Ashraf ( so, Af-Ashraaf) is a speech variety of uncertain classification within the East Omo-Tana sub-branch found in the
Marka district
Marka is an area of Greater Amman Municipality, Jordan.
It is to the north-east of Amman proper. Its confines include Amman Civil Airport and the Marka refugee camp
The Marka refugee camp ( ar, مخيم ماركا) is one of six emergency camps ...
of the
Lower Shebelle
Lower Shabelle ( so, Shabeellaha Hoose, Maay: ''Shibelithy Hoosy'', ar, شبيلي السفلى, it, Basso Scebeli) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southern Somalia.
Geography
Lower Shabelle is bordered by the regions of Banaadir, ...
region and
Banaadir
Banaadir ( so, Banaadir, ar, بنادر, it, Benadir) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southeastern Somalia. It covers the same area as the city of Mogadishu, which serves as the capital. It is bordered to the northwest by the Shabel ...
region of southern
Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
.
Classification
According to Blench (2006) there are two sub-dialects:
Shingani and
Lower Shebelle
Lower Shabelle ( so, Shabeellaha Hoose, Maay: ''Shibelithy Hoosy'', ar, شبيلي السفلى, it, Basso Scebeli) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southern Somalia.
Geography
Lower Shabelle is bordered by the regions of Banaadir, ...
. As noted in recent work on the speech variety, Green & Jones (2016):
"''What we hope to have illustrated in this talk is that while Marka (Af Ashraaf) may be similar in certain ways to both Northern Somali and Maay, it nonetheless boasts a number of unique properties, particularly in its morphology, that we believe merit its treatment not as a Somali or Maay dialect, but as a language variety of its own''"
A similar level of skepticism towards the labelling of other
Omo-Tana languages in Somalia (''such as
Maay
Mai-Mai, commonly spelled Maay Maay (also known as ''Af-Maay'', ''Af-Maymay'', or simply ''Maay''; the ''Mai-Mai'' spelling is rarely used but it is most often spoken), is a dialect of the Somali language of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiat ...
,
Dabarre,
Jiddu, so forth'') is expressed in Tosco (2012)
[ The Unity and Diversity of Somali Dialectal Variants. In: Nathan Oyori Ogechi, Jane A. Ngala Oduor and Peter Iribemwangi (eds.), The Harmonization and Standardization of Kenyan Languages. Orthography and other aspects. Cape Town: The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS): 2012: 263-280 ]:
''"It is well-known that the term 'dialects' may refer to different 'things'. Within Somalia, it is safe to say that all the Somali dialects are 'dialects' from a sociolinguistic point of view, that is, in terms of their social role, their general absence in written media, and the speakers' acceptance of Northern-Central Somali as a common medium. From a strictly linguistic point of view, however, mutual comprehension should be assessed and dialects labelled accordingly (as mutually understandable varieties of a language). No classification so far does that."''
Phonology
The phonological inventory of Ashraaf is as follows:
See also
*
Northern Somali
*
Benadiri Somali
Benadiri Somali also referred to as “Coastal Somali” ( so, Af Reer Xamar) is a dialect of the Somali language. It is primarily spoken by the Benadiri people, who inhabit the southern Banaadir coast of Somalia.
Overview
Benadiri Somali is spo ...
References
Further reading
* Christopher R. Green & Evan Jones. 2019. Notes on the morphology of Marka (AfAshraaf). In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 119–133. Berlin: Language Science Press.
* Ajello, Roberto. 1984. Il focus nell'idioma degli Ashraaf di Shingaani. In Puglielli, Annarita (ed.), Aspetti morfologici, lessicali e della focalizzazione, 133-146. Roma: Dipartimento per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Italia).
{{Somali language
Omo–Tana languages