Somali leid

The Somali leid (Somali: Afsoomaali, Arabic: الصومالية‎) is a member o the East Cushitic branch o the Afro-Asiatic leid faimily. Its nearest relatives are Afar an Oromo. Somali is the best documentit o the Cushitic leids,^[3] wi academic studies beginnin afore 1900.

Somali
[Af-Soomaali] error: {{lang}}: text has italic markup (help) اللغة الصومالية
Native tae	Somalie, Somaliland,[1] Djibouti, Ethiopie, Yemen, Kenyae
Region	Horn o Africae
Native speakers	16.6 million (2006)[2]
Leid faimily	Afro-Asiatic Cushitic Lowland East Macro-Somali Somali leids Somali
Writin seestem	Laitin (offeecial) Arabic (offeecial) Osmanya Borama Kaddare
Offeecial status
Offeecial leid in	Somalie
Leid codes
ISO 639-1	so
ISO 639-2	som
ISO 639-3	som
Somali-speakin region

Number o speakers

The exact number o speakers o Somali is unkent. Ane source estimates that there are 7.78 million speakers o Somali in Somalie itself (includin Somaliland) an 12.65 million speakers globally.^[4] A population estimate made bi the Dutch Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht puts the Somali population somewhaur atween 10 an 15 million.^[5] Combined wi a lairge internaitional expatriate community, it is difficult tae get a specific number o Somali speakers, but somewhaur atween 10 an 16 million warldwide seems a reasonable estimate. Accordin tae Gordon (2005), approximately 13 million fowk speak Somali, but upwards o 25 million individuals are commonly estimatit tae speak the leid. Archived 2010-12-30 at the Wayback Machine