To preserve Somali language, 61 grandmothers shared lullabies they sang their babies
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Over the past two years, Marian Hassan has recorded 61 Somali grandmothers from across Minnesota singing and reciting 67 Somali lullabies and poems for kids. She did it, in part, to preserve the Somali language in Minnesota and to increase awareness of the culture.
This month, the “Sing Again” project launched at the Minnesota History Center where Somali elders, youth and Minnesota educators gathered to celebrate this step in preserving oral traditions.
“We have oral history that has guided us through history,” said Hassan, who is a Somali immigrant. “This oral history is not a luxury. It's dependent on our survival in the pastoral society. We've communicated through poetry and songs, and this is the way we've passed information from one place to another, and this is how we've child reared.”
Hassan said this project is for anyone who is interested in language, lullabies or Somali culture. The recordings and a free downloadable curriculum are available on singagain.org.
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How ‘Sing Again’ came to be
The “Sing Again” project started with a Minnesota Legacy Historical and Cultural Heritage grant Hassan was awarded in 2024. Though Somali is the third most common language spoken in Minnesota behind English and Spanish, the language had no standardized written form until the mid-1970s. Hassan also saw significant language loss in her interactions with Somali children and youth and wanted to do something about it.
In the early 1990s, refugees began coming to the U.S. from Somalia to escape civil war and famine, eventually making Minnesota home to the largest Somali population in the country. In the short time since, Hassan said she sees kids already unable to communicate with their older family members. And she’s seen the grief those elders have in not being able to share their culture.
“One of the goals of the project was actually to have this project to be a framework or a model of language preservation for other immigrant communities,” Hassan said. “Lullabies are international.”
As a lifelong literacy educator, Hassan partnered with the University of Minnesota Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition to develop a framework for a curriculum. She then went to mosques and Somali community centers and malls to recruit the grandmothers.
“Many times with Somali elders, once they hear that this has been long term, this is our language is going away, our children are not using the language, they're very willing to participate.”
She worked with grandmothers primarily from the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, as well as Faribault, Wilmer, Rochester and St. Cloud.
Grandmother says why she wanted to participate
“These are centuries-old songs I sang to my children,” said Hawa Aden, a grandmother of 42 whose comments were translated by Hassan. “My grandmother sang to me. Her grandmother sang to her, so on and so forth. So they're part of our history and who we are.”
Aden, 85, is one of the grandmothers in the project. She said she tried her best to sing, but she really wanted to do the project because she felt sad that the next generation of her community might not speak Somali anymore.
“The parents whose children have lost the language, they live in sadness and loss because they brought their kids to gain, not to lose so much,” Aden said, translated by Hassan.
Hopes that project will help Somali youth
Hassan said she also hopes this project has a positive impact on the young people in her community.
“Somali youth at risk are actually the example of what happens when young people are not connected to their heritage and pride and sense of self,” she said.
Hassan said “Sing Again” feels especially relevant now with Somali people being political targets in recent news. In the past year, President Donald Trump’s comments calling Somali people “garbage,” fraud investigations targeting Somali businesses and recent violence involving Somali youth has kicked up nationwide criticism of Somali people in Minnesota.
Hassan said hearing stories and wisdom from Somali elders was “humbling and life changing.”
“What two years of listening to them taught me is that I realized actually every song had a life around it. Memories of raising children. Some of the songs speak about hopes that the parents have for the child. Many of them speak about how to survive and exist and thrive in an environment that was not always friendly.”
She said the songs are still relevant, with many talking about “how to contribute, building a good character, striving to be someone who's dependable” and a leader.
Now that the project has officially launched, Hassan said they plan on hosting community events sharing the “Sing Again” curriculum later this year in mosques and community centers. An illustrated book will go on sale soon.
