There are many theories about the name Africa. About the original indigenous name for this landmass.
A very popular idea amongst African-Americans is that the ancient name for Africa is Alkebulan.
We can dispel this theory, by researching the etymology of this word.
In the word Alkebulan one can see the word “al”. An arabic word meaning “the”. One can also see the word “lan”. Which is an old indo-european word for land. Thats why there are modern European nation names like – Friesland, Finland, Rusland (Russia), Scotland, Ireland, England, Poland, Nederland (holland).
The word “stan” is another indo-european word for land. Related to the sanskrit word sthäna (a place, local position). Like in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgistan, Tadjikistan.
The word “kebul” is definitely a Kurdic and Turkic word. There are many variations in the indo-european language-tree to it. One is the word qebul, a word that literally means “accepting”. The capitol city of Afghanistan is Kabul. Another variation of “kebul”.
So with some grammatical hocus-pocus, al-qebul-lan could mean “The Land of Receiving”.
But truth of the matter is that to many researchers (Black and non-Black) on this subject, Alkebulan is a modern 20th century invention. For whatever reason someone took words from arabic, turkic and indo-european languages, and formed them into one word: Al-kebul-lan.
Its a fact that there are no historical records of this word Alkebulan in connection to the land mass called Africa. Nor is there a linguistic link.
And the truth is very simple. Before the Gromans (Greeks and Romans) named the landmasses Europa, Asia and Africa, there was no concept of whole continents with unique names in ancient peoples minds, and in written records.
The continents America and Australia were named by European explorers (robbers) in the 15th and 16th century CE.
The “discovery” of the New Worlds caused the greatest genocide and mass-murder in human history. The lands from the Native Americans and the Australian aboriginal was stolen. But thats another story…
The partition of great landmasses into continents with a given name is a Roman invention. Before that time-period people of any country anywhere in the world had a name for their region even country. But they never gave a name to the whole landmass they where living on.
Africa.
Some foolish ones claim this name was derived from the Roman general Scipio Africanus. Who conquered Northern Africa. To understand why he had this name its important to understand the Roman practice of name-giving. Allmost all Romans had a cognomen; a last name derived from physical attributes, derived from a person`s life and social successes, or from his or her descent.
The name Africanus was a cognomen in Roman times.
And this particular cognomen was given to him, because he invaded and conquered the countries in the northern part of Africa.
There where even generals with the cognomen Asiaticus ( Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus) who conquered Asia, Germanicus (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) who conquered Europe. And of course Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, who conquered the northern part of Africa.
Historically the words Afer and Afri already existed as names for different tribes or nations in northern Africa. Long before the birth of Scipio Africanus. Long before the emergence of the Romans from their caves. And before the invasion of this part of Africa by arabs beginning in the 7th century CE.
Its not unreasonable to think that the Romans took the word afri or afer and transformed it into a modern word (Africa), to name the northern part they conquered. And when the colonisation of Africa by Europeans in the the 17th century began, Europeans adopted this word from the Romans to name the whole continent.
Different parts of this continent had many different names in ancient times. Like Soedan, Ethiopia or Lybia.
Africa.
The cradle of human civilization. The birthplace of human cultures and religions. Where the first organized human societies arose.
Nowadays Africa is the continent with the greatest diversity in cultures. With the greatest number of living languages. More than 3000. And for all these cultures and peoples on the continent this word Africa is a strong, and very powerful sounding word. All over Africa and across the Black communities on this planet, people find pride in this name. It wil unite the many Black ethnicities and cultures into one.
So let`s move forward and build progress on that.
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JERRELISME 