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''Wadaad's'' writing, also known as ''Wadaad's'' Arabic (), is either a mixture of Arabic and Somali in writing, or the non-standardized adaption of the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...
to write the
Somali language Somali is an Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic languages, Cushitic branch, primarily spoken by the Somalis, Somali people, native to Greater Somalia. It is an official language in Somalia, Somaliland, and Ethio ...
. Originally, it referred to a non-grammatical Arabic featuring some words from the Somali language, with the proportion of Somali vocabulary varying depending on the context. The
Somalis The Somali people (, Wadaad's writing, Wadaad: , Arabic: ) are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group and nation native to the Somali Peninsula. who share a common ancestry, culture and history. The Lowland East Cushitic languages, East ...
were among the first people in Africa to embrace
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. Alongside standard Arabic, ''Wadaad's'' writing was used by Somali religious men ''(Wadaado)'' to record ''
xeer ''Xeer'' (pronounced ) is the traditional legal system used by Somalis in Somalia, Djibouti, Somali Region of Ethiopia, and the North Eastern Province in Kenya. It is one of the three systems from which formal Somali law draws its inspiration, the ...
'' (customary law) petitions and to write ''
qasida The qaṣīda (also spelled ''qaṣīdah''; plural ''qaṣā’id'') is an ancient Arabic word and form of poetry, often translated as ode. The qasida originated in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and passed into non-Arabic cultures after the Arab Mus ...
s.'' It was also used by merchants for business purposes and letter writing. Over the years, various Somali scholars improved and altered the use of the Arabic script for conveying Somali. This culminated in the 1930s with the work of Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil, standardizing vowel diacritics and orthographic conventions, and in the 1950s with the controversial proposal of
Musa Haji Ismail Galal Musa Haji Ismail Galal (, ) (1917–1980) was a Somali people, Somali writer, scholar, linguist, historian and polymath. He is notable for playing a key role in the development of Somali Latin alphabet and the creation of Galaal script, a co ...
which substantially modified letter values and introduced new letters for vowels.Sheikh, Ahmed. “Somali with Arabic Script – a Linguistic Historical Study (Somaliska Med Arabisk Skrift – En Språkhistorisk Studie).” Gothenburg University Publications Electronic Archive, Winter 2019. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/63249/gupea_2077_63249_1.pdf
Archive
With the official adoption of Latin Alphabet in 1972, the process of standardization of orthography of Somali Arabic script came to a halt. Makaahiil's orthographic convention remains the most notable final iteration today.


History

The Arabic script was introduced to Somalia in the 10th century by Sheikh
Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn () (b. 10th century), popularly known as Aw Barkhadle ("Blessed Father")Abdullahi, p.13 or Yusuf Al Kownayn, was an Islamic scholar and traveler based in Zeila, Somaliland. According to Dr. Enrico Cerulli, Yusuf Al K ...
(colloquially referred to as ''Aw Barkhadle'' meaning "Blessed Father") a man described as "the most outstanding
saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...
in
Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...
." Of Somali descent, he sought to advance the teachings of the
Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...
. Al-Kawneyn devised a Somali
nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. (The theoretical field studying nomenclature is sometimes referred to as ''onymology'' or ''taxonymy'' ). The principl ...
for the
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
vowels, which enabled his pupils to read and write in Arabic. Sheikh Abi-Bakr Al Alawi, a Harari historian, states in his book that
Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn () (b. 10th century), popularly known as Aw Barkhadle ("Blessed Father")Abdullahi, p.13 or Yusuf Al Kownayn, was an Islamic scholar and traveler based in Zeila, Somaliland. According to Dr. Enrico Cerulli, Yusuf Al K ...
was of native and local Dir extraction. Although various Somali wadaads and scholars had used the Arabic script to write in Somali for centuries, it would not be until the 19th century when the
Qadiriyyah The Qadiriyya () or the Qadiri order () is a Sunni Sufi order (''Tariqa'') founded by Abdul Qadir Gilani (1077–1166, also transliterated ''Jilani''), who was a Hanbali scholar from Gilan, Iran. The order, with its many sub-orders, is wides ...
saint Sheikh Uways al-Barawi of the Digil and Mirifle clan would improve the application of the Arabic script to represent the Maay dialect of southern Somalia, which at the time was close to standard Somali with Arabic script. Al-Barawi modeled his alphabet after the Arabic transcription adopted by the Amrani of
Barawa Barawa ( ''Barāwe'', , ''Baraawe'', ''Barāwa'', Italian language, Italian: ''Brava''), also known as Barawe and Brava, is the capital city, capital of the South West State of Somalia, South West State of Somalia.Pelizzari, Elisa. "Guerre civ ...
(Brava) to also write the Swahili dialect, Bravanese. ''Wadaad's'' writing was often unintelligible to Somali pupils who learned standard Arabic in government-run schools. During the 1930s in the northwestern
British Somaliland British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate (), was a protectorate of the United Kingdom in modern Somaliland. It was bordered by Italian Somalia, French Somali Coast and Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia (Italian Ethiopia from 1936 ...
protectorate, Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil attempted to standardize the orthography in his book ''The Institution of Modern Correspondence in the Somali language''. Following in the footsteps of Sh. Ibraahim 'Abdallah Mayal, Makaahiil therein championed the use of the Arabic script for writing Somali, showing examples of this usage through proverbs, letters and sentences.


Neighboring Ajami Scripts

Two of the most significant neighboring scripts are the Harari and Swahili Ajami traditions. Old Harari was once the literary language of the most significant hub of Islam in Horn of Africa, the city of
Harar Harar (; Harari language, Harari: ሀረር / ; ; ; ), known historically by the indigenous as Harar-Gey or simply Gey (Harari: ጌይ, ݘٛىيْ, ''Gēy'', ), is a List of cities with defensive walls, walled city in eastern Ethiopia. It is al ...
. The city is currently the capital of the Harari region of Ethiopia, and is just south of the prominent Somali-speaking city of
Dire Dawa Dire Dawa (; , meaning"where the Dir (clan), Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", , Harari language, Harari: ድሬዳዋ, lit. "Plain of Medicine"; ) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Somali Region and Oromia, Oromo borde ...
. The traditional architecture is well preserved to this day, but more of relevance is that many manuscripts survive from the city's golden age. These manuscripts are among the most well documented instances of Ajami literature in the Horn of Africa. The Swahili Ajami literature extends as far back as the Islamiziation of the Swahili coast. Though, beginning in the 20th century, a systematic process of "Swahilization" of the Arabic script has been under way by Swahili scribes and scholars. An early attempt was done by Mwalimu Sikujua, a scholar and poet from
Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...
, who built upon the centuries of Arabic script use in the region.


Galaal Script

In 1954, the Somali
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
Musa Haji Ismail Galaal (1917–1980) introduced a more radical alteration of Arabic to represent the Somali Language. Galaal came up with an entirely new set of symbols for the Somali vowels. Galaal's goal was to eliminate the need to use
diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
and also to provide easy to write and read distinction between short vowels and long. Lewis (1958) considered this to be the most accurate Arabic alphabet to have been devised for the Somali language. He had published his work in the Islamic Quarterly, outlining and providing examples as to why a new Arabic based script was needed for use in Somalia. Despite the accuracy of Galaal's writing system and its correspondence with Somali phonology, his writing system turned out to be controversial, facing criticism from Somalia's religiously devout and conservative society. The introduction of new letters was interpreted as deviating away from the Arabic script, and moreover, a worry arose that teaching such new letters can cause difficulty in teaching the
Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
to Somali students.


Mayal/Makaahiil

In 1932, ''Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil'' ( and in '' Far Wadaad'': مَحَمَّد عَبۡدِ مَكَاهِيل), a Somali scholar who studied at
Al-Azhar University The Al-Azhar University ( ; , , ) is a public university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university and is known as one of the most prestigious universities for Islamic ...
, published a short book titled "Inšāʾ al makātibāt al ʿarabiyyah fīl-luġah as-Sūmāliyyah" (; ''Creating of Arabic correspondences in the Somali language'') in which he printed Somali orthographic conventions as well as several sample letters and many sample proverbs. He built upon earlier work by ''Ibraahim Cabdullaahi Mayal''. In this book, he also argues against those who at the time favored adopting Arabic language as the sole official language of Somalia, and he argued strongly for adopting Arabic Script for Somali language. Makaahiil's proposed orthography uses the same letters as in Arabic, with only two additional letters, for /ɖ/ and for /g/. On the other hand, there are 8 consonants in Arabic alphabet that do not exist in Somali language (except for writing Arabic loanwords), which include the letters thāʼ (), dhal (), zāy (), ṣād (), ḍād (), ṭāʾ (), ẓāʾ (), and ghayn (). This writing convention relies on vowel diacritics. As for vowels, in Somali phonology, there are five vowel articulations. These vowel articulations can either be short or long. Each vowel also has a harmonic counterpart, expressed either at the front or at the back of the mouth. Somali words follow a
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...
rule. However, Somali orthography, neither
Somali Latin alphabet The Somali Latin alphabet is an official writing system in the Somalia, Federal Republic of Somalia and its constituent States and regions of Somalia, Federal Member States. It was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali_language, So ...
, nor Arabic alphabet, nor Osmanya alphabet distinguish between the two vowel harmony sets. A shortcoming of the Arabic script for Somali language, is that while Somali has 5 vowels, Arabic has 3. This was where, Galaal got the most creative, coming up with brand new letters to represent vowels. In the 1961 Somali Language Committee Report, several other Arabic proposals were also listed, where other solutions were proposed for showing the 5 short vowels and 5 long vowels. None of these other proposals gained traction.Qutbi, A. Sh. A. “The Report of the Somali Language Committee, 1961.” Internet Archive, May 15, 1961
https://archive.org/details/LinguisticReport1961
In Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil's orthographic convention, he added two new diacritics. For short vowel sounds and
Arabic diacritics The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include consonant pointing known as (, ), and supplementary diacritics known as (, ). The latter include the vowel marks termed (, ; , ', ). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where all ...
are used. For long vowel sounds : : and : similar to Arabic, the letters ''alif'' (ا), ''wāw'' (و), and ''yāʾ'' (ي) respectively. For the short vowel sound Makaahil interpreted the sound to be in between and thus he proposed to combine "◌َ " (''Fatha'', and "◌ِ" and (''Dhamma'', , and write "◌َِ". As for long vowel sound : it'd be written as "◌َِ" followed by ''yāʾ'' (ي). Vowels, when occurring at the beginning of words, are placed on top of ''alif'' (ا). Long vowels are written as they would in the middle of the word, except that ''wāw'' (و), and ''yāʾ'' (ي) would be preceded by ''alif'' instead of another consonant.The exception to this convention is long vowel a where similar to Arabic, '' alif madda'' (آ) is used.


Af Maay Script Amendments

Af Maay is a prominent dialect of Somali spoken mainly between the Jubba and Shabelle rivers. The dialect ranges between being very understandable to neighboring speakers of Standard, Af Maxaa, Somali, to being incomprehensible upon first exposure to more distant speakers of Af Maxaa Somali. Maay dialect scholars found a need to further specify the Arabic script for their dialect and began using the following standard. ٛ The additional vowel never appears in the long form, and often isn't needed for legibility. However, many Maay writers prefer to make use of it. For example, barwaaqo, is often rendered as barwaaghy, in Maay to further specify the vowel quality and stress differences from standard Somali. These would be written as , and , respectively. The ⟨y⟩ vowel is often akin to /e/ or /o/ in vowel quality, and many neighboring dialects of Standard Somali pronounce these words exactly the same yet write them using the standard conventions. Maay's most frequent use of ⟨y⟩ is in place of the verb ending diphthong /aj/. Neighboring dialects pronounce that diphthong as the short /e/, close to how Maay does. Though Maay makes much broader use of this vowel reduction and thus found a need by its speakers to specifically mark it.


Revision by J. S. King

In 1887, British writer, J. S. King wrote for the '' Indian Antiquary'' an article titled "Somali as a written language" in which he proposes a standard Arabic based Somali script. Some of the main changes and features were the combined use of both Arabic and Sanskrit features: * The Somali sound is represented as a new character with influence from both and * A new letter is assigned which also seems to have been fused from and * Somali in this case is written as * A new is introduced, with Sanskrit elements to form * Finally, a new is proposed with two dots above the standard Arabic King had also reformed the vowel structure, by introducing separate vowel markers for the Somali and . In this article, he provided over 100 examples of the script in use, some of which include:


Sample text

Article 1 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...


See also

* * *


Notes


References

* * * * * *


External links


Far Wadaad script converter


at
Omniglot Omniglot () is an online encyclopedia focused on languages and writing systems. Etymology The name "Omniglot" comes from the Latin prefix (meaning "all") and the Greek root (, meaning "tongue"). History The website was launched by British ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wadaad's Writing Writing systems of Africa Arabic alphabets Somali orthography