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Vocabulary/Semantics Somali has adopted many Arabic words, both modern phrases to deal with modern institutions, such as government and finance, and older Arabic terms to discuss international trade and religion. Somali also contains old Qahtani words common to Cushitic and Semitic languages. --Standard Greeting: Ma nabad baa? (Hello. [literally, ?Is it peace??]) Iska warran?: How are you? [literally, ?Tell about yourself.?] Additional Somali Expressions Additional Somali Vocabulary The Somali Grammatical System: Articles Somali and English are very different in the use of the articles "the" and "a." The definite article in Somali has gender suffixes (like in French); the Somali definite article has a masculine and feminine form. In addition, Somalis may have difficulty mastering the English indefinite article (a/an) because their own language has no equivalent. In Somali, the concept of indefiniteness is expressed by the noun alone. Nouns Somali nouns are more highly inflected than are nouns in English. In English, nouns are inflected only for number, thus they have different forms for singular and plural. In Somali, each noun has number, with eight kinds of plural forms. A noun is also inflected for gender (masculine or feminine), and for case (nominative, genitive, absolutive, and vocative). In Somali, differences in gender, number, or case are marked by grammatical tone: �nan 'boy' in�n 'girl' [gender] d�bi 'ox' dib� 'oxen' [number] M�use 'Moses' Mu'use 'Hey, Moses' [vocative case] The system of case marking is so different between the two languages that mistakes are unavoidable. Typically, a Somali will drop the apostrophe-s possessive in favor of a tone change, e.g., "Mary book", with a rising intonation on the first syllable of "Mary". Adjectives In Somali, most adjectives are formed by adding -an or -san to a verb or noun. Thus, gaab 'shortness' becomes gaaban 'short', and qurux 'beauty' becomes quruxsan 'beautiful'. Somalis may coin some interesting English adjectives by a similar process. Somali adjectives often occur with a short form of the verb to be suffixed to them. For example, yar 'small' becomes yaraa 'he was small'. As a result, Somali speakers of English tend to add aa to adjectives. Thus, instead of saying "small", they might say something that sounds like "small-ah". This may cause confusion, particularly among British speakers of English, who may think the speaker is saying "smaller". Prepositions English prepositions can be very difficult for Somalis. In contrast to the wide array of English prepositions which come befoe nouns, Somali has only four prepositions which all come before the verb. Since there are so few Somali prepositions, they have a wide range of meanings. For examplel: ka from, away from, out of and about, concerning ku in, into, on, at and with, by means of, using la with, together with, in the company of u to, towards and for, on behalf of For example: Isaga u sheeg. Tell it to him. Isaga ka sheeg. Tell about him. Isaga ku sheeg. Call him (a name). Qori ka samee! Make it of wood! Guriga ku samee! Do it at home! Isaga la samee! Do it with him! Verbs Verbs usually come last in Somali sentences. As a result, Somali speakers of English may tend to put the verb at the end of a sentence. Somali lacks a passive voice. Instead of the passive, Somali uses the indefinite pronoun la 'someone', as in Goormaa la dhisey? "When was it built?" (literally, "When someone built?"). Using English passives correctly can be a major challenge for Somali students of English. Somali has a present habitual and a present progressive tense, but they are not used in the same contexts in which these tenses are used in English. Somali uses the present progressive tense where the simple present tense would be used in English, and this feature of Somali may carry over into the English speech of Somalis. Somali speakers of English often make use of the present progressive tense ("I am going to work every day") where English speakers would use the simple present ("I go to work every day"). (The Cultural Orientation Project--http://www.culturalorientation.net, 2000) |
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