Ashraf Dialect
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Ashraf () is a speech variety of Somali spoken in the Marka district of the
Lower Shebelle Lower Shabelle (, , , ) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southern Somalia. Geography Lower Shabelle is bordered by the regions of Banaadir, Middle Shabelle (Shabeellaha Dhexe), Hiran, Bay, Middle Jubba (Jubbada Dhexe) and by the ...
region and
Banaadir Banaadir (, , ) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southeastern Somalia. It covers the same area as the city of Mogadishu, which serves as the capital. It is the only region in the country not belonging to any of the six states. It is b ...
region of southern
Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...
.


Classification

According to Blench (2006) there are two sub-dialects: Shingaani and
Lower Shebelle Lower Shabelle (, , , ) is an administrative region ('' gobol'') in southern Somalia. Geography Lower Shabelle is bordered by the regions of Banaadir, Middle Shabelle (Shabeellaha Dhexe), Hiran, Bay, Middle Jubba (Jubbada Dhexe) and by the ...
. As noted in recent work on the speech variety, Green & Jones (2016):
"''What we hope to have illustrated in this talk is that while Marka (Af Ashraaf) may be similar in certain ways to both Northern Somali and Maay, it nonetheless boasts a number of unique properties, particularly in its morphology, that we believe merit its treatment not as a Somali or Maay dialect, but as a language variety of its own''"
A similar level of skepticism towards the labelling of other Omo-Tana languages in Somalia (such as Maay, Dabarre, Jiddu) is expressed in Tosco (2012): The Unity and Diversity of Somali Dialectal Variants. In: Nathan Oyori Ogechi, Jane A. Ngala Oduor and Peter Iribemwangi (eds.), The Harmonization and Standardization of Kenyan Languages. Orthography and other aspects. Cape Town: The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS): 2012: 263-280
''"It is well-known that the term 'dialects' may refer to different 'things'. Within Somalia, it is safe to say that all the Somali dialects are 'dialects' from a sociolinguistic point of view, that is, in terms of their social role, their general absence in written media, and the speakers' acceptance of Northern-Central Somali as a common medium. From a strictly linguistic point of view, however, mutual comprehension should be assessed and dialects labelled accordingly (as mutually understandable varieties of a language). No classification so far does that."''


Phonology

The phonological inventory of Ashraaf is as follows:


See also

*
Northern Somali Northern Somali (, alternatively known as ''Maxaa Tiri'' or ''Jabarti'') is a dialect of the Somali language and forms the basis for Standard Somali. It is spoken by more than 70% of the entire Somali population, with its speech area stretching f ...
*
Benadiri Somali Benadiri Somali, also referred to as "Coastal Somali" (), is a dialect of the Somali language. It is primarily spoken by the Benadiri people, who inhabit the southern Banaadir coast of Somalia and into Kenya. Overview Benadiri Somali is spoken o ...


References


Further reading

* Christopher R. Green & Evan Jones. 2019. Notes on the morphology of Marka (AfAshraaf). In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 119–133. Berlin: Language Science Press. * Ajello, Roberto. 1984. Il focus nell'idioma degli Ashraaf di Shingaani. In Puglielli, Annarita (ed.), Aspetti morfologici, lessicali e della focalizzazione, 133-146. Roma: Dipartimento per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Italia). {{Somali language Omo–Tana languages