Why is Arabic an official language of Somalia?

[ZubeirAwal]

Arab is not a race it's more of an identity, Somalis have nothing arab in their culture apart from their religion, and their vocab (i.e days of the week in somali are arabic, and there is a fair amount of borrwed arab vocab in our lingo)

however, there are letters written by somalis around 180 years ago, written in the arabic script but using somali words, personally i dont see the harm in it, the arabic script itself is borrwed from ancient syriac, since the arabs innately did not possess a script, and what I meant by arab being a identity is a arab from mauritania who looks Somali is called an arab, and a arab from lebanon who looks french is called an arab... it's a identity not a established ethnicity.

I mean even the majority of arabs today are actually not the original arabs, the word arab just means bedouin anyway, the original arabs were the himyarites of yemen who were always warring with Abysinnia, most arabs today come from mudar who is the great grandson of Nabi Ismacil (as).

I find it funny that Somalis are satisfied being imitators of the hegemonical west, but have this phobia to anything that might seem arab, I walk around my home and when I hear somali music and theatre videos being played, I feel that surge of somaliness flowing through me, but when I watch a program let's say the Omar series, I also feel a strong attatchment to the Ummah and I can live by aligned the two juxtoposed by each other, it's not like you have to have one without the other...

here in the UK the most friendly community to the Somalis are the arab community, given the fact that the indian subcontinent community despite being muslim show a heavy sign of racism towards Somalis, they have this prejudice in which they believe they are somewhat an extension of the european caucasian...

anyhow with that being said, I went out of my way to study arabic solely for the desire of being able to read the Qur'an, and to speak the language that the greatest man who ever lived spoke, that's the one thing I'm fascinated about the arabic language, it's preservation for over a milennia to the point that we can communicate in the same way they communicated, the somali language obviously evolved and continues to evolve, the somali spoken 300 years ago is not the same Somali we have today...

my points given.

[Basra-]

I recently went to a Somali restaurant to buy food, while I was waiting there was an old man in the restaurant noisily attracting attention to himself. Very old, with big black sun glasses, looked a bit homeless. He was drinking soup with a spoon. He kept speaking a lot of gibberish, changing English to Arabic. When he spoke Arabic, he would enunciate the words and speak with pride, louder, even gesticulating with fingers to express his point. The Other Somalis male and female in the restaurant paid a particular attention whenever the old man spoke Arabic. They had this pride, and envy expression on their faces. Like they wished they could speak a decent Arabic like him. Some of them even clapped hands. I chuckled remembering this thread.

acuudibillah, do you eat in front of the men?

PO

I think you should read posts before responding. I said "buy" at the restaurant, I didn't say--I went to 'eat' at the restaurant. I waiting for "to go" order.

[SultanOrder]

I know, I was just messing with you .

[axmed89]

It should'nt be.

[AbdiJohnson]

Only some sheikhs can speak Arabic. Everyone else cannot. Only self haters will have an official language that is spoken by no one.

English is the lingua franca and should be an official language. At least you can find many Somalis back home who can speak English now. But this wasn't the case 10 years ago

I am,

Abdi "Also make Maay Maay official" Johnson

[GalliumerianSlayer]

People are familiar with the Arabic script unlike the Latin Roman script.... iliteracy is ridiculously high at the moment.

Somalis have like 10% Arabic words but Yh it's shouldn't be officially

20% actually.

[Khalid Ali]

arabic is the language of the middle east and the region its also the language god has spoken to last messager why not learn it. its also a rich language old language and a regional language arabic and spanish are languages that are spoken in entire continents

[ExSomalispotter]

Still trying to figure this one out. Most Somalis can't speak the language. The few that do either live in arab countries or are religous scholars and had to study it to learn what is in the quran. Most Somalis can't read arabic. Sorry but reading the quran ain't the same as modern arabic. And even if some of us can translate our quranic reading skills to standard arabic, we don't understand it.

I know Islam is important to most somalis, but having Arabic as an official language when almost no one in the country can speak it is pretty comical. English has more right to be an official language of Somalia than Arabic given the fact far more Somalis can speak English than can speak Arabic.

I won't be surprised that by the time the Turks are through with Xamar, Turkish will become another official langauge of Somalia.

Somali children are taught the arabic alphabet first indoor to learn the Quran.
If Quran is taught everywhere in Somalia, everyone has the knowledge of Arabic. Back in Saudi Arabia, my teacher told me that all somalis know arabic. He told me this
If you know the Alphabets you know half of the language in literature form, know then learn Past tense and present tense, learn the mudkar, muanth, and jam'h then learn some word use the past tense, present tense, future tenses, mudakr, muanth, Jam'h and some word bam you have a sentence, then use that sentence to make a paragraph then a book.

Arabic is not hard if you put time into it.

A lot of Somalis Wallahi can read Arabic, even in Somalia it is even taught as a subject.