How it began
Osman Yusuf Kenadid created the alphabet between 1920 and 1922. He was the son of Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid and brother of Sultan Ali Yusuf Kenadid of the Sultanate of Hobyo, on the coast of what is now central Somalia. The script takes its name from him. In Somali it is called Far Soomaali, meaning Somali writing.
Before it existed
Somali had been written with the Arabic script since the 13th century, when Sheikh Yusuf al-Kowneyn introduced it to aid the teaching of the Quran. In the 19th century Sheikh Uways al-Barawi adapted Arabic writing for Somali. Osmanya replaced that attempt at an Arabic-based alphabet with letters made for the language.
How it works
Osmanya is a true alphabet written from left to right, like Latin script. It has its own digits, and capital letters are used only sporadically. Long vowels were at first written double or with consonant letters, as in Arabic, and separate letters for them were added later. Tone is not marked. The order of the letters follows that of Arabic for the sounds the two share.
Who pushed back
The script gained reasonable acceptance for letters and bookkeeping at the local level but met fierce resistance as a national script. It was identified with the Majeerteen clan and not with the nation as a whole, some opposed making Somali the official language in place of Arabic, and others opposed any indigenous script in place of Arabic or Latin letters. In 1961 both Latin and Osmanya were adopted for use, and the question remained open until after the coup of 1969.
What lasted
In October 1972 the government adopted a Latin alphabet for Somali, judged simple, able to cover all the sounds of the language, and suited to existing typewriters and printing machines. A mass literacy campaign followed, and use of Osmanya fell sharply. During the 1970s many people still used it for personal correspondence and accounts, and a few books and magazines were published in it.
Where it stands today
Osmanya was added to the Unicode Standard in April 2003, in version 4.0, so it can be used on computers and phones. It is little used in daily life. Surviving material written in the script is scarce, which makes its historical use hard to describe with certainty.
