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I also find the name somewhat ironic. Xeer clearly comes from خير, or khayr, which is Arabic for good. It is good, but in the higher moralistic and religious
by 616c 12y ago
I also find the name somewhat ironic.
Xeer clearly comes from خير, or khayr, which is Arabic for good. It is good, but in the higher moralistic and religious sense in addition to the normal sense. So I wonder if it goes back to original interaction with the Arabs, 7th century as noted or prior. The general idea, consensus-based law as I see it, seems similar on the basic principle in Islam to Ijma'[0], or consensus-based formation of jurisprudence. There are varying views, but that idea is that Islamic law (despite outside views of it) is not controlled by one but must be agreed upon by popular approval of jurisprudence scholars (of course this is loosely defined, but what can you do).
Xeer is definitely from the Arabic, as are many loanwords from Somali (as an Arabic speaker, who sat in linguistics courses where Somali speakers presented, I could be wrong). So I am not sure where the "no foreign loanwords" comment in the Wikipedia article came from.
Then again, maybe I am just reading to much into this name/book cover.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijma
- dfc 12y agoYou "also find the name ironic?" Who else found the name ironic? And what is the irony? I have reread your comment three times now and can not identify any irony.
- 616c 12y agoI get into it later in my comment: it must be an original concept because no loan words are used in the Somali legal terminology, I point out that might not be true.
- athesyn 12y agoHow do you figure? They seem phonetically similar because both Somali and Arabic are Afro-Asiatic languages. We already use khayr in daily speech, and incorporated Arabic words are almost always equal to the original Arabic word.
- 616c 12y agoI also use the word sugar and safari in English. The origins of both these words are well-attested. I know they are both Afro-Asiatic languages, but on different ends of the spectrum (Arabic is a not Cushitic language). It could be an original word, but I thought it was interesting coincidence. I only assume it is one because, as I said, because I did coursework in college and Somali speakers did gloss examples for us and I was surprised at how Arabic-heavy some vocab was. This does not make me an expert on the topic, and I would admit I know not enough of Somali to say anything definitive. I just wrote what came to my head. Somali is very interesting to me, but I could not find any good etymology resources online.
- genieyclo 12y agoXeer != khayr. X in Somali is the letter ح not خ. Has nothing to do with Arabic. Xeer has existed for a long time, and probably longer than Islam has since there's similar systems of communal law and arbitration in neighboring communities like Gadaa that can be traced back to the pre-Islamic era.
- 616c 12y agoOh oh oh. Now I look like an ass. When I read the Wikipedia article, I thought the transcription meant x->خ, but I guess you show why one must, like a programmer, continue to use IPA consistently or forget only to make very embarrassing public mistakes. And now to come full circle, the root structure for xeer in Arabic means confusion. Should have seen that one coming. Haha. EDIT: Do you have resources on Xeer and similar practices with Gaada? I have some friends who would be very interested in these topics.