[ Silence ]
>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
[ Silence ]   >> Mary Jane Deeb: Welcome.
Welcome all of you to the African Middle Eastern Division.
I'm delighted to see you.
I'm Mary Jane Deeb [phonetic], Chief of this division
which is made up of three sections.
The African section, the Neri [phonetic] section
and the Hebraic section.
Each of which organizes programs, conferences, exhibits related
to its collections and its regional responsibility and expertise.
Provides reference, takes photographs [chuckles]
and actually helps researchers with the many resources
that we hold here at the library.
This year the division decided to start a new series entitled,
"Highlights from the Collections of the African
and Middle Eastern Division".
Our expert librarians who are also scholars in their own rights,
make presentations on aspects of the collections.
We have already had Dr. Ed Brenner who talked
about the 16th Century Hebrew book.
Dr. Levan Abduan [phonetic] who discussed the Armenian Collections.
Dr. Angel Batiste [phonetic] and Ms. Marita Harper [phonetic],
who talked about library's resources of the New Republic of South Sudan.
And today we will have Mr. Abdulahi Ahmed,
who will talk about the Somali collections at the Library.
But more about him later.   In its mission statement,
the Library of Congress includes the following, and I'm quoting:
"In the 19th Century, when the Congress placed the national
copywrite function within the Library, it set the collections
on a course to becoming the record of American creativity,
and a storehouse of the words knowledge.
With these actions, the Congress enabled the library
to serve a critical public need.
The advancement of knowledge and creativity."
Since then -- and I was quoting; all this was a long quote.
Since then, the Library has continued to fulfill its mission;
building its collections and making them available to everyone.
What Congress may not have realized when it set the Library
on the course of becoming the storehouse of the World's knowledge,
was that it would also become the preserver of the World's memory.
In the past 200 years, there have been numerous natural
and man-made disasters that have resulted in the destruction
of libraries and archives around the world.
Had the Library of Congress not had copies of many of the collections
that were destroyed in their home countries,
the losses would have been irreversible.
And the history and creativity of many of the people
of the world would have simply disappeared.
A case in point is Somalia.
When a civil war started in 1991, the first institutions
to suffer were the universities, the museums, the libraries,
the archives, the book stores, the theaters.
All those institutions that held the history and creativity of Somalis.
Today nothing is left.
The art and culture seen in Somalia is gone.
Some of the artists were able to flee
to Europe and the United States.
Others were not so fortunate and became refugees
in neighboring countries; while still others perished
In September, 2011, Abdulahi Ahmed, a staff member
of the African Mid East Division who hazed from Somalia,
and Muhammad Sheik Hussein [phonetic],
the CEO of Scansion Publishers [phonetic],
published together a book entitled "The History
of Somali Plays and Art".
The book highlights the contributions
of several hundred people who are songwriters, playwrights, musicians,
poets, composers, folklore dancers, stage directors, group bands
and many others in Somalia.
And it's based on resources which exist nowhere else
but at the Library of Congress.   [ Pause ]
>> Today, the Library holds the largest collection
Now let me say a few words about the speaker, Abdulahi Ahmed.
Abdulahi Ahmed is one
of our cherished members here in the division.
He holds a BA in history and geography;
an MA in international commerce and policy from George Mason University.
He took a year to study abroad, and travelled across the world.
He went to the Institution of Economics of Beijing.
He attended classes at the Institute
of International Economics in Geneva.
And he went to Oxford University as well and in the process of studying.
And currently we have the great fortune
of having him here as part of our division.
And he has not only helped every single member of this division,
but he has been, and continues to be asked for assistance, support,
he gives briefings on the Somali language, and many of the students
of Somali language are here today; we're delighted to have them.
So welcome to hear.
And he has not only written the book that I've just mentioned,
but he's on -- he's working on a second book on folk dances
of Somalia, which should appear in 2013.
He has a hobby and he's a former soccer player,
who was part of the [inaudible] Team of Somalia --
the national team of Somalia.
He loves soccer and he mentors young Somali soccer players.
And every year he disappears to Canada; to other parts of the world,
and comes back triumphant having won a cup [chuckles] for the teams.
So without further adieu, Abdulahi Ahmed.
>> Abdulahi Ahmed: Thank you Mary Jane Deeb.
Thanks for everybody for coming.
I [inaudible], that this year Somalia is celebrating the
anniversary of the 40th year of writing the Somali script itself.
Somalia celebrates the 40th anniversary of the written Somali.
The Somali language is one
of the ancient Cushitic language spoken mostly in the horn of Africa.
But it has remained unwritten until as recently as 1972
when Somalia finally managed to have its own written language.
Thanks to the ruling government of that time.
Somali has it's tradition deeply rooted in oral expressions.
It's interesting to note that written Somali is very new,
and that the development of the written language has a complex,
intriguing history that goes back hundreds of years.
In the early 1970's a commission was formed by the Somali government
to establish a written script.
While several scripts were actually presented in October, 1972,
the Somali government decided that the Roman script would be used
for the written language.
The decision brought to an end the alphabet wars over which script
to use, because some people wanted Arabic as well --
since Somalis have Muslims, they said, we want Arabic.
But finally the government decided the Latin script [clears throat].
In January, 1973, the first Somali language daily newspaper,
"Xiddigta Oktoobar", was launched
to replace the English and Italian newspapers.
As a result, Somali now has an official language.
Call it Somali.
Because Somali is such a very new language, it has a wide variety
of words that have been borrowed from other languages.
Especially such areas as technology, communication, and religion [pause].
So Somali became the official language for administration,
mass media and as medium of instruction in schools and college.
The former Somali Language Commission
and subcommittee spearheaded efforts
to translate [inaudible] administration and media vocabulary,
communication and eduction to translate primary
and secondary school subjects into Somali having paving the way
for a mass literacy campaign in 1974 and 1975.
[ Pause ]
>> Although a national institutions promoting Somali language ceased
to exist because of the civil war, the pace of translating books from
and into Somali has not been severely affected by the Civil war.
Thanks to the termination of Somali language researchers and policies
in favor of cultural diversity in the western world, like in Europe
and the United States and in Canada.
A lot of Somali books are being published; mostly bilingual.
So what did we get from the written Somali language?
Today in refugee camps in the diaspora in Somalia,
from mobile texting to writing books, from newspapers
to TV channels and from websites to school textbooks.
From audio broadcasts to missing person letters.
Perhaps it's the written language which has played a vital role
in alleviating 20 plus years of the Somali civil war.
[ Pause]
>> Now I want to show you some slides of the Somali collections
that we have at the Library of Congress.
The Somali Collection consists of monograms, which are books,
newspapers -- my favorite -- articles, official government
and international booklets including legislative
and parliamentary documents, the statistics reports,
policy and administration documents.
We also have films, video and sound recordings, manuscripts,
maps and atlas's, microphones, prints and photographs
which you will see today.
And now I'll start showing you some of the highlights.
I will start with culture; the culture of Somalia;
some of the books that we have here.   [ Pause ]
>> Sorry.   [ Pause ]
>> Okay. Let's go.   >> [Inaudible].
>> Yeah. Okay.   >> [Inaudible].
[ Pause ]   >> Okay [inaudible] [chuckles].
Okay, the first few slides are --
it's about the culture and the language.
The first one that you see here, it's book written
by Muhammad [inaudible] of Deli.
He's a Native of Somalia and he lives in Canada;
he's a Professor of a university.
This books gives his students and interested readers an in depth look
of the land and the people of Somalia.
This Muslim country has strong nomadic roots and it's known
as the land of poets with a long oral cultural tradition.
Some highlights found here in this book, discuss religion and thought,
art, architecture, nomadic way of life, camel --
Somalis love their camels -- culture, food, dress, marriage
and family, gender roles, social customs and lifestyles,
education, music and dance.   [ Pause ]
>> This is the book that was mentioned earlier.
The authors are myself and a friend of mine,
Muhammad Sheik Hussein [phonetic].
It covers over 70 well known plays that were staged, directed
and presented to the public in theaters,
dating as far bas as the 1950's.
I think the rest, as Mary Jane Deed has mentioned, and it was good.
[ Pause ]
>> This is a collection of Somali poems.
Somalis love poetry.
And here are some Somali songs we love.
In 206 the Minnesota Humanities Censor, in collaboration
with the Minnesota Somali Community launched the Somali Bilingual
Book Projects.
So this is one of those books; it's bilingual.
Minnesota has over 70,000 to 80,000 Somalis, so.
The goal was to ensure the community has high-quality,
authentic resources that promote and preserve heritage language
and increase English literacy skills of refugee and immigrant families.
The project culminated with the publication
of four traditional Somali folk tales in English and Somali,
as well as dual language audio.
So Wiil Waal, that's the name of a Somali king.
In Somali mythology, there is an abundance of tales about men
and women who defied cultural traditions or acquired heroic
and [inaudible] among the [inaudible] of the Somali peninsula;
and this guy's one of them.   His name is Wiil Waal.
He was a king, an ancient Somali king known for his bravery
and his skills in battles.
The story in this book is the king said, I want someone to bring --
all men should bring me what makes men unite or divided.
So when a wise Somali leader, Wiil Waal, asked the men in his province
to bring him the part of a sheep
that best symbolizes what can divide men or unite them as one,
most presented him with the prime cuts of the meat.
But one very poor man's daughter has a different idea.
In this clever folk tale, her father [inaudible],
followed with his daughter's advise and has astonishing results.
Most men brought the prime cuts, right?
But this girl said, no daddy don't take that.
He wants what unites and divides men, right?
She said it's the [inaudible] because men are greedy.
So that's what makes men united or divided.
They will fight over food; over wealth, or they can be united.
So that's the story of Wiil Waal.
And this is another book, [inaudible].
This book, it's bilingual.
Also it's published here in the United States.
It's for American teachers; English speakers who has a lot
of Somali students in their classrooms.
So this book has a lot of sentences and verbs for the teacher
to communicate with the Somali students and the Somali parents.
Like nice, you did your homework in Somali and in English.
[ Pause ]
>> This is the first Somali dictionary; the oldest one
that we have in the library, 1880.
It was written by a Captain in the military bridge administration
in Somaliland and it's one of the oldest ones.
And this is the newest dictionary.   It's 208.
[ Pause ]
>> "Advanced English and Somali Dictionary" by Ahmed Hussein Mire.
Was published in 208 and it's written by Ahmed Hussein Mire.
So far it's by far the best English-Somali dictionary
in the market.   [Inaudible] now.
It has 1,205 pages.
It's really huge and according to the author, it has $150,000 entries.
It also has over 30,000 examples to further illustrate the meaning
of the same -- the meanings of some
of the most difficult words to grasp.
And now we start with Somali books.
This is a textbook -- Somali textbook; English and Somali.
This is the latest one.   Okay.
[ Pause ]   >> [Inaudible].
Sorry.   [ Pause ]
>> Yeah it's here.
Okay. Now Somalis are nomadic and tribal.
So this book is about genealogies of the tribes of Somaliland.
This was published by the [inaudible] in 1944.
They wrote down all the tribes names and how they are related
and this is the latest one.
This is one of the best books when it comes to Somali clans and tribes.
How it's set up and this book provides data on clan
and sub-clan [inaudible] of the most controversial Somali
government positions.
It is a valuable source for Somali politicians
and international [inaudible], understand Somali clan policies.
If you want to know about Somali clans, read this book.
It has all the data.
It has, for example, every government; every administration
that came to Somalia from the President to the [inaudible],
they have the ministers, where they came from, their names; their clan.
Because Somalis divide seats in the parliament by the clan line.
[ Pause ]
>> Okay this one is also one of my favorites.
When a Somali child is born, if the child is a boy
in the nomadic culture, the boy is either a warrior or a priest.
Nothing in between.
And they have their own culture and their own laws.
So this is a traditional Somali behavior in warfare.
When we say traditional it's the nomadic; it's not the urban.
Because there we have different rules.
So a boy's either a [inaudible], [inaudible] is Somali,
[inaudible] means a priest; religious person
or [inaudible] warrior; the one with the spear.
War always had its regulating conventions and well defined bonds
which serve to limit its effects
and which also set forth clearly the kind of actions that was permitted,
and those that were prohibited.
According to Somali proverb, every word gives way to peace.
In anticipation of eventual peace, women, children,
those innocently caught up the fighting, the wounded
and the captives would be protected
and treated humanly during the conduct of hostility.
So the topics that this book covers are:
Courses of conflict among the Somalis, traditional conduct
of the warfare, traditional immune groups --
there are certain groups you cannot touch, prison of war
and private property, conflict in Islam -- religion's important again,
treatment of the wounded, weapons and practice prohibited in conflict,
negotiation and peace settlement.
So all those topics are in this book.
This is a book from the Somali military, 1965.
It talks about the regulations of how the Military should operate,
just like in [inaudible].
But the first one I showed you was authentically Somali,
but this is from United Nations.
And we had a copy of Somali police also.
And this book is in Arabic [Somali spoken] [pause].
It's a manuscript.
And it talks about Somali clans up in the north wanted
to join this king -- king's authority because the English
and the Germans were coming to Africa and taking land.
They wanted to control the oceans and the seas.
But the Somali's say that we are Muslims and we don't want
to be under none Muslims.   So this -- the title is "Letters
of the Somali Leaders to the [Somali spoken]".
And this letter was written in 1837.
That's when the scramble for Africa was going on.
So who was this Sultan?
He was the ruler of the current Emirates --
Unite of Emirates -- in 1803 - 1866.
And he was known for being the enemy of Britain.
And the Somalis saw the British as their enemies.
So they wanted to be under his protection.
And they wrote this letter to him.
The reason that the want protection was
because the English also brought missionaries.
They were converting Somali kids to Christianity.
They also wanted their freedom
because the English would control them.
Where to go; who to take with, who to sign treaties with.
And they paid no tax; now the tax will come.
But did the Sultan accept the request?
At the end, no because he signed a treaty with the British.
[ Pause ]   >> This is a historical book.
It's about the city of Mecca; it's south of [inaudible].
1910, it was written by the Italians because the Italians rule.
The title is "[Somali spoken]".   [Somali spoken] is a Somali clan.
They say the city of Mecca is the origin of the [Somali spoken].
So Somalis claim territories.
So [Somali Spoken] can't claim because they have now an evidence
that in 1910 even the Italians recognized
that this is their territory [pause].
This is a United Nations report; both are United Nations reports.
This is the trusteeship agreement between the Somalis
and the British and Italians [pause].
This is a government publication, National Museum of Somalia.
We also have Yellow Pages.
Actually not only from Somalia but from all over the world.
And this is a Somali Yellow Pages; we have a collection of them.
And when I told my wife she was excited
and I found their home number from the [chuckles] [inaudible].
And here is again, you can see the names and the numbers there
and there's an advertisement, Somali banana --
This is also an old book about Somali poetry.
It was written by a Canadian woman who lived in Somalia in the 1950s.
Her husband works for the Bridge.   Okay. Now give me a second.
[ Pause ]   >> My favorite.
Newspapers.
We also have newspapers from Somalia.
But before independence and before the written Somali,
everything was written in English and Italian and in Arabic.
This is 1959.   The Somali News.
I can make it bigger so that you can see it.
[ Pause ]
>> Let me go to the next one [pause].
This is the first newspaper publication
by any Somali government.   This is after independence.
And it lasted for about 10 years.   [ Pause ]
>> The Library also has historical newspapers.
I don't know if any of you have visited them.
It started from 1870s to up to 1940.
And out of curiosity I went there and put Somalia in there
and a lot of stuff came out of it.   And this is one of them.
I will show you the article that I printed from this one.
And this is when Somalia was written.
This is in Somali.
"Xiddigta Oktoobar"; it was the most famous newspaper in Somalia.
It's all in Somali.   And this is in the early 1970s
because you can see people learned Somali through the newspapers too.
So here you see the Somali alphabet here.
I think this is 1973 when we first started writing Somali.
And down here is an advertisement for a Somali play.
We have this play in my book.
I interviewed this lady once when she came to Columbus,
Ohio and she also was invited
to the Kennedy Center here, three or four years ago.
She has her own -- she's in her 70's now but very active
and she has a lot of energy.
Her name's Maria Mosul [phonetic] [pause].
This is another publication from the Somali government,
it was a magazine in Somali.   This is a newspaper in English it --
you can see [inaudible] change their attitude;
some of the titles that they covered.
This from the Library web page [pause] [inaudible] okay.
I took the picture from that newspaper and you can read it.
This is 1903 and New York News paper, [inaudible] a Somali war
between the Somalis and the English.
And you can see title, "England's savage foes
in Somaliland have their own strange ways, but they are good fighters".
This is 1903.   [ Pause ]
>> Okay. Now I'll show you posters and photographs.
[ Pause ]
>> It was the tradition of the Somali government to publish posters
for information for the public or for propaganda, both.
This one is celebrating "Woman's Day", 1981, March, 8.
And it's "Woman's Day."
[Pause]. This public health and both myself and a friend
of mine here wrote the captions here.
We translated [Somali spoken].
She's a pregnant mother and she's smoking.
Somali save your child and your health.
Again, another poster about smoking.   Health is gift and smoking's poison.
That's just a beautiful picture, so I added it there.
It's in one of our books [chuckles].   Another beautiful Somalia.
This was taken by one of NASA's satellites.
Another beautiful picture.
Okay. This photograph, 1943 in New York,
it's a window of a store, Sax Fifth Avenue.
They were advertising Somali leopard skins and they said,
"Somali leopards, the first boatload in 9 months".
That's why all the leopards I guess [chuckles].
This picture; this photograph is
from the Library also and the next one.
These two groups were together.   This is 1915 in Chicago.
And in this group picture of Somali man and boys
at Clark Police Station in Chicago, Illinois.
Policemen and man in suit look on.
So these are the police and these are men in suit.
But what were they doing in Chicago 1915?
These are the men [pause].
And these are the women and children; the same group.
But what were they doing in Chicago?   I was curious.
I was curious.
I wanted to know why -- what were they doing there.
And here they are again; the same group.
And it's in front.   This them there in front.
It's a poster.
And this is 1998 -- I mean 1898 in Paris.
Walking down the street and you see this poster on a wall.
A Somali warrior, his wife and children
and his countrymen in the back.
And that's the guy who's responsible for all these photographs.
And he's behind all the story of these pictures.
Here again, same group.   And there.
These were travelling Somalis in the late 1800s.
In Europe they used to have fairs and World Expo.
As a side show, they would bring in natives from other countries.
They brought Eskimos.
They brought cowboys and indians in England
and Paris and Hamburg, Germany.   Somalis were brought from Somalia.
And they were actors; these people would travel around the world,
and they are my next project.   [ Pause ]
>> The first time they appeared in the newspaper --
the same group that I just showed you their pictures --
these are the newspapers.
This newspaper is an old newspaper from England,
"The Graph", and I'll show you.   [ Pause ]
>> This is kind of slow.   I just want to show you the date.
Well it's actually here [pause].   August 3, 1895, right?
Okay that's when they started their fair show.
And they were in Chicago in 1915, what 20, 30 years?
They did this for 30 years -- from 1895 up to in the middle 30's.
And I conclude my presentation with that, and I want to show you some
of the pictures and the books that you just saw
and they are in the conference room.   Thank you.
[Applause].
And if you have questions you can ask.
Okay. Go ahead.   >> [Inaudible].
That we also have basically acquired from [inaudible] --
>> Okay.
>> -- [inaudible] probably are not cataloged yet, but they will go
over there as well as colonial [inaudible] post cards --
>> Mm-hm.
>> They're in a box on my desk with a catalog.
>> Okay.
>> And my question is, I'm assuming that [inaudible] still use Arabic?
So when people in Somalia write religious poetry,
do they use Arabic script or the Roman script?
>> I assume they'll use the Arabic.   >> Okay.
>> Yeah.   >> So for religious purpose --
>> For religious purpose, yes.   Although they write also in Somali,
but most likely they will write in the Arabic language.
Yeah. Even when they chant, they chant in the Arabic language.
>> Oh.   >> Religious people [pause].
Okay? Yeah.   >> I understand the [inaudible].
>> Mm-hm.   >> [Inaudible].
>> Uh-huh.   >> [Inaudible].
>> Mm-hm.   >> [Inaudible]?
>> Yes. Somali is spoken all over the Horn of Africa.
That includes Somalia, Djibouti,
parts of Ethiopia and parts of Kenya.
And also we have a huge diaspora in the Middle East
and in North America now; in Canada, 150,000; Minnesota, 80,000.
Around Washington area, 15,000.
>> You don't happen [inaudible] the alphabet [inaudible].
>> I think the reason that Somalis chose the Roman script is
because they already could write Italian and English,
the Roman script; and that's what's easy for them.
Because otherwise you have to change all the typewriters and books.
So this was an easy way to go.
Because most people could read already Italian and in English.
>> [Inaudible].
>> Okay. This crucial curriculums from elementary
to high school you will learn in Arabic;
you will take Arabic as a language.
But you will take the classes in Somali.
You will also take either English or Italian in addition to the Arabic.
So by the time you leave high school you have three languages.
And then for college you might go to Russia and then come back
with another language [chuckles].   So that is very common.
Somali is big -- my own family, I don't want to get into it,
so many languages [chuckles].
But the Somalis always come -- it's like [inaudible].
Every Somali speaks the basic Somali, the standard [pause].
Okay. Thank you.   Thanks for coming and -- [applause].
And we -- [inaudible].   Thank you.
[Silence].
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at LLC.gov.   [ Silence ]