The WardheerNews Interview (2006): Selected Passages

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.

Below are selected passages in English translation. They are excerpts, not the complete interview.

On how the Somali language entered his life

Asked when he began studying Somali, Dr. Kapchits answered that he had started as a student at Moscow University — forty years before the interview — and that he still had not got to the bottom of that astonishing language. He followed his teacher, Alexander Zholkovsky, the man who first opened up Somali linguistics in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, Kapchits noted, Zholkovsky later moved away from Somali matters: after emigrating to the United States he became a professor teaching Russian literature.

Awrba awrka ka horreeya buu saanqaadkiisa leeyahay — “each camel follows the tracks of the camel ahead of it.”

On what made the language difficult

To explain what learning Somali felt like, he retold the words of the blind Ina Cali Qablax, who once touched a termite mound and said: “One thing is a wonder, another is the wonder of wonders, and a third leaves you speechless. A mound that size is built by termites — a wonder. They build it at night — the wonder of wonders. They build it with their own saliva — that leaves you speechless.”

“It is the same with me,” said Kapchits. “When I first tasted Somali I said to myself: the vocabulary of Somali is a wonder, the phonetics of Somali is the wonder of wonders, and the grammar of Somali leaves you speechless.” Somali, he added, is a rich language from whatever side you look at it, and it is no accident that it became the backbone of the poetry Somalis are famous for.

On the people who helped him

He was fortunate, he said, that at the time he was throwing himself into the language, culture and literature, there were many Somali students in Moscow, and he became friends with some of them. From those students — some from the countryside, some from the towns, all of them reaching for an education — he learned a great deal, above all how Somali is actually spoken. He remembered all of them with gratitude, and in particular Axmed Cartan Xaange and Shire Jaamac Axmed, whose contribution to the development of the Somali language and literature he called immeasurable.

On mastering a language you rarely hear

Asked how he had reached such a level while living abroad, having visited Somalia only twice and for five days each time, he agreed with the proverb: shan beri sheekh laguma noqdo — “five days do not make you a sheikh.” And he did not become one.

“But riding is a matter of holding the reins. To learn to ride, you must mount a horse every day. I have grown old studying and researching the Somali language and literature. It is no wonder that I have written something about it. One morning at a time, and the lines add up.”

On his books and his worry about the diaspora

By January 2006 he had written seven books and many articles on the Somali language, proverbs and folktales. Of his two most recent books — Hubsiimo hal baa la siistaa and Faaliyihii la bilkeyday: Sheekaxariirooyin Soomaaliyeed — he said that both grew out of his concern about how poorly some young Somalis in the diaspora know their mother tongue and its literature.

Hubsiimo hal baa la siistaa gathers 314 Somali proverbs that are widely known today, established through a dedicated field study, all of them translated into English with the necessary commentary. Anyone who wants to speak Somali well, he argued, should learn that not-so-long list. The single proverb known to one hundred per cent of his informants was: Aabbe, kan yar iga celiyoo kan weyn igu sii daa.

Faaliyihii la bilkeyday presents 115 Somali folktales — in his view the finest part of Somali oral literature — to Somali and English-speaking readers alike, including the cycles about Arraweelo, Wiil-Waal, Ina Sanweyne, Yoonis Tuug and Cigaal Shiidaad. The title story and its name were published in 1951 by the famous poet Muuse Xaaji Ismaaciil Galaal, with the support of Bogumil Andrzejewski, the British scholar of Somali language and literature whose Somali nickname was Guush.

On proverbs shared by all peoples

Asked whether Russians and Somalis have proverbs in common, he explained that a great many proverbs are shared by all the peoples of the world, because a proverb is a sign of a situation — and situations are the same wherever you look, as is the way people think.

If you have to express the idea that one person acting alone will not prevail, you say Far keliya fool ma dhaqdo (“one finger does not wash the face”) if you are Somali; one finger cannot catch a fly if you are Oromo; and one man is not a warrior if you are Russian. In meaning, he said, the three are one and the same.

On the work in progress

At the time of the interview he was in Berlin writing another book: the Great Dictionary of Somali Proverbs, comprising close to 10,000 proverbs, part of them translated into English with the help of Sheila Andrzejewski, the widow of his teacher Guush, and the writer Cabdiraxmaan Faarax “Barwaaqo”.

His advice to Somali intellectuals

“I would urge Somali intellectuals to take proper care of the rising generation — the future of Somalia depends on it.”

Afterwards: thousands of proverbs from readers

WardheerNews returned to the interview a year later, in December 2006, to ask Dr. Kapchits what had come of it. His answer:

“I planned to finish the Great Dictionary of Somali Proverbs by the end of this year (2006), but I have fallen behind. The main reason is that thousands more proverbs have been added to those I had already collected — some of them sent to me by readers after you published my interview. To this day readers of WardheerNews keep writing to me, and I am glad of it.”

— Dr. Kapchits, 16 December 2006

He made the point with the folktale he had told in the interview itself, about the traveller who offered his generous host a choice: “Shall I repay you five times, or shall I speak of you in five places?” — and the host chose the five places.

“I remembered that story very soon after you interviewed me,” he said, “when you spoke about me in five hundred places.” Letters came from many people, including children; parents wrote that they had shown the interview to their children as proof of how much of a foreign language a person can learn if they put in the effort. Among the correspondents were Xasan Shirwac in London and Axmed Maxamuud in Jigjiga, the latter offering to contribute proverbs of his own — Buda qabe iyo biyo qabe waa isu baahan yihiin.

What impressed him, he said, was not the number of the letters but their quality: it showed him that Somalis had learned to read and write their language well. His gift in return, he said, is the Great Dictionary of Somali Proverbs itself, which he was then finishing — and in which he names everyone who sent him even a single proverb.

The interview was conducted by Isamail A. Hassan (“Khaliil”) and published by WardheerNews.com on 25 January 2006; the follow-up article appeared in December 2006. The passages above are selected excerpts in English translation, published here for archival purposes; the rights to the original text belong to WardheerNews.