Vocabulary
Somali's main lexical borrowings come from Arabic, another Afro-Asiatic language. They stem from the Somali people's extensive social, cultural, commercial and religious links and contacts with nearby populations in the Arabian peninsula. Soravia (1994) noted a total of 1,436 Arabic loanwords in Agostini a.o. 1985, a prominent Somali dictionary. Most of the terms consisted of commonly-used nouns. These lexical borrowings may have been more extensive in the past since a few words that Zaborski (1967:122) observed in the older literature were absent in Agostini's later work.
The Somali language also contains a few Italian and English loanwords retained from the colonial period. A large number of neologisms were created following independence, when Somali became the official language, to express new concepts used in government and education.
Read more about this topic: Somali Language
Famous quotes containing the word vocabulary:
“I have a vocabulary all my own. I “pass the time” when it is wet and disagreeable. When it is fine I do not wish to pass it; I ruminate it and hold on to it. We should hasten over the bad, and settle upon the good.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“[T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)