Abstract
Alliteration is a very important compulsory stylistic aspect of Somali poetry along with metrical structure. It is always word initial and the same sound must be sustained throughout the whole poem in every line or halfline according the metrical structure. This chapter presents the principles of how this system works: which sounds alliterate with each other, the interaction with the metrical structure of the line and how the alliterative sound is chosen. It also considers the creative use of alliteration in some example poems, looking at the iconic use of alliteration and also the way in which the principles of alliteration can be used for particular effects.
In preparing this chapter I am grateful for the help of Abdullahi Hassan Bootaan, Mohamed Hassan ‘Alto’ and Abdi Aden Abdille ‘Eelow’.
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Notes
M. Orwin, ‘Introduction to Somali Poetry and Translations of Samadoon by Cabdulqaadir Xaaji Cali and Jacayl Dhiig Ma Lagu Qoray by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame “Hadraawi” with Notes’. In Watts, S. (ed.), Mother Tongues, Non English-Language Poetry in England, Modern Poetry in Translation, 17, London, 2001, pp. 12–30. Note all translations are my own unless otherwise stated.
See G. Banti and F. Giannattasio, ‘Music and Metre in Somali Poetry’. In Hayward, R.J. and I.M Lewis, I.M. (eds), Voice and Power: the Culture of Language in North-East Africa. Essays in Honour of B.W. Andrzejewski, London, 1996, pp. 83–127.
J. Greenberg, ‘African Prosodic Systems’. In Diamond, S. (ed.), Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, New York, 1960, p. 929, on the basis of some very early work on Somali poetry by Kirk and Cerulli, suggests that the use of equivalence sets in alliteration occurs, but I have never come across this, nor heard this mentioned by Somalis nor seen it in some of the examples he seems to be referring to. The basis upon which he makes this suggestion needs to be further looked into.
Said S. Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: the Case of Sayyid Mahammad ‘Abdille Hasan, Cambridge, 1982, p. 61.
R.D. Zorc and M.M. Osman, Somali–English Dictionary with English Index, 3rd edn. Kensington, Md, 1993.
M. Orwin, ‘A Literary Stylistic Analysis of a Poem by the Somali Poet Axmed Ismaciil Diiriye “Qaasim”’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 63(2), 2000: 194–214.
The translation has been published in M. Orwin, ‘Introduction to Somali Poetry and Translations of Samadoon by Cabdulqaadir Xaaji Cali and Jacayl Dhiig Ma Lagu Qoray by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame “Hadraawi” with Notes’. In Watts, S. (ed.), Mother Tongues, Non English-Language Poetry in England, Modern Poetry in Translation, 17, London, 2001. Reasons for the typography of these translated lines are given there.
Ahmed A. Ahmed, ‘Maanso Structure and Content (an Application of Guuleed’s Maanso Scansion System to the Meaning of “Dardaaran”’. In Labahn, T. (ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Somali Studies, University of Hamburg, 1–6 August 1983, Hamburg, 1984, pp. 333–71. Note there is no suggestion here of d and dh alliterating with each other, rather he is making the point that the way <dh> is used in the poem reinforces the acoustic iconicity he refers to.
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© 2011 Martin Orwin
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Orwin, M. (2011). Alliteration in Somali Poetry. In: Roper, J. (eds) Alliteration in Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305878_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305878_14
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