Language code: som

Technical information about ISO 639 language code som

The table below provides technical details for the Somali language, designated by the som code from the ISO 639-2 standard.

Code

som

Name

Official

Somali

Native

Soomaaliga

Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Northern SomaliBenadir SomaliMaay (Maay-Maay)
Related languages
AfarOromoSahoBeja
Key facts
Classified in the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic familyOfficial Latin orthography adopted in 1972 uses 21 consonant and 5 vowel lettersEmploys pitch accent (tonal stress) to distinguish meaning and grammarNouns show gender, number and case with both suffixes and internal stem changesOral literature features intricate alliterative poetry such as the gabay.
Sample phrase

Salaan, sidee tahay?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

The Somali language, identified by the code som, falls under the 'Individual' category in terms of its scope and is classified as 'Living' by its type.

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