Somali Rural Literacy Campaign
| Shire Jama Ahmed شيري جامع أحمد |
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|---|---|
| Born | Shire Jaamac Axmed Galgadud, Somalia |
| Occupation | linguist, writer |
| Alma mater | Al-Azhar University |
| Website | |
| www |
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Shire Jama Ahmed (Somali: Shire Jaamac Axmed, Arabic: شيري جامع أحمد) was a Somali linguist who devised a unique Latin script for transcribing the Somali language.
In the late 1960s, Shire and a few other Somali linguists presented before the Somali Language Committee, an organization in charge of settling Somalia's outstanding language issue, and eventually deciding between several prospective orthographies. These scripts ranged from Arabic to some resembling Ge'ez, an ancient Ethio-Semitic writing system. Among those proposed was the Osmanya script, an orthography invented in the early twentieth century by the Majeerteen poet and ruler, Osman Yusuf Kenadid, which had enjoyed a strong following. Shire's competing orthography, for its part, was derived from Latin characters, and it omitted a few letters (p, v and z) to accommodate the unique sounds of the Somali language. Shire also introduced combination letters (kh, dh and sh), which were in many ways exclusive to the language.
Shire was born in the Galgadud region of Somalia to a Marehan family. He grew up in Dhuusamareeb and Abudwak, two of the region's more prominent cities.
In 1940, at about the age of five (the usual age when children first start Qur'anic studies), Shire began learning the Qur'an at his nearby dugsi or madrasah. He continued his religious studies up until 1945. It is widely reported that he attained Kabir or student head. One attains the Kabir designation when one succeeds at memorizing scripture at an above average pace. Here, Shire quickly attained complete knowledge of the Qur'an, which consists of 30 chapters of roughly equal number of verses or volume.
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