Wadaad's writing

Wadaad's writing, also known as Wadaad's Arabic (Somali: Far Wadaad, lit. 'Scholar's Handwriting'), is the traditional Somali adaptation of written Arabic^[1][2] as well as the Arabic script as historically used to transcribe the Somali language.^[3][4][5] Originally, it referred to a non-grammatical Arabic featuring some words from the Somali language, with the proportion of Somali vocabulary varying depending on the context.^[6] The Somalis were among the first people in Africa to embrace Islam.^[7] Alongside standard Arabic, Wadaad's writing was used by Somali religious men (Wadaado) to record xeer (customary law) petitions and to write qasidas.^[2][8] It was also used by merchants for business purposes and letter writing.^[8]

Over the years, various Somali scholars improved and altered the use of the Arabic script for conveying Somali. This culminated in the 1930s with the work of Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil, standardizing vowel diacritics and orthographic conventions, and in 1950s with the controversial proposal of Musa Haji Ismail Galal which substantially modified letter values and introduced new letters for vowels.^[9][5]

With the official adoption of Latin Alphabet in 1972, the process of standardization of orthography of Somali Arabic script came to a halt. Makaahiil's orthographic convention remains the most notable final iteration today.^[10]

The Arabic script was introduced to Somalia in the 10th century by Sheikh Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn (colloquially referred to as Aw Barkhadle meaning "Blessed Father")^[11][12] a man described as "the most outstanding saint in Somalia."^[13] Of Somali descent, he sought to advance the teachings of the Qur'an.^[12] Al-Kawneyn devised a Somali nomenclature for the Arabic vowels, which enabled his pupils to read and write in Arabic.^[14] Sheikh Abi-Bakr Al Alawi, a Harari historian, states in his book that Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn was of native and local Dir extraction.^[15]

Although various Somali wadaads and scholars had used the Arabic script to write in Somali for centuries, it would not be until the 19th century when the Qadiriyyah saint Sheikh Uways al-Barawi of the Digil and Mirifle clan would improve the application of the Arabic script to represent the Maay dialect of southern Somalia, which at the time was close to standard Somali with Arabic script. Al-Barawi modeled his alphabet after the Arabic transcription adopted by the Amrani of Barawa (Brava) to also write the Swahili dialect, Bravanese.^[16][17]

Wadaad's writing was often unintelligible to Somali pupils who learned standard Arabic in government-run schools.^[18] During the 1930s in the northwestern British Somaliland protectorate, Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil attempted to standardize the orthography in his book The Institution of Modern Correspondence in the Somali language. Following in the footsteps of Sh. Ibraahim 'Abdallah Mayal, Makaahiil therein championed the use of the Arabic script for writing Somali, showing examples of this usage through proverbs, letters and sentences.^[9][16]

In 1954, the Somali linguist Musa Haji Ismail Galaal (1917–1980) introduced a more radical alteration of Arabic to represent the Somali Language. Galaal came up with an entirely new set of symbols for the Somali vowels. Galaal's goal was to eliminate the need to use diacritics and also to provide easy to write and read distinction between short vowels and long. Lewis (1958) considered this to be the most accurate Arabic alphabet to have been devised for the Somali language.^[5] He had published his work in the Islamic Quarterly, outlining and providing examples as to why a new Arabic based script was needed for use in Somalia.^[19]

Despite the accuracy of Galaal's writing system and its correspondence with Somali phonology, his writing system turned out to be controversial, facing criticism from Somalia's religiously devout and conservative society. The introduction of new letters was interpreted as deviating away from the Arabic script, and moreover, a worry arose that teaching such new letters can cause difficulty in teaching the Quran to Somali students.^[9]

In 1932, Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil (Somali: Maxamed Cabdi Makaahiil), a Somali scholar who studied at Al-Azhar University, published a short book titled "Inšāʾ al makātibāt al ʿarabiyyah fīl-luġah as-Sūmāliyyah" (Arabic: إنشاء المكاتبات العربية في اللغة الصوماليّة; Creating of Arabic correspondences in the Somali language) in which he printed Somali orthographic conventions as well as several sample letters and many sample proverbs. He built upon earlier work by Ibraahim Cabdullaahi Mayal. In this book, he also argues against those who at the time favored adopting Arabic language as the sole official language of Somalia, and he argued strongly for adopting Arabic Script for Somali language.^[9]

Makaahiil's proposed orthography uses the same letters as in Arabic, with only two additional letters, ڎ‎ for /ɖ/ and گ‎ for /g/. On the other hand, there are 8 consonants in Arabic alphabet that do not exist in Somali language (except for writing Arabic loanwords), which include the letters thāʼ (ث), dhal (ذ), zāy (ز), ṣād (ص), ḍād (ض), ṭāʾ (ط), ẓāʾ (ظ), and ghayn (غ).

This writing convention relies on vowel diacritics.

As for vowels, in Somali phonology, there are five vowel articulations. These vowel articulations can either be short or long. Each vowel also has a harmonic counterpart, expressed either at the front or at the back of the mouth. Somali words follow a vowel harmony rule. However, Somali orthography, neither Somali Latin alphabet, nor Arabic alphabet, nor Osmanya alphabet distinguish between the two vowel harmony sets.

A shortcoming of the Arabic script for Somali language, is that while Somali has 5 vowels, Arabic has 3. This was where, Galaal got the most creative, coming up with brand new letters to represent vowels. In the 1961 Somali Language Committee Report, several other Arabic proposals were also listed, where other solutions were proposed for showing the 5 short vowels and 5 long vowels. None of these other proposals gained traction.^[20]

In Mahammad 'Abdi Makaahiil's orthographic convention, he added two new diacritics. For short vowel sounds [a], [u], and [i], Arabic diacritics are used. For long vowel sounds [a:], [u:], and [i:], similar to Arabic, the letters alif (ا), wāw (و), and yāʾ (ي) respectively.

For the short vowel sound [e], Makaahil interpreted the sound to be in between [a] and [i], thus he proposed to combine "◌َ " (Fatha, [a]) and "◌ِ" and (Dhamma, [i]), and write "◌َِ". As for long vowel sound [e:], it'd be written as "◌َِ" followed by yāʾ (ي).^[9]

Vowels, when occurring at the beginning of words, are placed on top of alif (ا). Long vowels are written as they would in the middle of the word, except that wāw (و), and yāʾ (ي) would be preceded by alif instead of another consonant.The exception to this convention is long vowel [aa], where similar to Arabic, alif madda (آ) is used.^[9]

In 1887, British writer, J. S. King wrote for the Indian Antiquary an article titled "Somali as a written language" in which he proposes a standard Arabic based Somali script.^[21] Some of the main changes and features were the combined use of both Arabic and Sanskrit features:

• The Somali ⟨dh⟩ sound is represented as a new character with influence from both ⟨ड⟩ and ⟨د‎⟩
• A new ⟨r⟩ letter is assigned which also seems to have been fused from ⟨ड़⟩ and ⟨ر‎⟩
• Somali ⟨g⟩ in this case is written as ⟨گ‎⟩
• A new ⟨l⟩ is introduced, with Sanskrit elements to form ⟨ڸ‎⟩
• Finally, a new ⟨n⟩ is proposed with two dots above the standard Arabic ⟨ن‎⟩

King had also reformed the vowel structure, by introducing separate vowel markers for the Somali ⟨o⟩ and ⟨e⟩.

In this article, he provided over 100 examples of the script in use, some of which include:

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Osmanya alphabet – Alphabet created in the 1920s for Somali
• Borama alphabet – Writing system for Somali developed around 1933Pages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Kaddare alphabet – Writing system for Somali created in 1952

• Far Wadaad script converter
• 'Wadaad's writing' in Somali, at Omniglot
• Tosco, Mauro (University of Turin) (2010). "Somali Writings". Afrikanistik Online. 2010 (7). Retrieved 2023-04-07. [Covers Wadaad's writing, Osmanya, Gadabuursi, and Kaddare.]