Wadaad script
As Wadaad script ( Arabic كتابة وداد, DMG kitābat Wadād ) or script of the Wadaad are applications of the Arabic alphabet for the Somali language . This term initially included "ungrammatical Arabic, which contains some Somali words", as it has been used for centuries by religious men ( wadaads and sheikhs ) for Kassid , by traders in a business context, for writing letters and in petitions. Various adaptations of the Arabic script were also developed in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to write pure Somali.
history
Sheikh Yuusuf bin Ahmed al-Kawneyn ( Aw Barkhadle ) introduced the Arabic alphabet to the Somali in the 13th century . He studied the phonology of Somali in order to develop his own nomenclature for the vowels of Arabic. This initially served to teach his students the Arabic script and reading the Koran , but it also made it possible to write Arabic mixed with Somali words (to varying degrees). A small minority of the Somali population could read and write Arabic very well and mainly produced Sufi literature in Arabic. A larger proportion had some reading and writing skills and used the mixture of Somali and Arabic mostly in the context of religion and trade.
An essential difference between Arabic and Somali, which makes the use of the Arabic alphabet for the Somali language more difficult, is that Somali is rich in vowels, which are also often meaningful, while Arabic is rather poor in vowels and often omits vowels . In texts in Wadaad script, short vowels are usually left out, making them very difficult to read if the meaning of the word is not clear through the context. The lack of grammar makes understanding even more difficult.
In 1887, the captain of the Indian army, JS King, published two articles in Indian Antiquary , in which he suggested an Arabic script mixed with Hindustani for Somali. In 1919 the Qadiriyya Sheikh Uways al-Barawi developed a form of the Arabic script that was more closely adapted to Somali and which he used for the Somali Kassid. In 1938, however, Sheikh Mahamad Abdi Makaahiil from Isaaq Clan in northern Somalia published his work The institution of modern correspondence in the Somali language in Somali written in standard Arabic. Muuse Haaji Ismaaiil Galaal published a more radically changed variant of the Arabic alphabet with new vowel characters in the 1950s. However, its variant could not prevail among the wadaads , as it deviates too much from classical (Koranic) Arabic. Somali nationalists, who endeavored to standardize and write their language, turned to scripts developed especially for Somali, such as the Osmaniya script and later the Latin script. In 1972 the Latin script was officially introduced under Siad Barre .
swell
- David D. Laitin: Politics, Language, and Thought: The Somali Experience , University of Chicago Press 1977, ISBN 978-0-226-46791-7 , pp. 85-89, 91-96
- Ioan M. Lewis: The Gadabuursi Somali Script , in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) 21, 1958, pp. 134-156