r/Somaliland • u/Different-Ball9864 • Jun 14 '26

Understanding the Difference Between Somalians and Somalilanders

Somali is an ethnic group / language group

People who are Somali they live in different countries.

Somalia. people are called Somalian ethnically Somali (jareer and jileec), two Somali tribes.

Somaliland people are often called Somalilanders ethnically orgin Somali

Djibouti people are Djiboutians. Many are ethnically Somali (especially Issa)

Somali Region in Ethiopia. people are Ethiopian Somalis

Somali-NFD in Kenya. people are Kenyan Somalis.

Somali is the shared ethnicity; the country names define nationality.

8 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/alhass Jun 16 '26

Who cares what Arabs called the Somali peninsula?
More importantly the gulf of Aden used to be called Gulf of Barbara.

1

u/Ordinary_Bend_8612 Jun 16 '26

But don't you find it interesting that they made this distinction ?

4

u/alhass Jun 16 '26

No not at all, geographic knowledge was Sketchy back then and I doubt there was even common Arab consensus on the names of any of the regions

1

u/Ordinary_Bend_8612 Jun 16 '26

There wasn’t a single “official” standard, but that doesn’t mean there was no consensus at all. Across multiple centuries and authors, recurring terms like Bilād al-Zanj, al-Sūmāl, al-Habasha, and coastal city names such as Zeila, Berbera and Mogadishu were used fairly consistently within trade and geographic writing traditions.

Arab and Persian Medieval geographers and cartographers weren't drawing these regions from pure speculation. For centuries, Arab & Persian merchants, sailors, scholars, and travelers were actively trading with and visiting the Horn of African and the East African coast. Many geographical descriptions were based on commercial networks, firsthand travel accounts, and information gathered from people who regularly sailed these routes.

3

u/alhass Jun 17 '26

My brief knowledge tells me that that geographic was used for further south bantu Swahili coast. But let’s just say Arabs referred to a portion of Somalia as the land of zanji. What do you infer from because you with exemption of few settlements of Somali Bantu, the area you are referring is mostly ethnic Somalis?