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TITLE: THE DEVIELOPMENT OF SOMALI DICTIONARY
Mr. Chairman
Dear colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It's a great honor to me to present the results of six-year research of the development of Somali Dictionary to The Second Reconstruction Strategies Conference.
The Somali language has been classified as Cushitic It is related to the Anfar (spoken by the Danakits), the Gatia languages, and other languages spoken along the are of the Horn of the continent, where, linguistically, it is believed to be one of the richest languages of the continent
However, there is a slight Somali dialects, neverthless, the Somalis speaking ififferent dialects comprehend each other, and there is no language banier for the oral communications between indivituals who may normally live a thousand miles apart.
As far as in the first quarter of last century, the concept of writing Somali language was in the minds of every Somali educator. Due to the discouraging colonial policies and as well as the limitedfacilities and lack of coordination of the invented scripts (like The Osmania - 1922) or otherwise the lack of an appropriate exploitation of the existed international scripts were believed to be the main obsticales to hinder the writing of the Somali language in the last 50 years.
The question of considerable controversy of the appropriate script to be chosen, which arouse in Somalia by 1960 was at last finalized in October 1972. With annamious support of the nation and of a large section of the young secular intellectuals, the scyipt of the Somali language has been agreed to be Latin alphabet (with Arabic pronunciation) and immediately after the declaration of the Somali script it was taken to be the official language of the country. At the same year, the milit?Y government mobolized all availablefacilities toward The Political Campaign against Illetracy and educational syllabus for the p?imary, intermediate, and secondary schools was translated in to Somali language.
The subsequently followed droughts, wars, and the followed political unrest of the country severely hindered the development of thefragile Somali language
In the last 26 years, the First Somali Dictionary (of 15 000-entry words) which has been published in 19 76, by Dr. Yassin Osman Y Kenadid (I 924 -1986) remained to be the only available Somali Dictionary.
Remarks
'After an intensive research in the Somali phonetic style, Ifound that the letter "'D Y9 Of the selected script represents at least two phonetically different respects and should be divided into two consonants.
L The first D is having the sound of the present "D Yy of the already adopted Somali scyipt
Example:
DAAR, DUUD, DUULIMAAD ...
2 The new constant "A" which I propose to be added in to the Alphabetical letters of the Somali seyipt That constant which would have the Arabic sounding of (.b) is having more or less the sound of "Th " in the English Alphabet Example:
A,4AR, AUUA, AUULIMAAA ...
*Ifound also that the vowels used in the previous scyipt of the Somali language are naturally divided into:
L Thefeminine vowels: a e i o u and aa ee ii oo uu, and 2. The masculine vowels: d i i 6 ii and dd ii ii 66 iii@
By discovering the existence of this pattern of vowels the reading and the morphological analyzes of the Somali language became understandable. Example:
BEER, which means a garden in English and BEER, which means liver in English was not, previously, differentiated in saying or in sounding, but not in waiting.
I believe that, these and many otherfundamentat and additional laws, which Ifounded in my research and exploited them into my manuscript, would have a positive impact to the present script of the Somali language-
Ifound the dictionary to safeguard the inherited cultural, social, traditional respects of the Somali people in general, and who are interested in learning Somalis and Somali language in pa?Wcular.
The dictionary is d constituent of all Somali sounding words regardless of any segregating or conft'ningfactors such as regions states, andfrontiers.
The beneficiaries of this book could exceed millions in the future in expectation, but for the moment raising-up a fund and technical support is initially the most important for it's publication.
The Author: Salah Hashi Arab Hargeisa
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