Ashraf () is a speech variety of Somali spoken in the Marka district of the Lower Shebelle region and Banaadir region of southern Somalia.
Classification According to Blench (2006) there are two sub-dialects: Shingaani and Lower Shebelle.Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List (ms) As noted in recent work on the speech variety, Green & Jones (2016):Green, Christopher & Jones, Evan. (2016). A first look at the morphophonology of Marka (Af-Ashraaf) and a comparison to its neighbors."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) is expressed in Tosco (2012):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 "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: +Consonant phonemes BilabialLabio-dentalDentalAlveolarPost-alveolar(Palato-alveolar)RetroflexPalatalVelarUvularPharyngealGlottalPlosive Fricative () () () Nasal Trill Approximant Lateral approximant +Vowels Front Central Back Close, , Mid, , Open,
See also Northern Somali Benadiri Somali
References
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. 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).