How Africa got its name | Where does the name Africa come from?
By: Lorraine Dzeka
Tags: Alkebulan, African History, Africa History, Africa, Libya

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The name Africa today is synonymous with a continent of over a billion people, warm sun, the happy simple life and innovating entrepreneurs determined to make a name for themselves. Most of the continent’s population is young. In recent times, people tend to form an emotional attachment with where they come from, their country or their continent. Where does the name Africa come from? If it means anything, is there any significance to it? There are different theories and disagreements on the origin and meaning of the name Africa. The topic of world continents has evolved over hundreds of years dating back to the Greeks calling the territory to their west, Europe. The east, Asia and the landmass to the south was termed Libya. Libya was believed to only consist of northern Africa and mostly desert, thus making it insignificant. Despite the different theories and disagreements on the origin, meaning and significance of the word, the term Africa is very modern and only came to be widely used to refer to the whole continent in the late 17th century.

The heart of Africa remained a mystery to most of the outside world due to the vast expanse of desert and lack of navigable rivers apart from the Nile. For hundreds of years, merchants, with their caravans criss-crossed the desert and traded in gold, ivory, salt and sometimes slaves. To the Greek cartographers / map drawers of the time, the world was divided into three regions; Libya, now known as Africa, Asia and Europe. The Nile river was the dividing line between Asia and Africa, thus separating Egypt into two. As christianity came along, the three regions were associated with Noah’s sons; Shem, Ham and Japheth. These old geographical and theological concepts have evolved with time and scientific study. Now, the world is believed to have seven continents, Africa, Antactica, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Europe, North America and South America.

The most known ancient and indegenous name given to the continent by its own inhabitants is Alkebulan. This theory suggests that the name came from the word Alkebulan which means mother of mankind or garden of Eden. In Arabic, it means, “land of the blacks”. Others assert the word is Egyptian in origin. Whilst the egyptian language fell from use over the years due to several conquests, the name is derived from the word, “afruika” which means to “turn towards the opening of the Ka”. The Ka refers to a womb or a birthplace, meaning to the Egyptians, Africa is denoted as the birthplace. This meaning sounds similar to that of Alkebulan.

Historical cartographers thought Africa was only made up of North Africa and the desert. Travellers and merchants called it “Bilad-al-Sudan”, meaning land of the blacks. In the bible, reference is made to Africa as “Ethiopia’’. In modern times, Ethiopia is a single country. Greek cartographers used the term Libya.When the Portuguesse arrived in modern day Ethiopia, they began to refer to the area south of North Africa as Aethiopia, with map drawers using the same name.

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In the Third Punic war of 146 BC, the Romans conquered the Carthagian territory in what is now Tunisia, they named it, the Roman Province of Africa, in short “Africa Terra”. North Africa was divided into provinces with Utica as its capital. The Roman officer associated with the Punic war was called Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. It is unclear if there is a link between his name and Africa the continent as Africanus seems to have been a popular Roman name at the time.

The Roman reference to their north African territory; Africa Terra translates to “land of the Afri”. The latin word Afri, was the name used to refer to the Berber tribe living in North Africa. The use of the word increased to refer to all people living south of the Mediteranean. This word was connected to the phoenician word, “Afar” meaning dust. Another hypothesis states that it stems from the Berber word, “ifri” which means cave. Some of the Berber tribes had the word “ifri” in their names. To this day, some Berber people continue to build underground homes to shield themselves from strong desert winds and heat. These homes are sometimes referred to as “cave homes”.

When the muslim seized Africa from the Byzantine Empire, the province was named Ifriqiya in 703 AD. Ifriqiya was made up of part of what is now, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. An early sixteenth century traveller and scholar, suggested that the name Africa was derived from the Greek word, “A-phrike”. This means without cold or without horror given the warm temperature of the region. Another theory claims that Africa is derived from the latin word, “aprica” meaning sunny.

As knowledge of the existence of the rest of the continent came to be known, the term Africa continued to be used to refer to the whole continent. Others presume, the term Africa won, because it is latin in origin. However some historians argue that the name Africa is indegenous in origin. What are your thoughts?

Reference :

The Myth of Continents; A Critique of Metageography, M.Lewis & K.Wigen

A very short history of the world, G. Blainey

https://www.sahistory.org.za/Africa- What’s in a name?