Largest somali dictionary ever

[Midas]

I've been looking into somali dictionaries recently. The largest one is apparently a somali -English dictionary by ahmed mire. With a 150,000 entries which is 1200 pages long
This was a bit confusing to me becuase if you look up the largest premodedn arabic dictionary. It's

[COLOR=var(--color-progressive--active,#233566)]Taj al-Arus Min Jawahir al-Qamushttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_al-Arus_Min_Jawahir_al-Qamus[/COLOR]​

Which has over 120,000 definitions/entries
And when you look up the dictionary on the safina safwa website. This book is 10 volumes long and 7,600 pages.

My question is why is the somali dictionary only 1200 pages long? Is there something off

 

[Thegoodshepherd]

The size of the Somali lexicon is actually considered surprisingly large for a language which had no serious orthography until the 20th century. It is a very capacious language.

 

[Emir of Zayla]

I've been looking into somali dictionaries recently. The largest one is apparently a somali -English dictionary by ahmed mire. With a 150,000 entries which is 1200 pages long
This was a bit confusing to me becuase if you look up the largest premodedn arabic dictionary. It's

[COLOR=var(--color-progressive--active,#233566)]Taj al-Arus Min Jawahir al-Qamushttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_al-Arus_Min_Jawahir_al-Qamus[/COLOR]​

Which has over 120,000 definitions/entries
And when you look up the dictionary on the safina safwa website. This book is 10 volumes long and 7,600 pages. View attachment 351583


My question is why is the somali dictionary only 1200 pages long? Is there something off

Your first mistake was comparing it to Arabic. Arabic has over 12 million distinct words compared to English which has 170,000. In comparison, Somali with 150,000 is actually pretty impressive for a language that wasn’t as documented/written compared to the ones previous mentioned.

 

[Midas]

Your first mistake was comparing it to Arabic. Arabic has over 12 million distinct words compared to English which has 170,000. In comparison, Somali with 150,000 is actually pretty impressive for a language that wasn’t as documented/written compared to the ones previous mentioned.

No mh questions Is more that something seems off with the somali dictionary size . How could you fit 150,000 entries in 1200 pages? The official most recent somali qaamus ftom 2013 is about 70k entries.

 

[Midas]

But to your guys point. About somali dictionaries being of a pretty decent size. I 100% agree. I've actually looked into it and somali is the language in africa with the most dictionaries and most advanced lexicography. It's much more advanced than what you get in either amhara or swahili. The textual lingustucs corpus of swahili and amahric is around 25 million words . Where's as the somali one is about 70 million words.


For those of you who don't know what a textual lingustics corpus is. It's basically a collcetion of all sorts of texts gathered in a database for lingustics resaerch purposes.

 

[Maakhri2024]

Your first mistake was comparing it to Arabic. Arabic has over 12 million distinct words compared to English which has 170,000. In comparison, Somali with 150,000 is actually pretty impressive for a language that wasn’t as documented/written compared to the ones previous mentioned.

source ?

 

[Shimbiris]

The size of the Somali lexicon is actually considered surprisingly large for a language which had no serious orthography until the 20th century. It is a very capacious language.

I think it makes sense. When you have a culture that deeply venerates poetry and even uses it as a way to settle disputes and that is in constant contact with the the rest of the world whether it be through the internal caravans of the Horn going all the way into the deepest corners of the Ethiopian highlands or coastal trade with people as far away as China and Europe... you're gonna develop a rich vocabulary and worldview.

Plus, even if Somali itself wasn't written much before the 20th century, we have plenty of evidence that at least a ~5-15% segment of the population was consistently literate in Arabic over the last thousand years (with it being possible that a much larger percentage was literate in the language but not functionally literate) and must consider the concepts the scholarly and literate among us like the Shaykh Jami I reference here probably imported in. I don't know but it's just not THAT shocking to me given the context Somalis existed within.

Our ancestors were not isolated people. A Somali nomad in the desert during the 1800s knew there was a war in Russia and a storm in Mumbai's harbor:

The Somali Bedouins have a passion for knowing how the world wags. In some of the more desert regions the whole population of a village will follow the wanderer. No traveller ever passes a kraal without planting spear in the ground, and demanding answers to a lengthened string of queries: rather than miss intelligence he will inquire of a woman. Thus it is that news flies through the country. Among the wild Gudabirsi the Russian war was a topic of interest, and at Harar I heard of a violent storm, which had damaged the shipping in Bombay Harbour, but a few weeks after the event. - source​

 

[Midas]

I think it makes sense. When you have a culture that deeply venerates poetry and even uses it as a way to settle disputes and that is in constant contact with the the rest of the world whether it be through the internal caravans of the Horn going all the way into the deepest corners of the Ethiopian highlands or coastal trade with people as far away as China and Europe... you're gonna develop a rich vocabulary and worldview.

Plus, even if Somali itself wasn't written much before the 20th century, we have plenty of evidence that at least a ~5-15% segment of the population was consistently literate in Arabic over the last thousand years (with it being possible that a much larger percentage was literate in the language but not functionally literate) and must consider the concepts the scholarly and literate among us like the Shaykh Jami I reference here probably imported in. I don't know but it's just not THAT shocking to me given the context Somalis existed within.

Our ancestors were not isolated people. A Somali nomad in the desert during the 1800s knew there was a war in Russia and a storm in Mumbai's harbor:

Surprisingly we publish a lot of somali language books i looked into this for a while and around 450 books were published in puntland alone last year. I'm guessing if we counted all the books in somalia it would probably reach 1500+ published a year. To put into context how huge that is here's how many books are published in swahil and urdu per year.

 

[Midas]

Here's the puntland book fair video where he mentions the statistic minute 1:40

 

[Midas]

Wait oh shit I think i he meant they summarized/reviewed 460 books not published. Can somebody with better af somali confirm.

 

[Midas]

I knwo there was at least 250 books published in 20119 in somaliland . From this interview jama muse did in 2020 so considering there's likley been some growth . 1k books a year for all of Somalia isn't a stretch.