The May-May Alphabet

The May-May alphabet should be easy to learn and easy to use. 

To make it easy to learn, we made it as similar as possible to the other alphabets that Somali Bantu are familiar with, which are the alphabets for Somali and Swahili. As much as possible, letters sound the way they would sound in Somali or Swahili. Exceptions will be explained below.

To make is easy to use, we decided not to use any special characters. People should be able to use the alphabet on their phones and computers with the standard English keyboard. For this reason, we did not include any special letters or any additional marks that change normal letters. Instead, we spell special sounds by using combinations of two normal letters, much like the sound that is spelled SH in English, Swahili, or Somali. In addition, we use the sequence of letters found in the English alphabet to make it easier to sort words on the computer.

The consonants B  D  F  G  H  J  K  L  M  N  R  S  T  W  Y all sound similar to the way they would sound in Somali, Swahili, or English. The letter combinations NG, NY, and SH also sound similar to the way they would sound in Somali, Swahili, or English.
The letter combinations DH, GH, and JH are used for sounds that do not exist in Somali, Swahili, or English. These three sounds are implosives, which means that the air is sucked in instead of being pushed out while making the sound. In the phonetic alphabet, these implosive sounds are written as ɗ, ɠ, and ʄ.

The vowels in May-May are very similar to the vowels in Somali and we decided to spell them the same way as the Somali alphabet does. Thus, there are five short, open vowels A, E, I, O, U, and five long, closed vowels AA, EE, II, OO, UU.
In addition, May-May has a very short vowel which in English is called a "schwa." This schwa sound is very common in English, but it does not have its own letter. Currently, we are spelling the schwa sound with the letter U, but this might change in future based on the feedback we receive. It sounds like the U in the English words "until" or "upset."

Like every language, May-May has borrowed many words from surrounding languages, especially from Arabic and Swahili. Both languages have sounds that are not found in May-May. In some cases, these sounds have been kept. This is true for CH, P, V, and especially Z. There are very few words in May-May that contain CH (e.g. CHABARIITI), P (e.g. PAAPA), or V (e.g. VIYONDO), but significantly more sounds with Z.
In other cases, sounds have been changed to the closest May-May equivalent. This is especially true for the sounds that the Somali alphabet spells C, KH, Q, and X. C is dropped completely (ANAB instead of CANAB), KH is changed to K or G (SHEEG instead of SHEEKH), Q is changed to GH (GHARA instead of QARA), and X is changed to H (AHMED instead of AXMED). The sound that is spelled DH in Somali (a retroflex stop) is changed to the one spelled DH in May-May (an implosive stop).

The complete May-May alphabet, including the sounds borrowed from Arabic and Swahili, now looks like this:

A  AA  B  CH  D  DH  E  EE  F  G  GH  H  I  II  J  K  L  M  N  O  OO  P  R  S  T  U  UU  V  W  X  Y  Z

Some spelling rules:

Generally, words are spelled the way they sound. However, there are a few exceptions:

1. The sounds B, D, and G change based on their position in a word. If they are at the end of a word, they sound 'harder,' like P, T, and K. If they are between two vowels, they sounds 'softer.' like W, Swahili DH, and Swahili GH. Most May-May speakers are not aware of these changes in some cases, but they are aware of them in other cases.
Generally, we try to spell words with the underlying consonant to keep the root of a word consistent when adding suffixes or prefixes. For example, the verb GHAAD ("take") is consistently spelled with a D, even though the sound 'softens' or 'hardens' based on the conjugated form.
In some cases, however, May-May speakers are very aware of the change in sound and prefer to express that change in the spelling. For example KOB ("shoe") changes to KOWO ("shoes").

2. The sounds N and M also change based on their position in a word. In particular, at the end of a word, and sometimes at the end of a syllable, both N and M change to NG. For example, the M in DHAMOYU ("he is drinking") changes to NG in DHANG ("drink"). In most cases, the spelling reflects the change of the sound, but in some cases people might prefer to spell a word with the underlying N, as in DHAN ("drink"). Both spellings are acceptable.

3. Many words ending in a short vowel are pronounced differently by May-May speakers from different villages. For example MANTA ("today") is pronounced with an A at the end by people around Jamaame, but that sound is shortened to a schwa and pronounced MANTU by people around Jilib. North of Jilib, the final vowel is sometimes dropped completely and the word is pronounced MANT.
Many May-May speakers from Jilib would not be able to tell the underlying vowel of the word and thus would not be able to intuitively spell it as MANTA. On the other hand, people from Jamaame would not intuitively know how to pronounce MANTU properly since the spelling would not indicate the underlying vowel to them. Currently, both spellings are used, but more feedback might help us find a solution to this problem that is acceptable to all.

For more examples of the May-May orthography,  visit our Books page in the menu above and download a copy of ALFABEETI IYO MASAWAR AF MAY-MAY.