The Somali Latin alphabet is an official

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

in the Federal Republic of Somalia and its constituent Federal Member States. It was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali, including

Musa Haji Ismail Galal Musa Haji Ismail Galal (, ) (1917–1980) was a Somali people, Somali writer, scholar, linguist, historian and polymath. He is notable for playing a key role in the development of Somali Latin alphabet and the creation of Galaal script, a co ...

, B. W. Andrzejewski and Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the

Somali language Somali is an Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic languages, Cushitic branch, primarily spoken by the Somalis, Somali people, native to Greater Somalia. It is an official language in Somalia, Somaliland, and Ethio ...

, and is based on the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

. The Somali Latin

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet with the exception of ''p'', ''v'' and ''z''. There are no

diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

or other special characters, although it includes three consonant digraphs: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked and a word-initial

glottal stop The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...

is also not shown.H.I. Galaal, pp. 4-11 Capital letters are used for names and at the beginning of a sentence.

Form

The Somali Latin alphabet is largely

phonemic A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

, with

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

having a one-to-one correspondence between

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

s and

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s. Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel. However, the distinction between tense and lax vowels is not represented.

Diphthongs A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

are represented using Y or W as the second element (AY, AW, EY, OY and OW) and long diphthongs are shown with the first vowel doubled. As there is no central regulation of the language, there is some variation in orthography, the endings -ay and -ey being particularly interchangeable. The Somali Latin alphabet, which follows an

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

-based order, is seen in the following table. The letters' names (with their

equivalents) are spelt out in the following table. The Somali alphabet lacks equivalents of the Arabic letters thāʼ (), dhal (), zāy (), ṣād (), ḍād (), ṭāʾ (), ẓāʾ (), and ghayn (). However, when writing in Wadaad's Script, these letters are retained for writing of Arabic loanwords. The following elements of the Somali alphabet either are not IPA symbols in their lower case versions, or else have values divergent from IPA symbols: *J – *X – *KH – *SH – *DH – *C – *W – or the second element in a diphthong *Y – or the second element in a diphthong *A – or *E – or *I – or *O – or *U – or

Notes

References

*{{cite book , last = H.I. Galaal , first = Musa , title = Hikmaad Soomaali , publisher = Oxford University Press , year = 1956 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=IWNRcgAACAAJ

External links

Osmanya, Borama, Wadaad's writing and the Somali language
Latin alphabets Writing systems of Africa Somali orthography

Form

See also

Notes

References

External links