r/LearnSomali

I Just got back from my first trip to Somalia. I'm 24. My parents have been begging me to go for years and I finally did it, thinking it would be this huge homecoming moment. Instead I spent two weeks feeling like a tourist in the country I'm supposed to be from.

The taxi driver from the airport tried to make small talk with me and I just smiled and nodded the entire ride. My auntie who I hadn't seen since I was a baby hugged me crying and said something long and emotional to me and I just said "haa, haa" because that's all I had. My younger cousins, who are like 12, were laughing at jokes around the dinner table and I sat there with the same fake smile I use at family gatherings back home, just on a bigger scale.

The worst part was when my grandma sat me down on the second day and just started telling me stories. About my dad as a kid. About the war. About people I'm named after. And I caught maybe 20% of it. I nodded the whole time and made the right sad face at what seemed like the right moments and I genuinely have no idea what she actually told me. I might never see her again. Whatever she said to me is just gone.

I came home and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I always thought of myself as Somali first. I wear the flag, I defend the culture online, I tell people where I'm from with pride. But I went there and I couldn't even order food without my cousin stepping in. I felt like I was wearing an identity I hadn't earned

I'm done waiting. How did you guys actually start learning when you were starting from basically zero speaking ability but full understanding of bits and pieces?

Title. I'm a fluent northern Somali speaker (lived there for 7 years during my childhood & adolescence), and even though we studied how Somali poems functioned in class throughout elementary/middle school, I'm currently in my early 20s and it's been closer to a decade since I was in a Somali class.

My current biggest issue lies with the rich vocabulary our poets use; a plurality of them contain incredibly beautiful but less widely-used Somali terminology I haven't seen even my ayeeyo use. I can understand only around 50% of the content of these writings with context clues. Occasionally, though, I even see these words show up in certain laxan of modern Somali songs written by talented lyricists, so I know I need to get rid of this deficiency ASAP. In kastoo aan ku hadli karayo luuqada oo aanay dhibaato igu ahayn, waxaan rabaa in aan fahankayga kordiyo si aan anigu aan Inshallah qoro gabayo. Any and all advice is appreciated.

i understand somethings but some words he uses is just to advance

Did you guys know that half the time you think you're mixing up your vocabulary, it's literally just one letter changing?

I see this blow people's minds all the time over at Geeljire.org

Turns out, the heavy Waqooyi "dh” sound basically just softens into an "r” in the South.

1. Sit down: Fadhiso -> Fariiso

2. Girl: Gabadh -> Gabar

3. To close / tie: Xidh -> Xir

4. car: Gaadhi -> Gaari

Once you see the pattern, it completely changes how you hear the language at family gatherings.

Did you guys already know about this rule, or was I just late to the party? 😂 Let me know if you can think of any other words that do this!