page_title: Ashraf dialect
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Ashraf dialect / Classification
caption_attribution_description: English: A revised model for the internal classification of Omo-Tana, recognizing the Somali "dialects" as both dialects on a sociolinguistic level and languages on a classification level.
context_page_description: Ashraf is a speech variety of uncertain classification within the East Omo-Tana sub-branch found in the Marka district of the Lower Shebelle region and Banaadir region of Southern Somalia.
context_section_description: According to Blench (2006) there are two sub-dialects: Shingani and Lower Shebelle. As noted in recent work on the speech variety, Green & Jones (2016):
  "What we hope to have illustrated in this talk is that while Marka (Af Ashraaf) may be similar in certain ways to both Northern Somali and Maay, it nonetheless boasts a number of unique properties, particularly in its morphology, that we believe merit its treatment not as a Somali or Maay dialect, but as a language variety of its own"
  A similar level of skepticism towards the labelling of other Omo-Tana languages in Somalia (such as Maay, Dabarre, Jiddu, so forth) is expressed in Tosco (2012):
  "It is well-known that the term 'dialects' may refer to different 'things'. Within Somalia, it is safe to say that all the Somali dialects are 'dialects' from a sociolinguistic point of view, that is, in terms of their social role, their general absence in written media, and the speakers' acceptance of Northern-Central Somali as a common medium. From a strictly linguistic point of view, however, mutual comprehension should be assessed and dialects labelled accordingly (as mutually understandable varieties of a language). No classification so far does that."
caption: Tosco's revised model for classifying Omo-Tana, acknowledging both the sociolinguistic situation of Cushitic languages in Somalia labeled as "dialects" of Somali and their actual classification as languages apart from Somali
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