As a growing child, Africa has always fascinated me. I remember telling everyone who cared to listen that I am an African. My friends often teased me about my hairstyles- sometimes my hair was woven with Brazilian wool in a thread-like fashion. I told them that it was a beautiful African style that needed worldwide recognition. A few months later, Kelly Rowland- an American musician had the hairstyle in the music video "Bloody Samaritan" where Ayra Star featured her. However, it suddenly hit me that I knew little or nothing about Africa, even how the name came to be. I dug into Africa's history and made some interesting discoveries.
The indigenous name of Africa is ALKEBULAN, some scholars say that it is of Arabic origin and means "the land of the blacks" When these words were translated to Arabic they read Bilad-as-Sudan, so this is inaccurate. Other sources say that ALKEBULAN means Mother of Mankind or Garden of Eden.
The Egyptians were said to be the first to call the continent Africa, derived from the Egyptian word Af-rui-ka (to turn towards the opening of the ka) which meant that Africa was for the Egyptians their birthplace. An Egyptologist from the 19th century stated that the tongue of Egypt tells us that Af-rui-ka is the inner land, the birthplace.
The Romans claim to call the Northern African provinces Africa. The term Afri is a Latin term used to refer to all lands in the south of the Mediterranean. It was suggested that Afri was in reference to a Libyan tribe. However, Leo Africanus has a different story, according to him a man named Ifrikis was the son of a king and a conqueror, after he conquered North Africa he named it after him - Ifrikia. The Arabs say that Africa is a corruption of Al mafrika (the ancient name of the country beyond the now westward, meaning disunited/divided) the Arabs claim that it was cut off from Asia by the Nile.
There are many conflicting theories some are quite convincing while others may not be, which of these theories resonates with you?
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