PREFACE

CONTENTS 

61. Akin, Salih. “Pour une typologie des processus redénominatifs.” In Noms et re-noms: la dénomination des personnes, des populations, des langues et des territoires, 34-60. Rouen: Publications de l’Université de Rouen, 1999. [Bibliography ; notes]

Naming and/or renaming people, places and languages is a worldwide phenomenon which goes with our nature as human beings. The author of this article considers this phenomenon as the linguistic expression of complex and stake-laden phenomena such as geopolitical re-organizations, social transformations and the positioning and /or repositioning of identities. The article comprises two parts: in the first part the author presents theoretical considerations in support of his position. The second part contains the analysis of some concrete historical examples such as that of Zaire in central Africa. Akin shows with this example of a country that has undergone many toponymic changes how naming and renaming constitute political and ideological means for appropriation or re-appropriation of territory. In addition, he argues that it is a cultural and symbolic tool that can be used by those in power to efface their predecessors’ symbolic marks on people’s memory and imagination and replace them with their own marks.

62. Bokongo, Nzanga. “Les hydronymes Ngombe, approche morpho-sémantique”. Journal of Asian and African Studies 2 (1991): 41-57. [Bibliography ; notes]

The ethnonym Ngombe designates an ethnic group living in the equatorial region of the Democratique Republic of Congo (former Zaire) as well as the language spoken by that group. This article provides a semantic and morphosyntactic analysis of 90 Ngombe hydronyms. The author has used a variety of sources including sources from European missionaries, oral tradition, and his personal knowledge as a native speaker of Ngombe language. After a short preamble in which the author sets up the geographical and cultural context of the Ngombe hydronyms, he divides his study into two major parts. In the first part he describes the semantic content of the hydronyms and divides them into 8 categories such as descriptive, anthroponymic, ideophonic, and anecdoctal. Each category is explained and illustrated with names whose etymology is provided. The second part of the article is a presentation of the morphosyntactical structure of Ngombe hydronyms based on their grammatical and lexical forms. The analysis in this part is broken down into seven categories such as simple, compound, propositional, and unanalyzable. Bokongo’s analysis is clear and accessible even to the non-specialist.

63. Bontinck, Franz. “Toponymie Kongo.” Etudes Aequatoria 7 (1990): 173-187. [Notes]

“Toponymie Kongo” is a good illustration of how toponymic research can contribute greatly to the understanding of the history of African peoples. Franz Bontinck analyzes the linguistic and cultural meanings of Kongo ethnonyms by tracing their morphological evolution which often obscures their etymological meanings. This empowers him to uncover the Kongo people’s culture, their representation of reality as well as the traces of their contact with foreign cultures, notably Portuguese culture, which, through colonization and commerce has impacted the Kongo toponymy to some degree. The author divides the study into five sections according to name categories: (1) mercantile names which refer to places where weekly markets used to take place; (2) position names or titles attributed to chiefs of villages; (3) Christian names which refer to Portuguese patronyms that some chiefs of villages and religious organizations adopted;
(4) geographical names that describe the physical features of specific places;
and, (5) reduplicative names which are formulated by repeating a simple name, such as Bangi-Bangi, and are used to name one place after another place..

64. ----------. “Etymologie des ethnonymes yombe et ndombe.” Annales Aequatoria 13 (1992): 455-71. [Bibliography]

Yombe and Ndombe are two Bantu ethnonyms designating two ethnic groups living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) and in Angola. The main objective of the author of this article is to demonstrate that these ethnonyms are two variants of the same ethnonym and designate, eo facto, the same ethnic group of the former Kongo kingdom. In order to do so, Bontinck starts his investigation by reviewing seven interpretations of the ethnonym Yombe which first appeared in historical sources as Mayombe, an ethnonym derived from a position name or title. These interpretations are based on the opinions of foreigners who lived among the Kongo people. One trait common to these interpretations is that they all stress the pejorative connotation of the ethnonym Yombe and its rejection by those upon whom it is bestowed. The author then proceeds to introduce and compare the ethnonym Ndombe with Yombe. This comparison supported by historical sources from the 17th century onward allows him to draw the conclusion that both ethnonyms are variants of the same name given by foreigners to coastal people living near the Atlantic Ocean.

65. Brown, Walter T. “East African Place Names: An Etymological Inquiry.” Africana Marburgensia 6, no.1 (1973): 3-16. [Notes ; summaries in French and German]

Bagamoyo is an East African coastal town. The author analyzes the meaning of the toponym by tracing the etymological history of the word Bagamoyo. This word, supposedly of Swahili origin, has been variously translated as “path to the heart of Africa”, “be quiet my heart”, “lay down the burden of your heart”, “rest your soul (here)”, “rest the mind, throw off melancholy, be cheered.” The author considers three theories built around these interpretations and endorses one which states that Bagamoyo was named by porters who felt that they had successfully completed their journey from the interior. The author justifies his conclusion by citing three types of evidence: the personal narrrative of a young man who had worked as a porter for an Arab; a report concerning caravan porters’ reactions to a settlement in Kenya; and, a song attributed to the wapagazi (porters). Brown provides useful background on the history of commerce in East Africa. In addition, he contends that a certain moral significance seems to have been invested in the site of Bagamoyo as a symbol of “man’s ability to satisfy his physical, material and spiritual expectations.” Clearly, more research needs to be done in order to confirm or refute the author’s hypothesis and to be able to decide which of the many East African sites bearing the same toponym is the original Bagamoyo.

66. Burije, J. “Note sur l’orthographe des principaux noms géographiques du Burundi..” Kongo-Overzee 23, nos. 3-4 (1957): 224-25.

This very short text represents one of the earlier efforts to standardize African place names. Burije’s starting point is the incorrect orthography of Burundi’s place names on maps and official documents. The author contends that this orthography conforms neither to the pronunciation nor to the orthography in usage in the country. He identifies three factors responsible for this problem. The first factor is related to the failure to identify the sounds of local languages. The second results from a faulty grammatical interpretation, and the third is a direct consequence of mapmakers’ preferences for foreign languages, such as Swahili, over Kirundi and other local languages. The author has provided references to the faulty spellings on maps and in documents, and suggested the correct orthography.

67. Cory, H., and M. M. Masalu. “Place Names in the Lake Province.” Tanganyika Notes and Records 30 (1951): 53-72.

Kory and Masalu begin their article by pointing out the pioneering nature of their study of names of places in Tanzania outside of the capital city Dar Es Slam which has been enjoying many toponymists’ devotion for so long. They present their study as an initial effort, but an effort they hope will serve as an example for other researchers to follow. After a brief explanation of the different types of prefixes found in the toponyms under consideration, the authors provide a few examples of toponyms from twenty-four district of the Lake Province (former Tanganyika) and focuses their attention on those names’ etymological and cultural meanings.

68. Daeleman, Jan. “Fréquences des préfixes dans des anthroponymes et des ethnonymes bantous”. Annales Aequatoria 1 (1980): 591-614. [List of theses]

This article presents the results of an onomastic research done under Daeleman’s direction at the University of Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of Congo) between 1974 and 1980. A corpus of 3302 Bantu anthroponyms from six languages and 2364 Bantu toponyms comprising all subcategories of toponyms was analyzed. The objective of the study consisted of comparing the frequence of the prefixes of both categories of names. The authors came up with impressive figures illustrated in many helpful tables. The scope of the study was certainly limited by this specific linguistic approach. There is no indication as to how the impressive statistical results could be used in other areas of onomastics. A list of mémoires (bachelor’s and master’s theses) presented at the University of Lubumbashi closes the article.

69. Faucett, D. “Orthographie des noms géographiques du Congo”. Kongo-Overzee 20, no. 1 (1954): 71-3.

This short text reports on the recommendations of the Commission Linguistique Africaine for the orthography and spelling of Congolese place names. The over-arching rule established by the committee states that the sound of each name in local language should be the basis for its spelling. The committee also recommends the use of a number of non-Western signs to transcribe the names so as to avoid the linguistic bias of European orthographies. Every effort to avoid introducing European toponyms into Congolese toponymy is also recommended. A series of examples of signs is provided for the transcription of vowels and consonants.

70. Huntingford, G. W. “Nandi Place Names.” African Language Studies 2 (1961): 64-69. [Index ; map]

Huntingford presents in this article the results of his study of Nandi toponymy. He begins his article with a description of the geographic settings and the ethnological situation of this West Kenyan tribe. The author goes on to present the morphological structure of three types of Nandi toponyms. He also proposes a classification of the toponyms based on their derivational origin such as fauna and flora, and their etymological meanings. A few pages are dedicated to other languages spoken in the region inhabited by the Nandi.

71. Huntchinson, J. A. “The Meaning of Kilimanjaro.” Tanganyika Notes and Records 64 (1965): 65-67.

Huntchinson’s article reads like a fascinating and suspense-filled story about the derivation of the name Kilimanjaro. The author presents many interesting and equally plausible theories about the meaning and origin of the name. The point he keeps making throughout his article like a logical chorus is that none of these theories is powerful enough to explain the linguistically hybrid nature of the derivation, and therefore none of them satisfies the coherence required of a valid theory. Indeed, the name Kilimanjaro is a compound formed out of two words whose syntactical nature and linguistic origins are precisely part of the controversy, but it is generally accepted that kilima is a Swahili word for “hill” and manjaro is probably a Maa or Chagga word. Huntchison does not propose any alternative theories and thus concludes that the standardization of the name Kilimanjaro was probably based on hearsay: a European version of their Swahili porters’ account of what local Chagga people called the mountain.

72. Lestrade, G. P. “The Spelling of Names of Bantu Languages and Tribes in English.” Bantu Studies 11, no. 4 (1937): 373-75.

This short article presents a report on the results of two joined memoranda on the spelling of Bantu names in English. The article spells out the objective of each memorandum and the methodological principles and guidelines under which the memoranda operated. It ends with a list of examples of the concrete application of these principles.

73. Lisimba, Mukumbua. Les noms de villages dans la tradition gabonaise. [Paris]: Editions Sepia, 1997. [Illustrations ; index]

What is in the names of Gabon’s villages? In this richly illustrated and easy-to-read book, Mukumbua Lisimba’s adroitly answers this daunting question. His approach is threefold. First, the author adopts “an ethnolinguistic method” by demonstrating how the names of villages refer to several aspects: the physical characteristics of the Gabonese environment, a description of human activities, and the weltanschaung of the founding communities of each village. Second, he discusses the literal meanings of the toponyms and then neatly classifies them into thematic categories. Third, he offers a cultural and historical interpretation of the names thus classified. The size of each category of names is indicative of the importance of the theme represented. The book is organized into two main parts. In the first part, which contains four chapters, Lisimba presents an analytical description of the toponyms. In the second part, a lexis of the toponyms and their meanings are provided..

74. Mill Hill Fathers. “Derivations of Some Teso Place-Names: A Symposium of the Mill Hill Fathers.” Uganda Journal 16 (1952): 168-172.

This article consists of an alphabetically arranged list of derivations of twenty-two toponyms from the Teso district in Uganda. The compilation is the result of work carried out by The Mill Hill Fathers, a Roman Catholic mission organization in Uganda. The origins of the derivations range from humans to animals (fauna), to plants (flora). The list would have benefited enormously from a classification of Teso place names into types of names. In fact, the authors themselves express the hope that this work will be taken up and expanded by onomaticians with more advanced skills.

75. Ndiga Mbo, Abraham Constant. Onomastique et histoire au Congo-Brazzaville. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004. 228 p. [Annexes on oral traditions and ritual; bibliography ; illustrations]

This book proposes a reading of the history of the Republic of Congo based on a meticulous and detailed application of onomastic sciences. The author has divided his study into three main parts, corresponding respectively to toponymy, ethnonymy, and anthroponymy. The first part provides the meaning of Congolese place names, rural and urban, and underlines their value as traces of population movements and therefore as important documents for the study of local and national history. The second part examines the criteria that can be used to define ethnic identity. Language is considered as the primordial criterium, but other criteria such as mode of production, geographic environment, historical experience and cultural values are also discussed. The author concludes this part of his book by demonstrating how these criteria have shaped Congolese ethnic identities and national identity. The third part of the book opens with a definition of an anthroponym as a personal name that signifies a person and indexes the culture to which he belongs. Since a person bears many names, this multiplicity of the individual’s names denotes the multiple and variegated aspects of his relationship with the social group of which he is a member. Another aspect of Congolese anthroponyms is that they are linguistic expressions reflective of Congolese thought, belief systems, or philosophy. Anthroponyms are texts decipherable to those who have the linguistic competence and cultural knowledge to interpret them. Ndinga Mbo’s book is richly illustrated and ends with an important bibliography and two short annexes, one on oral traditions and the other on Ikiehet ritual.

76. Ngoie-Ngalla, D. “Un cas d’utilisation de l’anthroponymie en histoire”. Cahiers congolais d’anthropologie et d’histoire 8 (1983): 27-34. [Notes ; summaries in French and English]

Despite its title, this article is not only about anthroponyms. It is also about the intricate reciprocal relationships between anthroponyms and ethnonyms, and their use by historians in their effort to reconstruct historical knowledge about Africa. Indeed, the author establishes interesting correlations between anthroponyms and the social origins of three Bantu ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Congo, notably the Vili of Loango, the Kongo of Niari, and the Kongo of the eastern DRC. Based on these correlations he draws important conclusions about the common origin of these ethnic groups. Ngoie-Ngalla’s article is well written and his argumentation is dense and substantiated.

77. Nicolas, J. P. “Questions de toponymie.” Bulletin de la Société d’études camerounaises 25/26 (1949): 7-18.

Nicolas describes the multiple problems the French Geography Department faced when it tried to come up with a map for colonial Cameroon in the late 1940s. He divides the problems into two categories: those pertaining to history and those related to the spatial level. The first category of problems is intricately tied to Cameroon’s colonial past. Apparently, by the late forties, German and French spellings have been successively imposed on earlier indigenous toponyms in many places and have thus replaced local spellings. Nicolas argues that there was growing concern at the time over which spelling should be adopted. This problem is compounded by the fact that existing African toponyms bore the traces of both foreign languages. As for the second category of problems, it concerns the multitude of names for villages, mountains, rivers, etc. which were so habitually misspelled on signposts that local people had begun to forget the correct and original spellings. The author calls for an urgent solution before young Cameroonians become irrevocably used to a misrepresented toponymy. This article remains an important contribution in the historical study of toponymy in Cameroon.

78. Nsimbi, M. B. “Luganda Names, Clans and Totems.” Munger Africana Library Notes 52/53 (1980): 3-102.

This 101-page article contains a listing of over 1000 clan names of the Baganda ethnic group in Uganda. Luganda clan names constitute one of the six classes into which Luganda personal names can be divided. The primary function of a clan name is to identify the bearer of the name with the clan to which s/he belongs. The author states that clan names have their origin in proverbs, nicknames, natural features, protective weapons and dead languages. He goes on to show how some social problems and individual preferences have restricted the identificatory function of clan names. For instance, persecuted members of a clan seek refuge in another clan and take on the names of their protectors, or some people may bear a clan name just because they are attracted to the meaning of the proverb from which it derives. To add to the confusion, many people misspell their names or do not use the right tone when pronouncing it. There is no indication in the article as to how to salvage or redeem the identification function of Luganda clan names except the author’s insistence on the correct spelling and the correct tone.

79. Omar, Yahyah, and P. J. L. Frankl. “Ethnic Groups and their Assignment within the Swahili Noun Class (with Special Reference to Mombasa.).” Afrika und Ubersee 80, no. 2 (1997): 217-31. [Bibliography ; notes]

In this article, Yahyah and Frankl analyze the sociolinguistic relationships inherent in the grammatical structure of the pre-standardized Swahili language that was spoken in the city of Mombasa in Kenya. Their analysis is rich in cultural content. Based on their reading of Swahili grammar by E.O. Ashton, they focus on the relationship between Swahili noun classes and ethnic group assignments. The Swahili people assigned noun classes 1 and 2 to human beings in general and to the Swahili in particular, whereas noun classes 5 and 6 were assigned to human beings who were foreign or unknown to them. The application of these grammatical rules to the dynamics of ethnic relations within the city of Mombasa reveals that the closer a non-Swahili group was to the Swahili geographically, culturally or politically, the more likely they could be bestowed with the attributes of full humanity, and thus, enter into classes 1 and 2. This important article will be of interest not only to the diachronic linguist, but also to sociolinguists and cultural anthropologists.

80. Omosule, Monone. “Kalenjin: The Emergence of a Corporate Name for the Nandi-speaking Tribes of East Africa.” Genève-Afrique 27, no. 1 (1989): 73-88. [Map ; notes ; tables]

Omosule’s dense article is a text-book example of the integrative function of ethnonyms. The author states that before bearing the corporate name of Kalenjin the Nandi-speaking peoples of Kenya already had a language in common and shared many of the same cultural traditions but without a sense of identity as a single people. Their leaders, who knew how to crystallize their aspirations, have used historical traditions and economic circumstances in the country since the mid-1950s to promote an agreeable ethnonym that offers the Nandi-speaking peoples a sense of cultural unity and has contributed towards the construction of a political ethnic identity.

81. Roden, D. “Some Geographical Implications from the Study of Ugandan Place Names.” East African Geographical Review 12 (1974): 77-86. [Bibliography]

Roden shows that African toponymy, if conducted properly, can contribute greatly to the value of historical geography, in particular to the study of the movements of people and settlements. The author claims that place names constitute records of precious data on the physical characteristics of places of settlement and on the motivating factors that preside over the choice of those places. Place names can also yield information on the qualities and cultural values of the settlers. Roden makes the following methodological suggestions for a successful toponymic research: first, the toponomists should make a recording of the more important place names of the chosen area; second, they should study the linguistic patterns of that area and, third, they should undertake a reconstruction of the history of the area based on the results of previous research. The author opens his article with a somewhat outdated review of the pitfalls and limitations of African Onomastics.

82. Saad, Hamman Tukur. “Reflections on Fulfulde Toponymy: A Study of Fulfulde Towns in ‘Old Adamwa Emirate’.” Annals of Bornu 4 (1987): 7-24. [Bibliography ; notes]

The author uses the study of toponyms to reconstruct the past history of the Fulfulde and to understand their present historical and cultural situation. He starts from the premise that toponyms either reflect a particular physical reality in which the Fulfulde live or correspond to the social reality or historical circumstances surrounding the founding of their villages and towns. His research leads him to believe that there might be a shift in the sources of Fulfulde toponyms “from a primary physical base to an essentially social base.” He therefore recommends, in his conclusion, a more historically oriented study of Fulbe names which could throw some light on the process of Fulfulde sedentarization. A map of Old Adamawa helps to visualize this African region now divided between Cameroon and Nigeria.

83. Ten Rae, Eric. “Geographic Names in South-Eastern Sandawe.” Journal of African Languages 5, no. 3 (1966): 175-207. [Bibliography ; map]

The Sandawe are a central Tanzanian ethnic group who speak a click-language. They are settled hunters who live in an underdeveloped and under-populated region. Ten Rae’s objective in this article is to show that a wealth of topographical terms exists even in this underdeveloped part of Tanzania. He stresses the linguistic, historic and cultural values of Sandawe names besides their topographic value, and he proceeds to define the meaning and give the etymology of some names. The content of the article is organized as follows: first the author provides a list of general Sandwe terms for topographic features. He next deals with specific geographic names. Finally, he classifies the names according to their type of derivations.

84. Thomas, H. B., and Ivan R. Dale. “Uganda Place Names: Some European Eponyms.” Uganda Journal 17, no. 2 (1953): 101-23. [Notes]

The authors of this article show, based on an extensive study of Uganda place names, that European explorers and map makers were not in the least interested in the linguistic form of African place names. They also show that the names they gave to places were not written until the time of publication of the maps. The more compelling argument of the authors is that the toponyms the explorers gave to African places were European eponyms and therefore told more about the European explorers themselves than about African places they had explored. The authors have based their arguments on the study of over 100 Uganda toponyms that bear European eponyms.

85. Van Bulck, Gaston. Orthographie des noms ethniques au Congo belge, suivie de la nomenclature des principales tribus et langues du Congo belge. Bruxelles: Institut Royal Colonial Belge, Section des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 1954. 136 p.

The starting point of Van Bulck’s two-part study is the observation formulated in the introduction that ethnonyms and linguonyms are subject to various spelling systems; some variations are due to differences in spelling and some others to the variability of the names themselves. The first part of the study contains the author’s proposed solutions to the problem. He advocates two types of solutions: a general solution for both researchers and non-researchers, and a particular solution for researchers such as linguists and ethnologists. The second part of the study includes an extensive nomenclature of the main “tribes” and languages in Belgian Congo, which comprises five long lists of different types of names.

86.Worby, Eric. “Maps, Names, and Ethnic Games: The Epistemology and Iconography of Colonial Power in Northwestern Zimbabwe.” Journal of South African Studies 20, no. 3 (1974): 371-92. [Notes]

Worby’s article represents one of the best illustrations of the symbolic-political facet of African toponymy. The author deconstructs the insidious mechanisms of ethnographic mapping and reveals the real intentions and stakes behind this highly ideological and political practice often disguised under the appearance of a knowledge-driven process. He argues how the attempt at mapping ethnic groups in the vicinity of Gokwe, northwestern Zimbabwe, went hand in hand with the British colonial subjugation of the African inhabitants. The starting point of Worby’s method is not the effectiveness of the naming process, but rather its failure, that is, the refusal by the Shangwe to be named, and thus fully subjugated by the British. Through a richly illustrated analysis of anti-colonial resistance, Worby draws the following twofold conclusion: first, the place of the Shangwe on ethnographic maps provides a way of reading the relationship between subjectification and subjugation during the colonial era; second, due to this very process the names have shifted identities over time in ways that eluded the mapping imperative itself, thus dissolving the very subjects the mapping and naming process had been designed to identify.