Wadaad's writing: Somali in Arabic script, from Sheekh Aweys to Muuse Galaal

What it is

A wadaad is a man devoted to religion, however slight his Arabic. The anthropologist I. M. Lewis, writing in 1958, described "wadaad's writing" as "an ungrammatical Arabic containing some Somali words", used by merchants in business, in letters and petitions, and in writing qasidas (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia, quoting Lewis 1958, pp. 135 to 137). The linguist Mauro Tosco calls it broken Arabic with Somali words, used in business, private letters and petitions (Tosco 2010, Somali writings).

The problem with Arabic letters

Somali has five vowels, each short and long, which Arabic script does not fully mark. It also has two consonants Arabic lacks: the dh sound and a hard g (Tosco 2010). Each writer solved these in a different way.

Sheekh Aweys of Baraawe

Tosco found no record of Somali written consistently in Arabic script before Sheekh Aweys Maxamed Baraawi (1847 to 1909), a leader of the Qaadiriyya order born among the Tunni in Baraawe (Tosco 2010). Enrico Cerulli studied two of his manuscripts, a political song and a book of religious poems, written in a mix of southern Somali dialects. Aweys wrote the hard g as Arabic k with three dots, a sign used for "ng" in Ottoman Turkish, Kazakh and Uyghur; dh as Arabic ṭ; and e and o as ay and aw. Lewis noted that he modelled his writing on the Arabic spelling the Amrani families of Baraawe used for their Swahili dialect (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia, citing Lewis 1958).

Makaahiil's book, 1930s

Sheekh Maxamed Cabdi Makaahiil published in Bombay in 1935 to 1936 (1354 AH) a book whose Arabic title means "The institution of modern correspondence in the Somali language", with sample letters and proverbs (Tosco 2010). He wrote dh as Arabic d with three dots and g as k with a line, and spelled Arabic loanwords as Somalis say them. Wikipedia, citing Lewis 1958, says he built on earlier work by Sheekh Ibraahim Cabdallah Mayal and argued against making Arabic the sole official language (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia). Wikipedia, citing a 2015 paper by Tosco, says his spelling remains the best-known final form of Somali in Arabic script (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia).

Muuse Galaal's script, 1954

In 1954 Muuse Xaaji Ismaaciil Galaal published in the Islamic Quarterly the most advanced proposal to write Somali in Arabic letters (Tosco 2010). He invented seven new signs for the vowels, so that short and long vowels could be told apart without marks. Lewis judged it the most accurate Arabic alphabet devised for Somali (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia, citing Lewis 1958). Wikipedia reports that the new letters drew criticism from religious conservatives, who worried they would make it harder to teach the Qur'an. A later proposal by Ibraahim Xaashi Maxamuud used combinations of long-vowel letters and the hamza (Tosco 2010, citing Labahn 1982).

Older roots and the end of the effort

Somali tradition credits the saint Sheekh Yuusuf bin Axmed al-Kawneyn (Aw Barkhadle) with giving Somali names to the Arabic vowel marks so that pupils could learn to read (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia, citing Laitin 1977 and Lewis 1958). With the official adoption of the Latin alphabet in 1972, work on a standard Arabic spelling for Somali stopped (Wadaad's writing, Wikipedia, citing Tosco 2015).

Read more

• Somali writing systems
• Quran schools and religious learning
• How Islam reached the Somalis