Harar is named after a Somali tree

[abdi_]

@Khaemwaset
I had no idea. Your stuff looks good, in particular I liked the coffee article and the poem "Macaan iyo Qadhaadh" by Axhmed Qasim, I cant fully read Somali yet, so I appreciate the English translation.

Looking forward to reading more of your work. Once I sort out my Substack account I will susbscribe.

 

[Khaem]

@Khaemwaset
I had no idea. Your stuff looks good, in particular I liked the coffee article and the poem "Macaan iyo Qadhaadh" by Axhmed Qasim, I cant fully read Somali yet, so I appreciate the English translation.

Looking forward to reading more of your work. Once I sort out my Substack account I will susbscribe.

I appreciate it walaal. I'll make sure to have some more Somali poetry in English translations too, I've got a few I can pump out over the week

 

[Riftvalley]

Geed Adari is what Somalis refer to as a type of coriander leaf producing tree. Coriander is also referred to as Geed Adari by some. I wonder if this is a coincidence or is it related to the Adari region which is what Somalis and other people including Oromo use to refer to the Harar area.l/city.

Perhaps the area was know for having plenty of those trees or the product was sold from there en mass.

According to another theory Adari in harari means the one who settled.

 

[Riftvalley]

Low East Cushitic etymology : Query result

Adar in Somali also means a pot used for traditional cooking. We find it in the story of dhegdheer in which she uses it to store her victims body parts. It was also used for storing liquids etc. according to a Somali folk tale expert (Ahmed Artan Hange) the word comes from the land in which it was produced Adari.

 

[Khaem]

View attachment 344853

Geed Adari is what Somalis refer to as a type of coriander leaf producing tree. Coriander is also referred to as Geed Adari by some. I wonder if this is a coincidence or is it related to the Adari region which is what Somalis and other people including Oromo use to refer to the Harar area.l/city.

Perhaps the area was know for having plenty of those trees or the product was sold from there en mass.

According to another theory Adari in harari means the one who settled.

Great find sxb

 

[Shimbiris]

I also have a theory that the Harari word "Gey" meaning "The city" is of Somali origin. put the two words together you get "Harar-G-ey" the word "Hararghe"

Looks like I pre-vindicated you here:

Kekekeke, praise from you is always a glowing endorsement, walaal. And thank you for the additions. All very interesting and good food for thought.



You say I cooked but I only lightly seared, walaal. This man @The alchemist came in here and deep fried the rest of the dish. Bringing in archaeological receipts... Bismillah. I knew several of you here would have things to add and I am not left dissappointed.



I recall what you're referencing. Good catch. Personally, I would not say it's much of a hiccup, however. Let me substitute in Bedouin wherever "Somali" is written and notice that it still pretty much makes sense:



It actually reads a lot like he's just subduing an unruly nomadic tribe (the Samaroon in this case), hence why they cause people trouble on the roads and loot and plunder as nomads are wont to do. "Somali" at the end of the day would probably designate a tribe or person that is mostly nomadic in lifestyle. Similar to how the "Sab" in Koonfur called the majority pastoral nomadic tribes "Somali" even though we know those tribes had settled farmers in their own ranks (I actually wanted to share a cool source outlining a lot about Hawiye settled farmers found in the Ogaden during the 18th or 19th century but lost the link. Gonna have to message the chap who originally gave it to me).

It also doesn't have to mean towns could not exist in a territory dominated by nomads. Bedouin "countries" or territories in neighboring Arabia were still littered with villages and towns. And we know through the 19th century that these Somali nomads themselves were fairly fluid when the situation called for it. Being mostly nomadic but flowing in and out of nomadism, towns and lifestyles like sailing at the drop of a hat when the need arose:

(quote by speke)



The Southern Ethiosemitic loans in Somali aren't solidly attributed to Harari or at all to Argobba, which are the ones you'd want if it really came from Southern Ethiosemites who were theoretically in our territories as some like to think. It's also not really dated and could have entered the Northern Somali dialects at any point, from what I know. Finally, what the Futuh shows (them not really seeming to appear in it or having any tribal connections with the Harla tribes mentioned) along with the utter lack of Southern Ethiosemitic genetic influences in Northwestern Somalis and what Alchemist points out about the archaeology really put a lot of dents in the idea that they somehow predated us in those areas or were there from very early on alongside us.

As for Harari in particular, I was not joking about how they seem to get their word for "city" itself from Somalis. Do you know what they historically called an entry way into Harar?

source: British Policy in ethiopia 1909-17 by Andrew Caplan

"Faras Magala"

It is, in my humble opinion, plausible that Somalis settled them into the town as the Nur Ibn Mujahid stories often go if they're seriously getting their word for city from Af-Soomaali. It also fits with how Abyssinian civilization, particularly Southern Ethiosemitic Abyssinian civilization, was at its core "a civilization without cities":

A Civilization Without Cities



Actually, we have records of Somalis mentioning Harlas and Harlas constructing things like towns and wells as far as Sanaag and Bari, walaal. I'd have to take the time to dig up the links but if you do some google book searching for a while you should stumble upon them yourself. I remember an cadaan mentioning that the Dhulbahante attributed some ruins even in Sool to them. They were seemingly everywhere from Galbeed to Bari. But not in Koonfur where, interestingly, those sorts of construction stories are often attributed instead to the "Ajuran".

Honestly, with my reading of the Futuh, the name origin of Harar, the archaeological evidence @The alchemist has presented, all the early modern sources @Idilinaa has presented regarding their own claims about their origins during the 19th century, the evidence from linguistics on Argobba and Harari, and historical sources on people like Nur ibn Mujahid... it's pretty much open and shut for me at this point. That area was historically pretty much Somali and southern Ethiosemites are just a recent insertion looks like.

 

[Midas]

Looks like I pre-vindicated you here:



Honestly, with my reading of the Futuh, the name origin of Harar, the archaeological evidence @The alchemist has presented, all the early modern sources @Idilinaa has presented regarding their own claims about their origins during the 19th century, the evidence from linguistics on Argobba and Harari, and historical sources on people like Nur ibn Mujahid... it's pretty much open and shut for me at this point. That area was historically pretty much Somali and southern Ethiosemites are just a recent insertion looks like.

After I found out that ethiosemetic and modern south arabaian both had a cushitic substatrum and that old south arabian was actually now grouped with other central semetic lanaguges like arabic and Hebrew. With "south semetic" no longer being an accepted grouping. It became obvious to me that we were looking at a very strange situation.

I think that after the bronzeg age collapse we had Massive migrations from northern Arabia/Levant and that these "central semetic" speakers compelely overwhelmed a cushtic pouplation living in Southern Arabia. This mixed pouplation then migrated across yemen into ethiopia which caused even more mixing with cushtic lanaguges. It would explain why all the ethiosemetic speakers have like 1/3 to 1/2 of their pouplation under a j-halogroup.

 

[Midas]

All though both of these posts are somewhat tentative. What are the implications? Especially for when we model cushitic speakers as 40% palelolithic eygptian and 60% east african. Especially when semetic lanaguges only emerged in the 4th millennium b.c




<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Though named after the western seaboard of Southern Arabia – Tihamah [1] – the Tihama culture had its origins in East Africa.<br><br>How do we know this? Analysis of Tihama pottery has demonstrated a clear relationship with the famed indigenous pottery industries of Nubia [2,3]. <a href="https://t.co/m7I4wm96RV">pic.twitter.com/m7I4wm96RV</a></p>&mdash; malandro (@malandroggb) <a href="">August 4, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Idilinaa]

Honestly, with my reading of the Futuh, the name origin of Harar, the archaeological evidence @The alchemist has presented, all the early modern sources @Idilinaa has presented regarding their own claims about their origins during the 19th century, the evidence from linguistics on Argobba and Harari, and historical sources on people like Nur ibn Mujahid... it's pretty much open and shut for me at this point. That area was historically pretty much Somali and southern Ethiosemites are just a recent insertion looks like.

What makes that conclusion more obvious is the description of the population being camel herders and the towns and settlements are all connected to and founded on commerce driven by camel caravans in connection with the coast.

Ethio-semetic speakers like Harari/Agrogoba don't keep camels or occupy the coast, but Somalis do and combine it with farming as well.

 

[Midas]

What makes that conclusion more obvious is the description of the population being camel herders and the towns and settlements are all connected to and founded on commerce driven by camel caravans in connection with the coast.

Ethio-semetic speakers like Harari/Agrogoba don't keep camels or occupy the coast, but Somalis do and combine it with farming as well.

This would honestly be easily settled if the ethiopian govt allowed reaserchers to take dna samples from the excavations they did.

 

[Shimbiris]

This would honestly be easily settled if the ethiopian govt allowed reaserchers to take dna samples from the excavations they did.

aDNA has its limits, walaal. It can easily be biased in terms of sampling like what I suspect is going on with Egypt (avoiding more "Negroid" looking burials and older Sacidi ones) and at the end of the day even if all the burials from a certain period looked Japanese for all it matters, one simply cannot discount all this linguistic, historical, and cultural evidence. I really am not a fan of what aDNA has done on some level to historical studies.

These MD school professors, who often have little to no historical knowledge and acumen, re-inventing the wheel cos of some genetic components and stats they don't even know how to properly use half the time. Reich and his crew are still acting like the Indo-Europen Urheimat is up for debate cos of Caucasus HG-related ancestry in the Yamnaya and other such herder groups when it's so fucking obvious and a closed case from a linguistic and archaeological perspective, for example.

Just look at the braindead takes they produce on our region, for example. Making people think for almost a decade that Somalis and other Horners are 60%+ MENA cos of an ADMIXTURE component and TO THIS DAY still acting like all of our admixture is from within the historical period. I'm excited about the samples but not the idiocy these geneticists are going to bring to the table.

 

[Step a side]

After I found out that ethiosemetic and modern south arabaian both had a cushitic substatrum and that old south arabian was actually now grouped with other central semetic lanaguges like arabic and Hebrew. With "south semetic" no longer being an accepted grouping. It became obvious to me that we were looking at a very strange situation.

I think that after the bronzeg age collapse we had Massive migrations from northern Arabia/Levant and that these "central semetic" speakers compelely overwhelmed a cushtic pouplation living in Southern Arabia. This mixed pouplation then migrated across yemen into ethiopia which caused even more mixing with cushtic lanaguges. It would explain why all the ethiosemetic speakers have like 1/3 to 1/2 of their pouplation under a j-halogroup.

Ethio-Semitic is grouped with Old South Arabian not Modern South Arabian. Modern South Arabian languages are completely different.

Even if you look at it from a geographical standpoint you can see that Ethio-Semitic speakers live adjacent from western Yemen where Old South Arabian used to be spoken. Meanwhile Modern South Arabian live on the complete opposite side of Yemen near Oman.

 

[Idilinaa]

Also forgot to mention to @Shimbiris: We also have lingusitic evidence by Al-Umari when he describes the language populations in the area.

Some information on the medieval farming calendar of Somalis.

Modern revisionists in service of ''Ethiopianist'' interpretation of regional history cannot pull the whole ethio semetic spewel or some unknown other group when in relates to the farming in medieval times(obviously we don't substratum in our language that indicate past ethnic plurality).

But also because we have confirmation by Al-Umari in the 13th cetury about the language being Somali but also their farming tracking conventions being Somali.

Al-Umari says al-Habasha as a region has 100 different languages but Awfat/Awdal and other Muslim provinces/kingdoms spoke one language he calls ''Zayla'i language'' (When Medieval arab authors use al-Habash they are not referring to the modern ethiopian supra-ethnicity, but as a generalized region)


He then describes the language through their use of farming calendar:
AL UMARI's ACCOUNT OF AWFAT/ADAL's LANGUAGE

@HabarSteven12 @Banadiri Warrior
Al Umari’s account of Ifat mentions that the people of Zayla spoke the Somali language which he refers to Zayla’i in his account.[22] He also states that in the land of

The terms Karan and Bil are stil used in their original form even after 700 years. The exact Same definition is given for the term ‘Karan’ in Cabdulla Cumar Mansuur’s dictionary of the Somali Language. Somalis lived in and were the majority of Zayla during the 14th century.
View attachment 312943
View attachment 312938
View attachment 312944

Not only are those the Somali specific names for seasons that have stayed consistent for 700 years.

They are also different from the seasonal names used in Harari(who are Gurage in reality) and even ethio semetic speakers use. List by Wolf Leslau. ''seasons are Ethiopic''

This to me is one of the most direct evidences.

 

[Midas]

Ethio-Semitic is grouped with Old South Arabian not Modern South Arabian. Modern South Arabian languages are completely different.

Even if you look at it from a geographical standpoint you can see that Ethio-Semitic speakers live adjacent from western Yemen where Old South Arabian used to be spoken. Meanwhile Modern South Arabian live on the complete opposite side of Yemen near Oman.

No it's not . The current academic consensus is that old south arabian lanaguges are group with central semetic lanaguges like arabic or hebrew .

 

[Step a side]

No it's not . The current academic consensus is that old south arabian lanaguges are group with central semetic lanaguges like arabic or hebrew . View attachment 351321View attachment 351322

Yes we know this. Like I said

- Old South Arabian and Ethio-Semitic are related.

- Modern South Arabian is completely different and had nothing to do with Ethio-Semitic.

- Arabic would be grouped with Old South & Ethio-Semitic

 

[Midas]

aDNA has its limits, walaal. It can easily be biased in terms of sampling like what I suspect is going on with Egypt (avoiding more "Negroid" looking burials and older Sacidi ones) and at the end of the day even if all the burials from a certain period looked Japanese for all it matters, one simply cannot discount all this linguistic, historical, and cultural evidence. I really am not a fan of what aDNA has done on some level to historical studies.

These MD school professors, who often have little to no historical knowledge and acumen, re-inventing the wheel cos of some genetic components and stats they don't even know how to properly use half the time. Reich and his crew are still acting like the Indo-Europen Urheimat is up for debate cos of Caucasus HG-related ancestry in the Yamnaya and other such herder groups when it's so fucking obvious and a closed case from a linguistic and archaeological perspective, for example.

Just look at the braindead takes they produce on our region, for example. Making people think for almost a decade that Somalis and other Horners are 60%+ MENA cos of an ADMIXTURE component and TO THIS DAY still acting like all of our admixture is from within the historical period. I'm excited about the samples but not the idiocy these geneticists are going to bring to the table.

Your right. It's actually kind of a while they had this assumption for that long. Because when you dig into the evidence of this supposed ancient admixtures it's all hot air. You have naftufian samples from 15k years ago. Then anicent eygptian samples from the last 4k years. They combined that with modern african samples . It's ridculous to use that to model somalks and other horners and act like you have something accurate . It's been fun to see how all the anicent dna samples like the kadruak samples and others from the pastoral neolthich be indistinguishable from somalis and then seem them stick with the admixture model. The day we find anicent eygptian samples from like 6 or 7k years ago is when all hell will break loose.

 

[Midas]

Yes we know this. Like I said

- Old South Arabian and Ethio-Semitic are related.

- Modern South Arabian is completely different and had nothing to do with Ethio-Semitic.

- Arabic would be grouped with Old South & Ethio-Semitic

No your getting it mixed up. Ethiosemetic is not part of central semetic only old south arabian is.

 

[Shimbiris]

Yes we know this. Like I said

- Old South Arabian and Ethio-Semitic are related.

- Modern South Arabian is completely different and had nothing to do with Ethio-Semitic.

- Arabic would be grouped with Old South & Ethio-Semitic

I think MSA would also be a West-Semitic subbranch. I recall a linguist saying as much. But, overall, Midas' point is that the substra in MSA and Ethiosemitic, whether the two language groups are specially connected or not, points to the possibility of Yemen originally being very Cushitic inhabited which archaeologically tracks because the Cushitic pastoralist artwork known across Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia was also found in Yemen pre-historically so much so that it's called "The Ethio-Arabian style" by some.

Not to mention that Horner stelae culture also seems to have spread to Yemen quite early and that as recently as the Early Modern era Somalis and other other Horners had a wildly strong presence in Yemen (1.5 million+ Somalis before the war) which sort of implies to you how easy it's always been to be up there in strong numbers. His theory definitely has merit that Yemen was once a Cushitic stronghold before the Semites came in droves from the Levant and usurped them. Archaeologically and linguistically it almost seems a certainty.

 

[Step a side]

No you’re getting it mixed up. Ethiosemetic is not part of central semetic only old south arabian is.

Nah bro you are wrong. Jewish Semitic language student on anthrogenica made it clear that Ethiopian languages come from Old Sputh Arabian. One just has to listen to old sabaic and Geez (Ethiopian) and you will notice how close they are to each other including Arabic

 

[Midas]

Nah bro you are wrong. Jewish Semitic language student on anthrogenica made it clear that Ethiopian languages come from Old Sputh Arabian. One just has to listen to old sabaic and Geez (Ethiopian) and you will notice how close they are to each other including Arabic

If you listen to msa it sounds just like arabic so thats not really helpful. The guy is obviously behind on the latest resaerch (plus this obviously a Wikipedia video). He categorized Old South Arabian as a separate branch when it's now considered part of central semetic.

To me it seems obvious that Ethio-Semitic and msa emerged as a result of cushitic speakers interacting with old south arabian semetic speakers.