Somali is a Cushitic language belonging to the wider Afroasiatic language family, spoken primarily in Greater Somalia and the Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. It is an official language in Somalia, Somaliland, and Ethiopia.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker Count2019-2024 estimate. StatusWikipedia article on Somali: a currently spoken living language with an active native-speaker population; checked 2026-09-27. Classification
Official Status Connections
Written In
Somali is standardly written in the Latin alphabet (official since 1972).
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Africa, found in there.
- Also in Society and Culture Atlas: Somali, cases where used there.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Somali Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Somali is a Cushitic language belonging to wider Afroasiatic language family. Somali is spoken primarily in Greater Somalia, and the Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. It is an official language in Somalia, Somaliland, and Ethiopia. It serves as a national language in Djibouti, and is also a recognised minority language in Kenya. The language is officially written with the Somali Latin alphabet, although an Arabic alphabet and several indigenous scripts are used informally.
Infobox, ISO 639-3
som
Infobox, Speakers
24 million (2019-2024)
Infobox, Region
Horn of Africa
Official status, Somali entity page
It is an official language in Somalia, Somaliland, and Ethiopia.
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