That’s not hello, that’s how are you. Is there no literal translation for hello? I noticed we don’t have please either"Bal warran or iska warran" are pretty common
We are like the Dothraki in Game of thrones. There is no word for Thank you in their language. We don’t have a ‘hello’That’s not hello, that’s how are you. Is there no literal translation for hello? I noticed we don’t have please either
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Indeed, it is 'Hayee', with elongated 'ee' at the tail of it, quickly followed by 'waa kuma', or 'waa ayo', and to know it, you would have had to have heard your grand grandparents answering the phone. Even quite recently, both my grandfather, and grandmother would answer 'hayee', as if you would have been in an ongoing conversation with them.A friend of mine was asked the same question and he replied saying we say haye, maxa sheektay or iska warran, funny thing is i also say the same thing and i thought i was the only one who say it kkk. The vast majority of somalis say asc but we also have a greeting of our own. In somali if you want to say hello you'd say nabad or ma nabad ba, you could also say nabad ba ku bariden and ma bariden.
You would answer haa wa nabad and if you wanna say good bey you'd say nabadhy. In rendille our closest linguistic cousin they say nebey meaning nabad or they say nebey bariteen. As you've noticed we all use salam or nabad/nebey as our greeting which is the same greeting of ahlu al-jannah in fact our cushitic beja cousin in sudan greet each other saying dabayo meaning nebey/nabad or peace/salam. It's most likely the original cushitic greeting.
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Bold claim. What does hello mean ?Ma nabaad ba? Could be used but the closest equivalent is subax wanaagsan, maalin wanaagsan as in goor morning. A simple hello doesn't exist in af soomaali
but it's usually expressed as Iska warran, see tahay, maxaa sheegtay and such
Oh okay my bad the op meant hello as in when you're talking on the phone. Well in that case for us we say 'alo, hayee, haa, halo, pronto or dimi.Indeed, it is 'Hayee', with elongated 'ee' at the tail of it, quickly followed by 'waa kuma', or 'waa ayo', and to know it, you would have had to have heard your grand grandparents answering the phone. Even quite recently, both my grandfather, and grandmother would answer 'hayee', as if you would have been in an ongoing conversation with them.
With Somalis, I use, and prefer 'Ahlan', which is more popular in Egypt.
Postscript:
A bit of it background, the word 'hello' is an American invention with the inception of the telephone, albeit Mr Bell wanted 'Ahoy', which did no quite take off with the public. itself a replacement of the British 'hullo', which till recently was common with Arabic speakers, if morphed into 'haulluu'.
Interestingly enough, Czechs used, no idea if they still do, 'Ahoy' written as 'Ahoj'.
Italians, who first invented the phone used, and still use 'pronto', meaning 'ready', which I initially found rather confusing, whenever I would ring relatives in Italy.
No, you are all right, mate, I was affirming your point.Oh okay my bad the op meant hello as in when you're talking on the phone. Well in that case for us we say 'alo, hayee, haa, halo, pronto or dimi.
waar sidee tahayReal talk, how do you say hello in somali? Not salam or halo
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