PLS ASSIGNMENT 2

Ngcebo Enerst Mlaba

Student no: 12346314
Unique number 899588
African philosophy

The name Africa has been subject of debates for many years, schools of thought
have been coming with different and varied approaches to how the name came
about and from where it came. Some schools of thought argue that the continent
known as “Africa” was not named by people residing within it they even go as far as
saying those people had nothing to do with the name “Africa” and that is why the
name is problematized(Saho).
It would make a lot of sense if the natives were to be the ones naming their own
land. That is if we are to affirm the motion set by some school of thought scholars.
The term came into use in the western world by the Romans, long ago ‘Africa’ was a
part of the Roman empire it was the norther-most part of the continent. It was 146
BC just after Rome defeated Carthage when it started during the third Punic war.
(Wikipedia). With defeat one may argue that the Romas had right of way to change
or give their newly acquired land a name.
This meant modern day Tunisia, northeast section of Algeria and the coastal area of
western Libya bordering the gulf of Sirte, it must have been somewhat difficult to
pronounce the name of the land they have conquered hence the new name. The
natives were and still are the Berber people, who are also known as Mauri in Latin.
They are native to all north Africa towards the west side of Egypt(wikipedia). When a
child is born it is named by its parents and not the nurses or doctors, they may be
asked for suggestions by the baby’s parents. However, some parents decide to give
new names to their adopted children.
It has not been proven that the roman term ‘Afri’ was inferred from the word ‘Africa’.
There is also no essential evidence indicating that ‘Africa-terra’ a word meaning the
land of the Afri, was used to depict a certain region. All of that’s been said about the
possibilities of the origin of the term are just theories. Leo Africanus (1495-1554)
claims that the term Africa was determined from the Greek word a-phrike which
interprets to without cold (Sheppardsoftware). If one places some thought into Leo
Africanus’s claims it may make sense since we may have no known record of the
native ‘Africans’ learning the Romans’ language before their land was conquered in
order to name their continent or home ‘Africa’ which was the term that was broadly
used by the romans in the western world referring to our modern day ‘Africa’.
This may give rise to questions such as what language were the natives speaking?
Were the people in the western world able to understand that language used by the
Berber people such that they held a solid conversation that lead to one telling the
other they are from ‘Africa’? Some theories suggest that Africa may have derived its
name from the term ‘Afri’ in the Phoenician language. It is speculated that the word
’Afri’ may have given rise to the term Africa, this word means dust. It would not be a
surprise to discover that the Phoenicians gave the continent the name ‘Africa’
because of what they saw, which was dust. The foundation of this theory rests on the
discovery that the Phoenicians were the initial known people to journey to Africa
through sailing, thus they possibly named it after the arid desert they
encountered(reference). Another possibility is that Africa is derived from the word
’ifriqiya’ in the Berbers language, meaning the territory of the Berbers(Africa Original
name).
It has been said that word of mouth travels very fast, it would be safe to assume that
the Phoenicians might have over simplified the naming of the place or they may have
not named it but just described what they saw to their own as ‘dusty’ place/continent.
Theres a theory that suggests that the term Africa comes from the word ’afar’
meaning ‘without cold’. This theory is based on the fact that the continent is located
in a warm region called the tropics. Basically we may never know for certain where
the term Africa originally came from, but the various ideas about where it might have
came from give an interesting look into the past of the land(SAHO).
The reason why the term ‘africa’ is problematized is because its origin remains a
mystery and the reason why Africa is still an unknown. How can one be proudly an
African if that one does not even know where the word comes from? is it safe to say
that one is proudly a ‘dusty’ like how and what the Phoenicians saw? I agree with the
problematization of the term because if the term came from any of the above
theories then we are just people of a warm climate.

References
-Sources from website address:
How Africa got its name- African folder
http://africanfolder.com/africa-original-name-how-africa-got-its-name/

-Source from website address:

Africa (Roman province)- Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa_(Roman_Province)

-Source from website address:

(SAHO)Africa: what’s in a name?
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/africa-whats-name
-Source from website address:
Origin of the name Africa – Sheppard Software
https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Africaweb/factfile/africauniquefact5.htm