Northern Somali | |
---|---|
Af Waqooyi — Maxaa Tiri | |
Native to | Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, Ethiopia |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | nort3051 |
Northern Somali (Somali: Af Waqooyi,[1] alternatively known as Maxaa Tiri[2]) is a dialect of the Somali language and forms the basis for Standard Somali.[3][4] It is spoken by more than 70% of the entire Somali population, with its speech area stretching from Djibouti, Somaliland and the Somali Region of Ethiopia to the Northern Frontier District in Kenya.[5] This widespread modern distribution is a result of a long series of southward population movements over the past ten centuries from the Gulf of Aden littoral.[6]