| Also Known As: Issa,Af-soomaali,Common Somali,Af-maxaad Tiri,Standard Somali,Somali
Description:
The Somali language (Somali: Af Soomaali, Arabic: الصوماليه) is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best-documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies of it from before 1900.
Estimates of the number of native speakers are diverse. Absent homeland census statistics and the many expatriates make it impossible to say how many speak Somali, but a plausible estimate would be between 10 and 16 million worldwide of whom 500,000 are second language speakers.
One source estimates that there are 7.78 million speakers of Somali in Somalia and 12.65 million speakers globally.. Such precision for a country with no effective central government since 1991 must be viewed sceptically.
The Dutch Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht put the Somali population as between 10 and 15 million.
It is spoken by ethnic Somalis in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen and Kenya, and by the Somali diaspora.
In 1972 the then president, Siad Barre, decreed Somali to be the national and official language of Somalia, adopting a Standard Somali and the use of the Latin alphabet. The earlier rule of Somalia by..... full article at Wikipedia |
Location of Somali Language Speakers
<googlemap zoom="1" width=400 height=300 lat="8.214391" lon="33.632251" type="map">
9.496895, 36.896062, Ethiopia
6.044181, 45.719441, Somalia
9.102097, 18.281250, Africa</googlemap>
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Rosetta Document Collection
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