Ashraf (Somali: Af-Ashraaf) is a speech variety of uncertain classification within the East Omo-Tana sub-branch found in the Marka district of the Lower Shebelle region and Banaadir region of southern Somalia.
According to Blench (2006) there are two sub-dialects: Shingani and Lower Shebelle.[1] As noted in recent work on the speech variety, Green & Jones (2016)[2]:
"What we hope to have illustrated in this talk is that while Marka (Af Ashraaf) may be similar in certain ways to both Northern Somali and Maay, it nonetheless boasts a number of unique properties, particularly in its morphology, that we believe merit its treatment not as a Somali or Maay dialect, but as a language variety of its own"
A similar level of skepticism towards the labelling of other Omo-Tana languages in Somalia (such as Maay, Dabarre, Jiddu, so forth) is expressed in Tosco (2012)[3]:
Tosco's revised model for classifying Omo-Tana, acknowledging both the sociolinguistic situation of Cushitic languages in Somalia labeled as "dialects" of Somali and their actual classification as languages apart from Somali
"It is well-known that the term 'dialects' may refer to different 'things'. Within Somalia, it is safe to say that all the Somali dialects are 'dialects' from a sociolinguistic point of view, that is, in terms of their social role, their general absence in written media, and the speakers' acceptance of Northern-Central Somali as a common medium. From a strictly linguistic point of view, however, mutual comprehension should be assessed and dialects labelled accordingly (as mutually understandable varieties of a language). No classification so far does that."
Phonology
The phonological inventory of Ashraaf is as follows:
Green, Christopher & Jones, Evan. (2016). A first look at the morphophonology of Marka (Af-Ashraaf) and a comparison to its neighbors.
The Unity and Diversity of Somali Dialectal Variants. In: Nathan Oyori Ogechi, Jane A. Ngala Oduor and Peter Iribemwangi (eds.), The Harmonization and Standardization of Kenyan Languages. Orthography and other aspects. Cape Town: The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS): 2012: 263-280
Further reading
Christopher R. Green & Evan Jones. 2019. Notes on the morphology of Marka (AfAshraaf). In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 119–133. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3367132
Ajello, Roberto. 1984. Il focus nell'idioma degli Ashraaf di Shingaani. In Puglielli, Annarita (ed.), Aspetti morfologici, lessicali e della focalizzazione, 133-146. Roma: Dipartimento per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Italia).
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