Language/Somali/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

Somali Language Alphabet and Pronunciation

Hello Polyglots 😀

In today's lesson, you will learn how to write the different letters of the Somali alphabet, how to pronounce these letters whether it is through the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), or through a video with the pronunciation of the letters by a native speaker.

You will also find at the end of this lesson a virtual keyboard to be able to type each special character of this language.

Somali is a Cushitic language spoken by around 20 million people in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. If you want to learn Somali, one of the first things you'll need to do is to become familiar with its alphabet and pronunciation. In this lesson, we'll go over the Somali alphabet and provide some tips on how to correctly pronounce Somali letters.

Somali Alphabet and Pronunciation

The Somali Alphabet

The Somali alphabet consists of 28 letters, which are represented, in its latin version, by the following symbols:

A, B, T, J, X, KH, D, R, S, SH, DH, C, G, F, Q, K, L, M, N, W, H, Y, V, E, and O.

Note that the Somali alphabet does not contain the letters P, Z, or G. However, some loanwords from Arabic, English, and other languages may contain these letters.

Latin	Osmanya	Arabic	IPA
'		ء	[ʔ]
B b	𐒁	ب	[b]
T t	𐒂	ت	[t]
J j	𐒃	ج	[d͡ʒ]
X x	𐒄	ح	[ħ]
KH kh	𐒅	خ	[χ]
D d	𐒆	د	[d]
R r	𐒇	ر	[r]
S s	𐒈	س	[s]
SH sh	𐒉	ش	[ʃ]
DH dh	𐒊	ط	[ɖ]
C c	𐒋	ع	[ʕ]
G g	𐒌	غ	[g]
F f	𐒍	ف	[f]
Q q	𐒎	ق	[q]
K k	𐒏	ك	[k]
L l	𐒐	ل	[l]
M m	𐒑	م	[m]
N n	𐒒	ن	[n]
W w	𐒓	و	[w, ʉː, uː]
H h	𐒔	ه	[h]
Y y	𐒕	ي	[j, iː, ɪː]
A a	𐒖	ا	[æ, ɑ]
E e	𐒗	ئ	[e, ɛ]
I i	𐒘	ى	[i, ɪ]
O o	𐒙	ؤ	[ɞ, ɔ]
U u	𐒚	و	[ʉ, u]
aa	𐒛	آ	[æː, ɑː]
ee	𐒜	أى	[eː, ɛː]
oo	𐒝	أو	[ɞː, ɔː]
ii		ىٓ
uu		وٓ

Pronouncing Somali Letters in English

Now that we've gone over the Somali alphabet, let's talk about how to pronounce its letters.

• A - pronounced like "ah" as in "father"
• B - pronounced like "b" as in "boy"
• T - pronounced like "t" as in "tea"
• J - pronounced like the "j" in "jazz"
• X - pronounced like the "ch" in the Scottish word "loch"
• KH - pronounced like the "ch" in the German word "Bach"
• D - pronounced like "d" as in "dog"
• R - pronounced like a rolled "r" as in Spanish or Italian
• S - pronounced like "s" as in "snake"
• SH - pronounced like "sh" as in "shoe"
• DH - pronounced like the "th" in "that"
• C - pronounced like "ts" as in "cats"
• G - pronounced like "g" as in "girl"
• F - pronounced like "f" as in "father"
• Q - pronounced like the "k" in "kite"
• K - pronounced like "k" as in "king"
• L - pronounced like "l" as in "love"
• M - pronounced like "m" as in "mother"
• N - pronounced like "n" as in "nice"
• W - pronounced like "w" as in "water"
• H - pronounced like "h" as in "house"
• Y - pronounced like "y" as in "yellow"
• V - pronounced like "v" as in "voice"
• E - pronounced like "e" as in "bet"
• O - pronounced like "o" as in "boat"

As you can see, many Somali letters are pronounced in a similar way to English letters. However, there are some unique sounds in the Somali language, such as the "kh" and "dh" sounds, that may take some practice to master.

Somali Osmanya Online Virtual Keyboard