was the main official language in Italian Somaliland, called officially Somalia italiana, from the end of the XIX century until February 1947. Following the acquisition of Jubaland by Italy in 1924, the Jubaland region -south of the "Somalia italiana"- maintained English at a semi-official status for some years thereafter until the late 1920s, but in 1940 only the Italian was used and spoken by native Somalis Italian was the mother tongue of the Italian settlers of Somalia. The Somalian school system in the colonial era before WW2 was in Italian language and limited mainly to primary schools and a few middle schools -like the "Scuola Regina Elena", but in the capital Mogadishu of "Italian Somalia" there was an important high school. In this Lyceum was created in the early 1950s the "National Institute of Legal, Economic and Social Studies", as a post-secondary school in Italian language for pre-university studies in order to access the Italian universities. In the late 1940s the Italian language was still spoken fluently by nearly 15% of the native Somalis and was practically understood by all the inhabitants of former Italian Somalia. Additionally it is noteworthy to pinpoint that -according to historian Tripodi- in the area most developed of Italian Somalia, the Italian was spoken by nearly one third of the native population as a second language at the end of 1941. Furthermore, the main newspaper of Mogadishu during the Italian Trusteeship of Somalia -under ONU mandate- was the "Corriere di Mogadiscio", written in Italian until the early 1960s. There was also the existence of a pidgin Italian in the Mogadishu area during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, according to academic Mauro Tosco. During the United Nations Trusteeship period from 1949 until 1960, Italian along with Somali were used at an official level internally, whilst the UN's main working language of English was the language used during diplomatic, international and occasionally for economic correspondence. After 1960 independence, the Italian remained official for another nine years. During those years in the capital Mogadishu 2/3 of the population was bilingual and/or able to understand the Italian language. Italian was later declared an official language again by the Transitional Federal Government along with English in 2004, but only for a few years. Actually only some old Somalis speak and/or understand the Italian, mainly in Mogadishu. But more than three hundred loanwords from the Italian language are usually present in the Somalian language.
Main Italian loanwords in Somalian language
Nearly one thousand Italian words are "loanworded" in the actual Somalian language and "Konto". For example, all the month names are clearly from Italian: Italian/Somalian
