With the admission of the Republic of Somalia into the East African Community, the EAC region sees an additional language into the fold.
People of Somalia known as Somalis speak a language called Af-Soomaali.
Af-Soomali happens to be a branch of the Cushitic language family and part of the bigger Afro-Asian language family.
Phonetic experts describe it as a Lowland East Cushitic language, just like the Afar and Saho tongues, that are essentially its closest cousins.
Somali is the Cushitic language that has been studied the most, with the first academic papers being written in it before 1900.
Over 19 million Somalis live in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Kenya, and many more speak the Somali diaspora language.
Somali is also the second most common Cushitic language spoken after Oromo.
A few people and groups from nearby ethnic minorities in Somalia also speak it as their second language.
A majority of the people in the Federal Republic of Somalia speak Somali as their first language. It is also the national language of Djibouti and is used for work in the Somali area of Ethiopia.
People of Somali origin are spread across the region, but especially Kenya and Tanzania.
There is even a book about ‘Mountain Farmers’ published in 1997 on research about the people living on the slopes of Mount Meru in Arusha region of Tanzania, who are said to have some link to Somali.
Despite being Bantus, the Warwa or as popularly known as ‘Wameru,’ based on the geographical area, usually also trace their origin to the Horn of Africa.
However, according to the book titled, ‘Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land & Agricultural Development in Arusha and Meru,’ by Thomas Spear, one of the Wameru clans, the Sumari people directly descended from Somalia.
On the other hand there are also the Borana people of Kenya, another Cushite community said to be one of the two major sub-groups of the Oromo people.
They live in the Borena Zone of the Oromia Region in Ethiopia, the Liben Zone of the Somali Region of Ethiopia, the former Northern Frontier District of Northern Kenya, Tana River in the former coastal province of Kenya and also in central Somalia.
In Kenya they are predominantly centred in Marsabit and Isiolo Counties.
They are sometimes referred to as the Oromo or Orma and even by the derogatory term Galla.
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