82-479: President of Somalia,President of Puntland Government(Puntland) Government(Somalia) others Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed ( Somali : Cabdulaahi Yuusuf Axmed , Arabic : عبدالله يوسف أحمد ; 15 December 1934 – 23 March 2012) was a Somali politician and former military officer. He was one of the founders of the rebel Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), as well as the Puntland state of Somalia,
164-747: A Latin orthography as the official national alphabet over several other writing scripts that were then in use. Concurrently, the Italian -language daily newspaper Stella d'Ottobre ("The October Star") was nationalized, renamed to Xiddigta Oktoobar , and began publishing in Somali. The state-run Radio Mogadishu has also broadcast in Somali since 1951. Additionally, other state-run public networks like Somaliland National TV , regional public networks such as Puntland TV and Radio and, as well as Eastern Television Network and Horn Cable Television , among other private broadcasters, air programs in Somali. Somali
246-462: A "clan deal". By mid-2008, President Yusuf had lost all the support he had accumulated in the international community. His primary backer, Ethiopia, had also become tired of the TFG president only offering military answers to serious political issues. On 14 December 2008, Ahmed announced that he had dismissed Hussein and his government, citing corruption, inefficiency, treason and failure to bring peace to
328-757: A close. In August 2001, a general congress representing all major clans in Puntland elected Abdullahi Yusuf's political rival, Jama Ali Jama , as the new president. Jama's close ties to the Mogadishu-based Transitional National Government alarmed Ethiopia, which opposed the TNG and was determined to remove it. Yusuf refused to accept the election results, leading to violent clashes with Jama in Garowe . By December 2001, Ethiopian troops intervened in support of Yusuf. Yusuf had used
410-565: A conference in Baidoa where they all agreed that the vote of confidence in support of Hussein's government never took place. Ismail Ali Nur, who spoke on behalf of the dissenting lawmakers, indicated that Somalia's constitution requires a parliament quorum of no less than 139 MPs present for votes, but that "only 95 MPs" showed up as opposed to the 143 members of parliament claimed by Speaker Adan "Madobe" Mohamed . Nur urged people to "watch video footage recorded from that session." On 24 December,
492-420: A decision openly opposed by a significant portion of the government. Due to a lack of funding and human resources, an arms embargo that made it difficult to re-establish a national security force, and general indifference on the part of the international community, President Ahmed also found himself obliged to deploy thousands of troops from Puntland to Mogadishu to sustain the battle against insurgent elements in
574-670: A deliberate assassination. On 10 October 2004, in a session held by the Transitional Federal Parliamentin the neighbouring Kenyan capital of Nairobi, Ahmed was elected as President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), an interim federal administrative body that he had helped establish earlier in the year. He received 189 votes from the TFG Parliament, while the closest contender being, former Somali Ambassador to
656-626: A governmental agency. He later commanded the Somali National Army's (SNA) southern front in the Ogaden War against neighboring Ethiopia , with assistance from 60th division commandant Col. Abdullahi Ahmed Irro , as well as frontline deputies Col. Abdulkadir Berked of Begedi of Afgio and Col. Ahmed Ilgir of Burtinle serving as his deputies. Ahmed was assigned to lead the Negheille offensive in 1977, which extended from Bali in
738-514: A hospital in Nairobi for treatment of what his spokesman described as bronchitis , and on 4 January 2008, he collapsed in Baidoa and was taken to Ethiopia for treatment. Two days later, Ahmed was rushed to London for tests. He returned to Mogadishu on 16 February 2008; rebels promptly fired mortars at the presidential compound, reportedly wounding at least five people. During June 2008, a faction of
820-523: A prime minister with connections to then-Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi . These close connections to Addis Ababa were a driving force behind the invasion and provoked the ICU into later adopting a bellicose stance. In 2004, Yusuf made his first foreign visit as President when he travelled to Ethiopia. During this visit he requested 20,000 Ethiopian troops to back his government. As President, Ahmed pledged to promote reconciliation and to set about rebuilding
902-493: A prominent 40,000-entry 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. In addition, the majority of personal names are derived from Arabic. The Somali language also contains a few Indo-European loanwords that were retained from
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#1732793365940984-550: A prominent port city and the commercial capital of the northeastern part of the country. He later served as a co-chairman of the National Salvation Council of Somalia, established in 1997. Abdullahi Yusuf led Somalia's autonomous Puntland region from 1998-2004. The region was largely peaceful under Yusuf's rule except from mid-2001 to mid-2002, when he was deposed over widespread objections to his attempt to lengthen his term of office. In 2000, Yusuf opposed
1066-524: Is a result of a long series of southward population movements over the past ten centuries from the Gulf of Aden littoral. Lamberti subdivides Northern Somali into three dialects: Northern Somali proper (spoken in the northwest; he describes this dialect as Northern Somali in the proper sense), the Darod group (spoken in the northeast and along the eastern Ethiopia frontier; greatest number of speakers overall), and
1148-448: Is a tonal language, whereas Banti (1988) suggests that it is a pitch system. The syllable structure of Somali is (C)V(C). Root morphemes usually have a mono- or di-syllabic structure. Clusters of two consonants do not occur word-initially or word-finally, i.e., they only occur at syllable boundaries. The following consonants can be geminate: /b/, /d/, /ɖ/, /ɡ/, /ɢ/, /m/, /n/, /r/ and /l/. The following cannot be geminate: /t/, /k/ and
1230-522: Is classified within the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family, specifically, Lowland East Cushitic in addition to Afar and Saho . Somali is the best-documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies of the language dating back to the late 19th century. The Somali language is spoken in Somali inhabited areas of Somalia , Djibouti , Ethiopia , Kenya , Yemen and by members of
1312-413: Is fired, we will bombard it, regardless of whoever is there.” Due to a lack of funding and human resources, an arms embargo that made it difficult to re-establish a national security force, and general indifference on the part of the international community, President Ahmed also found himself obliged to deploy thousands of troops from Puntland to Mogadishu to sustain the battle against insurgent elements in
1394-597: Is not marked, and front and back vowels are not distinguished. Writing systems developed in the twentieth century include the Osmanya , Borama and Kaddare alphabets , which were invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid , Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur and Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare , respectively. Several digital collections of texts in the Somali language have been developed in recent decades. These corpora include Kaydka Af Soomaaliga (KAF), Bangiga Af Soomaaliga,
1476-481: Is rarely pronounced as a velar fricative, Partially the reason why is that it is mostly found in Arabic loanwords. It is pronounced as the phoneme χ when it is an allophone for the letter ⟨q⟩ in syllabic codas. As in A kh ri from A q ri meaning (read). Pitch is phonemic in Somali, but it is debated whether Somali is a pitch accent , or it is a tonal language . Andrzejewski (1954) posits that Somali
1558-584: Is recognized as an official working language in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Although it is not an official language of Djibouti , it constitutes a major national language there. Somali is used in television and radio broadcasts, with the government-operated Radio Djibouti transmitting programs in the language from 1943 onwards. The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation also broadcasts in the Somali language in its Iftin FM Programmes. The language
1640-467: Is similar to the stem alternation that typifies Cairene Arabic . Somali has two sets of pronouns: independent (substantive, emphatic) pronouns and clitic (verbal) pronouns. The independent pronouns behave grammatically as nouns, and normally occur with the suffixed article -ka/-ta (e.g. adiga , "you"). This article may be omitted after a conjunction or focus word. For example, adna meaning "and you..." (from adi - na ). Clitic pronouns are attached to
1722-718: Is spoken in the Somali territories within North Eastern Kenya , namely Wajir County , Garissa County and Mandera County . The Somali language is regulated by the Regional Somali Language Academy , an intergovernmental institution established in June 2013 in Djibouti City by the governments of Djibouti, Somalia and Ethiopia. It is officially mandated with preserving the Somali language. As of October 2022, Somali and Oromo are
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#17327933659401804-635: The Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia and the TFG signed a ceasefire agreement after months of talks in Djibouti . The agreement was met with resistance from elements within the TFG, chiefly President Yusuf. In the second half of 2008, Ahmed had been at loggerheads with then Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein over a proposed new cabinet, the latter of which Ahmed characterized as nothing more than
1886-720: The BBC that the alliance of warlords were not fighting on behalf of the government, and threatened to fire them. Indeed, members of the government who were part of the warring Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) were sacked. Others left the government in disaffection following the victories of the Islamic Courts Union. After the start of the new phase of the War in Somalia on 21 December 2006,
1968-597: The Islamic Courts Union during 2006. By the end of the Ethiopian military occupation in December 2008, much of the country had fallen to the insurgency and Yusuf was threatened with international sanctions over his refusal to support national reconciliation. The TFG parliament moved to impeach Yusuf after accusing him of being a dictator . On 24 December 2008, he resigned from the presidency, leading to
2050-455: The Near East and South Asia (e.g. khiyaar "cucumber" from Persian : خيار khiyār ). Other loan words have also displaced their native synonyms in some dialects (e.g. jabaati "a type of flat bread" from Hindi: चपाती chapāti displacing sabaayad). Some of these words were also borrowed indirectly via Arabic. As part of a broader governmental effort of linguistic purism in
2132-655: The Puntland government in 1998. He later joined an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords opposing the Somali Transitional National Government (TNG) formed in 2000. During the Puntland crisis (2001–2003) he had a violent power struggle against Jama Ali Jama over regional leadership. Yusuf attempted to extend his term after it expired, sparking a political crisis and the election of a new Puntland president, which Yusuf rejected. In May 2002, with Ethiopian military assistance, Yusuf ousted Jama after accusing him of ties to terrorism . During
2214-553: The Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain, scientist Johann Maria Hildebrandt noted upon visiting the area that "we know from ancient authors that these districts, at present so desert, were formerly populous and civilised[...] I also discovered ancient ruins and rock-inscriptions both in pictures and characters[...] These have hitherto not been deciphered." According to the 1974 report for Ministry of Information and National Guidance, this script represents
2296-673: The Somali National University in Mogadishu . He later moved abroad to pursue Military Studies . Ahmed was married to Hawa Abdi Samatar . The couple had two sons and two daughters in addition to six grandchildren. Ahmed joined the colonial forces of the Trust Territory of Somaliland in 1950. In 1954, he was included in the first batch of Somali military personnel that was taken to Italy for Officer training. The batch included Aidid, Samatar, and Gabeyre. He
2378-729: The Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. Somali is an official language in both Somalia and Ethiopia , and serves as a national language in Djibouti , it is also a recognised minority language in Kenya . The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic script and several Somali scripts like Osmanya , Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used. Somali
2460-495: The Somali diaspora . It is also spoken as an adoptive language by a few ethnic minority groups and individuals in Somali majority regions. Somali is the most widely spoken Cushitic language in the region followed by Oromo and Afar . As of 2021, there are approximately 24 million speakers of Somali, spread in Greater Somalia of which around 17 million reside in Somalia. The language is spoken by an estimated 95% of
2542-610: The Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) declared it the Somali Democratic Republic 's primary language of administration and education. Somali was thereafter established as the main language of academic instruction in forms 1 through 4 , following preparatory work by the government-appointed Somali Language Committee. It later expanded to include all 12 forms in 1979. In 1972, the SRC adopted
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2624-577: The Warsaw Pact armies and their allies. He received additional military training in Italy. Between 1965 and 1968, he served as Somalia's military attaché to Moscow. On 15 October 1969, while paying a visit to the northern town of Las Anod , Somalia's then President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards. His assassination was quickly followed by a military coup d'état on 21 October 1969 (the day after his funeral), in which
2706-446: The ' War on Terror ' to justify the operation and claimed Jama supported Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya . In January 2002, Ethiopia intervened again, accusing Jama of harboring members of Al-Itihaad—a claim Jama denied. During May 2002, Yusuf defeated Jama and reasserted his control over Puntland. Fighting broke out against between forces loyal to Yusuf and Jama during January 2003. During this period Abdullahi Yusuf's forces were responsible for
2788-641: The Cushitic and Semitic Afroasiatic languages spoken in the Horn region (e.g. Amharic ). However, Somali noun phrases are head-initial, whereby the noun precedes its modifying adjective. This pattern of general head-finality with head-initial noun phrases is also found in other Cushitic languages (e.g. Oromo), but not generally in Ethiopian Semitic languages. Somali uses three focus markers: baa , ayaa and waxa(a) , which generally mark new information or contrastive emphasis. Baa and ayaa require
2870-685: The Ethiopian government's claims of sovereignty over several Somali-inhabited areas that the SSDF had managed to seize control of from Barre's forces, Ahmed was detained by the local Ethiopian authorities in 1985. Mire was elected as the SSDF's new chairman the following year. Ahmed would remain imprisoned until his release in 1990, following the demise of Ethiopia's then-ruling Derg . Ahmed subsequently returned to Somalia. In 1992, he marshalled forces to successfully expel an Islamist extremist group linked to Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya that had taken over Bosaso ,
2952-658: The Latin nor Osmanya scripts accommodate this numerical switching. *the commas in the Osmanya number chart are added for clarity Hawa Abdi Samatar Hawa Abdi Samatar ( Somali : Xaawo Cabdi Samatar , Arabic : حواء عبدي ساماتار ) was a Somali political figure. She was the former First Lady of Somalia , and the wife of erstwhile President of Somalia and Puntland , the late Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed . The couple had two sons and two daughters in addition to six grandchildren. Hawa Abdi Samatar, Former First Lady,
3034-585: The Lower Juba group (spoken by northern Somali settlers in the southern riverine areas). Benadir (also known as Coastal Somali) is spoken on the central Indian Ocean seaboard, including Mogadishu . It forms a relatively smaller group. The dialect is fairly mutually intelligible with Northern Somali. The language has five basic vowels . Somali has 22 consonant phonemes . The retroflex plosive /ɖ/ may have an implosive quality for some Somali Bantu speakers, and intervocalically it can be realized as
3116-575: The Ogaden. Before becoming president of the TFG during 2004, Abdullahi Yusuf was a member of an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords that had undermined a previous attempt at restoring a government in Somalia when the Transitional National Government (TNG) formed in 2000. I.M. Lewis observes that with significant Ethiopian support, Abdullahi Yusuf was elected as the TFG president, and, under Ethiopian direction, he appointed
3198-588: The Semitic Himyarite and Sabaean languages that were largely spoken in what is modern day Yemen —"there is an extensive and ancient relationship between the people and cultures of both sides of the Red Sea coast" Mire posits. Yet, while many more such ancient inscriptions are yet to be found or analyzed, many have been "bulldozed by developers, as the Ministry of Tourism could not buy the land or stop
3280-465: The Somali Army seized power without encountering armed opposition – essentially a bloodless takeover. The putsch was spearheaded by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre , who at the time commanded the army. For refusing to support Barre's seizure of power, Ahmed was imprisoned for several years by the new military regime. In 1975, Ahmed was released from prison and appointed by Barre as the director of
3362-668: The Somali Web Corpus (soWaC), a Somali read-speech corpus, Asaas (Beginning in Somali) and a Web-Based Somali Language Model and text Corpus called Wargeys (Newspaper in Somali). For all numbers between 11 kow iyo toban and 99 sagaashal iyo sagaal , it is equally correct to switch the placement of the numbers, although larger numbers is some dialects prefer to place the 10s numeral first. For example 25 may both be written as labaatan iyo shan and shan iyo labaatan (lit. Twenty and Five & Five and Twenty). Although neither
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3444-525: The Somali language, the past few decades have seen a push in Somalia toward replacement of loanwords in general with their Somali equivalents or neologisms . To this end, the Supreme Revolutionary Council during its tenure officially prohibited the borrowing and use of English and Italian terms. Archaeological excavations and research in Somalia uncovered ancient inscriptions in a distinct writing system . In an 1878 report to
3526-530: The Somali people's extensive social, cultural, commercial and religious links and contacts with nearby populations in the Arabian peninsula. Arabic loanwords are most commonly used in religious, administrative and education-related speech (e.g. aamiin for "faith in God"), though they are also present in other areas (e.g. kubbad-da , "ball"). Soravia (1994) noted a total of 1,436 Arabic loanwords in Agostini a.o. 1985,
3608-469: The Somali poems by Sheikh Uways and Sheikh Ismaaciil Faarah. The rest of the existing historical literature in Somali principally consists of translations of documents from Arabic. Since then a number of writing systems have been used for transcribing the Somali language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet , officially adopted in 1972, is the most widely used and recognised as official orthography of
3690-743: The Speaker of the Parliament Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden helped to relocate the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) from Nairobi to the Somali cities of Jowhar and Baidoa , where the TFG resided until the government eventually took control of Mogadishu . The majority of Somali society, including much of the newly formed Transitional Federal Government , deeply opposed any foreign military intervention on Somali soil. An African Union fact finding mission to Somalia in 2005 found that
3772-469: The TFG and oppose the Ethiopian military's presence in Somalia. Throughout 2007 and 2008, Al-Shabaab scored military victories, seizing control of key towns and ports in both central and southern Somalia. At the end of 2008, the group had captured Baidoa but not Mogadishu. By January 2009, Al-Shabaab and other militias had managed to force the Ethiopian troops to withdraw from the country, leaving behind an under-equipped African Union peacekeeping force to assist
3854-423: The TFG parliament moved to impeach President Abdullahi Yusuf, accusing him of being a dictator and an obstacle to peace. On 29 December 2008, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed announced before a united parliament in Baidoa his resignation as President of Somalia. In his speech, which was broadcast on national radio, Ahmed expressed regret at failing to end the country's 17-year conflict. Yusuf stated that he had lost control of
3936-553: The TFG, with the help of Ethiopian forces, wrested control of the southern part of the country and the capital, Mogadishu, from the hands of the Islamic Courts Union. By 28 December, the Transitional Federal Government had captured Mogadishu as the ICU forces fled. On 8 January 2007, as the Battle of Ras Kamboni raged, TFG President Ahmed entered Mogadishu for the first time since being elected to office. It
4018-479: The Transitional Federal Government's troops. On 17 September 2006, a suicide car bomber smashed his vehicle into Ahmed's convoy outside the National Parliament in Baidoa . The attack killed four of Ahmed's bodyguards as well as Ahmed's brother. Six attackers were also slain in the subsequent gun battle. Ahmed underwent a liver transplant in the 1990s. In early December 2007, he was admitted to
4100-560: The United States Abdullahi Ahmed Addou , got 79 votes in the third round of voting. The then incumbent President of Somalia, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan , peacefully withdrew his candidature. Ahmed was sworn in a few days later on 14 October 2004. The Ethiopian government heavily backed the presidency of Abdullahi Yusuf and the formation of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004 on the grounds that Yusuf would give up Somalia's long standing claim to
4182-629: The Zayed Military Hospital in Abu Dhabi , but had fallen into a coma over the previous few days. Somali language Somali ( / s ə ˈ m ɑː l i , s oʊ -/ sə- MAH -lee, soh- ; Latin script: Af Soomaali ; Wadaad : اف صومالِ ; Osmanya : 𐒖𐒍 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘 [af soːmaːli] ) is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken primarily in Greater Somalia , and by
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#17327933659404264-416: The assassination of civic leaders in Puntland, most notably Sultan Hurre during August 2002. Surre was a major opponent of Yusuf of extrajudicially executed by the security forces belonging to him. Yusuf's government accused Hurre of "association with extremist elements" and targeted him for arrest. While they had claimed his death was accidental, a journalist who had witnessed Surre's death described seeing
4346-543: The colonial period. Most of these lexical borrowings come from English and Italian and are used to describe modern concepts (e.g. telefishen-ka , "the television"; raadia-ha , "the radio"). There are 300 loan words from Italian, such as garawati for "tie" (from Italian cravatta ), dimuqraadi from democratico (democratic), mikroskoob from microscopio , and so on. Additionally, Somali contains lexical terms from Persian , Urdu and Hindi that were acquired through historical trade with communities in
4428-554: The conflict he was responsible for ordering the assassinations of civic leaders in Puntland such as Sultan Hurre . In 2004, Yusuf became president of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). He received Ethiopia's backing and approval, in exchange for dropping Somalia's long-standing claim to the Ogaden region. Despite widespread opposition within the TFG and without cabinet or parliamentary approval, Yusuf controversially requested Ethiopian troops to support his administration against
4510-461: The country to Islamist insurgents, and blamed the international community for its failure to support the government. He further announced said that the speaker of parliament, Aden "Madobe" Mohamed, would succeed him in office per the Transitional Federal Government's Charter . While it was suggested that Ahmed's resignation added chaos to the country's political landscape as Ethiopia withdrew its troops, some diplomats opined that it might have improved
4592-705: The country's inhabitants, and also by a majority of the population in Djibouti. Following the start of the Somali Civil War in the early 1990s, the Somali-speaking diaspora increased in size, with newer Somali speech communities forming in parts of the Middle East, North America and Europe. Constitutionally, Somali and Arabic are the two official languages of Somalia . Somali has been an official national language since January 1973, when
4674-412: The country. However, his government was beset by internal disagreements and contentions with other stakeholders in Somalia. For example, he was at loggerheads with some warlords and government members over where the administration should be based. The President and Prime Minister opposed a move to Mogadishu, citing security reasons. Consequently, Ahmed along with his Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi and
4756-534: The destruction". Besides Ahmed's Latin script, other orthographies that have been used for centuries for writing the Somali language include the long-established Arabic script and Wadaad's writing . According to Bogumił Andrzejewski , this usage was limited to Somali clerics and their associates, as sheikhs preferred to write in the liturgical Arabic language. Various such historical manuscripts in Somali nonetheless exist, which mainly consist of Islamic poems ( qasidas ), recitations and chants. Among these texts are
4838-721: The dissolution of his government. After he resigned he was given political asylum in Yemen. Yusuf died in the United Arab Emirates on 23 March 2012. Abdullahi Yusuf was born on 15 December 1934 in Galkayo , situated in the north-central Mudug region of Somalia . The city was at the time part of Italian Somaliland . His family hailed from the Omar Mahmoud sub clan of the larger Majeerteen Harti Darod clan. For his post-secondary education, Ahmed studied law at
4920-402: The earliest written attestation of Somali. Much more recently, Somali archaeologist Sada Mire has published ancient inscriptions found throughout Somaliland . As much for much of Somali linguistic history the language was not widely used for literature, Dr. Mire's publications however prove that writing as a technology was not foreign nor scarce in the region. These piece of writing are from
5002-451: The first attempt to restore a central state when the Transitional National Government (TNG) was created that year at a conference of elders. Due to opposition from the country's many warlords, including Yusuf, the TNG's authority withered within months. He was a member of an Ethiopian-backed coalition of warlords that succeeded in undermining the TNG. In 2001 the Puntland crisis began as Abdullahi Yusuf's term as Puntland president came to
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#17327933659405084-441: The flap [ɽ] . Some speakers produce /ħ/ with epiglottal trilling as / ʜ / in retrospect. /q/ is often epiglottalized . The letter ⟨dh⟩ is a retroflex flap when it is pronounced intervocalically, hence becoming the phoneme ( ɽ ): for example, Qu r aanjo (Ant) from Qu dh aanjo; But however, more often than not is the pronunciation of ɽ to the unretained-retroflex ɾ . The letter ⟨kh⟩
5166-400: The focused element to occur preverbally, while waxa(a) may be used following the verb. Somali loanwords can be divided into those derived from other Afroasiatic languages (mainly Arabic), and those of Indo-European extraction (mainly Italian). Somali's main lexical borrowings come from Arabic, and are estimated to constitute about 20% of the language's vocabulary. This is a legacy of
5248-471: The fricatives. Two vowels cannot occur together at syllable boundaries. Epenthetic consonants, e.g. [j] and [ʔ], are therefore inserted. Somali is an agglutinative language, and also shows properties of inflection . Affixes mark many grammatical meanings, including aspect, tense and case. Somali has an old prefixal verbal inflection restricted to four common verbs, with all other verbs undergoing inflection by more obvious suffixation. This general pattern
5330-443: The latter of which he served as the first president. In 2004, Yusuf also helped establish the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which he led as President of Somalia from 2004 until 2008. Yusuf was a career soldier in the Somali National Army , participating in the 1964 Border War and Ogaden War against Ethiopia. After Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden War in 1978, he led a failed coup against President Siad Barre , marking
5412-522: The newly appointed Prime Minister Guled announced his resignation, citing that he did not wish to be "seen as a stumbling block to the peace process which is going well now." Following Guled's resignation, Abdirashid Sed, who was close to President Ahmed, said that Ahmed would announce his resignation and retirement from politics at a special session of Parliament on 29 December. According to Sed, Ahmed made this decision "because he does not want to be seen as an obstacle to peace in Somalia". In December 2008,
5494-444: The only Cushitic languages available on Google Translate . The Somali languages are broadly divided into three main groups: Northern Somali , Benadir and Maay . Northern Somali forms the basis for Standard Somali. It is spoken by the majority of the Somali population with its speech area stretching from Djibouti , and the Somali Region of Ethiopia to the Northern Frontier District . This widespread modern distribution
5576-402: The overwhelming majority of Somalis rejected troops from neighboring states entering the country. Despite significant opposition within the TFG parliament, President Yusuf made the widely unpopular decision to invite Ethiopian troops to prop up his administration. As an institution, the TFG did not consent to or approve of the Ethiopian military intervention. No parliamentary approval was given for
5658-496: The people who had helped plot the coup were summarily executed, but Ahmed and several other colonels managed to escape abroad. Later that year, in adjacent Ethiopia , Ahmed and Hassan Ali Mire formed a rebel movement called the Somali Salvation Front, with Ahmed serving as chairman. The organization was subsequently renamed the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) in 1979. It was the first of several opposition groups dedicated to ousting Barre's regime by force. After opposing
5740-453: The plural of the masculine noun dibi ("bull") is formed by converting it into feminine dibi . Somali is unusual among the world's languages in that the object is unmarked for case while the subject is marked, though this feature is found in other Cushitic languages such as Oromo. Somali is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language. It is largely head final , with postpositions and with obliques preceding verbs. These are common features of
5822-465: The prospects of striking a deal with the more moderate Islamist insurgents. After his exile from Somali politics, Ahmed was initially reported to have flown out of Baidoa back to his native Puntland in the northeast. He then arrived in Sana'a , the capital of Yemen , on 20 January 2009, along with his wife and 17 family members and guards. On 21 January, Al Arabiya reported that Ahmed was granted political asylum in Yemen, where he resided. Yusuf spent
5904-472: The remainder of his life in the United Arab Emirates . In 2011, Ahmed released his memoirs , titled Struggle and Conspiracy: A Memoir ( Halgan iyo Hagardaamo: Taariikh Nololeed ). He began a promotional European tour for the book late in the year and in early 2012. On 23 March 2012, relatives and Radio Mogadishu announced that Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed had died at age 77 from complications due to pneumonia . He had been receiving treatment for several weeks at
5986-474: The southern part of the country. Financial support for this effort was provided by the autonomous region's government. This left little revenue for Puntland's own security forces and civil service employees, leaving the territory vulnerable to piracy and terrorist attacks. Following this defeat, the Islamic Courts Union splintered into several different factions. Some of the more radical elements, including Al-Shabaab , regrouped to continue their insurgency against
6068-484: The southern part of the country. Financial support for this effort was provided by the autonomous region's government. This left little revenue for Puntland's own security forces and civil service employees, leaving the territory vulnerable to piracy and terrorist attacks. In May 2006, the Second Battle of Mogadishu started and CNN reported that there were interim government forces in action. However, Ahmed told
6150-416: The southwest to the town of Negheille. For his efforts, Ahmed was again decorated for courage, but would remain a Colonel throughout his military career. In 1978, together with a group of officials mainly from his own Majeerteen ( Darod ) clan, Ahmed participated in an abortive attempt to overthrow Barre's dictatorial administration. The military coup d'état was originally planned for 12 April. However, it
6232-756: The start of the Somali rebellion . Following the coup's failure, Yusuf established the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in Ethiopia and began fighting alongside Ethiopian forces against the Somali army. During the 1982 Ethiopian-Somali War , he led SSDF forces. Frustrated by the operation's failure and the SSDF's surrender to the Somali government, the Ethiopians jailed Yusuf until the Derg regime collapsed in 1991. After his release, Yusuf returned to his home region and helped establish
6314-557: The state. The script was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali, including Musa Haji Ismail Galal , B. W. Andrzejewski and Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the Somali language, and uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet except p , v and z . There are no diacritics or other special characters except the use of the apostrophe for the glottal stop , which does not occur word-initially. There are three consonant digraphs : DH, KH and SH. Tone
6396-408: The verb and do not take nominal morphology. Somali marks clusivity in the first person plural pronouns; this is also found in a number of other East Cushitic languages, such as Rendille and Dhaasanac. As in various other Afro-Asiatic languages, Somali is characterized by polarity of gender , whereby plural nouns usually take the opposite gender agreement of their singular forms. For example,
6478-603: The war-torn country as reasons for the dismissal. Earlier in the year, Hussein had survived a vote of no confidence after having been accused by some lawmakers of embezzling state funds. Hussein said that Ahmed did not have the power to fire him without parliamentary approval, while Ahmed asserted that he believed Parliament would endorse the dismissal. Parliament supported Hussein in a vote on 15 December, but Ahmed nevertheless appointed Mohamoud Mohamed Guled as Prime Minister to replace Hussein on 16 December. On 21 December, Radio Garowe reported that 80 members of parliament held
6560-461: Was announced that the government would relocate to Villa Somalia in the capital from its interim location in Baidoa. This marked the first time since in 1991 that a Somali government controlled most of the country. During fierce fighting in Mogadishu in early 2007, the Ethiopian army reportedly carpet bombed neighborhoods. Yusuf announced in a radio interview that “any place from which a bullet
6642-412: Was instead hastily carried out a few days earlier, on 9 April, due to fears of potential leaks. Ahmed was at the time in the southern Gedo region and was unaware of the changes to the coup plan. He later learned of the failed putsch via a secured communication network, which contained a coded two sentence message from Col. Abdullahi Ahmed Irro reading "Wife Aborted", dated 11:00 am, 9 April 1978. Most of
6724-470: Was promoted to the post of commander in 1960. As a soldier, he participated in the 1964 war against the Ethiopia and was decorated for his actions of valor during the war. Ahmed obtained a degree in Military Topography from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in the former Soviet Union (Военная академия им. М. В. Фрунзе), an elite institution reserved for the most qualified officers of
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