hobyo to south of Marka, including Mogadishu.
- Ashraf: spoken by the Ashraf of Shingaani in Mogadishu and of the Marka district.
- Maay: the inter-river lands of Bay, Bakool, Gedo, Middle Juba and Lower Shabelle.
- Digil: Tunni, Dabarre, Garre and Jiiddu.
Earlier ways of grouping them
The first scientific grouping was made by Enrico Cerulli in 1919. He named four groups after the clan families whose speech he recorded: Isaaq (with Ciise and Gadabuursi), Daarood, Hawiye and Sab (Landinfo 2011, p. 5). Martino Moreno moved the Hawiye into a Benadir group and the Sab into a Digil group. B. W. Andrzejewski and John Saeed used three groups: Common Somali, Coastal or Benadir, and Central Somali (Landinfo 2011, p. 5).
Somali speakers often use a simpler two-way split. Maxaa-tiri ("what did you say?") covers Northern and Benadir speech. Maay-tiri, also called Maxaa-rabtaa or Maxaa-jira, covers the Maay and Digil varieties (Landinfo 2011, p. 5). The 2012 Provisional Constitution names "Maay and Maxaa-tiri" together as the Somali language (Constitute Project, Somalia 2012, Article 5).
How the groups differ
Lamberti found clear sound differences between the two halves. All Maxaa-tiri dialects have the throat sounds written c and x; the Maay dialects lack them but have a sound like the "gy" in Hungarian (Landinfo 2011, p. 5). Grammar differs too: in Maxaa-tiri a sentence without a definite article is wrong, while Maay speakers can leave the article out (Landinfo 2011, p. 5).
Lamberti counted 67 dialect features. Benadir shares 40 of them with Northern Somali; Ashraf shares 14 with Northern Somali and 14 more with Benadir only; Maay shares few with Northern Somali and many more with Benadir and Ashraf (Landinfo 2011, p. 16).
Some linguists treat Maay and the Digil varieties as separate languages. Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi wrote that these varieties "constitute separate Cushitic languages" (Culture and Customs of Somalia, 2001). I. M. Lewis compared the gap between Maay and Northern Somali to that between Spanish and Portuguese (Saints and Somalis, 1998, p. 74). Mauro Tosco wrote that all are "dialects" in social terms, but that no classification so far has tested mutual understanding (Ashraf Somali, Wikipedia, quoting Tosco 2012).
Lamberti's 1981 survey
Lamberti did his fieldwork in 1981 in Mogadishu, Baardheere, Luuq, Saakow, Jilib, Bu'aale, Marka, Qoryooley, Qansax Dheere, Baydhabo, Diinsoor, Bur Hakaba, Jamaame, Kismaayo and Cadale. He studied 52 dialect variants, using about 600 words and 500 standard phrases with 78 speakers (Landinfo 2011, p. 4). Orwin told Landinfo that no systematic field study of the dialects had been carried out since the 1980s (Landinfo 2011, p. 4).
What changed the map
Lamberti named three forces. Nomadic movement spread dialects and made the north, where herding is strongest, more uniform than the settled south. Clan ties kept dialects distinct even when clans lived side by side. Migration moved speech south: Daarood groups from the north settled in Lower Juba and Kenya in the 1800s and 1900s, and about 300,000 nomads were resettled along the lower Shabelle and in Dujuuma after the 1973 to 1974 drought (Landinfo 2011, p. 7). After 1972, school books and radio used a standard based mainly on Mudug and Ogaden Daarood speech (Landinfo 2011, p. 8).
Read more
Sources
- Landinfo 2011 · landinfo.no
- Constitute Project, Somalia 2012, Article 5 · constituteproject.org
- Culture and Customs of Somalia, 2001 · archive.org
- Saints and Somalis, 1998, p. 74 · books.google.com
- Ashraf Somali, Wikipedia, quoting Tosco 2012 · en.wikipedia.org
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Keep reading
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- Northern Somali (Af-Maxaa): the dialect group behind Standard SomaliNorthern Somali (Af-Maxaa, Af-Waqooyi): where it is spoken, its three subgroups, its sounds, and why it became the base of written Standard Somali.
- Benadir Somali (Af-Reer Xamar): the coastal dialects of Mogadishu and the BenadirBenadir or Coastal Somali (Af-Reer Xamar): where it is spoken, its five subgroups, the Xamar dialect of old Mogadishu, and how it differs.
- Ashraf Somali (Af-Ashraaf): the speech of Shingaani and MarkaAf-Ashraaf (Ashraf Somali): where it is spoken in Mogadishu and Marka, its sounds and grammar, and the research on it since the 1980s.
- Af-Maay (Maay Maay): the language of the inter-river landsAf-Maay explained: where it is spoken, its five dialects, how it differs from Maxaa-tiri, its legal status, and its oral poetry.
- The Digil languages: Tunni, Dabarre, Garre and JiidduTunni, Dabarre, Garre and Jiiddu: the Digil speech forms of southern Somalia, where they are spoken, their branches and how they differ.