PREFACE

CONTENTS 

1. Alexandre, Pierre. “Some Problems of African Onomastics: Toponymy, Anthroponymy, and Ethnonymy.” Cahiers d’études africaines 1-2 (1983): 175- 88.

This article comprises a detailed and very informative analysis of the multiple aspects and issues in African onomastics in general, and in anthroponymy, ethnonymy and toponymy in particular. The author uses several relevant concrete examples to show that the issues involved in African onomastics are of a multifaceted nature and range from cultural to socio-political to epistemological. He claims that the importance of African onomastics is not only local but international insofar as it involves the problem of geographic and historical referents of place names for instance, as well as the problem of communication and cultural contacts. One of the author’s conclusions is that the study of African onomastics is too important to be left only to specialists such as topographers and linguists.

2. Aurousseau, M. “On Lists of Words and Lists of Names.” The Geographical Journal 15 (1945): 61-7.

This short article provides a very useful clarification of the common terminological confusion between vocabularies and glossaries on the one hand, and maps, indexes and gazetteers on the other hand. The author gives succinct, clear and comparative definitions of the confused terms. He also gives a brief history of each term, illustrated with interesting examples. There are quotations from various sources, but there is no bibliography.

3. Biebuyck, Daniel P. African Ethnonyms: Index to Art-Producing People of Africa. New York: G.K. Hall, 1996. 378 p. [Bibliography]

The overall objective of this irreplaceable source on African ethnonymy is to provide an accurate identification of the people responsible for the production of African Art, given the plethora of names that might be confusing to the non-specialist. Accompanied by an informative introduction and impressive bibliography, the index covers 4,500 names which represent over 3,000 people from Sub-Saharan Africa. The index entries are arranged alphabetically in a dictionary format. To facilitate the use of the index the author has clustered all the warrant names under a single entry-form name and all the names in the clusters are also arranged alphabetically. All names are in bold face. This index is intended for various categories of users such as linguists, social anthropologists, art historians and librarians. It can also be used as a bibliographic guide for further study on a particular people as well as in object identification by selective use of the sources cited at the end of each chapter.

4. Clifford, E. H. M. “Recording Native Place Names.” The Geographical Journal 59 (1947): 99-102.

It has become common knowledge among the students of African Studies today that many native African toponyms have been wrongly recorded on maps. Clifford begins his article by stressing this misrepresentation and then goes on to analyze two sources of error that led to it. The first source lies in the employment by European topographers of interpreters who are foreign to the region under study or who do not belong to the tribes of that region. Clifford’s claim is that the knowledge of such interpreters is often inadequate and cannot, therefore, be reliable. The second source of error is related to the topographer’s overconfidence in his knowledge of the language of the region. In order to address both sources of error, Clifford recommends elaborate precautions and the use of help from indigenous people. He also suggests a reliance on practical rules such as the rules of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS).

5. Dalby, David. “The Transcription of Ethnonyms and Toponyms in Africa in Relation to their Historical Study.” In African Ethnonyms and Toponyms: Report and Papers of the Meeting of Experts, 80-5. Paris: UNESCO, 1984.

In this important piece David Dalby stresses the need for the harmonization of African ethnonyms and toponyms and outlines the methodological orientation such a project should take. The author begins this article by establishing the importance of ethnonyms and toponyms for the study of history. Due to their relative stability as an ‘untapped source of historical evidence’, ethnonyms and toponyms can be evidence for the movements of populations. Dalby cites Tonga (East Africa) and Manding (West Africa) as examples of two ethnonyms full of historical information if analyzed properly. But the proper analysis of African ethnonyms and toponyms implies that their historic study should be based on the ‘scientific recording and transcription of the names involved’, which is a daunting task given the Western biased origin of the current orthographies of African languages and names. In order to overcome this obstacle, Dalby suggests that one approach the problem of the harmonization of African ethnonyms and toponyms within the context of the harmonization of African languages. But he cautions against the confusion between two levels: the internal one, the level of languages where particular linguistic characteristics and local conventions can be and should be adopted; and the international one, the level of proper names where such characteristics and conventions should be kept to a minimum.

6. Eltis, David, and Ugo G. Nwokeji. “The Roots of Diaspora: Methodological Considerations in the Analysis of Names in the Liberated African Registers of Sierra Leone and Havana.” History in Africa 29 (2002): 365-79. [Appendix ; notes]

The main objective of this article is to raise the quality of African scholarship on the transatlantic slave trade by providing hard evidence on the African origins of that trade. In order to reach such an objective, Eltis and Nwokeji seek to establish the ethnic origins and composition of African groups forced into the New World. More specifically, they try to identify where these Africans began their journey from Africa to the Americas, to which language groups they belonged, what relationships they may have had with the people living in Africa today, and what links existed between major political and military events and market fluctuations in the slave trade. This is an ambitious program that is being implemented through the use of field work, the cooperation of African-based scholars in several disciplines, and the exploitation of two databases: the microfilm containing the registers from the Sierra Leone and Havana courts set up in 18th century to adjudicate the case of recaptives from illegal slave ships, and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University. The core of the authors’ method of investigation consists of establishing links between the slaves’ names, cicatrizations, and their ethnicity. Eltis and Nwokeji show awareness of the methodological problems such a project will face and suggest ways to deal with them. This article is a very useful source for those interested in African history in general and in the slave trade and the African Diaspora in particular.

7. Galand, M. Lionel. “Les toponymes doubles et leurs ethniques dans l’Afrique antique.” Académie des inscriptions & belles-lettres: comptes rendus des séances de l’année 2002, 677-80. Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 2000. [Notes]

Lionel Galand, a well-known expert on Latin and North African onomastics, deals with the relationship between ethnicity and toponyms that is of great interest to all African onomasticians and historians. Galand begins his short but dense discussion by recalling that in the Latin writings and inscriptions about North African peoples, ethnic identities are derived from toponyms using different suffixes, the two most frequent suffixes being -ensis and –itanus. The generally agreed upon hypothesis is that the distribution of the suffixes is determined by the form of North African toponyms which are adapted to Latin language. But the author points out the special case of what he calls dual toponyms (toponymes doubles), that is, toponyms that associate either two African names or one African name and one Latin name, and he raises the question as to how the elements of ethnicity associated with such toponyms are formed. Drawing on his own work and on recent research and personal communication, Galand shows how diverse morphosyntactical formations are possible, but he hastens to add that more data are needed before these explanatory hypotheses can be tested. In addition, toponymists need to pay careful attention to chronology and balance their inferences against the backdrop of a general topology which is yet to be established. The article is stimulating both in terms of the challenges it poses to the toponymist and the perspective it offers for shedding light on an important chapter of African history.

8. Hulstaert, G. “A propos d’onomastique.” Aequatoria 15, no. 2 (1952): 52-7.

The third International Conference on Onomastics held in 1949 in Brussels recommended the application of onomastic science to Africa. The author of this article recalls this fact and raises the important methodological question as to whether and how one can apply onomastic principles based on European reality to African onomastic data. He acknowledges that one cannot provide a valid answer to such an important question without engaging in an inquiry, and he uses the bulk of his article to suggest methodological precautions necessary for such an inquiry which, he thinks, should start with a careful collection of data. The suggestions range from considerations on who should collect the data, to what data to collect and how to collect them.

9. Kirchherr, Eugene C. Place Names of Africa, 1935-1986: A Political Gazetteer. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow, 1987. 136 p. [Bibliography ; maps]

Many African countries have changed their names upon achieving their independence Some countries have even changed their names more than once. The author of this reviewed, updated and enlarged edition of Place Names of Africa underscores this phenomenon which has resulted in a great number of African country names, old and current. This book is a highly useful cross-indexed gazetteer intended as a reference tool for people who might be confused about the current names of African countries or uncertain about the old names. The names of the countries are alphabetically arranged, with cross-references to old toponyms. The two dozen maps from different time periods, although not considered by the author as authoritative, constitute a helpful means of navigation of the book.

10. Musere, Jonathan, and Christopher Odhiambo. African Ethnics and Personal Names. Los Angeles: Ariko Publications, 1998.

This is an important reference book on African onomastics in general and African ethnonymy in particular. The authors start their book by defining the characteristics of African naming practices as opposed to Western naming practices. They then go on to discuss forty-nine African ethnic groups whose social, cultural and religious characteristics and organization are provided. The authors also describe the history of these groups and indicate their location on the continent. The above discussions pave the way for the bulk of the book which contains over four thousand personal names with their pronunciation and their literal meaning. The authors give an interpretation for each name and show the ethnic group within which it is found.

11. Raper, Peter E. United Nations Documents on Geographical Names. Pretoria: Names Research Institute, 1996. 150 p. (plus, 32 p. on romanization systems) [List]

At the heart of this small book is the author’s strong belief in the crucial role of toponymic knowledge in today’s communications society. Indeed, for Raper ‘identifying and referring unambiguously to a geographic entity is pivotal to most human activities today’. The book contains rules of procedure, guidelines for the standardization of place names and the making of maps. It also contains a typology of place names, an important glossary of toponymic terminology, and ends with a list of romanization systems for languages, such as Amharic, Arabic, Hebrew, Cambodian, Macedonian, Persian, Serbo-Croatian, and Thai. Although the book is intended as an introduction to the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographic Names and the activities of that institution, it is also a helpful reference tool for any individual or collective information seeker or provider.

12. Sales, P. L. “The Origin of Country Names in Africa.” Nomina Africana 5, no. 2 (1991): 11-22 & 6 maps. [Bibliography ; maps]

“The Origin of Country Names in Africa” is an informative and thought-provoking review of the origin of the names of the 53 African states. The author stresses at the outset the impact of physical geography on the naming process and shows how coastal and island states, because of their early contact with the Europeans had European names bestowed upon them, in contrast to the landlocked countries, most of which had kept their African names. After general remarks on African onomastic history, Sales reviews each country’s name, proceeding according to two criteria: the geographic criterium alluded to above, and the indigenous/foreigner names divide. The only serious weakness of this useful article is the regrettable omission of one country: Togo.

13. Tucker, A. N. “Conflicting Principles in the Spelling of African Place Names.” Onoma 7, no. 2 (1956/7): 215-28.

Tucker tells the story of the spelling of African place names with the mastery of a knowledgeable scholar. He argues how the lack of writing in many parts of Africa led to foreigners imposing their own orthography or lack of it to African languages and topology. The story begins with the merchants, explorers, missionaries and administrators who had no phonetic nor orthographic training; it continues with the succession of European scholars and researchers who were influenced by their own language bias, and it ends with a real effort made today by national and international institutions and organizations to acquire a more objective knowledge of African languages and provide a more adequate representation of African onomastic reality. The article is well-documented, though somewhat outdated.

14. ----------. “New Alphabetical Confusion in Africa.” Africa 28, no. 3 (1958): 276-7.

In this two page note, Tucker offers a critical evaluation of Maurice Houis’ article entitled “Comment écrire les langues africaines? Necessité d’un humanisme africain”. In that article, Houis suggests a new alphabet for African languages based on the French version of Latin. Tucker remarks that Houis’ proposal not only ignores African spellings, but it also undermines the efforts of the International African Institute. Tucker extends his critique of Houis to all the the metropolitan powers which impose their alphabets on African peoples.

15. Vansina, Jan. “Les zones culturelles de l’Afrique.” Africa-Tervuren 7, no. 2 (1961): 41-6. [Maps ; notes]

Vansina’s main objective in this article is to come up with a valid mapping of African cultural zones. He tries to achieve his goal through a critical comparison of the existing theories on the issue, that is, by showing the strengths and weaknesses of each theory. The result of this critical contribution takes the form of tables in which the author provides a list of names of African cultural regions with the names of ethnic groups which inhabit them. The article is relevantly illustrated with several maps that visualize the author’s arguments

16. Zwernemann, J. “Zum Problem der afrikanischen Stammesbezeichnungen.” Anthropos 54, nos. 3-4 (1959): 570-3. [Notes]

In this short article, Zwernemann makes a valuable contribution to African ethnolinguistics in general and to the study of African ethnonyms in particular. He does this by way of critical and constructive comments on a book entitled Handbook of African Languages published in London in 1952. After acknowledging the immense contribution the book makes to the field of ethno-linguistics, Zwernemann addresses several areas of weakness. He underlines for instance some shortcomings related to the choice of terms, orthography, morphology and phonetics of African languages and points out the influence of the contributors’ own languages on some of these shortcomings. He also points out a linguistic bias which in his eyes would have been avoided had the linguists had a better collaboration with ethnologists. Zwerneman’s article is full of suggestions on how to improve the quality of research in African ethno-linguistics and toponymy. It ends with numerous short footnotes.