INTRODUCTION:

Before independence, a handful of scholars wrote about the Somali Language. They were mostly Europeans ( Germans, British, Italians, French etc) who came to the Somali territories during the early days of colonialisation. The earlist comments about Somali dates as back as 1844 by Rigby, Christopher and Palmer. Just several years before independence, the list of the Europeans grew and Americans as well as a few Somalis like Musa Galaal, Shire Jama and Yassein Kenadid secured their place in it.

During post-independence, the Somali language has gone through three important stages: The search for a script, development and literacy campaigns. Few months after independence and unification of Somaliland and Somalia, a Somali Language Commission was formed and the search for a suitable script began. The findings and suggestions of the Commission and those of a subsequent UNESCO Commission were submitted in two reports to the Somali Governments at the time. Both reports examined quite a number of scripts: some in Latin, some in Arabic, and several unique ones ( i.e. Osmania), listing the advantages and disadvantages of each script. On factionalistic political grounds, the Somali Governments could not decide on one,. Immediately few months after the revolution, Siyad Barre’s regime took up the language problem. The revolutionary government asked each of the three factions to write textbooks for lower primary schools -grades 1 to 4 - in all subjects within a year, using their own resources. Only the faction that was advocating the Latin script finished in time. Thus, on October 21st. 1972, the Latin script was officially adapted.

There have been three developmental stages briskly taken in a quick succession: the 1st. as an official language soon after the script was approved; the 2nd. as a medium of instruction for primary and secondary schools two years after; and 3rd. as a minor area of study in the university. Three literacy campaigns popularized the use of the script. For the Government employees and the urban population, it took 6 months each to read and write . For the rural population , there was almost a year of intensive teaching participated by all school children from intermediate to secondary and the majority of the state’s civil servants as teachers and inspectors. These campaigns culminated with 75% literacy rate of the population and Somalia winning the UNESCO medal for literacy in 1975.

The present status of the Somali language is commendable. It is one of the official languages in Djibouti Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Somaliland, about 20 million speakers. Most of the education systems of these countries teach it either as a subject or use it as a medium of instruction or both. There are over 20 radio and TV stations that broadcast some of their programs in Somali around the world. Because of the refugees there, several European countries teach the language to Somali children. Few universities such SOAS, Swedish Academy in Uppsala and Rome university are active in specialized studies about the language.

A Language is a code in conventional sounds, symbols or signs efficient enough to name or label objects and ideas, people and places, events and situations etc. People and machines who can talk, read or write, have mechanisms that encode and decode a language. Decoding and/or encoding can be delivered in sounds (i.e. speech) or symbols (i.e. writing). There are special languages, such as International flag & Morse codes, American & British sign languages, Semaphore and Braille. These special languages use symbols and signs which are understood only by specialists. Sign languages and Braille are for the deaf and the blind respectively. In all these languages, the message can be the same.

THE NATURE OF SOMALI

The Somali language shares some of the sounds, symbols and signs with other languages. But it can also exhibit a distinctive form, meaning and function which can be understood only by its speakers. For instance, the word "qaad" consists of 3 letters in a particular form that sets it apart from all the other words that can be generated from them, such as, qad, qada, daaq, etc as well as other word forms in the language.

Besides, its form, the word "qaad" has 2 meanings: "take" and "kat" (plant leaves Somalis are fond of chewing) .There are also 2 uses for the word: Cognitive and Grammatical. The Cognitive uses for the 2 meanings of "qaad" are:

1.Cali qaad dharkii ( Ali has taken the clothes).

2. Nin baa qaad cunaya ( a man is eating some kat ).

There are also several grammatical uses for "qaad". It is sufficient to identify 3 of them to make the point. e.g.

1. Ninka ayaa lacagta qaadaya (the man is taking the money, as a verb).

2. Wiil baa qaadkii cunaya ( a boy is eating the kat, as object of a verb).

3. Qaadkan ayaa cusub ( this kat is fresh, as subject of a verb).

Most words have all the above features. But there are others that do not share some of them. For example, the words "ku" and "uun" represent 2 types of other words that are somewhat different from "qaad". The features of "qaad" are inclusive to those of "uun". "ku" does not have cognitive meaning. It has only all the structural meanings of the English prepositions of "to, with and in" e.g.

1 Cali baa ku socoda magaalada(Ali is going to the city).

2. Cali baa baabuur ku qaaday badeeco (Ali took goods with a truck).

3. Cali baa dukaanka ku jira (Ali is in the shop).

The word "uun", on the other hand, has all the above mentioned features of "qaad" as well as the structural meaning of the word "only" . For example:

1 Form: Uun. 2. Cognitive meaning: uun (creatures), i) uunka ilaahay (God’s creatures); ii) Ilaahay baa dadka uumay (God created the people). 3. Structural meaning: Qalin ama buug mid uun i sii ( Give me (only) a book or a pen). 4. Grammatical meaning:

i) Eebbeheen ayaa inna uumay ( God created us, as a verb).

ii) Uunkii ayaa hadalkiisii wada diiday ( all the people disliked his speech,

as a subject).

iii) Hadalkisii ayaa uunka wada taabtay (his speech arose all the people,

as an object).

The radical words of Somali are either of the type "ku", which is structural or "qaad", which is cognitive, or "uun", which is both.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOMALI

As an area of instruction.

The Somali Language is now taught as a subject and medium in the primary schools and in the secondary schools only as a subject. Formerly, it was both a subject and a medium throughout the school system upto the time of Somalia’s collapse. The development it made since it inception has mainly been technical and in a written form instead of been traditionally an oral language. In here, I would illustrate the technical words it gained, and the word formation rules poets and scientists apply to create Somali words.

Technical Words.

A good ground has now been gained in creating new words or translating technical terms in all subjects from primary to secondary and in some subjects like Somali and physics in undergraduate areas of study. For instance, the technical vocabulary count prepared in January 1973 for intermediate schools was for Somali 195, math’s 305, science 315, geography 310, and history 355. In 1987 , the curriculum development center in Mogadishu published a mimeographed dictionary for technical terms. The technical vocabulary about physics for pre-university institutions -secondary, technical and teacher training was 1455 words. If vocabulary affects students’ understanding about the world around them , Somali students nationalized about 2935 words for ownership and in the process picked up or focused on so much detail about reality.

Somali Math’s Science Geography History Physics

1 2 3 4 5 6

FIGURE 1.

Figure 1, reveals that technical vocabulary of physics ( subject 6) at the secondary exceeds approximately four times that of history (subject 5) in the primary . This means that secondary students’ understanding about the subject of physics increases 4 times in comparison of history during pre-university. In order words, when a secondary graduate is talking to an illiterate nomad about physics in Somali, the student’s speech will sound Somali but mostly incomprehensible to the nomad. But if both speakers are secondary graduates, they sound Somali and understand each other perfectly well - because they have been through the same language environment:, the school.

The Somali language (subject 1) has the lowest technical terms, partly because its scientific study is not yet a popular discourse, and partly because most trained language teachers do not have the least idea of what and how to teach it to Somali students. All language teachers in Somaliland are trained to teach foreign languages. The idea that Somali language teachers need to be trained in how to teach the mother tongue so far has never occurred to the policy- makers. In fact, most language teachers are familiar with textbooks that are specially prepared for foreign students, they have yet to see how a language textbook for native speakers looks like.

Teaching Somali to a student who knows as much Somali as his teacher is problem educators seem to be avoiding ever since Somali has been introduced to our system of education. Consequently, teachers and students have to be satisfied with what the Somalis as an oral society have been doing for ages -telling stories, reciting poetry, and of course quoting proverbs. Appreciating a good talk is one thing and trying know what makes it so good is another. Apparently, Somalis have never bothered to have a critical look neither in their language nor in their environment.

Normally when an illiterate Somali looks at a tree, he can express not more than 15 words about it, i.e. a root (xidid) a trunk (jirrid), bark (jidhif), a branch (laan), a leave (caleen), a flower (ubax), fruits (midho) etc. When objects made from trees are considered, such as hangool ( a kind of tool for preparing bush-fence for camels), daab ( a handle for ax), xadhig (a rope), udub (a pole), koor (a camel bell) etc. the list does not go beyond 30 words. In an education system where the medium of instruction is English, the technical vocabulary count in a single chapter about plants for form 4 secondary school is around 150 words. This means a student who has completed his secondary education will understand the reality about the tree 83% more . In other words, an illiterate knows about the nature of trees little less than 17% of it ( figure 2). The sample may not be representative enough, but it illustrates that uneducated individual’s mind does not see beyond the physical world. And therefore of little or no use for todays human affairs.

Figure 2.

Creating Somali Words.

When industrious and innovative Somalis who are not exposed to other languages are creating words for new ideas, they have at their service four (4) general rules of word-formation for internal use. But if these creative, Somali individuals are educated or exposed to foreign languages, they have extra 3 rules the Somali language has for the adaptation of foreign words. The following table specifies these with examples ( table 1).

To apply these rules, I have translated the following names of objects that can be found in an office:

a typewriter "garaacdo/garaace"

a calculator "tirshe/tiriye/ tiriso"

a clip "/qabte/ qabato"

a pin "qodbe/qodobto"/biin

a scotch tape "xidhe/lingax"

a watch "saacad"

a clock "saacad"

a folder "asture/asturto"

a letter opener "galfure/galfurto"

a pen holder "qalinhaye/qalinhayste/qalinhaysato"

a nail clipper "cidijare/cidijarto"

a dustbin "qashinbiirshe/qashinbiiriso"

a lighter "dabshide/dabshiddo"

a calendar "taariikh"

In this sample, the instances of naming or labeling a single object in two words is just about the same in the two languages: English 6 and Somali 5. A single word for a single object instances are equal or 8 & 8. This means that the two languages are almost equally efficient. Furthermore, English does generally neither mark (show) cases nor gender morphologically, but Somali does in both cases. That is the reason why Somali has two or three words for each object: the first is masculine and the second feminine. There are also 4 instances where the translation of the English ends up in non-Somali words, less than 29%.Which means that at the ratio of about 3:10 Somali fails to match an English word. Instead it either uses a loan word e.g "saacad" (watch) and "taariikh" (calendar) in this case from Arabic or applies the rule of sound change i.e "biin" (pin). In addition, English does not pick up grammatical details like case and gender, Somali ignores the physical details that distinguish between a watch and a clock. Both are saacad in Somali.

There is almost always a pioneering nation that leads others in science and technology. All developed nations borrow from it. Asia does and its nations are developing fast. In fact, they almost all feed their people. And They are well ahead of Africa in science and technology. It is only Africa which is dependent on foreign aid, including education.

If science and technology extend the word-stock (vocabulary) of Somali, how do Somali poets and storytellers form their words? Of course, they never get short of them to name the ideas they imagine. In order to fine out the rules they apply, I have looked into the first 20 lines of Hadrawi’s ( Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame) Dabahuwan ( constrained , last page) , one of his many master pieces. Incidentally Hadrawi as he is better known is one of the contemporary, prolific Somali poets. Though he is educated and has access to external rules of word formation, in this poem , he is a puritan.

The first 20 lines consist of 50 different words. I have divided these into Nouns, verbs and particles ( the 3 types of words the Somali word-stock could in general terms be divided into). Nouns can be identified by changing them to plural; verbs are identifiable by tense, and particles by neither tense nor plural. With these, I have added a fourth (contraction i.e.. markay® markii ay) . The words in the selection consist of 20 nouns, 16 verbs 8 contractions and just 6 particles. In spite of the fact that these 6 particles are different, the instance they are used are 15 which approximate the number of different verbs.

The rule of conversion applies to words that change their meaning, gender, number or part of speech without affixation e.g. (N<>v) duubka ¬ ® duubay, daadka-¬ ® -daadi, daabaca--¬ ® daabacan, etc.; Gender (M<>F) arrinka ¬ ® arrinta, duluca ¬ ® dulucda, beerka ® beerta etc. ; (sing<> plural) il ¬ ® indho, and in line 21, daruur ¬ ® daruuro (I have added the suffixes to distinguish the examples). In Somali, there are grammatical devices that do not change the part of speech, gender and number such as dani, runi, tidhi, idhi, liqay etc. These changes are grammatical but does not effect the lexicon and therefore, I have not counted them.

In the selection, the rules of acronym is not applied and there is only one compound - daryeel ( dar + yeel ) among the content words ( nouns and verbs ) in the 3 lines that end the quoted selection of 23 lines. Since I have not counted the instance of word formation rules applied to structural words (particles, they can only be compounded), affixation and conversion are applied only to the 20 nouns, 16 verbs and 7 contractions. Out of the 50 words, 43 of them are content words and only seven are structural. In here, Hadrawi never uses loan words though. Therefore one can conclude that poets form their words by the application of affixation and conversion rules. Technical words created by science, technology and urbanity have not affected their taste for Somali words.

SOMALI AS A MEDIUM

Language as a medium cannot help beyond its level of development. A language is said to be developed when it can accommodate all the teaching-learning tasks in all levels of education as well as all other human activities its speakers engage themselves in. Most of its development depends upon how industrious and creative are its speakers. Of course, human emotions can soar into new heights pulling some of the less practical ideas along with it. Poets and story-tellers have long entertained their audience with owe-inspiring images shaped by words educated or not. Though , they have coined new words from the existing vocabulary, formal education and the growth of science have outscored them. It is the scientific study of language and nature where language development is mostly essential. So if Somalis need to develop , they have to face reality more practically than the recitation of poetry. And the 2935 technical words nationalized (Figure 1) prove its usefulness as a medium of teaching in the education system of Somaliland.

Generally, children mature physically, mentally and emotionally, about the age of 15 to 16 years, if the kind of education they receive is adequate and culturally acceptable. Upto this age, it is essential that they receive their education in their mother tongue. The International Community recognizes this as children’s inalienable right. The Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the General assembly on Nov. 1989 refers to children’s right to education Summaries of articles 28 & 29 are :

28. The child has the right to education, and the 29. Education shall prepare the child for an active adult life in

state’s duty is to ensure that primary education a free society and foster respect for the child’s parents his

is free and compulsory. or her own cultural identity, language and values, and for

the cultural values of others.

Thus, language as a means of communication is a powerful tool every person needs and which God (SWT) has given to him to use, particularly during teaching-learning process. Because of this, language plays a key role in education. It is more so when children are growing up. For them to develop useful and effective language skills to acquire education, it is necessary that they be assisted to receive education in the language they use at home and outside home. Giving them their education in other languages displaces them. Moreover, they will not be able to articulate their thoughts in a way that is convincing. There are two reasons why this so. Firstly, all languages are culturally bound. That is they communicate the culture of the people who speak them and there are no two languages that express the same culture. Secondly, There are no two languages that have developed in the same way to the extent that their grammar and use could be matched into one to one correspondence. Since Somali is one of the least developed languages, Somali children will always be at a disadvantage to receive their lessons in a foreign language.

Traditionally, Somali pupils were exposed to four languages from intermediate onwards: Somali, Arabic and English/Italian . There are now three languages competing in our school system; Somali, Arabic and English. Somali is and will evolve with them. Arabic has firmly established itself as Somalis’ second language. In fact, it is taught to children in Qoranic schools at the age of 4 to 6, while Somali is taught in school at the first grade. It is unlike that the majority of Somalis would prefer it to English because of our Islamic heritage. English is also a formidable candidate to be one of the subjects taught in our schools for two reasons. Firstly, it is a powerful tool for international communication at this period in time and probably will be so in the years to come. Secondly, as a medium of instruction, it is more effective even than national languages because in the teaching-learning process instructional materials in English are in abundance everywhere.

SOMALI CARRIES OUR CULTURE

A child’s language engulfs him like sea water engulfs a fish. If the water gets saturated with pollutants, the fish finds it difficult to extract oxygen to breathe. This affects its health. Similarly when foreign languages are exposed to children while they are living in their language environment during their formative years, the foreign languages serve as obstructive agents to their critical and creative thinking. This, of course, makes a child’s speech defective and his ideas become strange. Foreign languages saturate his talk and an alien culture his behavior.

A vivid example can be found in the speech of Somalis who were taught Arabic and English and who also graduated from Islamic and western education institutions and who were exposed to either Arabic or English only during the limited 4 to 6 years they studied in a foreign country. They are truly deficient in their language abilities. Those who have been sociable enough may come back with some sort of proficiency level, but the luster fades after a year or two in their home country. Their speech ends up hybrid and affected. If they cannot say an idea in Somali, because it is technical, they say it in Arabic or English depending on what language one received his/her education.

Unlike Somalis, when French students are exposed to English, they do not mix words in their speech because the two languages are equally developed. There, a Frenchman can at once find a handy French word for the translation of an English word. The trouble with Somalis is that their language is not as developed as English. Only those who had enough time to stay in an English speaking country to have sufficient immersion in its socio-cultural setting can express themselves effectively in English but not in Somali

There is nothing wrong learning other cultures. In fact, it is useful to do so at present because of the volume of information and the speed it is delivered. Considering the globally available communication systems, it is almost impractical to keep Somali language environment clean from other languages. As educators, it is our job to make sure that our children develop language skills in par with those of the developed world as early as possible. This cannot be done by teaching Arabic and English which have a low frequency exposure in Somali cultural environment. The best way to deal with this is to develop the Somali language to a university level . This has already been done to a good part of tertiary education , during the seventies and eighties .

In order to give our children the chance to develop their skills and talents to their potential , it makes sense to do what developed and some of the developing countries are doing. All countries, except black Africa have national languages as their official languages. That means the medium of instruction is the official language or languages in some countries. It is also worth nothing that generally all those countries teach English at an early stage to their children as a second language. Because of our Islamic heritage, in the teaching-learning process of our schools, Arabic fills that role as national choice. Perhaps, the best choice is to start teaching English as a Subject as early as 1st year Secondary.

DABAHUWN (Constrained)

Language is a conventional system of sounds that enables man to communicate among his group. His language abilities are the necessary tools to receive messages and express his feelings as he pleases. The role of language in educaion, therefore, is a primary one. And it can be looked at as a subject taught separately and as a medium of instruction. This paper deals specifically the Somali language at the present level of its development and how this affects education after 1972 when it was scripted. Occasionally comparison with English is made where contrast can make any argument vivid. The main points covered include: a) its nature as significant sounds arranged into meaningful words which are also arranged into one or more orders to give sentences that encode complete but different thoughts; and how, it is, as a system, felicitous enough for a group of people to communicate with one another and the various codes other than letters deviced to be used for special languages like braile; b) a child’s language mechanism: how well is it suited to encode - speaking and writing - and decode - listening and reading - language messages; c) as a medium, how important it is to label or name ideas, objects and actions that affect a Somali’s relationship with the real world, and how does it improve a child’s perceptual ability as he grows up to become a man, learning and workng, over the years; d) language as a reflection of man’s cultural background and personal behaviour - bilingual and a polyglot. (237)

Education is one of the primary factors essential for a nation to develop. Without it nothing works properly. The type of education given to children during their formative years, that is their growing- up years, becomes the basis of a nations development. Educationists at this stage always consider the physical , mental and emotional growth of the children under their care. If something goes wrong here, it is very difficult to correct it later. Therefore, they have to be very careful about the teaching-learning activities given to children while in school.

Proper diet and sufficient exercises help children to grow physically strong. Starting learning at an early age with appropriate teaching-learning experiences, children develop critical and creative mental abilities. Emotionally, they grow up with pleasant personalities when parents and teachers treat them with respect and proper counseling. The spiritual behavior of their parents, and teachers also play an important part of their morality. The cultural environment in which they are raised affects them as well.

About the age of 15 to 16 years, children mature physically, mentally and emotionally if the kind of education they receive is adequate and culturally acceptable. Upto this age it is essential that they receive their education in their mother tongue. UNICEF recognizes this as children’s inalienable right. It is Africa where this is not true. After the collapse of the post-colonial socio-economic apparatus, the time has come for new thinking in Africa and a second look to education.

At the primary 1 – 8 yrs , pupils receive basic education. That is the primary concepts of human knowledge is passed to them. At this stage, the most general ideas are taught. Which means that the first blanket that obstructs their perceptions (inner vision) is removed so that they can understand objects, ideas, and their relationships more clearly. At the secondary and university the 2nd and 3rd blankets are taken away. Microscopes and telescopes have opened new frontiers , so that students can see reality more extendedly beyond the visible world.

For instance, at the primary, pupils learn the flower, the fruit, the bark, and the leaf of a plant which can readily be seen, touched and tasted. At a later stage, they learn the uses and functions of these parts, so concepts like food, air, soil, photosynthesis, chlorophyll and seeds, to name a few, come into the picture. Still at a later stage concepts about the chemistry of the plant, like an element, an atom, a molecule, a reaction, formula etc. also crowd the picture.

In each stage concepts (ideas) are named and labeled for ownership. So a language as a means of communication is a powerful tool every person needs and which God (SWT) has given to him to use, particularly during teachinglearning process. Because of this, language plays a key role in education. It is more so when children are growing up. For them to develop useful and effective language skills to acquire education, it is necessary that they be assisted to receive education in the language they use at home and outside home. Giving them their education in other languages displaces them. Moreover, they will not be able to articulate their thoughts in a way that is convincing. There are two reasons why this so. Firstly, all languages are culturally bound. That is they communicate the culture of the people who speak them and there are no two languages that express the same culture. Secondly, There are no two languages that have developed in the same way to the extent that their grammar and use could be matched into one to one correspondence. Since Somali is one of the least developed languages, Somali children will always be at a disadvantage to receive their lessons in a foreign language. 

Siyad Barre’s Regime has made his mark, not only adopting Somali language as the state’s only official language , but the educators have made sure that Somali children get their inalienable right as other children to learn in their own language and at a comparable level of education . It is in the UNICEF’S charter that children everywhere have to have their Education in their own languages up to the ages of 15 or 16 years. If politicians take that right from their children, I believe that they do so unintentionally because it is contrary to their public mandate.

Developing Somali language to a tertiary level of education, that is using it at medium of instruction at the university level, helps learning other languages by translation, coining or creating new words for the new concepts learning-teaching processes generate. The Somali language will also have the opportunity to label ideas for ownership to match those of other languages. Most nations do; why not us.

There is almost always a pioneering nation that leads others in science and technology. All developed nations borrow from it. Asia does and its nations are developing fast. In fact, they almost all feed their people. And They are well ahead of Africa in science and technology. It is only Africa which is dependent on foreign aid, including education.

Why does Africa is a poor cow that is underfed with sawdust? Why is Somaliland also becoming a sitting duct for a few elitists who take all the nations wealth without thanks to pay for the pollutants. Polluting their cultural as well as the physical environment. When are those of us who have had the privilege, of receiving education at national and international costs are so keen to pay back our people scornfully with crippling idleness. I think most of us would like English as a medium at an early age, not because we want to help our brothers who are less fortunate, but because we want to be both greedy and idle, consuming everything doing nothing. We do not want to take the trouble to educate our fellow Somalis to take care of their lives. This means that the elitists in Somaliland prefer to have the nations cake without sharing the responsibility of its preparation.

Language as a medium cannot help beyond its level of development. A language is said to be developed when it can accommodate all the teaching-learning tasks in all levels of education as well as all other human activities its speakers engage themselves in. Most of its development depends upon how industrious and creative are its speakers. Of course, human emotions can soar into new heights pulling some of the less practical ideas along with it. Poets, story-tellers have long entertained their audience with owe-inspiring images shaped by words educated or not. Though , they have coined new words from the existing vocabulary formal education and the growth of science have outscored them. It is the scientific study of language and nature where language development is mostly essential. So if Somalis need to develop , they have to face reality more practically than the recitation of poetry.

Somaliland is now about to rethink the system of education it inherited from Somalia. And the task of the ministry of education is to establish a new curriculum that puts the new nation at a respectable position in the international community. This is not easy, of course, but the education system whose graduates could not save their former state from collapse has to get a second look. This second look has to lay the foundation for an education system that endures a despots ruinous policy-making decisions.

Language policy is one aspect policy-makers and educators have to come to terms with. Political vision can only be realized if attainable goals are set. Our language goals must be practical and beneficial to our own people rather than to the convenience of others to understand us.

Traditionally Somali pupils were exposed to four languages from intermediate onwards: Somali, Arabic and English/Italian . Now we have to deal with Somali, Arabic and English. There are three languages competing in our school system; Somali, Arabic and English. Somali is will be with them in a way similart to their shadow but it can evolve. Arabic has firmlly established itself as Somalis’ second language. In fact it is taught to children at pre school at the age of 4 to 6, while Somali is taught at school at the first grade. It is unlike that the majority of Somalis would prefer it to English because to is the symbol of our Islamic heritage. English is also a formidable candidate to be one of the subjects taught in our scools for two reasons. Firstlay, it is a powerful tool for inernational communication at this period in time and probably will be so in the years to come. Secondly, as a medium of insturcation, it is more effective even than national languages because its speakers are at the forefront in this age of technology. 

At the end of 4 years of university education, a Somali graduate from the national university was not able to communicate effectively and with ease in any one of the four languages. Sending him two to three years to Egypt, UK, or Italy could not make him any better to lead his nation. In fact, it complicated his lifestyle making it  less practical. Thus former graduates, though they out-numbered the politiciansin positions of authority, could not make any difference. After the devastation, the less educated is mush better off than post-graduate degree holders. It is most likely, that the collapse of the state could have been avoided if a good majority of the educated had all their education at home and in their own language. None of them would have behaved like a foreigner and a spectator in his own country. Unable to avert the tragedy that befell on his country and people.

Human experience and experimentation have shown that at an early age children’s learn very quickly and if a second language is exposed to them along with their mother tongue, they can handle both languages well specially when literacy of the foreign language is built upon the mastery of listening and speaking. Literacy on the mother tongue is always built upon mastering it orally. This usually happens when a child’s family is living in a foreign country, and his parents speak mother tongue in the home. A child in this environment is naturally exposed two languages, the mother tongue and the national language; picking the mother tongue from its home and the national language elsewhere. In this situation a child can grow bilingual.

A child’s language engulfs him like sea water engulfs a fish. If the water gets saturated with pollutants, the fish finds it difficult to extract oxygen to breathe. This affects its health. Similarly when foreign languages are exposed to children while they are living in their language environment during their formative years, the foreign languages serve as retardative agents to their critical and creative thinking. This, of course, makes a child’s speech defective and his ideas become strange. Foreign languages saturate his talk and an alien culture his behavior.

If a family comes to a foreign country either to settle or to work those children who are in their early formative years develop good second language skills because of the frequency they use the national language of their new country. This will not have a retardative effect on the child’s learning abilities. But the opposite is not true ******* no matter how young a child is. That is if the child’s exposure is of low frequency. A good example is Arabic and English exposed to Somaliland’s school children. The frequency of using Arabic is roughly less then 5% of the time though they learn it at koranic school 3 to 4 years of age. Similarly, our children is exposed to English only when they come to school and even if they learn in school as early as their 2nd year, as was the case during the British protectorate. We have practically seen that they do not at all develop proficiency level even when they graduate from secondary schools.

There is nothing wrong learning other cultures. In fact, it is useful to do so at present because of the volume of information and the speed it is delivered. Considering the communication systems, it is almost impractical to keep Somali language environment clean from other languages. As educators, it is our job to make sure that our children develop language skills in par with those of the developed world as early as possible. This cannot be done by teaching Arabic and English which have a low frequency exposure in Somali cultural environment. The best way to deal with this is to develop the Somali language to a university level . This has already been done to a good part of tertiary education , during the seventies and eighties .

Language development is linked to the development of sound education system. Education that is sound entails among others things ideas and skills that are useful and acceptable to the cultural environments of a country. Though peoples learn from each other, the educated should be selective in his/her cultural import. That is to adapt what ideas are acceptable and useful to one’s own culture. The cultural loads of foreign languages are enormous and it is difficult for a foreigner to pick up the shades of each word in its various ******context in his limited time of study. Total cultural immersion is essential for anyone to effectively communicate in a foreign language. It is equally difficult to separate words and expressions from the bits of culture they contain. If this is attempted, local images and concepts are substituted for the meanings of foreign words. This of course, has a confusing effect on the sense the words and expressions make and hence impairs communication.