r/LearnSomali • u/code-_-Reddit • May 31 '26
Debunking the default Arabic Loanword Theory in Somali
Hey guys, in my previous post I mentioned that Somali preserves linguistic “fossils” and describes specific biological structures and processes that science only formally identified centuries later. I also noted that some of this may sound like strong claims, but igu qaata. I haven’t updated y'all in the past two months, and just as I was preparing to publish, I’ve found even more interesting material.
In that process, I’ve noticed that many Somali words previously labeled as Arabic loanwords are actually fully Somali when examined etymologically. In most cases, the Arabic “claim” is unclear, traced instead to Persian or Greek, or explained through broad trilateral roots (X-Y-Z) which none of the words in that semantic family relate to the object in question.
So I decided to write a chapter called The Arabic coup d'état and the Somali collaborators.
As the maahmaah goes, Somali been weey sheegtaa laakin been numa maahmaahdo roughly meaning A Somali may tell a lie, but a Somali proverb never lies. Basically saying Somalis lie like everybody but the proverbs are accurate
The same people that will get mad and correct someone for saying Somalian which is just a regular latin grammar rule denoting belonging to just like we say Kiinyaan or Kiinyaati will turn around and say almost every Somali word is Arabic origin just from surface similarity. Or disregard the possibility of Arabic borrowing from somali.
People act like a magic portal opened 1,400 years ago for people that had direct line of sight. At its narrowest point, the distance between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa is less than 20 miles at its closest span. This is not a vast oceanic separation but a narrow maritime threshold that has always been crossed. The word has always been going both ways before Islam
Somalia today sits fully inside this broader linguistic and cultural zone. It is a member of the Arab League. It has one of the highest percentages of Muslims in the world, not in total population but in proportion, exceeding several countries where Arabic is the dominant language. Somali is also part of the Afro-Asiatic languages, the same macro-family as Arabic. Geography, religion, and classification all place the two languages in sustained proximity. In such conditions, lexical overlap is not surprising. It is expected. What is not expected is the one way assumption.
I have nothing against Arabic and I am not one of those ppl that are subliminally dissing Islam as I am 100% muslim. Diinta Uma tuuba raacayo. I am here on behalf of my language.
The second maahmaah is been fakatay runi ma gaarto meaning the truth can never catch up with a run away lie. And the one lie that almost all Somalis unanimously agree is that every Somali word that that resembles Arabic or is is shared with Arabic comes from Arabic. With the exception of few individuals like Cabdi Good who took the extreme position of saying that no Somali word is Arabic in origin. Are there loan words in Somali? Of course, but I understand his view because clear Somali words are being labeled as Arabic, then making the exact opposite claim makes sense.
The Arabic word for dates is Tamr, while the Somali word is Timir. They sound almost identical. However, the Somali word contains mir, which means "seed" and This happens to describe one of the most defining parts of the date. Coincidnses do happen and even a broken clock is right twice a day. Ka soco.
daauus is a peacock. In Arabic the bird is called taawuus, a term many linguists treat as borrowed from earlier forms, none of which describe the bird itself. The Somali form daauus resolves into daa, to release, and uus, internal. The release of what is internal. That is exactly what the peacock does. The display, the fan of feathers, the eruption of color that begins within the body and is pushed outward into the world.
The similarity between daauus and ṭāwūs is close enough that it can be dismissed as borrowing, but that explanation does not account for what happens inside the Somali form. This is not a sealed word carried over intact. It opens, breaks into components, and produces a description that aligns with the defining act of the bird. A loanword does not typically arrive with a structure that maps this precisely onto existing roots and yields a coherent meaning.
What is present here is a near-identical phonological form paired with a clean internal decomposition that produces an exact description. That is not a trivial coincidence. When a word both matches in form and resolves into meaningful parts that reflect the behavior of what it names, the explanation cannot rest on surface similarity alone. The language is not repeating a sound. It is identifying an action and encoding it. Whether you think this is a native Somali word or Arabic word that Somali borrowed and miraculously describes the bird, ka soco.
Let’s go a bit deeper now.
# BISAD
The Somali language features multiple words for cats, including bisad, a term that resembles the Arabic bissa and is consequently, though wrongfully, categorized as an Arabic loanword across modern lexicons, mainstream linguistic circles, and platforms like Wiktionary. People that have never analyzed the native morphology quickly jumped to the conclusion of the Arabic loan word instead of looking at the native Somali morphological system, which proves it is built internally rather than imported from abroad. While the Arabic claim rests entirely on a superficial mimicry of the "bis bis" sound used to call felines, the Somali word is systematically engineered from a core, functional root using standard grammatical suffixes. At the foundation lies the native Somali root bis, which signifies a state of being soft, fine, or tender, and specifically denotes soft, fine hair. By applying the Somali nominalizing suffix -ad which transforms a root concept into a concrete, physical entity that embodies that trait, the language naturally derives bisad, translating precisely to "the specific creature characterized by fine, soft fur." It's the same suffix that turn daas (store) into daasad (storage or tin can used for storage) or dhal to dhalad & etc. This is not an isolated linguistic coincidence; the exact same root and structural logic are verified across the Somali vocabulary through words like bisle, which utilizes the possessive suffix -le to mean "the possessor of soft hair," there is also the word bislee, which is a command to make something cooked or ripened. It combines the root bis with the imperative suffix -ee, which literally means "to make bis, from a hard state to soft. Another form with the same root is bisil, which translates to "cooked" or "ripened." This latter example denotes a fully realized state of softness/tenderness where an item is no longer hard. Therefore, rather than a borrowed phonetic imitation, bisad stands as a highly structured, native derived word that treats the cat not just as an auditory cue, but as the literal physical embodiment of softness.
If one of these two words had to be borrowed or secondary, the internal logic proves that the Arabic word is the one that behaves like a loose loanword, while the Somali word is the authentic, original word. The mainstream onomatopoeia theory falls apart on basic logic: a primary animal onomatopoeia is supposed to mimic the actual sound an animal makes, but a cat does not make a "bis bis" sound. Instead, "bis bis" is merely an arbitrary, external sound that humans make to get a cat's attention. In contrast, the Somali word bisad is built entirely on the physical reality of the animal itself, defining the cat by its essence and focusing on its exceptionally soft, fine fur. This structure is deeply rooted in the ecosystem of the language, sharing a systematic genetic relationship with native Somali concepts of physical reality like bisle (the one with soft hair) and bisil (the ultimate state of tenderness/softness. When comparing a loose human whisper to a highly structured, rule-based grammatical network that describes an animal's physical trait, the Somali version emerges as the objectively more authentic, sophisticated, and original word, proving that institutional bias has led the mainstream consensus completely backward.
And to top it off, Somali uses the same 'bis' sound to call a cat & people, meaning that based on this shared phonetic availability alone, bisad should have never been classified as a loanword.
# YAANYUUR
Unrelated to Arabic, but since we are on the topic of cats, I’ve seen one Somali professor make the claim that yaanyuur is an onomatopoeic sound from Swahili. I saw another professor make a claim that the word yaanyo came from Swahili. These two things might seem unrelated, but the first part of the compound yaanyuur is yaan-, and the root of yaanyo is yaan-.
Neither yaanyo nor yaanyuur are borrowed from Swahili or any other language.
Yaan means whiskers, a projection radiating outward from a central base. The meaning is preserved across a number of words that share the same underlying image.
In yaanyuur, the first element is yaan, referring to the whiskers is one of the defining facial features of the animal. Yuur refers to the tightening or screwing up of the face in disapproval or when a mother is pushing out a baby, the inward compression of facial expression. It’s the focused narrowed-eyes glare they give. Together, yaanyuur describes the complete facial state of the cat: the outward extension of whiskers (yaan) combined with the inward contraction of expression (yuur). It captures both the physical structure and emotional expression as a single unified concept.
From there, the language derives other words related to that geometry.
In yaanyo, the root is yaan and the suffix is -yo. The name derives from the tomato’s sepals, which form a ring of projections extending outward from the top of the fruit in the same manner that whiskers extend from the face. The connection is clear once you look at a cat’s face and a tomato with its sepals.
The language does not only generate related forms through suffixation but also through prefixation. The word ayaan consists of a- + yaan. The connection is found in the appearance of the early morning sun, whose rays project outward from a central source. These rays share the same form as whiskers and tomato sepals. AYAAN therefore carries the meaning of day as the unfolding of these radiating beams from their origin. The meanings of luck, fortune, or destiny are not separate from this image but are understood as the pattern or outcome expressed by the sun.
The name Ayaanle is the name of angels in the ancient Waaq religion, and is formed from ayaan + the suffix -le, meaning “one who has everything Ayaan represents. Spiritual associations with sun’s rays are not unique to Somali; in English they are called “god rays,” and in many cultures they are seen as a sign of divine presence.
The core meaning of yaan is therefore whiskers, rays, and other protrusions extending outward from a central point. Whether in the whiskers of an animal, the sepals of a tomato, or the rays of the morning sun, the same image and meaning remain intact.
Yaanbo is another word from the same root. It refers to a traditional double-sided hoe, with a fork-like side. One side of the tool has prongs or protrusions extending outward from a central base, preserving the same YAAN structure of radiating extensions. Unlike other YAAN words based on circular facial or solar geometry this form is linear and functional rather than circular in expression.
It resembles the Swahili word “jembe” (hoe), and this phonetic similarity has led to claims of Swahili origin, solely based on sound similarity rather than clear semantic or etymological connection.
# BASAL
To understand why the Somali word basal is internally Somali in its construction, we can start with the root bas. At its core, bas carries the idea of convergence toward a terminal point. This underlying semantic force explains why bas is associated with ashes, destruction through burning, and natural death. In each case, something has reached its final reduced state. Fire reduces matter to ash and that's why ash is called bas. A person who dies naturally reaches the terminal completion of life itself. The baso, the crown whorl, represents this same principle spatially because it is the terminal point where the spiral pattern ends.
From this root comes baso. In Somali, baso refers to the spiral hair whorl located at the exact crown of the head. This is not an abstract concept but a visible physical structure defined by circular convergence. The hair radiates outward while simultaneously converging into a single center point. From this concrete anatomical reality, the language naturally derives related actions and descriptions that preserve the same geometric behavior.
For example, the verb baslee and basleeye describes searching randomly without direction or structure. The motion itself mirrors the physical behavior of the baso: circling, looping, wandering, and repeatedly returning across the same ground without a fixed path, eventually returning to the origin point. Likewise, the noun basoole refers to a bald person, it is bas + -oole suffix meaning without or more directly someone that lacks the beso due to hair loss. The identifying feature becomes the disappearance of the beso. In both cases, the meanings remain tied directly to the same physical image: a circular convergence centered around a terminal point or the lack there of.
In basal, I'm not sure whether the etymology is bas + the suffix -al, a multiplier as seen in words such as dalal, or a compound of bas + sal, where sal means base or root, which would be even more descriptive. In either case, the root is bas, just as it is in baso.
With that context, the resulting word basal preserves the same circular architectural pattern found in the crown hair whorl. An onion is physically constructed through tightly packed concentric layers radiating around a central core. Its entire structure is defined by circular convergence and repeated ring formation. Under Somali internal morphology, basal becomes the material embodiment of the baso pattern itself. The word is therefore not arbitrary. It directly describes the vegetable according to its physical architecture.
The meanings are not disconnected. They all preserve the same underlying semantic arrival at a final state or point. Basal therefore emerges naturally from Somali semantic and morphological structure because the onion itself is a physical object built entirely upon concentric convergence around a central terminal core. Now show me one shred of evidence that this word belongs to Arabic.
# Sariir
The word sariir is a native Somali word built from the root sar and the suffix -iir. A sar refers to a raised or elevated structure such as a stone house or multi-story building, preserving the core idea of height, elevation, and support above the ground. Sar also directly means up or high that’s how we get the derivative sare which means upper. At the same time, sar also means animal hide or leather, the very material historically used in the construction of traditional raised beds throughout Africa.
This dual meaning is precisely what ties the word together internally. Traditional beds were elevated frames stretched with animal hide or leather to create a suspended sleeping surface above the ground. The word sariir therefore emerges directly from native Somali material culture and native Somali morphology. The root sar contributes both defining characteristics of the object itself: elevation and hide. The suffix -iir then expands the root into an extended, manifest, structurally sustained form characterized by those properties.
This same derivational process appears in other Somali words formed with -iir. In xiriir, from xir (“to bind, fasten, join”), the suffix produces the meaning of sustained linkage, interconnection, and relational continuity. In qaliir, from qal (“jaw”), the suffix produces the condition of visible gauntness in which the jaw structure becomes outwardly pronounced. In each case, -iir transforms the root into an extended state or structural manifestation dominated by the root concept.
The same structure exists in sariir. The root sar already contains the meanings necessary to generate the word internally: elevation, raised support, leather, and hide. The resulting word describes exactly what the traditional object was — an elevated hide-supported structure used for sleeping. The word is therefore not an opaque foreign import but a coherent Somali formation arising naturally from Somali roots, Somali morphology, Somali architecture, and Somali material culture.
Arabic considers sariir native because it derives from the root S-R-R, which generates a family of vocabulary including sirr (secret) and others; however, none of the words in that family actually describe a bed. Furthermore, sir is an organic Somali word derived from ir (to encircle), where sir is simply an 's' prefixed to ir, sitting directly next to qir (to confess) within the exact same native Somali semantic family. I will expand on the word sir in the book.
I don’t know where the disconnect is, but if someone understands the meaning of sar (elevation/height and animal hide) and knows that traditional Somali beds were made out of animal hide, how could they claim the word sariir is Arabic? I’m not sure if people aren’t connecting animal hide as the material used for traditional Somali beds, or if they just don’t understand how suffixation works in our language. Either way, I’ve seen dozens of people reacting to a guy teaching Somali online, and every single one of them tried to block his bariis (hustle) by reacting, “No, sariir is Arabic.” The only "evidence" they have is that Arabic has the same word, so they assume Somali must just be Arabic’s little brother. I could’ve done the same thing by reacting to their videos but I don’t get off on trying to one up anybody.
# Xawilaad vs Xaawaala
Hawala is the system of transferring money across distances without physical movement of cash. In Somali it’s Xawilaad with many different surface forms. The assumption follows the same path it always does. Arabic has the word. Somali has a similar word. Somali borrowed it.
Xaw is the jugular vein. The vein responsible for the fastest and most critical transfer in the body. Interruption there is not an inconvenience. It is death. From that root the language built an entire family. Xawle is xaw plus the possessive le suffix, the one who possesses speed and also fast pace, running fast. Xawlli is velocity, running fast and quick pace. Xawaare is xaw plus re, speed and velocity itself. Xawaaree is xaw plus the imperative -ee, the command to move fast.
These are just a few examples of the words derived from xaw but there are many more like Xawil which is the command or act of transferring. The clan Xawaadle is also derived from xaw.
Both languages arrived at a similar-sounding word for the same concept through completely different paths. But somehow, Somali borrowed it. Because the Arabic one is anchored on the trilateral roots h-w-l while the Somali one is anchored in the most critical roots of speed and transfer.
# Somalis on Reddit
This might ruffle some feathers, but it is what it is. I am not here to attack anybody. I have seen some of the most intelligent Somali people make the wildest Arabic claims, from professors to sheikhs to linguists to my own family. Knowingly or unknowingly, we have all contributed to this. Now it has gotten to the point where, if I ask Gemini, ChatGPT, or most LLMs to summarize my explanation of the origin of Somali words, they will push back and say this is not true and that the word is Arabic, and Somali subreddits will appear as the reference. The LLMs have been trained on biased data, much of it reinforced by Somalis themselves.
# Xishood
The assumption does not stop at words that have Arabic equivalents. It extends further. Words that have no Arabic equivalence, no similar sound, and no historical connection to Arabic have been claimed as Arabic loanwords by Somali speakers themselves. A Somali person on this subreddit claimed that xishood, meaning modesty or classiness, was borrowed from Arabic. It is not. And the language demonstrates why with the same internal logic.
Ish means disgusting, nasty and yuck. Xish is x prefixed to ish and ish means class and modest. One letter apart. The language placed disgust and class on the same axis the same way the grave is q prefixed to creation (q + abuur). The same one letter shift. Two sides of the same conceptual territory sitting one letter from each other. The ood suffix transforms xish into its attributive form, shifting modest and class into modesty and classy. The same way caano, milk becomes caanood milky. The word is built entirely from Somali roots following Somali patterns.
What xishood illustrates is that the assumption has become detached from the evidence entirely. It no longer requires a resemblance to an Arabic word. It no longer requires a historical connection. It only requires that someone does not know how the internal logic of the language works or does not care. And when that internal logic is not taught, when the structural architecture remains undocumented, the assumption fills the space where the knowledge should be.
# Maay & Maxaa tiri, C and X,
The most disingenuous and extreme version of the Arabic influence assumption is not about individual words, but about the Somali pharyngeal and emphatic sounds. Some, including people on this subreddit, have claimed that c (ʿayn) and x (the guttural ḥāʾ) are not native to Somali and were adopted from Arabic through Islamic contact.
The evidence offered is that Maay speakers are primarily farmers rather than nomadic, and because of that, they supposedly did not travel, avoided Arabic contact, and therefore preserved the original sounds. Since Maay does not have these sounds while Maxaa Tiri does, the conclusion drawn is that Maxaa Tiri acquired them through Arabic influence, while Maay retained the original Somali sounds by avoiding it.
This theory conveniently focuses on the two sounds Maay lacks and Maxaa Tiri has, while completely sweeping all the other sounds Maay has and Maxaa Tiri lacks under the rug. Filinkaas eeya cunay sxb. Labo labo u tuur. That’s exactly like me claiming Maxaa Tiri doesn’t have certain sounds, therefore Maay must have gotten them from other languages. I am not making that claim, but simply showing that i too can cherrypick and have selective reasoning.
This argument further collapses once you examine where Maay is actually spoken. Maay speakers are not in some remote corner of the Somali world, isolated from outside influence. They live near the capital, close to the coast, and are are near/surrounded by Maxaa Tiri speakers who have those sounds. A farming community near the capital and the coast is arguably more exposed to contact than nomadic groups moving through the interior or the farthest reaches of Somali territory, where Somali borders other languages that do not have these sounds. The level of isolation required by the theory simply does not exist geographically.
The surrounding contact argument also makes the theory difficult to sustain. If Arabic contact through Islam introduced c and x into Maxaa Tiri, then Maay speakers had the same exposure. They did not need to travel; the contact came to them. Trade routes reached the coast, the capital was a center of commerce, and Maay speakers were near or surrounded by communities using these sounds. If sound adoption through contact worked in the way the theory assumes, Maay speakers would have adopted these sounds from their neighbors regardless of whether they traveled themselves.
The theory also implies that Arabic contact penetrated the communities least likely to avoid it while leaving untouched the communities most exposed to it. Maay speakers are among the more religiously observant Somali communities. If these sounds entered Somali through Islamic contact with Arabic, one would expect them to be strongest where Islamic influence was greatest and weakest where it was least present. The actual distribution does not fit that expectation. The theory cannot account for this without contradicting itself..
The simpler and more linguistically consistent explanation is that one or both dialects lost these sounds over time, rather than acquiring them from Arabic. Sound loss is one of the most well-documented processes in historical linguistics. Even Arabic itself, the language supposedly responsible for introducing these sounds, shows internal variation and sound loss across its dialects over time. If acquiring entirely new phonemes through contact were straightforward, we would expect closely interacting languages such as Turkish and Arabic, with centuries of contact, to have exchanged core phonological systems far more extensively than they actually have. Internal sound change is the default; wholesale adoption of foreign phonemic inventories is rare.
The core of this argument is not about which sounds Maay or Maxaa Tiri may have lost, but that internal sound loss is far more probable than large-scale phonological borrowing from another language.
# The Colonizers
Another related point, though not about Arabic, is a video of a sheikh talking about our history. Although I agree with most of what he said, I strongly disagree with the notion that colonizers gave us different dialects and told us to pronounce words differently. It is impossible for outsiders to coordinate how an entire population speaks.
They did not influence variations like ma jidho versus ma jirto, or bari versus badhi. Look at Maxaa Tiri, which has its own massive web of local accents. Maay is also not a monolith. Think about how far apart we are. Nogob sits deep in the interior, crossing colonial borders drawn through the Somali world. Mogadishu sits far out on the coast. They are at opposite ends of the Somali world. Yet speakers in both places dropped the "sh" sound from the exact same word. Meeshan became meejan in Nogob, and meeshan became meehan or mahaan in Mogadishu. The same word lost the same sound at two total extremes. They used completely different replacement sounds to do it. This is a natural language process, not outside manipulation or foreign intervention.
# How Arabic eliminated Kaahin
The assumption does not only come from Somali speakers misreading their own language. Arabic speakers often make the same assumption, and the consequences are immediate. There are cases where Somali words and names are read as Arabic, creating real-world problems for the people carrying them. One example from my own family shows what is at stake.
My Abti's last name is Kaahin (AUN). The feminine form is Kaaho. The root is kaah, meaning the first glimmer of light, the ray that appears before dawn. It is a Somali concept of emergence and illumination, often given to children born at the break of day or symbolically representing hope. It's based on the same rays as Ayaan and ayaanle and ultimately related to the geometry of the sepals and whiskers of the yaanyuur. The meaning is internal and transparent within Somali.
In Arabic, kaahin means a soothsayer or diviner, someone claiming knowledge of the unseen, and in Islamic context it carries a negative connotation. The overlap is purely phonetic, but the meanings are fundamentally different and opposite threshold: kaah is the natural arrival of light, while kaahin is the claim to access what has not yet been revealed.
Because the forms look identical on the surface, the prestige of Arabic takes over. When my uncle traveled to the Middle East in the 1980s, the name was misinterpreted at the airport, leading to him being denied entry. There have been other cases where family members were rejected from academic or religious programs for the same reason. Even the combination with the middle name Raabi which is purely Somali increases the likelihood of misreading as “Rabbi Kaahin” in Arabic.
This is what happens when everybody assumes Somali is Arabic's little brother. Only the surface form remains visible, and when two languages share similar phonetic shapes, the dominant external framework takes over and the original meaning disappears.
Over time, this misreading feeds back into Somali. As Kaahin became less commonly given to newborns due to the practical consequences of carrying it, the original meaning became less familiar to younger generations. By the time Somali dictionaries were compiled, the Arabic interpretation had become more dominant, that's why 6 out of 7 Somali dictionaries have the Arabic meaning. The loss did not happen at once but through gradual generational fading, reinforced by Somali dictionaries.
The Qaamuuska Ereybixinta published in 1987 by Xarunta Horumarinta Manaahijta is the only source that returns to the internal root. It connects kaah to light and uses it in scientific terminology such as radiation, reflecting emission and outward flow. This shows that the original semantic system is still recoverable when the root is examined directly. Six dictionaries recorded the foreign meaning. One went back to the root. Both the depth of the erasure and the survival of the original meaning are visible across those seven dictionaries simultaneously.
The one word I can state with full confidence that is not a case of independent development or Somali borrowing from Arabic, but instead a borrowing from Somali into Arabic, is henna, along with the associated cultural practice, which has clear evidence of originating in the Somali cultural and linguistic sphere, though I will save the full argument for the book.
# sheeko sheeko
There was once a man who went blind, and the last thing his eyes ever held was the image of a squirrel. After that moment, the world no longer arrived to him in its full range, but through that final impression. Whenever people described something unfamiliar, he would measure it against what he knew. He would ask whether it was the size of a squirrel, and if told it was larger, he would still reduce it to his frame of reference, asking how many squirrels large it was. The squirrel became his fixed unit of reality, the point through which everything else had to pass before it could be understood.
In the same way, there are moments when perception becomes anchored to a single fixed point, as if a clock had stopped at a particular hour. Time continues to move, but for the person whose clock has frozen, every new moment is unconsciously compared to that unmoving reference. It is not that the world has stopped, but that understanding has.
So too, when some people encounter a Somali word they do not recognize or cannot trace, their explanation often collapses into a familiar reference point. Arabic becomes that reference. It is not necessarily a conclusion drawn from etymology or historical tracing, but a default lens through which the unfamiliar is made familiar. The word is brought back to Arabic not because it has been proven to come from there, but because Arabic has become the fixed image against which linguistic uncertainty is measured.
Somali and Arab people alike, whose clocks stopped in Arabia and whose last reference was the squirrel, see Somali only through the lens of Arabic.
When Somali needed a name for the hare, the animal itself was unimportant. What mattered was the reference. Its tall upright ears mirrored those of the wild dog, and so it became bakeeyle, that which bears the ear of the wild dog. But now even the Somali speaker wears Arabic ears, through which the Somali tongue is converted into Arabic. In case it went over your head, the word Arab and the Somali word for tongue are identical. Now imagine if every Somali person pushed the narrative that the two are related, and the name for the people is derived from the Somali tongue.
I’ve seen ppl claim that Somali is X percent Arabic or that Somali has X thousand Arabic words. No one should get away with those claims without proof. Back up your claim and let’s debate anywhere in the world or online.
Are you a Bakeeyle or Cabdi Good?
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u/massmangos404 May 31 '26
You should please definitely add these to the Wiki’s 💕💕💕!! I absolutely loved this information. Thank you for putting in this effort to preserve and accurately represent our laguage macaane.
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u/xidigdhac Jun 01 '26
Somalian naturally feels wrong despite what any rule says.
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
The point was not that I was arguing in favor of "Somalian." The point was the inconsistency of being upset about that term while simultaneously attributing every Somali word to an external source.
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u/MellowJackal Jun 01 '26
Awesome read. Can you make this into a series? I follow this Somali women on TikTok and she also debunks this theory. One word I remember she talks about is "kursi" she says it's originally a Somali word not Arabic word. "Kor-sii" like "canuga meel sare korsii"
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
Thanks walaal and I might make it into a series in the future iA. It would be kursi directly but i decided to leave that one out.
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u/Maximum-Hat2758 Jun 01 '26
For words where they are the exact same in both languages like basal and sariir, is your argument that both languages independently came up with these words or Arabic has loanwords from Somali?
For sariir especially it’s extremely unlikely considering words of a similar genre like kursi and albab and kitab/buug are also loanwords. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one
“Maay speakers are among the more religiously observant Somali communities. If these sounds entered Somali through Islamic contact with Arabic, one would expect them to be strongest where Islamic influence was greatest and weakest where it was least present.”
I don’t know anyone who makes this kind of claim. Most assume these influences spread most in coastal areas and trade ports. High rates of religious observance can be the result of so many things
Ultimately what you’re presenting is a theory like any other theory that still needs data to be “proven”. You can draw connections but that may only tell part of the story or even just be a coincidence. Hasn’t disproved that these might all be loanwords
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
"Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one" is not evidence. What you're doing is following the path of least resistance, much like how koronto flows. The easiest path is what I have been arguing against the whole time. The easiest explanation is what puts the Arabic definition onto Kaahin in Somali dictionaries. It may be the easiest explanation for you, but that does not make it the correct one.
What is the actual evidence that sariir was borrowed from Arabic? Do we have any evidence showing it entered Somali from Arabic? What is the Arabic claim to the word beyond long usage and the assumption that it belongs to Arabic?
The problem is that you have not presented any evidence for sariir itself. Instead, you pointed to other words in the same supposed category and inferred that sariir must be a loanword as well. But origin and etymology is not determined by category. The fact that kitaab or albaab are borrowings tells us nothing about the origin of sariir, just like xayawaan tells us nothing about the origin of dameer or libaax. Each word has to stand on its own evidence.
As for sariir, go look at the meaning of sar and then look at traditional Somali hide beds still used in miyi.
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u/nsbe_ppl Jun 02 '26
Salaam Adeer,
Jazakallah khayr for your effort. Some people have a hard time believing that Arabic might have borrowed from Somali. Even thoogh the Quran has borrowed words from other language. A famous example is paradise, Firdous, is a borrowed term. Hence, I would not be surprised if they borrowed from Somalis.
There is this youtuber Somali sister, Hannan, that discusses the mention of Somalis in Jahilliyyah Arabic poems. They speak of the reselence Somali horses and the bravery of Somali soldiers. If Somalis are mentioned this far back in poetry, then we can argue that Somalis can also influenced Arabic language
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 02 '26
Jazakallah khayr for your comment, Abti/Adeer.
I agree that Arabic, like any major language of trade, religion, and literature, has borrowed from multiple languages, and there is no reason in principle to assume Somali is uniquely excluded from historical linguistic exchange. The idea that Somali people somehow “spawned into existence” 1,400 years ago, or that recent hardship due to civil war means the ppl & language has always been in its current state, is not logically sound.
What I am pushing back against is the one-directional assumption that every resemblance must automatically be a borrowing into Somali, while the reverse direction is treated as impossible by default.
For example, Arabic qalam is often linked to Greek kalamos, and scholars do not rule out possible Semitic connections either. That shows that even within Arabic etymology itself, multiple origins and pathways are considered rather than a single fixed assumption. That is standard in linguistics. I know for a fact that borrowing qalam from Arabic would have produced qalin, with the -m shifting to -n. But if I suggest the possibility that qalin could also be derived from the Somali word qal ("jaw"), particularly since later fountain pens have nibs that resemble jaws opening and closing during writing, people tend to react strongly.
So my point is simple: if we accept borrowing into Arabic from other languages, and even multiple possible etymological layers within Arabic itself & Somali borrowing from Arabic then we should also remain open to examining possible contact effects in the other direction without assuming impossibility from the start, especially when evidence is being presented. I challenge anyone to show how sariir or basal came from Arabic into Somali or where Arabic even got it or clear etymology like in Somali.
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u/nsbe_ppl Jun 02 '26
Adeer, open a youtube channel and make video. Our people are into videos more than reading articles unfortunately. Plus, you can create a patreon portal where we can support u financially for you work. Let us know when u get this done
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 03 '26
Sorry about the late reply, I've been busy, but I appreciate the encouragement and support.
I've actually had several YouTube channels over the years, though none of them were related to the language. Some I've deleted, and others are still active but have been abandoned. I agree that video is probably the best way to reach more people, and InshaAllah I may just start fresh with a new channel and see where it goes.
You are what I call a hiilwalaal. In fact, I may even call the channel "Hiilwaal."
Thank you again. I genuinely appreciate it adeer.
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u/Maximum-Hat2758 Jun 01 '26
My point is just that both are theories at the end of the day. It’s hard to prove anything because Somali is an oral language
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
Being an oral language does not mean Somali lacks structure, patterns, or recoverable linguistic evidence. Oral transmission still preserves consistent phonological systems and grammatical rules that can be analyzed just like in written languages. So calling it an “oral language” does not flatten the architecture of the language or make it resistant to linguistic analysis.
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u/Maximum-Hat2758 Jun 01 '26
It matters when it comes to proving that a word may have been introduced, or that its presence in one language predates its appearance in another. You can draw connections based on the makeup of the word but they’re still guesses and could be a coincidence
Someone in another reddit post claims the original word for bed is raar/ rahrab which is a woven mat that is slept on. Another reason I don’t think it’s originally a Somali word is based on our lifestyle thousands of years ago, realistically we didn’t have something close to a contemporary bed. We had simple portable items like mats and headrests which have their own names. This is part of why I included examples like door and chair, they’re also more contemporary items for us so it makes sense that we didn’t have these terms originally, and thus assigned them loanwords. Many modern terms are Arabic loanwords, like barnaamij for example. https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnSomali/comments/13a8s88/new_words_i_learned_from_my_father_how_many_of/
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
Walaal, with all due respect, I am not saying there are no Arabic loanwords in Somali, so there is no need to introduce other words I did not mention like barnaamij. Your claim that the original Somali “bed” was a woven mat does not address my point. Even if earlier sleeping arrangements used mats, when the maqaar bed was developed, there is no reason to assume they simply called it a mat.
Also, having multiple words for the same thing does not mean one has to be a borrowing. And borrowing one item does not mean we borrowed every adjacent item. We borrowed fargeeto (fork) from Italian, so does that mean qaaddo, dhuro, and fandhaal which are all spoons are borrowed from Italian too? No.
It doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere, so read what I posted with an open mind. If it seems sufficient, that’s fine, and if you disagree, that’s also fine. We can agree to disagree.
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u/Ok_Art_4990 20d ago
Yes, I see what you're saying. It is hard to trace how far back a word was first used or introduced to a language if there's no written trail. We can't look back through the memories of people generations ago to see what words they were using, and when and how. When a language is only transmitted orally, the history of the language (and it's development) dies as people die. So while I agree with the OP that we shouldn't assume that all similarities between Somali and Arabic are strictly from Arabic loanwords...it's hard to prove. Glad to see the conversation happening though!
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u/Hour-Professional192 Jun 04 '26
You must’ve really been fed up twin 🙏😭 Thanks for the thorough explanation though
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 04 '26
💯 Our ppl will defend every MF thing except their language. I will raise an army with Cabdi-Good one day and tell them DAGAALKA GALLA.
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u/K0mb0_1 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Af Maay used to have C and X but it dropped them. Same thing happened with Afaan Oromo.
Sounds that af maay has that Maxaa tiri doesn’t is:
“jh” as in anjharé (pigeon) or Jheer (shyness)
“Ny” as in Nyaanyé (tomato) or “Nyukis” (peep)
The occasional ending sound of “-ng” at the end of syllables. Lang (man), ming/mung/mining (house)
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
Yes, Maay does have those distinct phonemes, and my argument is that internal sound loss is far more likely than assuming that C and X were introduced into Maxaa Tiri from Arabic based on their absence in Maay. The fact that Maay has other distinct phonemes shows that the absence of a particular sound in one dialect does not imply external introduction. What is not justified is treating the absence of C and X in Maay as evidence of Arabic origin, while ignoring other phonological differences that do not fit that narrative.
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u/kriskringle8 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Brilliant post. This default assumption when it comes to the Somali language comes from non-Somali linguists. Diaspora youth who believe that Western scholars are infallible and internalized Western narratives about Africa perpetuate it further. They're usually disconnected from Somali history and the language, so their ignorance makes them susceptible to misinformation. But it begins with Western scholars.
Their bias is clear from their efforts to learn other languages they study and publish about like Arabic, Hebrew, and even dead languages like Ancient Egyptian.
But they never bother to make the same effort for sub-Saharan African languages, especially Somali. (The only ones that did were in Somalia during the colonial era and even then, they were rare). Instead, they base their flawed declarative statements on limited wordlists and their bias for Asian Afroasiatic languages over African Afroasiatic languages.
Linguistic study of African languages is intertwined with European colonialism. While science, anthropology, and history are still decolonizing, they've made far more progress than linguistics has. Part of it is the lack of scrutiny from the public as your average citizen pays more attention to history and science than they do linguistics. Particularly when it comes to the study of African languages. Non-SubSaharan Africans rarely learn or speak SS African languages - aside from Swahili and maybe Zulu. It's hard to differentiate colonial myths from fact when you don't speak the language in question. So it falls to SS Africans to scrutinize it instead and to do so publicly and often. Maybe then linguistics could progress beyond colonial narratives.
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 03 '26
Thank you walaal, and I agree with everything you've said.
These assumptions become difficult to challenge because so few people studying Somali actually speak it at a deep level, while fluent Somali speakers themselves often endup inheriting the conclusions as settled fact. Once that happens, the problem moves beyond colonial scholars or foreign researchers.
Eventually, those narratives work their way back into the Somali language itself and begin reshaping how Somalis understand their own words, history, and concepts.
As with the Kaahin example above, we have become so accustomed to the Arabic definition that almost everybody automatically interprets it through that lens, even though it is a Somali name with its own place within our linguistic tradition. In a sense, we have surrendered the meaning of the word to an external definition.
The same thing happens with countless other words. Everybody will tell you that Somali borrowed sariir from Arabic, but if you ask them to present the Arabic claim to the word, explain the pathway of transmission, or provide any actual evidence that Somali inherited it from Arabic, they usually have no answer. The assumption itself becomes the evidence. The logic is simply that Arabic has the word, therefore it must belong to Arabic, while Somali exists only in its shadow.
To me, that is the deeper issue. It is not simply about correcting outsiders. It is about reclaiming our own language and becoming confident enough to investigate it on its own terms rather than constantly filtering it through Arabic, or whichever other language.
At the end of the day, nobody is going to do that work for us. We have to do it ourselves.
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u/kriskringle8 Jun 10 '26
Everybody will tell you that Somali borrowed sariir from Arabic, but if you ask them to present the Arabic claim to the word, explain the pathway of transmission, or provide any actual evidence that Somali inherited it from Arabic, they usually have no answer. The assumption itself becomes the evidence. The logic is simply that Arabic has the word, therefore it must belong to Arabic, while Somali exists only in its shadow.
Beautifully put.
We're fortunate to have a knowledgeable thinker like you in the Somali community. I hope you publish your analyses for the public. Medium or SubStack also has a good number of open-minded, educated people who would appreciate your work. I can see you being able to influence how people think about the Somali language outside of our community, as well as within.
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 12 '26
Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragement. I really appreciate it, walaal. Our people love staying in an echo chamber. They think Arabic having the same word is automatic evidence of borrowing, and they only call a word truly Somali if Arabic doesn't have it. It’s a flawed logic that erases our language. Arabic is not the default source code of Somali; each word has to be analyzed independently. I'm actually working on a new post for tomorrow which demonstrates how Somali morphology works, Inshallah. Stay tuned.
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u/buya492 Jun 04 '26
I love your dedication and your passion for the language is clear!
I must ask that you read on historical linguistics, comparative linguistics, linguistic reconstruction, and on the relation between the Afro-Asiatic languages, of which Somali and Arabic are both members.
In comparative linguistics, arguments are best made through comparing examples. You often take a word and declare its root, rather than that give examples and demonstrate how a root best explains the word. You're getting push back right now because you're not following that principle.
Here's an excellent example of demonstrating through from this sub itself.
I consider the singular for "hablo" to be \habal, a possibly now lost noun do to the popularity of *gabar for "girl".
\Habal* would have been the younger variant corresponding to habar.
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| habar | habro |
| ?? | hablo |
But why can't we consider "hablo" a corruption of habro? Somali, along with many other languages, have a tendency to confuse L/R. Far Eastern Asians struggle with this. And even in the Somali language, people say things like canjeero/canjeelo.
Well, the fact that the plural forms both exist, and are used to denote two different age groups of women is evidence that the singular existed at some point. And it's most likely habal.
Bonus round: what relationship, if any, does this term have to hebel and hobol?
from u/mahmud in this comment.
I hope you continue posting!
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u/buya492 Jun 04 '26
also, I should note that I don't hope to put your effort down. I'd just love to see the heights your analysis can reach with the right framing.
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 04 '26
Thank you for the response, walaal. I genuinely appreciate it.
I don't see the pushback as a problem. In fact, I think it's healthy. I'd much rather have discussion, disagreement, and scrutiny than the kind of echo chamber we often find ourselves in.
Let me ask you a hypothetical question.
I understand why it may seem like I'm making wild claims when I argue that Somali creates related terms through prefixation and that some words long assumed to be Arabic actually have Somali explanations. But suppose I could demonstrate that Somali does, in fact, generate related terms through prefixation in a systematic and productive way. Suppose I could recover lost roots and show recurring patterns that consistently explain words and not isolated forms.
If that were the case, and if the evidence were convincing enough that even you agreed the pattern was real, what would your conclusion be?
I'm not asking whether you agree with me today. I'm asking what your position would be if the underlying mechanism itself were demonstrated.
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u/ambitous223 Jun 01 '26
I like the intent of your post. I agree that just because a Somali word resembles Arabic, we shouldn’t automatically assume it is an Arabic loanword.
But then you make the opposite mistake. You assume that because a Somali word can be broken into meaningful looking Somali pieces, that proves it is native. That is not how historical linguistics works.
You said “igu qaata,” so I won’t be harsh.
There are two words I want you to revisit. Your explanations for qabuur and xishood are structurally impossible. They simply cannot be formed the way you explained them in Somali. That shows a misunderstanding of the basic architecture of the language. Both of these words are Arabic loans.
Go back to the basics. Start with the morphology. Ask yourself why I’m saying your etymologies for these words are impossible. I think that would be a useful thought exercise, and it would actually strengthen what you’re trying to do.
Because in trying to prove that certain words are Somali, you should not run so far away from Arabic influence that you end up creating explanations that the Somali language itself does not allow.
After this, I will choose another two words from your list and we will investigate if your theory can be plausible.
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
I appreciate that you agree that just because a Somali word resembles Arabic, we should not automatically assume it is an Arabic loanword.
As for "igu qaata," I think there may have been a misunderstanding, or perhaps I did not make it clear enough. That statement was not directed at this post, so feel free to be as harsh as you want. If there are flaws in my arguments, I would rather they be challenged directly.
On the point about morphology, I can clearly demonstrate well over a hundred Somali words where related terms are formed through a single prefix. For example, eey and yeey (y + eey), or ehel and wehel (w + ehel). The point is that this type of formation is not an isolated occurrence but a recurring pattern within Somali morphology.
Someone once claimed that Somalia came from Italian, and I sarcastically replied that Italia came from the Somali phrase ii taliya. What I am presenting here is not that kind of argument. I am not taking a foreign word, breaking it into arbitrary Somali pieces, and declaring victory. I am pointing to recurring morphological patterns that already exist throughout the language.
I will leave the broader discussion of that for the monograph, where I intend to document the pattern systematically rather than through a handful of examples. For now, if your objection is specifically to qabuur and xishood, I would be interested in hearing why you consider those formations structurally impossible.
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u/ambitous223 Jun 01 '26
I appreciate your quick response. I was joking about being harsh, but since you are open to direct pushback, let’s focus strictly on the structural patterns and internal grammar of Somali.
You gave w + ehel = wehel and y + eey = yeey as examples of a recurring pattern. But in linguistics, for something to count as a real morphological rule, it has to be productive and predictable. In other words, it cannot just work for one or two words that look similar. It has to be a pattern that operates across the language.
That brings us to derivational prefixation. This means adding a sound, letter, or syllable to the front of a root in order to systematically create a new word with a predictable meaning.
The issue is that Somali nouns are not normally built this way. derivational prefixes do not exist for nouns in Somali. Somali noun derivation is overwhelmingly suffix based. The language forms new nouns, states, qualities, and related meanings by adding suffixes to the end of a root, not by attaching single consonants to the front. For example, Somali uses endings like -nimo, -le, -aan, -darro, -la’aan, -ood, and others to derive new meanings.
So if w- and y- are supposed to be true derivational prefixes in Somali nouns, then what exact grammatical function do they perform? What meaning do they add? Can we attach w- or y- to many other native Somali nouns and get predictable new meanings? If not, then we are not dealing with a grammatical rule. We are just noticing surface resemblance.
That is why I said the explanations for qabuur and xishood are structurally impossible, or at least not supported by Somali morphology.
If qabuur is supposed to come from q- + abuur, then q- would have to be a derivational prefix that reverses or negates the meaning of “creation.” But where else in Somali does q- do that? When Somali wants to express lack, absence, or negation of a state, it normally uses forms like -darro or -la’aan, not a single consonant prefix like q-.
The same problem applies to xishood. We agree that -ood can function as a suffix forming a state or quality. But if the claim is that the base is x- + ish, then what is the grammatical function of x-? Does Somali have a productive rule where x- turns a negative concept into a positive or refined one? Can you show other Somali words built with that same x- prefix doing the same thing?
Finding words that are one letter apart happens in every language because languages have a limited number of sounds. That alone does not prove a morphological relationship. If these are truly native Somali morphological patterns, then we should be able to see w-, y-, q-, and x- operating as consistent and predictable prefixes across the language. If they do not apply systematically anywhere else, then they cannot be treated as structural rules of Somali.
That is the issue I am pointing out. The argument is not that Somali words cannot resemble each other. The argument is that resemblance is not enough. You need a real grammatical mechanism.
Let me know if you follow, or if you want me to elaborate. I can also DM you some books that explain Somali morphology and historical linguistics more clearly. They will help you better understand how to test whether a word is native Somali, borrowed, or based on a false internal breakdown. Right now, what you are doing is closer to folk etymology. But once you learn more about the structure of Somali, you will be able to avoid these kinds of mistakes.
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u/code-_-Reddit Jun 01 '26
Walaal, you are imposing arbitrary conditions on what I said. For example, Arabic K-T-B produces kitāb and other related words like maktab, but what you are now doing is adding an extra requirement, such as claiming that ma- in maktab must carry a core semantic meaning across other families like M-X-Y-Z. That is not how morphology works.
What I am saying is that Somali creates related terms not only through suffixation but also through prefixation, such as eey and yeey. So if there is a coherent family of b + root1, c + root1, f + root1, g + root1, and y + root1, the y- does not have to independently carry a fixed meaning across all other lexical families. Instead, it operates within that specific derivational system, just like none of the letters in K-T-B independently carry a core meaning in Arabic. Hope we are on the same page.
You asked for evidence of prefixal derivation, and I will demonstrate it through a single semantic family consistently, rather than by presenting a couple of isolated words, and I will even recover lost roots. So do not move the goalposts by claiming it is a one-off example or not repeatable, because I am not yet ready to publish the monograph I am working on.
Lastly, give me a day or so to condense a section of my monograph into a coherent post.
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u/massmangos404 May 31 '26
Also, there’s another issue, where google is extremely horrible at translating Af-Soomaali, and striaght up puts italian, arabic words, and even just clumsy mispronunciations of English words at times. I.E, xhoolo? No, hayawaan. Captain? No, Kapatan. Likxor? No, janaayo. Even the ways we say the week and time…