Since agreement had still not been reached on a national script for Somali, and since only a small section of the population was fully literate in Arabic, the two colonial languages continued to be used in the transaction of business. Many southern politicians and senior officials had acquired some knowledge of English during the period of British Military Administration, but few knew the language sufficiently well to use it regularly as a means of written communication for official purposes; and in the north virtually no one was proficient in Italian. Hence, while with other political considerations, this seemed to tip the balance in favour of English in the long term, it did not resolve the immediate problem of communication for the government and civil service, many of whose members could not write to each other directly without the aid of English-Italian interpreters.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 434