Literacy in Somali: Linguistic Consequences

Some of the ways in which the range of discourse characteristics in Somali was extended due to the addition of written registers in 1973 have been examined. These discourse characteristics were operationalized by five major dimensions of variation in which each dimension represents a set of co-occurring linguistic features. With respect to three of these dimensions, the addition of written registers greatly extended the linguistic patterns previously in use: structural elaboration features along Dimension 1, lexical elaboration features along Dimension 2, and directive interaction features along Dimension 5.