________________
OCTOBER, 1887.)
SOMALI AS A WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
285
SOMALI AS A WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
No. II.
BY CAPTAIN, J. 6. KINE, BO.S.C. TN the previous article on this subject of grawmar which arise in the sentences. If 1 ante, 242-243, I published an alphabetic these last be well selected, it is not anreasonsystem designed to express every ordinary sound able to suppose that after learning two or in the Somali Language, as far as possible by three hundred of them, he will have acquired means of the Arabic and Hindustani charac- a fair "knowledge of the grammar, as well as ters, and therefore easy to any intelligent an extensive vocabulary of colloquial words Somáli acquainted with the Arabic alphabet. and idioms, and will moreover, have learned
The total absence of anything beyond & how to use them in composition. He will, bare colloquial knowledge on the part of the besides, become enabled, with the aid of Somalis of their own language is the chief Colonel Hunter's Grammar, to analyse any sensource of the difficulties encountered by a tences which occur in the course of his studies. philologist bent upon acquiring a critical know. In the following sentences, no word is exledge of it, in order to give to the world the plained a second time, when it recurs; so the result of his investigations. But all Somalis
grammatical analysis will gradually become who have lived any time on the coast, or in less and less lengthy as the work progresses. Aden, are well acquainted with Arabic collo- It will be easy afterwards to prepare an indeso quially, and if you express a sentence in verborum, so that the collection of sentences Arabic, and ask them for the corresponding and their analysis can be made to serve the purSomali phrase, they will tell it you without a poses of a dictionary as well as of a grammar. moment's hesitation. It is not, however, easy It should, however, be understood that the to write a SomAli sentence when aoquired, as it set of phrasee now given are intended to be is often difficult to decide where one word ends used in conjunction with Colonel Hunter's and another begins ;' and any question as to Grammar-not to supersede it. The letter H. grammar almost invariably meets with the in the analysis refers to Colonel Hunter's ansatisfactory reply that the language has no Grammar. grammar.
COLLOQUIAL SENTENCES. Even if yon are provided with a copy of
English,
Somáli. Colonel Hunter's Grammar of the Somali
1.- (Common salutations.) Language, and endeavour to analyse any phrase you may have learnt, you will find the (a).- Are you well ? process at first very difficult and tedious without some system of writing and transliteration.
6).- I am well. It often took me days-even weeks--to analyse one short sentence ; yet troublesome as the
(c).- Are you well ? process is, I am convinced that it is the quickest
(d).-I am well. method of learning the grammar and idioms of a language-especially a meagre and illiterate
(e).- Are you well? one.
The system of learning Somali, with the (1).How are you help of a settled script, which I suggest by this
to-day? article, is by no means new. It is simply &
(9).--I am quite well. modification of that recommended by Mr. A. H. Bleeck, in his New Plan for facilitating the 2.-Whence have Study of Languages, published in 1857. By this method the student is saved the trouble
3.-I have come from of wading through grammatical rules, which
the bdsár. without practice in their use-would probably not convey much information to his mind, as
4.—Where is your
house his attention is drawn only to those points
. While
skiler
بردین
مترونتوسین مائت و سدے
you comé ?***
sorar la
سركي بان کی
