The first Italians moved to Somalia at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1923, there were fewer than a thousand Italians in Italian Somaliland. However, it was not until after World War I that this number rose, with the settlers primarily concentrated in the towns of Mogadishu,
Kismayo,
Brava, and other cities in the south-central
Benadir region. The colonial period emigration to Italian Somaliland initially mainly consisted of men. Emigration of entire families was only later promoted during the
Fascist period, mainly in the agricultural developments of the Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi (
Jowhar), near the
Shebelle River. In 1920, the Societa Agricola Italo-Somala (SAIS) was founded by the Prince
Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi in order to explore the agricultural potential of central Italian Somaliland and create a colony for Italian farmers. The area of
Janale in southern Somalia (near the
Jubba River) was another place where Italian colonists from
Turin developed a group of farms. Under governor De Vecchi, these agricultural areas cultivated cotton, and after 1931, also produced large quantities of banana exports. In 1935, there were over 50,000 Italians living in Italian Somaliland. Of those, 20,000 resided in Mogadishu (called
Mogadiscio in Italian), representing around 40% of the city's 50,000 residents. Other Italian settler communities were concentrated in the Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi,
Adale (
Itala in
Italian),
Janale,
Jamame, and
Kismayo. The same year, during the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War, there were more than 220,000 Italian soldiers stationed in Italian Somaliland. By March 1940, over 30,000 Italians lived in Mogadishu, representing around 33% of the city's total 90,000 residents. They frequented local Italian schools that the colonial authorities had opened, such as the Liceum. By 1989, there were only 1,000 of the settlers left, with fewer after the start of the
civil war and the fall of the Barre regime in 1991. Many Italian Somalis had by then departed for other countries. With the disappearance of Italians from Somalia, the number of
Roman Catholic adherents dropped from a record high of 8,500 parishioners in 1950 (0.7% of Mogadishu's population) to just 100 individuals in 2004.
The Italian Somali population in Somalia, from 1914 to 1989. It was concentrated in the area around the triangle Mogadishu – Merca – Jowhar (the most developed region in those decades). Italian language in Somalia Prior to the
Somali civil war, the legacy of Italian influence in Somalia was evinced by the relatively wide use of the
Italian language among the country's ruling elite, including
Siad Barre, which had served in the Italian colonial police. Until World War II, the Italian language was the only official language of Italian Somaliland (and all newspapers and magazines were only in Italian, like in the
Corriere della Somalia). Italian was official in Italian Somaliland during the
Fiduciary Mandate, and the first years of independence. By 1952, the majority of Somalis had some understanding of the Italian language. In 1954, the Italian government established post-secondary institutions of law, economics and social studies in Mogadishu. These institutions were satellites of the
University of Rome, which provided all the instruction material, faculty and administration. All the courses were presented in Italian. By the end of the trust period in 1960, over 200,000 people in the nascent
Somali Republic spoke Italian. In 1964, the institutions offered two years of study in Somalia, followed by two years of study in Italy. After a military coup in 1969, all foreign entities were nationalized, including Mogadishu's principal university, which was renamed
Jaamacadda Ummadda Soomaliyeed (
Somali National University). Until 1967, all schools in Central and Southern Somalia taught Italian. In 1972, the
Somali language was officially declared the only national language of Somalia, though it now shares that distinction with Arabic. Due to its simplicity, the fact that it lent itself well to writing Somali since it could cope with all the sounds in the language, and the already widespread existence of machines and typewriters designed for its use, the government of Somali president
Mohamed Siad Barre, following the recommendation of the Somali Language Committee that was instituted shortly after independence with the purpose of finding a common orthography for the Somali language, unilaterally elected to only use the
Latin script for writing Somali instead of the long-established
Arabic script and the upstart
Osmanya script. During this period, Italian remained among the languages used in higher education. In 1983, nine out of the twelve faculties in the
Somali National University used Italian as the language of instruction. Until 1991, there was also an Italian school in Mogadishu (with courses of Middle school and Liceum), later destroyed because of the civil war. The Somali language also contains a few Italian loanwords that were retained from the colonial period. As part of a broader governmental effort to ensure and safeguard the primacy of the Somali language, the post-independence period in Somalia saw a push toward replacement of such foreign loanwords with their Somali equivalents or neologisms. To this end, the Supreme Revolutionary Council during its tenure officially prohibited the borrowing and usage of Italian and English terms. Alongside
English, Italian was declared a second language of Somalia by the
Transitional Federal Government in the
Transitional Federal Charter adopted in 2004. Somali (Maay and Maxaa-tiri) and Arabic were the official national languages. Following the adoption of the
Provisional Constitution in 2012 by the
Federal Government of Somalia, Somali and Arabic were retained as sole official languages. ==Notable Italian Somalis==