How Have Colonization and War Created Modern Somalia?

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The Somali Language Today
Somali leaders faced the challenge of harmonizing the educational systems, the curriculum, and the language of instruction. There was a need to develop an official script for the Somali language, which was still only a spoken language at independence. At the time, the military were in power who were under the leadership of Said Barre. His main aim was to reduce and eventually fully eradicate clan conflict and ignorance through the mass education of its people. Consequently, the development of a written Somali language was very important to achieving those aims. In 1972 the modified Roman alphabet was accepted with a military decree that made Somali the language of official business and instruction for the country. Teachers in Somalia were given up to three months to learn and become skilled in the language. At the same time, the textbooks and curriculum were developed and adapted to portray the new values of the Somali society, and a mass literacy campaign was launched to teach every Somali how to read and write. This campaign had many positive effect in Somalia and on the school system as, for the first time in its history, all the students, regardless of their location in the country, were taught in the same language, using the same textbooks. However, this progress education was making in Somalia was made to stop as the civil war broke out and lasted from 1991 to 1998. As educational facilities were one of the many casualties of the war, it eradicated all the progress that was made in the education sector. Ten years after the civil war had begun; Somalia found it very difficult to rebuild its nation and its educational system. As a result of the war, the country became detached into three parts. In 19...

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... both efficient primary and secondary sources. However, one main disadvantage of this project was that there very limited trustworthy, unbiased secondary sources on the topic of Somalia as many of the changes and events had taken place quite rapidly. Due to this I found it very difficult to decide and make my own judgements on whether or not the sources were reliable enough for me to use in my essay.

Works Cited

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14094632 http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2012/feb/23/somalia-history-events-in-pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language
Putnam & Noor (1999). The Somalis: Their History and Culture http://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Somali/ http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=202&menu=004

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