Osmanya 𐒍𐒖𐒇𐒂𐒖 𐒋𐒘𐒈𐒑𐒛𐒒𐒕𐒖
Typewriter with Osmanya letters, fromBritish Somaliland
Script type	Alphabet
Creator	Osman Yusuf Kenadid
Published	1920-1922
Period	c.1922 — c.1972, some current interest
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Somali language
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Osma(260), ​Osmanya
Unicode
Unicode alias	Osmanya
Unicode range	U+10480–U+104AF

Osmanya (Farta Cismaanya,𐒍𐒖𐒇𐒂𐒖 𐒋𐒘𐒈𐒑𐒛𐒒𐒕𐒖), known in Somali asFar Soomaali (𐒍𐒖𐒇 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘, "Somali writing")^[1] and in Arabic asal-kitābah al-ʿuthmānīyah (الكتابة العثمانية; "Osman writing"), is analphabetic script created to transcribe theSomali language.^[2] It was invented byOsman Yusuf Kenadid, the son ofSultanYusuf Ali Kenadid and brother of SultanAli Yusuf Kenadid of theSultanate of Hobyo. Material written in the script is 'almost non-existent,' so it is difficult to describe its use with certainty.^[3]

While Osmanya gained reasonable acceptance for correspondence and bookkeeping at the local level, it met fierce resistance as a national script for several reasons: it was identified with theMajeerteen clan, who supported the Italian colonial government, rather than with the Somali nation as a whole (a view that has changed somewhat in the 21st century), there was opposition to making Somali rather than Arabic the official language of the country, and in addition there was opposition to using any indigenous script rather than either theArabic script, long used for writing Arabic in Somalia, or the Latin script.^[3][4][5]

After independence a governmental commission was set up to decide on an official writing system for Somali. It favoredKaddare script, but judged it to be impractical for a developing nation. In October 1972 theSomali Latin alphabet was adopted as the official writing system for Somali because of its simplicity, ability to cope with all of the sounds in the language, and the widespread existence of machines and typewriters designed for the Latin script.^[6][7][8] The administration of PresidentMohamed Siad Barre subsequently launched a massive literacy campaign designed to ensure its adoption, which led to a sharp decline in use of Osmanya.

The direction of reading and writing in Osmanya is from left to right, as in Latin script. Capitalization is sporadic.

Long vowels were originally written either double or with consonants, as in Arabic, but later ligatures were developed from the double vowels.

TheATR/RTR distinction is not marked in vowels, except occasionally in the 21st century with a diaeresis for ATR vowels, as is occasionally done also in Latin script.

The article and determiner suffixes are written separately from the noun, which retains its underlying form. Assimilation is however shown on the article/determiner itself [feminine-ta, masculine-ka]. Thushooyada 'the mother' is written⟨hooyo da⟩;hasha 'the she-camel' is written⟨hal sha⟩. When thek of-ka elides, it is marked with an apostrophe, which was borrowed from Latin script. Thusdhinaca 'the side' is written⟨dhinac'a⟩.

The order of the alphabet is not completely fixed, as only letters that correspond to Arabic script are consistently written in that order. The letter 𐒀alef, which had been used to mark long vowels as well as glottal stop, was dropped around the time letters were added foraa,ee,oo, andw,y came to be used foruu,ii. The order below is -- apart from the anachronistic retention of the letteralef -- as written by the inventor's son Yaasiin, though various other orders are attested.^[9]

*alef, which was used for both glottal stop and longaa, has been dropped from the alphabet

The system is decimal:

Although some of these digits may look identical to various letters, this is not true for all fonts.

Osmanya was added to theUnicode Standard in April 2003 with the release of version 4.0. Capitalization is not supported.

The Unicode block for Osmanya is U+10480–U+104AF:

• Kaddare script
• Somali alphabets

• I.M. Lewis (1958)Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,University of London, Vol. 21 pp 134–156.

• Osmanya, Borama, Wadaad's writing and the Somali language
• Afkeenna iyo fartiisa - a book in Osmanya
• Somali Native Alphabet
• The report of the Somali Language Committee
• Unicode assignments for Osmanya characters
• Osmanya Unicode Fonts
• Osmanya online keyboard - Lexilogos
• Somali Osmaniya Transliterator

• Writing systems of Africa
• Somali orthography
• Obsolete writing systems
• 1920s establishments in Somalia
• Somali inventions

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Somali-language text
• Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codes
• Articles containing Arabic-language text
• Pages with plain IPA