Somali language is pretty interesting. It does a lot of things efficiently and some things not so efficiently. I saw an article a few years ago about why Somali was the most difficult language in the world to learn. I didn’t buy it then, I don’t buy it now. But, it wasn’t completely wrong. I mean, Somali is an agglutinative language that has two genders, uses tones for contrast, reduplication, has lots of stress alteration, suffixes on basically anything that walks, four cases and oh, a pretty complex focus system.
Allow me to explain what I mean by taking you on a journey into Somali nouns and show you why they’re a nightmare.
Definite Article and others
Let’s start with the most basic thing. How do we make a noun definite in English? We just put “the” in front of it and we’re done. How do we say “that”? How do you say “that” but for a thing that we have already referred to?
In Somali, you have to add the determinants to the back of the noun. It’s not always the same ending. It changes sometimes. Here’s a brief look at the situ.
The → “-ga”, “-ka”, “-ta”, “-a”, “-aha” and other rules that govern all segments. Things like “ul” (means stick) becomes “usha”.
This → “-kan”, “tan”, “han”.
The one I have referred to already → “-kii”, “-tii”, “-hii”
That → “kaas”, “-taas”, “haas”, “kaas”
Four Cases that feel like twenty
Cases, for those that don’t know, are grammatical markers we use on nouns/adjectives to make it easier to understand what the grammatical role they play in the sentence. Let’s look at the following example:
bob played football
I might put a specific marker on football to show that it is the thing the action got done to. I might also put a specific marker on bob to show who did the action.
Somali has four cases. Absolutive, genitive, nominative and vocative. Vocative is pretty straightforward though. It’s the case you use for when you’re addressing someone. Eg; “Axmad-ow”. The “ow”, “yahow” are used for masculine nouns and “(a)ay”, “yahay” for feminine.
Absolutive is the “default” case. So, when the noun is a focused subject or an object or just chilling on its own. I don’t really want to go into focus now, but it’s to do with a bit of linguistics called information structure. Somali uses a lot of focus markers. If you have wondered why we use words like “buu”, “wuxuu” and “ayaa” in the most random ways, now you know why. They’re focus particles(kinda!).
An object is the thing the action is being done to. So, in the example above, football is the object and would therefore take the absolutive case in Somali. Depending on the noun though and its internal phonological structure, the absolutive case would look different. Here is a table of showing you exactly how these would manifest in the absolutive and genetive cases .
The genitive case is a bit easier to understand. It appears with genitive constructions. So, like “bob’s house” or “women’s clothing”. The second word (noun) in the construction takes the genitive case.
“Naag” means woman. “Dhar naageed” means “women’s clothing”. The word woman now has this inflection because of the role it plays in the genitive construction. Other endings are “ood”, “aad”. For some reasons, this case seems to be way more common with feminine nouns. Never appears with definite nouns.
Now, before you say, ah, it’s calm. It’s not. Because cases can override each other lol. For instance, if a genitive construction is part of an unfocused subject, then the nominative case needs to be taken and the genitive abandoned.
“Guriga macalink-u waa guri wayn”
“the house of the teacher is a big house”
Even though teacher and house are part of a genitive construction and should therefore take the genitive case, you ignore all of that because of the focus situation.
The nominative case is used for non-focused subjects. Suffixes are “u”, “i”, “a”. In the absolutive case, a girl is gabadh. But if it was in the nominative in a sentence, it would take the “i” vowel. So, with every noun you learn, you gotta be ready with all the different possible cases, and the all the possible inflections that might go on them.
Gender but also change gender
Somali nouns have two genders. Masculine and feminine. But the categories are pretty fluid because words change their gender in the plural. In fact, I read one paper that basically said most Somali nouns change their gender in the plural. There is absolutely no reason for this. Somali, why you being extra? Here is some data to feast your eyes on:
Pluralization is a bastard
In English, we add the letter “s” to the word, and bam, we’re done. With Somali, you have to work a bit harder. Here are some examples:
Tooth: ilig → ilko
Head: mádax → madáx
Door: ilbaab → ilbaabbo
Stick: ul → ulal
Village: tuulo → tuulooyin
According to Saeed, there are seven declension classes. I’m guessing there’s definitely more though because these groups seem pretty broad. Also, this data is built around a specific region of Somalia, and doesn’t speak to alternative pluralisation habits of other regions. Read a paper a while back that discussed in depth how pluralisation is way more fluid and people just make the plurals are they go.
“Oo” and its friends
This maybe isn’t just about nouns, but the “oo” thing appears in a lot of different places. And I don’t really think I have ever known how to use them other than that they “sound natural” to me. It seems to be related somewhat to the recursivity that all languages are capable (Somali obviously not an exception). But please, take a walk with me while we look at this bloody weird particle.
When you describe a noun using two adjectives, you must use one of two particles “oo” “ee”. The same is also true for when you want to use an adjective to describe a genitive construction.
Noun with a single adjective: A big man → nin wayn
Noun with two adjectives: A big beautiful man → nin wayn oo qurux-badan
Genitive construction with one adjective: Ciyaar soomaaliyeed oo fiican → a good somali dance. Note that we use the genitive case on Soomaliyeed and we used the oo particle.
Genitive construction with two adjectives: Ciyaar soomaaliyeed oo cusub oo fiican.
But then weirdly, the same particle “oo”/”ee” particles seemed to be used for doing anything and everything that is remotely related to nouns. I’m talking relative clauses, stringing a genitive construction of more than two members, questions. Here is more data.
“Gurigii oo joogi jiray axmad”
“Gurigii Cabdi oo quruxda ahaa”
“Waxaan jeclaan lahaa inaan arko oo aan la hadlo”
“Oo ma reer Burco baa eeheed”
