Dr التذكير والتأنيث بين اللغتين الصومالية والعربية: دراسة تقابلية

Abstract

It is an established fact that many of the languages of Muslim peoples have been profoundly influenced by the Arabic language due to their spiritual and cultural connection to the language of revelation. Among the African languages that have experienced significant influence is Somali, in which Arabic loanwords constitute a large portion of its lexicon. The researcher has observed that Somali learners of Arabic often fall prey to a dual mode of usage when dealing with the many Somali vocabulary items borrowed from Arabic, particularly with regard to the phenomenon of grammatical gender (masculine and feminine). The meanings of many of these borrowed words have changed, becoming masculine or feminine in Somali in ways that differ from their original usage in Arabic. This causes confusion for the beginner and poses considerable difficulty even for the specialist in avoiding this serious pitfall.
Somali resembles Arabic in that it exhibits grammatical gender in nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and it is closely similar to Arabic in its strict classification of nouns into only two categories—masculine and feminine. This constitutes another important observation. Accordingly, the researcher deemed it appropriate to conduct a contrastive study between Arabic and Somali with respect to grammatical gender, with the aim of serving Somali learners of Arabic by helping them exercise caution and avoid committing serious stylistic errors resulting from the semantic changes that have affected words borrowed from Arabic.