Somali

Somali marks case partly through tone — the same noun has a different tone pattern depending on whether it's in subject, object, or genitive role. Verbs are conjugated for person, number, and tense, with two main conjugation classes (one with prefixes, one with suffixes). Topics are flagged with focus markers attached to the topic itself rather than through word order alone.

Somali had no widely used standardized writing system through most of its history. Arabic script was used in Islamic religious contexts; several indigenous Somali scripts (Osmanya, Borama, Kaddare) were proposed in the 20th century but didn't achieve broad adoption. After decades of debate, the Somali Latin alphabet — designed by Shire Jama Ahmed — was officially adopted by the Siad Barre government in 1972 and became the standard for newspapers, education, and government use within years.

Across Somalia, Somaliland, the Somali region of Ethiopia (the Ogaden), Djibouti, and parts of northern Kenya (the Northeastern Province). Diaspora populations live in the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States (especially Minneapolis), Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, and Australia, many tied to refugee migration since the early 1990s. Somali is one of the most widely diasporized African languages.

Both are Afro-Asiatic but in different branches. Somali is Cushitic; Arabic is Semitic. The two have been in religious and cultural contact for centuries, leaving Arabic loanwords in Somali especially in religious and abstract vocabulary. Grammatically the languages are distinct and not mutually intelligible. Somali shares more grammatical structure with Oromo and Afar than with Arabic.

Yes, two: masculine and feminine. Gender is marked on definite articles, pronouns, and verbal agreement. Many Somali nouns shift gender between singular and plural — a singular masculine noun can become feminine in the plural and vice versa, an unusual pattern from a cross-linguistic perspective. This 'gender polarity' is one of the more striking features of Somali grammar.