The Pakistani grooming scandal is not our business or issue

[Angelina]

These are colloquial terms, yes. You won't find them in historical texts. But I think you're reaching a bit, walaal, if you're trying to argue Somalis didn't historically, on the street, use them to refer to foreign groups. You can interview dozens of ayeeyos and awoowes across Somalia who'd show you otherwise.

My issue is that whilst it’s great to read a lot and look at data and texts, you only get a real feel of a culture via speaking to elders and locals and that’s what I think is missing when it comes to her. I respect her optimism, I need to take a leaf out of her book, but it becomes empty relying on financial reports and articles if you’re struggling to understand Somali daqan on a deeper level and are using a Western lens to call Somalis racist for calling groups like Somali Bantus Jariirweyne and other groups descriptive terms and thinking it’s a social media phenomenon. She is clearly projecting Western social norms on Somalis and because this doesn’t fit neatly into her obsession of glossing over Somali issues, she denies it.

 

[Angelina]

I've seen those. But they had the decency to try to save face to me when I asked by saying "He was light skinned when he was little and it just stuck."

My family admit that’s why she’s called Caaadey because she’s the opposite. I remember asking as a kid and being very confused

 

[Shimbiris]

O

I can only explain my own experiences, travels, relatives and what i know from historical documentation.

It's not a basic fact about Somali culture at all.



I am not specifically talking about off handed name calling or informal nicknames.

I am talking about like real names and terms for groups. Like if you pull up a book or recording of Somalis from let say century or half a century ago did we call South Asians Timo Jileec? or were they calling them ''Hindi''? Where they calling Arabs dhegecas , where they just calling Carab or regional names?

Okay, if that is your argument then I see your point as well. No documents of Somalis calling foreign groups by these nicknames exist indeed. Pretty sure our ancestors weren't daft and even if these terms were being used informally they knew better than to write down "Indhoyar" or tell foreign writers they called them that informally.

 

[Angelina]

I can only explain from my own experiences, travels, relatives and what i know from historical documentation.




I am not specifically talking about off handed name calling or informal nicknames.

I am talking about like real names and terms for groups.

Like if you pull up a book or recording of Somalis from let say century or half a century ago did we call South Asians Timo Jileec? or were they calling them ''Hindi''? Where they calling Arabs dhegecas , where they just calling them ''Carab'' or other regional names?

Be honest.

Somalis on average were an oral society Idilinaa, books won’t give you the full scope. That should be obvious.

 

[Angelina]

O


Okay, if that is your argument then I see your point as well. No documents of Somalis calling foreign groups by these nicknames exist indeed. Pretty sure our ancestors weren't daft and even if these terms were being used informally they knew better than to write down "Indhoyar" or tell foreign writers they called them that informally.

Are there even documents of Somalis going into detail about what they even called others? I highly doubt it and tbh Somalia is an oral society and therefore focusing on written work doesn’t cut it.

 

[Shimbiris]

Are there even documents of Somalis going into detail about what they even called others? I highly doubt it and tbh Somalia is an oral society and therefore focusing on written work doesn’t cut it.

We are not an "oral society" any more than Arabs of the same time period were. That is a completely idiotic western meme. We discussed this in another thread recently:

Honestly I found it so weird when I began studying early modern and medieval Somali history and noticed the constant accounts of letters being sent, treaties being written and wadaado roaming the country to educate people in how to write the Arabic script. I rationalized what these cadaan writers were saying as to mean the Somali language itself was not employed too much to write when compared to Arabic but the whole "oral society" thing is what confuses me.

Any imbecile reading through early modern and medieval Somali accounts can tell it's not actually an "oral society". Not any more than medieval Arabia or England was "oral". Sure, maybe the average ruralite spread things mainly through word of mouth but, clearly, the merchants, traders, clergy and politicians were literate and communicating via the written word. How is that then, wholly speaking, an "oral society"? Very odd.

I mean, even if it they principally communicated this way in Arabic, how is it any different from how Latin was the language of writing, education and government in much of medieval Europe while their own native tongues remained mainly colloquial?

That being said, we do have examples of Somalis writing letters, treaties and such back and forth and it's true that they never seemed to use terms like these ones when they mention ajanabis and don't do so when interviewed by foreigners either They would just say Arab or what have you.

But most so far known Somali texts have to do with religion, record keeping, treaties, laws and correspondences. They had no interest, that we know of, in outlining their worldview in regards to ajanabis. There used to be libraries in places Saylac in the past that were supposedly packing. Maybe there was something in there but we'll never know now.

 

[Idilinaa]

Somalis on average were an oral society Idilinaa, books won’t give you the full scope. That should be obvious.

Somali society is mostly a written society, they communicated via letter, kept administrative records, wrote a few chronicles on important events, kept records of genealogies, hagiographies, and religious poems.

But we had aspect of our society that was mainly oral like story telling , folklore etc.

We have a lot of poetry that was documented and recorded from a century back or more.

Are there even documents of Somalis going into detail about what they even called others? I highly doubt it and tbh Somalia is an oral society and therefore focusing on written work doesn’t cut it.

Yes, we even used to call Europeans collectively as''Ferenji'' because the French was the first ones we made formal interactions with.

Something i even came to learn recently just by reading a few Somali poems, i was stumped at first thinking what was a ferenji.

These are colloquial terms, yes. You won't find them in historical texts. But I think you're reaching a bit, walaal, if you're trying to argue Somalis didn't historically, on the street, use them to refer to foreign groups. You can interview dozens of ayeeyos and awoowes across Somalia who'd show you otherwise.

I have been around many thats why i find it strange. You will find these words in Somali poetry because they actually describe their world view and how they describe

It would be interesting to actually study this to capture how they saw things.

 

[Angelina]

We are not an "oral society" any more than Arabs of the same time period were. That is a completely idiotic western meme. We discussed this in another thread recently:



That being said, we do have examples of Somalis writing letters, treaties and such back and forth and it's true that they never seemed to use terms like these ones when they mention ajanabis and don't do so when interviewed by foreigners either They would just say Arab or what have you.

It wouldn’t make sense to use words like Timo jelec outside of Somali circles.

But most so far known Somali texts have to do with religion, record keeping, treaties, laws and correspondences. They had no interest, that we know of, in outlining their worldview in regards to ajanabis. There used to be libraries in places Saylac in the past that were supposedly packing. Maybe there was something in there but we'll never know now.

I meant in terms of culture and world view? Poetry? Storytelling? These are the forms in which you’d have a greater understanding of people’s world view and correct me if I’m wrong, Somalis were mostly oral in that regards?

Arabs are an oral society as well. Most of their epic poems of memorized and that was how it spread. I know they wrote and of course Somalis wrote.

 

[Idilinaa]

We have a lot of poetry that was documented and recorded from a century back or more.


Yes, we even used to call Europeans collectively as''Ferenji'' because the French was the first ones we made formal interactions with.

Something i even came to learn recently just by reading a few Somali poems, i was stumped at first thinking what was a ferenji.

Just to show an example of this.

 

[Angelina]

Somali society is mostly a written society, they communicated via letter, kept administrative records, wrote a few chronicles on important events, kept records of genealogies, hagiographies, and religious poems.

But we had aspect of our society that was mainly oral like story telling , folklore and poetry etc.

We have a lot of poetry that was documented and recorded from a century back or more.


Yes, we even used to call Europeans collectively as''Ferenji'' because the French was the first ones we made formal interactions with.

Something i even came to learn recently just by reading a few Somali poems, i was stumped at first thinking what was a ferenji.



I have been around many thats why i find it strange. You will find these words in Somali poetry because they actually describe their world view and how they describe

It would be interesting to actually study this to capture how they saw things.

Frenji is a play on the European word of Franks which is what Ancient French and other Indo Europeans. It isn’t a Somali word. They met Franks and decided to label all whites as that.

 

[Shimbiris]

Are there even documents of Somalis going into detail about what they even called others? I highly doubt it and tbh Somalia is an oral society and therefore focusing on written work doesn’t cut it.

Oral society implies no one knows how to read or write and all communication is done by word of mouth. This is what you'd get if you met some Plains Indians before European contact, for example.

That is, quite simply, not Somalis. There was always a cohort of qadis, merchants, ruling elites, tribal chiefs, Wadaads and such who knew how to read and write in Arabic as well as speak it for at least the last millennia. They also sometimes wrote Somali using the script. This is completely undeniable:

Segment of Sultan Farah Guled of the Isaaqs letter to Sultan Saqr of the Qassimis of the UAE in the 1820s:

Segment of a Majeerteen Sultan's treaty letter to a ruler in Yemen from the 1870s:

Segment of manuscripts by a Leelkase Qadi from either 1694 or 1727:

Segment of a letter by Sayyid Mohammad Abdullah Hassan from 1905:

An account of Xamar's 1331 "Barbara" (Somali) Sultan:



Can't find the quote now but Battuta also noted him at one point sending letters that were ostensibly in Arabic.

An example of Far Wadaad in use in 1933:



Arabic is part of our heritage, walaal.

This is basically indistinguishable from much of medieval Europe where most of the writing whether for trade, education or correspondence was in Latin while their own spoken languages largely remained colloquial.

And we were a bit unique that even many of the nomadic Somalis and ruralities knew how to read and write Arabic, even if not all of them could understand it, before the colonials came and disrupted everything as Idilinna correctly outlined and shared sources for in the thread I linked to but even I went into this before when I first begining to discover it:

Yeah, I honestly even question how "illiterate" Somali nomads historically were because in both the north and the south going back to the 1800s you read about kids being taught the Qur'an by wandering Wadaads and using these traditional wooden boards to read it and write it:

This is from the 1800s in Koonfur:

One can go on and on about how the nomads spread things through word of mouth over long distances but how is this any different from Arab Bedouin? And again, it does nothing to disprove that the merchants, Wadaads, elites, scholars and such existed and that Somali society sure as shit knew what writing was and used it for centuries. When Imam Ahmed calls the Jihad to the Somali tribes he sends out letters not simply speaking "heralds".

These cadaans were just tripping and brainwashed Somalis themselves into repeating this brain-dead nonsense.

 

[Idilinaa]

Frenji is a play on the European word of Franks which is what Ancient French and other Indo Europeans. It isn’t a Somali word. They met Franks and decided to label all whites as that.

I didn't say it was a name from the Somali language, that we coined. I was showing you example of names we used to call foreigners back then. You see the name came up a lot in Somali poetry from more than a century ago because they met French and labeled all Europeans this as i said. But we don't that use that anymore though, it shows change.

My point is there is tons of documentation this past century alone especially Somali poetry which conveys Somali world view ,, even attitude towards foreigners and different groups and all they seem to refer to South Asians as is hindi and arabs as ''carab'' , there is no Timo jileec or dhegacas.

 

[Angelina]

Oral society implies no one knows how to read or write and all communication is done by word of mouth. This is what you'd get if you met some Plains Indians before European contact, for example.

That is, quite simply, not Somalis. There was always a cohort of qadis, merchants, ruling elites, tribal chiefs, Wadaads and such who knew how to read and write in Arabic as well as speak it for at least the last millennia. They also sometimes wrote Somali using the script. This is completely undeniable:



This is basically indistinguishable from much of medieval Europe where most of the writing whether for trade, education or correspondence was in Latin while their own spoken languages largely remained colloquial.

And we were a bit unique that even many of the nomadic Somalis and ruralities knew how to read and write Arabic, even if not all of them could understand it, before the colonials came and disrupted everything as Idilinna correctly outlined and shared sources for in the thread I linked to but even I went into this before when I first begining to discover it:



One can go on and on about how the nomads spread things through word of mouth over long distances but how is this any different from Arab Bedouin? And again, it does nothing to disprove that the merchants, Wadaads, elites, scholars and such existed and that Somali society sure as shit knew what writing was and used it for centuries. When Imam Ahmed calls the Jihad to the Somali tribes he sends out letters not simply speaking "heralds".

These cadaans were just tripping and brainwashed Somalis themselves into repeating this brain-dead nonsense.

I wasn’t using the word the way you thought I was.

An oral society doesn't necessarily mean that its members never wrote; rather, it means that the culture primarily relied on oral communication and storytelling for passing down knowledge, traditions, and history. Arabs are referred to as an oral society yet we know they wrote, even their greatest thinkers many of Persian origins though but part of Arab society wrote and even invented concepts like Algebra, so I wasn’t peddling the oral society point to deny that Somalis wrote, but I do feel that our greatest literatures, storytelling and poetry which is how a society illustrates its world view was mostly oral. Example, the greatest epic poems of the ancient Arabs we know of today, Antarrah was mostly spread orally.

 

[Riftvalley]

The word jahreer was often used to differentiate “Jilic” Somalis, ie free Somalis or “Bilis” with Cushitic features vis-à-vis Bantu slaves.

You can’t compare it to words like timajilic or Indho yar which aren’t linked to slavery or “caste systems”.

Obv the word can different things in different regions.

 

[Leila]

In Afgooye the Jar.eerweyne call us ‘Cushitic’ Somalis Jileec or faradheer. They call themselves Jar.eerweyne proudly

 

[Shimbiris]

I wasn’t using the word the way you thought I was.

An oral society doesn't necessarily mean that its members never wrote; rather, it means that the culture primarily relied on oral communication and storytelling for passing down knowledge, traditions, and history. Arabs are referred to as an oral society yet we know they wrote, even their greatest thinkers many of Persian origins though but part of Arab society wrote and even invented concepts like Algebra, so I wasn’t peddling the oral society point to deny that Somalis wrote, but I do feel that our greatest literatures, storytelling and poetry which is how a society illustrates its world view was mostly oral. Example, the greatest epic poems of the ancient Arabs we know of today, Antarrah was mostly spread orally.

Seems I misunderstood you indeed. Apologies. But even so, I don't know of any gabays using these terms? Do you?

 

[Keo]

Even the looting in in the break out of the war in Xamar is incredibly out of the norm as it is prohibited in Somali laws and norms. You rarely if never used to see this happen.

View attachment 352802

Taken from these conventions:


In Xamar, arming of factions by outsiders undermined these conventions because they were not bounded by Somali social norms, laws and functions as they didn't answer to Somalis but to foreigners and international actors.

They were thugs didn't respect our society and code of life.

Some of the looting occurred in unconventional ways, such as making unfairly low offers on the price of a house and using threats if the offer was rejected. This is how my family lost our home in Xamar. Eventually they all moved to the Northeast and rebuilt their lives there.

 

[Angelina]

Seems I misunderstood you indeed. Apologies. But even so, I don't know of any gabays using these terms? Do you?

I don’t know any Gabyas that even care to talk about outsiders. I do agree that formally Somalis probably weren’t calling Indians timo jelec but I do believe that on an every day basis due to Somalis love of nicknames this became basically became a normal way of identifying them which is why two of us from different regions have grandparents who called them similar names fueled by their physical description.

 

[Shimbiris]

I don’t know any Gabyas that even care to talk about outsiders. I do agree that formally Somalis probably weren’t calling Indians timo jelec but I do believe that on an every day basis due to Somalis love of nicknames this became basically became a normal way of identifying them which is why two of us from different regions have grandparents who called them similar names fueled by their physical description.

I generally align with you here. I think these terms were in colloquial use longer then the last 25 years at minimum. Hundreds of years? Maybe. Can't answer that with any veracity without doing some sort of deeper dive. But we generally agree. And to bolster your point, even current day Somalis show the dichotomy you speak of where on the one hand a Somali politician may call East Asians "Indhoyar" when speaking to family and friends informally but he will obviously only use terms like "Siini" or "Japanese" when interacting on a formal basis.

 

[Angelina]

I generally align with you here. I think these terms were in colloquial use longer then the last 25 years at minimum. Hundreds of years? Maybe. Can't answer that with any veracity without doing some sort of deeper dive. But we generally agree. And to bolster your point, even current day Somalis show the dichotomy you speak of where on the one hand a Somali politician may call East Asians "Indhoyar" when speaking to family and friends informally but he will obviously only use terms like "Siini" or "Japanese" when interacting on a formal basis.

The point was originally about Jariirweyne, I don’t know what they were called before that and I don’t believe Jariirweyne is an informal term to refer to all of them. Most ethnic Somalis aren’t going to refer to them by their individual tribes when referring to the whole Somali Bantu community.

As for words like Timo jelec and indoyar, I’ll be asking my parents how long they’re been using it particularly my boomer dad.