Garre language
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{{Short description|Cushitic language spoken in Kenya and Somalia}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Garre
| altname=Af-Garre
| nativename = اف الخرّيي
| region = Mandera, Bay, Lower Shabelle
| ethnicity = Garre
| speakers = {{sigfig|688,000|2}}
| date = 2019–2020
| ref = e27
|familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
|fam2=Cushitic
|fam3=Lowland East
|fam4=Somali
|fam5=Digil
| iso3 = gex
| glotto = garr1259
| glottorefname = Garre
}}
Garre (also known as Af-Garre) is a Somali language spoken by the Garre who reside in southern Somalia, Ethiopia and northern Kenya. It belongs to the family's Cushitic branch, and had an estimated 50,000 speakers in Somalia in 1992, 57,500 in 2006 and 86,000 in 2020. The total number of speakers in Kenya and Somalia was estimated at 685,600 in 2019. Garre is in the Digil classification of Somali dialects.{{sfn|Lamberti|1986|p=25}} Garre language is readily intelligible to Digil speakers, as it has some affinity with Af-Maay and Af-Boon.{{Cite book|last=Mohamed Haji Mukhtar|title=Historical Dictionary of Somalia, New Edition|publisher=The Scarecrow Press|year=2003|isbn=0810843447|pages=28}}
Classification
{{Copyvio|Map of the Somali Dialects in the Somali Democratic Republic and Schizzo grammaticale del dialetto Karre di Qoryooley|timestamp=20250220021123}}
The Garre language is in the Digil classification of Somali dialects, other Digil Somali dialects are; Af-Tunni, Af Dabarre and Af-Jiddu.{{sfn|Lamberti|1986|pages=25–27}} The Digil dialects are the most heterogenous dialect group of all the Somali Democratic Republic and it is indeed questionable, whether they form a single group, or whether each single Digil dialect constitutes its separate group. This does not apply so much to Tunni and Dabarre but it does to Garre.{{sfn|Lamberti|1986|pages=25–27}} We anticipate our doubts about the legitimacy of including the Garre to the Digil dialects, both on the basis of agnatic considerations (the Garre not being Digil at all, nor Sab, but pre-Hawiya){{sfn|Tosco|1989|pages=7–8}} and linguistic: the traits that connect Garre to the dialects of the river region are essentially phonological (for example, the absence of pharyngeals), syntactic (the marking of interrogation suffixed to the verb, in part the system of marking the focus), lexical and morphology{{sfn|Tosco|1989|pages=7–8}}
They are exclusively divided in two groups, Garre Tuuf and Garre Quranyow. The Quranyow dialect is strongly influenced by Maay and they claimed that Tuuf dialect is the pure Af-Garre.{{sfn|Tosco|1989|p=6}}{{sfn|Lamberti|1984|p=182}} This affirms that while the two dialects are not associated with different geographical areas, the Garre language is "one of the most heterogeneous dialects of Somali", for example the loss of prefix conjugation between the Garre in Baydhaba region, as in Maay, the dominant language in the area, of versus to its conservation among the Garre of Qoryooley and Buurhakaba.{{sfn|Tosco|1989|p=6}}