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Somali

Somali

Summary

Somali, a Cushitic language of the Afro-Asiatic family, is spoken by around 27 million people in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti, where it serves as an official language. Written in the Latin alphabet, Somali follows an SOV word order and features an agglutinative structure with four grammatical cases. The language is deeply intertwined with Somali oral tradition, including poetry, storytelling, and political discourse. Despite historical shifts in script usage, Somali has maintained its cultural and literary significance, with widespread use in media, education, and governance.

Stats

  • Language Family: Afro-Asiatic

  • Writing System: Latin

  • Writing System Type: Alphabet

  • Writing Direction: L to R

  • Tones / Pitch Accent: 3

  • Morphology: Agglutinative

  • Cases: 4

  • Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: 2

  • Number of Verb Tenses: 3

  • Word Order: SOV

  • Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 10

  • Number of Consonants: 22

Areas Where Spoken

  • Ethiopia (4.1%) (5.28 mil)

  • Djibouti (53.8%) (620 k)

  • Kenya (5.2%) (2.88 mil)

  • Somalia (official) (98.3%) (18 mil)

Resources

Mass Resource List

Dictionary

Lessons

Reading

News

Textbooks

Website

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