The Verb in Somali

Somali verbs are tricky, be careful! Here we will just talk about word order and where the verb fits in the Somali sentence.


Somali is an SOV language. That means the sentence order is,

Subject  -   Object  -  Verb

This is different to English, which is an SVO, or Subject - Verb - Object language, but Somali is similar to many other languages such as Turkish, Persian or Japanese in this respect.


For example,


Buugga akhri  - Read the book


The word 'akhri' here is the verb. It is the imperative(command) form of the verb. The command form is the base form of the verb, we will use it to make all other conjugations(past tense, present tense, etc). Also, when you want to look up a word in the dictionary, it will be listed under its command form. Other examples,


laydhka shid  - turn on the light
guriga gal       - enter the house
cuntada cun   - eat the food
warqadda qor - write the letter
hilibka jar      - chop up the meat
nin wanaagsan ahow - be a good person
imow! - come!
ogow! - know!


All of these words, 'shid', 'gal', 'cun', 'qor', 'jar' , 'ahow', 'imow', 'ogow', are command verbs.