We’re often being told about how vastly different Somali dialects are. And this, for a lot of us, is a source of humour. There’s the commonly told story of the southern man who went into a shop in Northern Somalia, and asked the shopkeeper for some “xalwo”, — a Somali sweet treat. Unbeknownst to him, Xalwo was the name of the shopkeeper’s wife. The sweet treat is not known as xalwo in the north, it was known as Xalwad. In the north, it is a woman’s name.
Confusion and hilarity ensue. This is a paraphrased version of that conversation:
S: have you got Xalwo?
N: why do you want her (it)?
S: don’t worry about why, can I have some?
N: What do you want with her(it)?
S: I will pay you. Don’t worry about payment. Get her (it) out.
N: where do you know Xalwo from?
S: I use to suck on her (it) in Mogadishu.
Now, the interesting thing here is that both “xalwo” and “xalwad” are essentially derived from the same Arabic origin. The -ad suffix represents the feminine definite article in Somali. And it would seem that the word for the sweet treat in the North of Somalia is always in the definite. In the South, it is hardly in the definite. In the north, you always say “the xalwo”. In the south, you say “a xalwo” unless referring to a specific piece of the sweet treat.
The linguistic difference here is ridiculously small. And it isn’t that both regions use separate lexical items for Xalwo, they use the same item (word). Only difference is the frequency in which the north uses the definite form, and the south uses the indefinite form. There is nothing in either forms of the word that violates the phonological rules of the language. The sole legitimacy and justification for using either words to describe sweet treats (xalwo) is derived from the people that use it.
And this is a common occurrence in Somali. And surprisingly, every single language on earth. A group arrives at a specific form of a word being pronounced in a specific way, and it becomes an extension of who they are. “This is how we say it”. But this is only possible if its surface form is distinguishable enough from the form used by other groups.
Fanaanad, funaanad and Sunaanad
Now, let’s turn to this word. Someone on Twitter asked me about the legitimacy of a number of pronunciations of this word. Fanaanad, funaanad, and sunaanad. They all mean “jumper”, “sweater”, or “T-shirt”. I have heard two of these words, but the last I have never seen in my life. And it got me thinking about why I haven’t seen it before.
For one, the difference between the first two is the first vowel (a/u). All the other syllables are the same. There’s no real phonological reason that explains this. These vowels are in free variation. They can, in this word, be pronounced in either ways. There’s no underlying productive rule that says something like “if you see a vowel between an /f/ and a /n/ choose either. Because we know this to not be the case in other examples. The vowel /u/ which occurs between a /c/ and /n/ in “cun” (eat) can never be pronounced as “can” (cheek). The middle vowel completely changed the meaning of that word.
But in this word, it seems that either is possible. And unlike the Xalwo example, they doesn’t seem to be along regional lines. Quite a good example of free variation is the way the word “economic” can be pronounced with the initial /e/ sound like the /e/ in “England” or the /e/ in “red”. Or the word “tissue” can be said with a /sh/ sound or a /s/ sound in the middle.
Now if we turn to the example where “fanaanad” was pronounced as “sunaanad”, we’ll find that it’s probably a little more complicated. One reason for this is because I can’t seem to find a rule or explanation for why an /f/ sound should be produced as a /s/ sound and vice versa. Why? They’re not allphones. As in, /f/ and /s/ aren’t different realisations of the same underlying sound.
To show this we can try and find a minimal pair. An example of a minimal pair for these two sounds are the the words “fac” and the word “sac”. They mean different things. The only difference between these two is that one begins with /f/ and the other /s/. If they were allphones (essentially the same underlying sound), then we shouldn’t be able to find words that are only different in the places they appear AND have a different meaning.
My point is, I can’t find a rule for why these two sounds should replace each other. I suspect that this is because sunaanad is perhaps derived from the term fanaanad, or that it has come about as the result of a mispronunciation. I say this because this particular rendition of the word is not common at all. Because if you think about it, children learn how to pronounce things from the data they interact with. If the children aren’t interacting with a pattern that describes /f/ being replaced with /s/, then the only other explanation of this word being described this way is if “sunaanad” is a cognate, or a mispronounced form at the very least. In this sense, sunaanad is analogous to how “ask” and “aks” are related. They’re pronounced different, but they have the same origin.
- For those of you who say sunaanad though, can you please find out who else in your family says it? And if they know anyone else who says!
- For other Somali speakers, can you think of examples where the sound /f/ is replaced by the sound /s/? And if so, where! @ me.
