Languagle #51: Somali
Soomaalidu been waa sheegtaa, beense ma maahmaahdo
"A Somali may tell a lie, but a Somali proverb never lies."
What it means
People can lie, but proverbs do not. A proverb about proverbs themselves, showing how much trust Somali culture places in traditional sayings as a source of truth.
What kind of saying it is
Oral tradition. In Somali, a maahmaah. Passed down by word of mouth. Sayings like this have no single author.
About the Somali language
Somali is a Cushitic language, part of the Afroasiatic family, spoken by around 20 million people in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Somalia has sometimes been called a nation of poets, and oral poetry is still highly prized. Somali had no official written form until 1972, when the government adopted a Latin alphabet in which c and x stand for sounds English does not have, both made in the throat.