Ufascinating dive into a little-known story: That of the names and nicknames of the different African countries. From South Africa to Zimbabwe, travel through a continent whose etymology of toponyms reveals its diversity and historical richness. After looking in vain for a serious book to answer the questions he was asking himself about the etymology of names and nicknames in African countries, Arol Ketchiemen finally decided to write it himself. His work, which traces both the etymology and the evolution of the names of African countries over the course of history, is the result of research strewn with pitfalls, due to the scarcity of reliable sources, to the absence of old documents or the need to master the various local languages. The names having often been corrupted during the transition from oral to written, he had to go back to his roots. In particular, he consulted the logbooks and travel accounts of the first explorers who visited Africa, in order to find the original forms under which certain toponyms appeared and the first meanings attributed to them. We discover that there is everything in the etymologies of names and nicknames of countries: Myths and mythologies, little stories and anecdotes, accounts of aborted unions between countries and separatist inclinations, nationalist ideologies, typology of the inhabitants who live or have there lived. There are toponyms from local languages, but others have a Latin, Greek, Roman, Berber or Punic origin. The name of a country is like its historical DNA, it contains a set of information relating to its evolution in space and time. An extremely documented dictionary which sheds new light on the etymology of the names of African countries.
Dictionary of the origin of the names and nicknames of African countries
Release Date | 2014-09-11T00:00:01Z |
Language | Français |
Number Of Pages | 300 |
Publication Date | 2014-09-11T00:00:01Z |