MAJOR SOMALI CLAN-FAMILIES

The Somali people  inhabits almost the entire Horn area of Africa.  The majority of the Somali people live in the country of Somalia.  Somalis are also the principle inhabitants of the Zone five region of Southeastern Ethiopia.  Somalis also live in the southern half of the country of Djibouti, and in the North Eastern Province of Kenya.

The Digil and Rahawiin (Reewiin) clans, who speak the Maay language, and the Jiiddu and Tunni, speaking their Maay-related languages, are also part of the broader Somali clan structure and political alliances.  These clans include an additional 1.5 million people whose distinct characteristics warrant classifying them as separate ethnic groups.

History:  Firm evidence for the history of the Somali people dates back to only about AD 1000.  -Ahmed, Ali Jimale, Ed.  The Invention of Somalia (New Jersey, U.S.A.:  The Red Sea Press, Inc., 1995), p. 233-256.

There are folk genealogies tracing certain Somali clans to the Arabian Peninsula and associating their ancestors with the Sharifs, the family of prophet Mohammed.  Linguistic, cultural and historical evidence, however, indicates they came originally from the southern highlands of what is now Ethiopia.  The basis of such claims to Arab origin may lie in trading and marriage alliance relations with old Arab Inhabitant on the Somali coast.  Anthropological studies indicate the Digil-Rahawiin (Maay-speaking) peoples represent the earliest migration group and also the most southern.

The Somali peoples were never under any unified political structure.  Sporadic attempts such as the Gareen dynasty from the Ajuuraan in Central/Southern Somalia in the 1500s (Cassanelli 1992) and the Bartire around Jigjiga, Ethiopia, in the late 1700s were overthrown violently by other clans.

The clans, with various genealogical ties, or political or military alliances,  provided a broad, loose identity.  In the colonial era, the various European powers easily established a hegemony, then a dominance over various divisions of the Somali peoples.  The British, French and Italian Somalilands roughly followed geographical areas of clan alliances or federations and actually helped limit clashes between different clans.

In 1960 Britain and Italy combined their territories into a unified independent Somalia. The French territory remained separate and gained independence in 1977 as Djibouti.

Identity:  The Somalis are most closely related to the Rendille and the Afar, and distantly related to the Oromos, all Eastern Cushite peoples.  Somalis are not a unitary people group, but a grouping of broad clan federations divided by language and by clan conflicts.  Although all Somalis profess strong allegiance to Islam, they hold stronger primary loyalties to self, family and clan, in that order.

Language:  The Somali language is a member of the Eastern Cushite family of languages.  Forms of this language are spoken in Djibouti,  (Ethiopia) and the northern areas of Somalia, as well as in Kenya.  The language situation, however, is quite complex.  Linguists analyze several languages among the Somali peoples which are not mutually intelligible.

The Rahawiin people and most of the Digil federation, living the lower Jubba Valley and the Baay-Bakool plateau of the Shebeelle Valley, speak Maay, while the speech of the Jiiddu and Tunni clans are classified as separate languages.  Most Garre in Somalia speak Garre as a mother tongue, but Maay is the mother tongue of some.  The Garre language is close to Boni.  (Most Garre and Ajuuraan in Kenya speak an Oromo language named after them:  Garre-Ajuuraan.)

The Debarre clan of the Garre also speak their own language, more closely related to Maay.  Many Somalis speak various languages as a second language.  Clans are genealogically based and cut across language lines.

Comparative language studies show that Maay, Tunni and Jiiddu retain older vocabulary and structure than "standard Somali" language forms.  After independence, Arabic served as an official lingua franca, and the only written language.  However, Arabic is not commonly spoken and written Somali has been taught in school since an official Latin orthography was chosen in 1972.  This orthography is also used in Ethiopia since 1993 or 1994.

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