XIX century map showing the first official description of the limits of the area populated by Somali people (from French Somalia to Ogaden and Kenya)
The East CushiticSomali language is the shared mother tongue of ethnic Somalis, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are predominantly Sunni Muslim.[40][41] Forming one of the largest ethnic groups on the continent, they cover one of the most expansive landmasses by a single ethnic group in Africa.[42]
According to most scholars, the ancient Land of Punt and its native inhabitants formed part of the ethnogenesis of the Somali people. This ancient historical kingdom is where a great portion of their cultural traditions and ancestry are said to derive from.[43][44][45][46] Somalis and their country have long been identified with the term Barbar (or Al-Barbar)—12th-century geographer al-Idrisi, for example, identified the Somali Peninsula as Barbara,[47] and classical sources from the Greeks and Romans similarly refer to the region as the second Barbaria.[48]
^Joireman, Sandra F. (1997). Institutional Change in the Horn of Africa: The Allocation of Property Rights and Implications for Development. Universal-Publishers. p. 1. ISBN978-1581120004.
^Cassanelli, Lee V. (2016). The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. The Ethnohistory Series. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 3. ISBN978-0-8122-7832-3.
^Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, Culture and Customs of Somalia, (Greenwood Press: 2001), p.1
^The Collapse of the Somali State: The Impact of the Colonial Legacy by A.M. Issa-Salwe (Page 1)
^Egypt: 3000 Years of Civilization Brought to Life By Christine El Mahdy
^Ancient perspectives on Egypt By Roger Matthews, Cornelia Roemer, University College, London.
^Africa's legacies of urbanization: unfolding saga of a continent By Stefan Goodwin
^Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature By Felipe Armesto Fernandez
^Marina Tolmacheva, "Long-Distance Arab Sailing in the Indian Ocean before the Portuguese," in Early Maritime Cultures in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean: Papers from a Conference Held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (African Studies Program) 23–24 October 2015, with Additional Contributions, ed. Akshay Sarathi, p. 216, available at https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/download/9781784917128.
^Lionel Casson (ed.), The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 45.
^Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho by I. M. Lewis
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