International-Press on Kapchits.Online

The Guardian on the Hargeisa Book Fair

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In July 2012 The Guardian reported on the fifth Hargeisa International Book Fair under the title “Somaliland’s Hargeisa book festival celebrates fifth year”.

The festival — founded by Jama Musse Jama and described in the report as the Horn of Africa’s answer to Hay-on-Wye — was held in a workers’ club in the centre of the city, with ribbons in the colours of the national flag, tents selling watermelon, and armed guards at the gate. The report set out what the organisers were trying to do: preserve the oral tradition, fill a cultural vacuum left by two decades of collapse, and give young people something other than khat and recruitment by al-Shabaab. It described the work of setting up reading clubs and libraries across six regions.

“Somalis Do Not Use Proverbs to Lie”: Dr. Georgi Kapchits in the Horn Newspaper

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

On 14 July 2012, at the 5th Hargeisa Book Fair, Dr. Georgi Kapchits presented his new Somali-language book Soomaalidu Been ma Maahmaahdo (“Somalis do not use proverbs to lie”). The following day the Horn newspaper published an interview with him, together with a report by Yusuf M Hasan.

At the Book Fair

The Somali language, with over 100,000 proverbs, is among the richest languages in the world. This was said by Dr. Georgi Kapchits during the interview in Hargeisa, where he also disclosed that the lengthy studies he has undertaken reveal that the Somali language has no proverbs for lies.

The WardheerNews Interview (2006): Selected Passages

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

On 25 January 2006 the website WardheerNews.com published a long interview with Dr. Georgi Kapchits, conducted in Somali by Isamail A. Hassan (“Khaliil”). Dr. Kapchits was staying in Berlin at the time, working on his dictionary of Somali proverbs. The interview was picked up by other Somali websites and became one of the most widely read pieces WardheerNews published that year.

The full Somali original is reproduced here: Wareysigii ay mareegtada WardheerNews la yeelatay Dr. Georgi Kapchits.