Af-maay and af-maxa tiri should become one

[novanova]

Af-maay seems to have preserved older, native words that the standard af-somali (maxa tiri) has lost or replaced with loanwords.

I think any future government should value linguistic purity or cultural revival, this could feel like reclaiming something lost.

Think about it, language purification through dialect merging

 

[balanbalis]

Isn't the Reer Waaqoyi dialect is the most pure dialect, Maay has too many external influences that are more embedded than the Waqooyi dialect (Waqooyi has loanwords but still has Somali equivalents)

We do need to create a standardised Somali though, something only a more stable government can do.

 

[TheLand]

Isn't the Reer Waaqoyi dialect is the most pure dialect, Maay has too many external influences that are more embedded than the Waqooyi dialect (Waqooyi has loanwords but still has Somali equivalents)

We do need to create a standardised Somali though, something only a more stable government can do.

This is just purely wrong. Waqooyi contains a ton of English and Arabic loan words. Too many words are also modified to sound like they came from India, probably influenced by the elite Indian shopkeepers that the British brought with them everywhere they went.

 

[TheLand]

Af-maay seems to have preserved older, native words that the standard af-somali (maxa tiri) has lost or replaced with loanwords.

I think any future government should value linguistic purity or cultural revival, this could feel like reclaiming something lost.

Think about it, language purification through dialect merging

There is a lot of truth to what you are saying, but the solution is a Somali language institute that can recreate Cushitic words or create new Cushitic words for modern concepts and tools in the Somali language as needed instead of joining two languages into one.

 

[cunug3aad]

Seems a bit redundant to make a new language when a usable and used one already exists, if you wanna get the pure somali live with geeljire and introduce them to concepts so that they can make word for it

 

[balanbalis]

This is just purely wrong. Waqooyi contains a ton of English and Arabic loan words. Too many words are also modified to sound like they came from India, probably influenced by the elite Indian shopkeepers that the British brought with them everywhere they went.

Troll alert

 

[cunug3aad]

Little psychological operations like replacing gaari with baabuur is required

 

[cunug3aad]

Troll alert

He is exaggerating but there are a bit more arabic and english in northern, and in the south there is a bit more italian, so using both you can find where both sides have specific native words for stuff
Also loanwords have to be used somewhere, for example chicken the words we have are digaag (from arabic) dooro (from amharic), the nomads would call it shimbir because they dont eat it so they dont have a need to distinguish it, a system for acknowledging loanwords and selecting few is needed after all no culture develops entirely on its own

 

[TheLand]

Troll alert

You have no clue what you are talking about. Explain the presence of strange words such as Badhasaab for governor in the waqooyi dialect? It is believed to be a Persian term for governor. How does that happen?

 

[cunug3aad]

You have no clue what you are talking about. Explain the presence of strange words such as Badhasaab for governor in the waqooyi dialect? It is believed to be a Persian term for governor. How does that happen?

I dont think farsi has the dh sound

 

[TheLand]

I dont think farsi has the dh sound

Correct but they consistently change R to DH so it was probably Parasap or something similar originally

 

[novanova]

Isn't the Reer Waaqoyi dialect is the most pure dialect, Maay has too many external influences that are more embedded than the Waqooyi dialect (Waqooyi has loanwords but still has Somali equivalents)

We do need to create a standardised Somali though, something only a more stable government can do.

af maxa tiri in waqooyi has alot of arab and english loanwords; milix instead of cusbo, beed(?) instead of ukun, towla for towel, whereas we say shukumaan (italian) etc.

 

[Riftvalley]

You have no clue what you are talking about. Explain the presence of strange words such as Badhasaab for governor in the waqooyi dialect? It is believed to be a Persian term for governor. How does that happen?

Isn’t badhasab from Hindi?

Rodhi is also from Hindi.

 

[TheLand]

Isn’t badhasab from Hindi?

Rodhi is also from Hindi.

it may well be but my point was it’s not Somali

 

[reer_ugaas_hussein]

Isn't the Reer Waaqoyi dialect is the most pure dialect, Maay has too many external influences that are more embedded than the Waqooyi dialect (Waqooyi has loanwords but still has Somali equivalents)

We do need to create a standardised Somali though, something only a more stable government can do.

af maay and af maxaa tiri are very related but still different languages, one can not be purer than the other thats like saying portugese is purer than spanish.

 

[Midas]

I used to think that too but a couple things changed my mind
1) maxa tiri is spoken by like 95% of the population if we're taking about somaliweyn and not just somalia.
2) the differences between maxa tiri and maxaa become a lot smaller when we're talking about written somali.

Also the Somali standard was not based on the waoqoyyi dialect but the mudug one.

 

[bobby_hill-Punt]

Af-maay seems to have preserved older, native words that the standard af-somali (maxa tiri) has lost or replaced with loanwords.

I think any future government should value linguistic purity or cultural revival, this could feel like reclaiming something lost.

Think about it, language purification through dialect merging

Af maay is apart of af Somali language branch now. But it has a tone more influenced by the af swahili and hindy due to all the none indigenous people that settled in Southern Somalia. The purest af Somali is Northerners

 

[iley]

Isn't the Reer Waaqoyi dialect is the most pure dialect, Maay has too many external influences that are more embedded than the Waqooyi dialect (Waqooyi has loanwords but still has Somali equivalents)

We do need to create a standardised Somali though, something only a more stable government can do.

What has Af Maay been influenced by, I always thought it was the more pure one. I'm not sure if im grasping at straws, but I thought Cushitic languages back then didn't have x or c back then, like in Oromo or Agaw languages. And they have much less loan words, a lot of original Somali words are used instead of Arabic or English words. Was Maay influenced by neighboring people? I'm curious if other Somali type languages are missing c and x as well, like Af Garre, Tunni, Jiddu and the likes..

 

[Riftvalley]

What has Af Maay been influenced by, I always thought it was the more pure one. I'm not sure if im grasping at straws, but I thought Cushitic languages back then didn't have x or c back then, like in Oromo or Rendille or Agaw languages. And they have much less loan words, a lot of original Somali words are used instead of Arabic or English words. Was Maay influenced by neighboring people? I'm curious if other Somali type languages are missing c and x as well, like Af Garre, Tunni, Jiddu and the likes..

Rendille still has X and C sound.

 

[novanova]

What has Af Maay been influenced by, I always thought it was the more pure one. I'm not sure if im grasping at straws, but I thought Cushitic languages back then didn't have x or c back then, like in Oromo or Rendille or Agaw languages. And they have much less loan words, a lot of original Somali words are used instead of Arabic or English words. Was Maay influenced by neighboring people? I'm curious if other Somali type languages are missing c and x as well, like Af Garre, Tunni, Jiddu and the likes..

Oromo and afar sound so different to me. One sounds like an indian language (literally), it’s less guttural, harsh and has no x. Whereas Afar sounds like how I imagine af-somali sounds like to non-somali speakers