|
( Somali people)
(Soomaaliyeed) 15-17 Million The Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Ethnic Somalis number around 20-25 million and are principally concentrated in Somalia (more than 8 million[1]), Ethiopia (4,5 million[2]), Yemen (a little under 1 million), northeastern Kenya (about half a million), Djibouti (350,000), and an unknown but large number living in parts of the Middle East, North America and Europe due to the Somali Civil War. Numerous sources place Arabia as the original homeland of the Somali people.[8][9] Others suggest a more indigenous provenance that some say can be traced all the way back to the 1st millennium BCE. The ancient ancestors of the Somali people, proponents of this theory propose, split off from an early Cushitic-speaking group in the highlands of Ethiopia, and are referred to as the Sam.[10] The Sam themselves are said to be a sub-type of the Omo-Tana and are believed to have evolved into the Somalis as they transitioned first from the Somaal and later the Somali people. The Somali people are then alleged to have moved into the Zeila region by at least 850 CE and then expanded into all of what is modern-day Somalia.
|
Somali people Subcategories
Somali people Articles
|
|
