REFORM THE LATIN SCRIPT!!!

[hinters]

Instead of double vowels a macron, i.e, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

Soomaaliya would become Sōmāliya

Or it could vowels with diaeresis, like ä, ë, ï, ö, ü

The double vowels are an aesthetic nightmare. They were born out of necessity, british and italian typewriters had no special symbols for vowels, but in the age of the Internet there's no excuse.

 

[hinters]

This would be a better alternative to that Osmanya nonsense

 

[Avalanche]

And we call the script af gab

 

[Bazed]

So essentially going from the English use to a more European use of the script. I think we're to entrenched in the English version to switch, plus with the fact that many of our diaspora live in the Anglo sphere it'd make little sense. It is better though.

 

[hinters]

So essentially going from the English use to a more European use of the script. I think we're to entrenched in the English version to switch, plus with the fact that many of our diaspora live in the Anglo sphere it'd make little sense. It is better though.

The diaspora should not be considered as a major factor when making a decision that would affect all Somalis, like changing the script. We're a tiny minority.

The turks switched from the Ottoman Arabic script to the European script pretty easily.

And a few decades ago there was no official script, then within a few years most people in Somalia could read.

It wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be impossible.

 

[Scipio Africanus]

We should go back to using our Arabic script. Our literacy rates would go up, since nearly every Somali back home can read & write in Arabic.

Modified Arabic script for Af Somali is the way forward.

 

[hinters]

We should go back to using our Arabic script. Our literacy rates would go up, since nearly every Somali back home can read & write in Arabic.

Arabic script would have to be heavily modified to fit our language.

 

[Scipio Africanus]

Arabic script would have to be heavily modified to fit our language.

Yes, the Wadaad script or something of that sort is the way forward.

 

[hinters]

Yes, the Wadaad script or something of that sort is the way forward.

Yeah but we would have to make new letters for sounds that aren't in the Arabic language.

Meanwhile the latin script already has all the sounds in Somali.

 

[Khaem]

Arabic script would have to be heavily modified to fit our language.

We have already done that in Far wadaad. Some more changes to make it more suitable would be nice. As the other user said, most in somalia who have had at least a little bit of education in quran can read and write Arabic script, so this isn't gonna be too hard. Siad barre switched to Latin in the 70s and a majority of thr population became literate in it in a few years.

Osmanya is also a good contender although it would have to get some extra letters and some changes to suit the dialects. My main issue is that is has no history and is relatively new.

If the rest of the Horn is gonna adopt Ge'ez like Oromo and Afars switching banc to it. I wouldn't mind Somalis using it. End of the day we are one civilization and race. You see east asians have scripts descended from Chinese. Europeans have scripts descended from Greek such as Latin and slavic Cyrillic.
The horn all adopting Ge'ez script would be good.

 

[Khaem]

Yeah but we would have to make new letters for sounds that aren't in the Arabic language.

Meanwhile the latin script already has all the sounds in Somali.

We did make new letters

Galaal Script
In 1954, the Somali linguist Musa Haji Ismail Galaal (1917–1980) introduced a more radical alteration of Arabic to represent the Somali Language. Galaal came up with an entirely new set of symbols for the Somali vowels. Galaal's goal was to eliminate the need to use diacritics and also to provide easy to write and read distinction between short vowels and long. Lewis (1958) considered this to be the most accurate Arabic alphabet to have been devised for the Somali language. He had published his work in the Islamic Quarterly, outlining and providing examples as to why a new Arabic based script was needed for use in Somalia

Despite the accuracy of Galaal's writing system and its correspondence with Somali phonology, his writing system turned out to be controversial, facing criticism from Somalia's religiously devout and conservative society. The introduction of new letters was interpreted as deviating away from the Arabic script, and moreover, a worry arose that teaching such new letters can cause difficulty in teaching the Quran to Somali students.

There are many other adaptations done by many other Somali scholars.

 

[hinters]

We did make new letters




There are many other adaptations done by many other Somali scholars.

Culturally I would like this.

But implementing entire new letters that don't exist yet would be a complicated process.

 

[Khaem]

Culturally I would like this.

But implementing entire new letters that don't exist yet would be a complicated process.

It wouldn't be an issue. New letters to fit in sounds in Somali that aren't present in the raw Arabic script would be well received by most.

Teaching this new script doesn't mean all of a sudden you can't interpret the Quran. Do English people struggle to learn the added letters in French and German that suit their languages? It's all Latin with a few changes here and there. It's not an issue.

 

[hinters]

It wouldn't be an issue. New letters to fit in sounds in Somali that aren't present in the raw Arabic script would be well received by most.

Teaching this new script doesn't mean all of a sudden you can't interpret the Quran. Do English people struggle to learn the added letters in French and German that suit their languages? It's all Latin with a few changes here and there. It's not an issue.

I meant the infrastructure for the script.

I don't know how scripts are added onto the internet to be used, but I know it would be a complicated process

 

[hinters]

It wouldn't be an issue. New letters to fit in sounds in Somali that aren't present in the raw Arabic script would be well received by most.

Teaching this new script doesn't mean all of a sudden you can't interpret the Quran. Do English people struggle to learn the added letters in French and German that suit their languages? It's all Latin with a few changes here and there. It's not an issue.

Nevermind supposedly some organization called unicode controls it.

 

[Basra]

So essentially going from the English use to a more European use of the script. I think we're to entrenched in the English version to switch, plus with the fact that many of our diaspora live in the Anglo sphere it'd make little sense. It is better though.

u and @hinters are just two little nerds that deserve their unicorn world.

 

[SizzleSomali]

I find it a bit odd how we're the only language in the horn using latin

 

[Emir of Zayla]

Instead of double vowels a macron, i.e, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

Soomaaliya would become Sōmāliya

Or it could vowels with diaeresis, like ä, ë, ï, ö, ü

The double vowels are an aesthetic nightmare. They were born out of necessity, british and italian typewriters had no special symbols for vowels, but in the age of the Internet there's no excuse.

We should go back to using our Arabic script. Our literacy rates would go up, since nearly every Somali back home can read & write in Arabic.

Modified Arabic script for Af Somali is the way forward.

Should we go for modifying the Latin script for our language like the Southeast Asians and Turks did or should we go switching back to Wadaad script making our literary rates skyrocket. Both ideas are good, we should try doing a poll on this forum to see what the majority says we use going forward.

 

[hinters]

Should we go for modifying the Latin script for our language like the Southeast Asians and Turks did or should we go switching back to Wadaad script making our literary rates skyrocket. Both ideas are good, we should try doing a poll on this forum to see what the majority says we should do.

If the goal is to increase literacy rates the wadaad script is better.

But sticking with the latin script would make English and other languages that use the latin script(most of them) easier to learn.

 

[Emir of Zayla]

If the goal is to increase literacy rates the wadaad script is better.

But sticking with the latin script would make English and other languages that use the latin script(most of them) easier to learn.

Would keeping the Latin script really make other languages like English and etc more easier to learn? We’re from two completely different Language groups