Sunday 8 January 2012

Waxaad or Waxaydin?

Those of you with a Somali textbook will notice that when I deal with classifiers or focus words (waan, baan, etc), for 2nd person plural ('you all') I generally use 'waxaad' or 'waad' or 'baad' instead of 'waxaydin', 'waydin' or 'baydin'. In the textbooks, these are used I think to show you that these forms exist. When I started learning Somali, I was also using 'waxaydin' etc, but other people said it was strange, and that it is better to use 'waxaad' etc for 2nd person plural. I think words like 'waxaydin' are used perhaps only for very formal occasions. My mother also said it is better and more natural to use 'waxaad' instead of 'waxaydin' when talking.  I hope to get other opinions on this.

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