I saw an older Somali gentleman the other day in Minneapolis, and didn't know if he spoke English, so I said "subax wanaagsan" which is "good morning" in Somali. He answered, "Hi-Baby-how-are-ya?"
Here are some useful phrases in Af-Soomaali:
xaas ma leedahay? (pron.: hass ma led'ah-hi) ~ meaning "are you married?"
daqiiqo labaatan (pron.: dakee'ko labaa tan) ~ meaning "twenty minutes" as in he'll be back in twenty minutes.
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| Portrait of Hassan |
And just to clear up some linguistic confusion:
Walaahi (pron: wa-laa'-hi) ~ meaning "by God" or "really!?" or "I swear it"
Walaalo (pron: wa-laa'-lo) ~ meaning "sibling"
And, those goofy "c" words (remember your lessons ~ the "c" is silent):
Cunto (pron: uhn'to) ~ means "food"
Cun (pron: uhn) ~ means "eat"
Caano (pron: aa'-no) ~ means "milk"
My favorite Somali word is QAXWO (pron. Kah-wa), which is a kind of weak coffee made from the shells of the coffee bean and spiced with ginger, cardamom and cinnamon. And, wouldn't that be a good Scrabble word; worth a lot of points?
Some new portraits are shown here ~ go to https://picasaweb to see more.
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| Portrait of Kristina |
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| Portrait of Diane |
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| Portrait of Amy |
