[3][4][5] It is a member of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family, and its nearest relatives are the Afar and Saho languages.

The similar Benaadir (also known as Coastal Somali) is spoken on the Benadir coast from Cadaley to south of Merca, including Mogadishu, as well as in the immediate hinterland.

Most of the vocabulary terms consisted of commonly used nouns and a few words that Zaborski (1967:122) observed in the older literature were absent in Agostini's later work.

[17] The parallel disparity between the Arabic and Somali languages occurred despite a lengthy spell of a shared religion, as well as frequent intermingling as with through practises such as umrah.

[clarification needed] Furthermore, Mr Bruce, an 18th-century voyager of the Horn of Africa, was reported by author George Annesley to have described Somalis as an Arabophobic race which had disdain for Arabs, writing "an Arab, a nation whom they detest",[18] which led to the preservation of Somali in those times despite proximity to the Arabian peninsula.

Somalis in the neighbourhood countries (throughout "Greater Somalia") rarely speak Arabic in their day-to-day lives.

These interactions have also meant that some inhabitants of localities of the nearest linear proximity such as Bereeda and Alula have become bilingual at both the Soqotri and Somali languages.

[22] But, in 2012, they were later removed by the establishments of the Provisional Constitution by the Federal Government of Somalia[23] leaving Somali and Arabic as the only official languages.

It is estimated that more than 200,000 native Somalis (nearly 20% of the total population of former Somalia italiana) were fluent speaking Italian when independence was declared in 1960.

Prior to the Somali civil war, Mogadishu still had an Italian-language school, but was later destroyed by the conflict.

It was also increasing in usage during the British Military Administration (Somaliland) BMAS, whereby Britain controlled most Somali-inhabited areas from 1941 until 1949.

Outside of the north, the Jubaland region has had the lengthiest period whereby English was an official language as the British empire began administering from the 1880s.

[28] The script was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali, including Musa Haji Ismail Galal, B. W. Andrzejewski and Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the Somali language, and uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet except p, v and z.