This paper investigates the prosody of focalisation in Somali, a cushitic tonal accent language. The Somali nouns undergo many tonal accent alternations according to the discursive contexts. A primary aim of the study is to explain these alternations by assuming that they are triggered by intonative tones. However, very little attention has been devoted to the intonation of Somali. As Somali ha...

Mothers are viewed as the people who are raising future citizens of Canada; therefore, their parenting practices are being targeted for intervention by civic organizations funded by the state. In this article, I argue that modernity narratives and neoliberalism approaches to mothering inform parenting education classes for Somali refugee women to Canada. Thus, Somali women are often seen as vic...

We explored the perceptions of 39 Somali women and 62 obstetric care providers in London in relation to caesarean birth, as borne out of a paradox we recognised from evidence-based information about the Somali group. Socio-cultural factors potentially leading to adverse obstetric outcome were identified using in-depth and focus group interviews with semi-structured, open-ended questions. A cult...

We present a computationally tractable account of the interactions between sentence markers and focus marking in Somali. Somali, as a Cushitic language, has a basic pattern wherein a small ‘core’ clause is preceded, and in some cases followed by, a set of ‘topics’, which provide sceneseting information against which the core is interpreted. Some topics appear to carry a ‘focus marker’, indicati...

BACKGROUND Political violence and war are push factors for migration and social determinants of health among migrants. Somali migration to Sweden has increased threefold since 2004, and now comprises refugees with more than 20 years of war experiences. Health is influenced by earlier life experiences with adverse sexual and reproductive health, violence, and mental distress being linked. Advers...

BACKGROUND Screening rates for breast and cervical cancer for Muslim women in the United States are low, particularly for first-generation immigrants. Interpretations of the Muslim faith represent some of the barriers for breast and cervical cancer screening. Working to understand how faith influences breast and cervical screening for Somali women, and working with the community to identify and...

Due to its negative impact on public health, female circumcision (FC) has gained increased attention from international communities and the Norwegian public in recent decades. In 1995, the Norwegian government outlawed the practice and simultaneously developed a package of measures aimed at preventing and ultimately eradicating FC in Norway. Like many other Western countries, immigrants of Soma...

O ver the last quarter century, the Somali population has endured protracted internal conflicts with devastating effects on the delivery of essential and lifesaving health care services. This extended humanitarian crisis situation has seriously weakened the public health sector, causing high maternal and child mortality; heavy burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, including ment...