Place Names ( Somali)

[Nur]

Salams Nomads

 

Somali name places have always intrigued my imagination, Towns, villages or cities, even valleys or mountains have special names in our language, so today, I am going to share with you my choice of place names, please add to it for an educational and humorous journey.

 

If you had the chance to read my past posts, I use some town names frequently. like Kurtun Waarrey, or Garas Baalley, honestly I dream of visiting these four syllable towns, but here are some very descriptive town names.

 

some towns are so boring, you will never miss them if you leave them, like matabaan, matabaan means a place you wont miss, if you continue north and eat some exotic nuts like yicib, you will come to a town that should go to the business of natural gas mining, like dhuuso marreeb, or in case things get reaally bad, you have iskushuban to relieve yourself,

 

you now coem to a town named after the liberaton of the unbelievers, galkacayo,

 

some towns are named after the story of a shiek, like warsheikh, some in the north are simply called sheikh, somalis like to worship their saints, so if a tribe does not have a sheikh, they normally kill one to worship and collect visit fees from the worshippers as

 

some towns in the north are simply named after an intersection of two roads, like kalabaydhka, some towns have the name of nevada's capital like las anod or las qorey,

 

somalis are not shy when it comes to natural environmental sights, for example there are two volcanic mountains in hargeisa next to each other,they are named, naaso hablood.

 

that was my observation of place names in the land of the somalis , being politically correct,

 

 

nur

[checkmate]

some towns are so boring, you will never miss them if you leave them, like matabaan, matabaan means a place you wont miss, if you continue north and eat some exotic nuts like yicib, you will come to a town that should go to the business of natural gas mining, like dhuuso marreeb, or in case things get reaally bad, you have iskushuban to relieve yourself,

 

looool looooool wale iyo bile waa runtaa

kuwaana bal aniga ila eega

 

jariiban= any thing bad u will find it there (gudcur, dhip , qaxar, so on n so forth)

qoryooleey= city of sticks

biyooleey= city of water

afgooye=no comments or don't say anything we know (jareer baa dagan).... the only logic reason don't u think ..pls dont be mad guys

gelgaduud= nin carab ah ayaa lagu arkay markii ugu horeysay (wuu yara gaduudnaa)

caabudwaaq= city of callin players (wadaad dada ayaa ku badnaa)

 

kuwa kalena waan soo wadaa

 

asxantu

[Jaabir]

how about Dhuuso Mareeb, Jilib,, Tug Dheer

[Nur]

Checkmate

 

Jarriiban in somali means a place you hate to live in, yet you have no choice, unlike Matabaan, a place you can leave at will, never to look back, Jarriiban is a place where you are stuck with forever with no hope to leave, you wish for some angel to come and rescue you , oo uu kuu xambaaro some nice place like summertime Stokholm , Palm Beach, Seattle, Atlanta or Sharja in UAE.

 

place names tell a story of the nature of somali people, for example in the north we have a town named after an intersection, and we also have a famous district in Mogadisho named after an intersction, the people of the north named their intersection Kalabaydhka, literally meaning divergence or each to his own way, while the intersection in mogadishu is named Isgoyska, literally meaning convergence, or collision course, so while northerns find ways to diffuse conflicts, southerners find ways to confuse them more, i guess the difference of attitudes has to do with the diets, and the cooler climate. Semolina pasta should be investigated for increased aggressive behaviour, while bariis dhari eaten in Burco and vicinities, calms nomads behaviour. Now how am i going to explain qaat, consumed now more in the south then north.

 

Nur

[Qac Qaac]

nice place like summertime Stokholm , Palm Beach, Seattle, Atlanta or Sharja in UAE

Nuuroow this places aad kor ku soo tirisay waxaa igala qurxoon, Jilib, Jamaame, iyo Kismaayo macalinka. then again i could be wrong.

 

and about qaat being consumed in south more now, i wouldn't be surprised, since the south is too big for the north, and learned how to jew jaad from Yemen and Ethopia. then to north side of somalia then to south, marka south waa gadaal ka soo gaar.

[rudy-Diiriye]

i always wondered about the city called jowhar!! anybody know what it means in somali lingo!! what about marka! is that a somali lingo too! what about kismaayo! what does these it mean!! i mean understand hargeeysa, mogodisho!! namean!!

 

some of the somali cities do have names i cant figure out what the names mean!!

[Nur]

Eid Mubaarak Rudy bro

 

Jawhar means JEWEL,

 

Marka, I would leave it for the Mercanos in the crowd, my best guess is a cross between ocean in french Mer and Business Merchant, which makes sense as a seaport for business

 

Kissimayo, could well mean an answer for a lost travellor by another lost travelor, KASI MAAYO, or if we use the local dialect it is a compound name that could mean Kisi ( odd, illigitimate,) or if we assume Northeners disccovered Kismayo, Kis means Kinzi, or treasure, Maayo means Ocean or Sea. So you pick your combination, as an amature diver Kismayo means to me the Treasure of the Sea, and you have to to dive to see what I mean.

 

Hargeisa is said to be an Oromo word, I will leave it for our Northern Nomads to explain

 

Mogadishu is said to be an Arabic word as the city was inhabited by Merchants from Dubai of Omani/Iranian origin , they named the downtown ( Xamar cayn) but today its known as( Xamar Wein) , mind you , Xamar Cayn is a district in downtown Dubai, there is even a shopping Mall by the name of Xamar Cayn.

 

 

Well thats all folks

 

 

Nur

[N.O.R.F]

interesting, keep them coming,,,,

[me]

NUR Iskushuban is the opposite of KALABAYDH. It has nothing to do with relieving yourself.

[me]

Moqdisho they say it could be MAQDI SHAH like the Shah's place.

[BOB]

Originally posted by Nur:

Kissimayo, could well mean an answer for a lost travellor by another lost travelor, KASI MAAYO, or if we use the local dialect it is a compound name that could mean Kisi ( odd, illigitimate,) or if we assume Northeners disccovered Kismayo, Kis means Kinzi, or treasure, Maayo means Ocean or Sea. So you pick your combination, as an amature diver Kismayo means to me the Treasure of the Sea, and you have to to dive to see what I mean.[/QB]

Salam Aleikum W.W

 

First and foremost its NOT Kissimayo but KISMAYO and secondly you got it all wrong my brother and I must admit I couldn't help but laugh at your limited knowledge of my hometown because waxaa sheegeesid jeebkaaga waaye macalinka and I have no idea meeshaa ka keentay.

 

The name Kismayo comes from the Swahili name of Kisima which means Well or Ceel if you like as the residents were people used to be known by the Somalis as "Gaalo Madoow", marka saaxiib magaalada ha iga caanin because without a doubt Kismayo is simply the greatest city of Somalia in every way imaginable and if you don't believe me just ask your self why do so many Somali tribes claim the ownership of the city? Need I say more?

 

Kismaayo cadeey was the most cosmopolitan city in Somalia and we have been living side by side for centuries without ever having any problems.

 

We had non-somalis, the likes of Bajuni, Bantu-Somalis, Indians, Yemenis, Italians and for the last few years before the madness began a large communities of Russians and Chinese!

 

We are good at so many things, we were & still are patriotic and I don't know any city that can claim to have loved Somalia more than us (maybe its because we were in our own self-made paradise).

We are known to love each other more than any other city and wherever you go in the world today you will find us being together and still seeing each other as brothers & sisters and did I mention that we never bother asking our fellow Reer Kismaayo which tribe they may belong so we could relate to them more?

 

The name alone is enough and once you're from Kista then I love you regardless and I promise you, you will never find such chemistry and unconditional love in any other community, we have the most beautiful girls, we have natural beaches that will take your breath away, we have the biggest river in the entire country in Juba, we have our own slang that no other community could understand (these days you find few other speaking the lingo, namely Reer Kaambo) we were the undisputed kings of football and we produced arguably the two greatest footballers Somalia ever had, (I know you don't follow football that's why I wont bother mentioning their names) Shall I Go On My Brother Nur?

 

PS. You will find so many people claiming to be from Kismaayo these days just because they have been living there for the past 16 years but for us those are NOT AMONG US...Period.

 

Peace, Love & Unity.

[Paragon]

BOB: The name Kismayo comes from the Swahili name of Kisima which means Well or Ceel if you like as the residents were people used to be known by the Somalis as "Gaalo Madoow",

Bob, I heard the same. Actually the Bajunis who still live in Lower Juba still speak Swahili, and as the original occupiers (and the occupants of Kismayo), they still speak of the city as Kisima, the welled city. This can be explained, I guess, by ceelasha k qodan Kismayo.

 

Also, there are said to be a tribe (was it the Giriyama) whose tribal centre was Shungwaya, situated deep in the Lower Juba region. They were, as well as the Galla, driven out of what is know Somalia proper by the invading nomads who defeated them. This is around the time when the Ajuran Dynasty was defeated too, resulting in their fleeing into Ethiopia and Kenya.

[BOB]

Salam Aleikum W.W Paragon,

 

it's not Giriama but some other tribe from Tanzania, I think their tribal name is Mushunguli (I could be wrong) and they were brought to Somalia by Said Barqash from Zanzibar and the mainland of Tanzania.

 

Bajunis are not the original natives who used to live in and around Kismayo but those whom old Somalis used to refer to as "Gaalo Madoow" and they were Oromo and Wardeey and couple of Somali tribes fought against them and ultimately defeated them and that's when the Kismayo we know of today was born.

 

 

The Bajuins used to live near the seaside where we today know as Calanleey, which also happens to be my neighbourhood where I was born and bred and where my father still lives to this day and reads and teaches Islamic books at the main mosque.

 

Bajunis aren't nomads or peasants like the most Somalis but fishermen and near the sea there used to be a Well known as "Daw Dhanaan" (it still was until i left in 91) and my father used to tell us that boats from Mombasa or Zanzibar on their way to the gulf used to stop by there and refill their water tanks and people started to refer to the place as "The Well" and the Somali nomads used to bring their livestock to that same Well and they never had any problem with the Bajunis as they were not Gaalo but Muslims and later on they even intermarried and lived side by side until the civil war broke.

 

Growing up, I had so many Bajuni friends and I never considered them to be outsiders as they spoke the language and had the same Somali culture, Bajunis aren't a nation as many Somalis would have you believe but a tribe born out of the intermarriages between the Arabs who used to rule East African coasts and the natives they found there and they are 100% Muslims, yeah they speak Swahili but their Swahili is different from the one you usually hear in Kenya or mainland Tanzanina, if you listen to it carefully you will find so many Somali words in it and trust me you will never meet more generous or warm people than the Bajunis.

 

Most of the time they like to fool those Somalis from outside of Kismayo and pretend like they don't know one single Somali word but as soon as you start backbiting (waan is naqaanaa Soomaali aan xanka unahee) that's when they will let you know to slow it down a bit, it happened to so many people I know and fortunately for me few times I enjoyed watching some guys make fools out of themselves in Utange by saying the most hideous things in their presence thinking they would get away with it.

 

 

Those who fought for Kismayo were three Somali tribes and believe it or not neither of these three occupied the city before the Islamic courts took control and most of the times two out of these three Somali tribes aren't even mentioned as they are not as powerful as those who claim the ownership of the city!

 

I know Kismayo as it's where I was born and my father was born and my grandfather was born before us as well and everyday I pray that I will see my hometown again before I depart from this earth because only Allah s.w knows how much I LOVE that city.

 

PS. They can claim as much as they want but each and every Kismayo native knows who Kismayo belongs to and that will never change.

[GoldCoast]

Which footballers are your referring to BOB?

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Kismayo was the birth place of some good footballers.

 

Khaliif Rico

Yasiin Karaani

Cabdirasaaq Marshaale

 

These are the few I personally know.