Nafisa Ali

5/5/15
Honors 394
Somali Research
Somalia is a country located in eastern Africa and forms part of the Horn of Africa. It is
bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the west Kenya to the south, the Gulf of Aden
to the north and the Indian Ocean to the east. The Somali language belongs to the Cushitic group,
one of the three African indigenous language groups. The name Somali originally comes from
two Somali words: soo and maal which means, Go and milk it, an indication that the Somalis
were traditional nomadic pastoral society, who kept camels, cattle, goats and sheep for both
subsistence and commercial purposes. The current language spoken in Somalia reflects its
colonial history.
Somali is the national language of Somalia, but there are different languages that are
spoken in Somalia including Arabic, English, Swahili and Italian. Italian is spoken in Somalia
because Italy colonized Somalia. The Somali language is spoken by 7.8 million people in
Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. There are about 12.6 million people that speak Somali in
the world. Somali is becoming a more recognized language than before due to the Somali
diaspora in different parts of the world. People began leaving Somalia in large numbers during
the conflicts of the 1980s. Many people moved to the United States, UK, Canada and they were
also migrated to Europe. By the time of this migration, the Somali language had already been
codified,
The Somali language had no written form until 1972, and until then English and Italian
served as the languages of government and education. In 1972, the decision to introduce a
Somali script fundamentally changed the situation. The Somali government set up a panel of
academic intellectuals to come up with a modern, polished Somali written language that could be

utilized by knowledge-hungry Somalis. The Somali Roman alphabet uses all the letters of the
English Latin alphabet except P, V and Z. As mentioned, the Somali language belongs to the
Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. The people of the Northern part of Somalia
speak Standard Somali, which is the most widely used dialect. The coastal Somali speak
Benaadir which is spoken in the Capital of Mogadishu, and people of the southern part speak AfAshraaf. While many people think of the indigenous languages of Somalia as dialects of Somali,
in fact, they are distinct ethnic languages. According to enthnologue, there are thirteen languages
that are spoken in Somalia currently, three are developing, five are vigorous, and one is dying.
Somali immigrants began arriving in the United States in the early1920s and settled
around New York because New York was usually the port of entry. In the 1960s, Somali students
began traveling to the United States, either supported by government scholarships or by family
members living in the country; and in the mid 1980s, small numbers were admitted as refugees.
The number of refugees increased because of the civil war (Putnam & Noor, 1999). The U.S.
Office of Refugee Resettlement reports that, from 19832004, there were 55,036 Somali
refugees resettled in the United States. In 2004 alone, nearly 13,000 Somalis entered the
country. Currently, estimates of the number of Somali-born persons living in the United States
ranges widely, from 35,760 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000) to 150,000. The majority of Somalis
have settled in Minnesota, California, Ohio, Washington State, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. A
lot of Somalis were brought to the U.S by Lutheran Social Services back in the 90s, and most
migrated to America due to the civil war of 1991 and moved to Minnesota for jobs. Almost every
Somali in Minnesota, who came to the U.S between 1991 and 1998, worked at the chicken
factories in Faribault and Marshall. If we look at it as a whole, the settlement pattern of Somalis
can be traced back to how they lived in Somalia. Most Somali people were nomads back home

since the beginning of time. Most Somalis thus adjust quickly and move to a place where they
know someone, or where there are Somalis in general, whether they know them personally or
not. Since 1990, Seattle now has the second largest Somali community in North America.
Currently, the estimate number of Somali immigrants in the Seattle area varies, from just
several thousand to more than 30,000. This is because some Somalis avoided the 2000 census out
of fear of the government or because they could not read the form. Also, immigration statistics
only trace those who settle in Washington State directly from overseas. They do not track those
immigrants who first settled in other American states and then moved to Washington. The Somali
immigrant community in Seattle began as a small group of college students and engineers in the
1970s and 1980s. It has grown exponentially in the past 20 years as thousands of refugees of
Somalia's civil war, which began in 1991, have arrived in Seattle. They have settled mainly in the
Rainier Valley, extending south into Tukwila and SeaTac. Somali students are the second largest
bilingual group in the Seattle Public Schools, and the district has worked to accommodate their
needs.
There are many Somali community organizations in Seattle that help the Somali residents
and the new immigrants. There is the Somali Health Board organization that helps improve
health outcomes in the Somali community and provides education and community leaders. There
is also the Somali Community Services of Seattle that works with refugees to ease the
transitional process and help people feel comfortable in the new country. Lastly, there is the
Somali Community Services Coalition that provides housing and employment assistance, U.S
citizenship classes, advocacy and referral services, interpretation services, programs for youth,
family counselling and all other appropriate services needed by the community. Currently, Im a
volunteer at the Horn of Africa Services, which is a multicultural nonprofit organization that

programs and services such as tutoring for youth. These organizations help families that have
emigrated from Somalia and that have faced significant challenges. These immigrants and their
children have been able to adapt to life in Seattle more easily than those who have come from the
country's rural areas, when they had little access to formal education. A lack of formal education
has made acclimating to city life and public institutions more difficult. However, the children are
accessing education opportunities in their new homeland.
There are over 20 radio and TV stations around the world that broadcast some of their
programs in Somali. In Seattle, there is a Somali local newspaper and Somali TV. The local
newspaper is called Runta and was started by a University of Washington alumni named
Muhamud Yussuf. Runta has been in print since 1995. The newspaper covers stories that concern
Somalis wherever they are and includes stories that interest Muslims and Africans. The paper
mostly focuses on young Somalis who have grown up in the U.S and Canada. The paper has
some stories in English and some in Somali but overall, it helps keep the community united and
connected to Somalia.
Many Somali immigrants have now been in the United States for about 20 years. The
younger generation is acclimating to American life and succeeding at school and in work. A
number of Somali American students attend Washington's universities, and many of the
immigrants have succeeded at establishing careers and businesses. Somalis are joining the
immigrants that preceded them in becoming part of Seattle's richly diverse community. Because
immigration is still recent, the public schools are not yet teaching the language. Most people
continue to learn and speak Somali at home. Perhaps in the next generation, the grand children of
the immigrants will advocate for language in schools and universities.

Bibliography
Ethnomed. Integrating Cultural Information.https://ethnomed.org/culture/somali/somalicommunity-organizations-in-seattle.
Stephenson Carol. Kin Somalia. http://www.immigrantinfo.org/kin/somalia.htm. 16 July 2002.
Thompson Irene. awl. http://aboutworldlanguages.com/somali. 28 January 2014.
References
Yussuf Mohamud. Runta. http://www.runtanews.com/. 1995.
Yussuf Ahmed. Somalis in Minnesota. The people of Minnesota. 6 December 2012.