Our Indigenous Titles

Most African nations and empires had their own indigenous names: Kemet, Nubia, Abyssinia, Wagadu, indéné, and so on. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a voice in the telling of their own history. As a result, these states are now termed by the names given to them by their previous colonizers, historians and other people that generally aren’t their own. This takes away part of their self-identification and awareness, as well as part of their ancestral legacy and culture. And most importantly, it takes away part of their autonomy and independence. Thus, it’s an issue that is worth addressing, however, far too little people are trying to address and change it. 

 

Take the name of my country, Ethiopia, as an example. The term Ethiopia is not a word from any one of our 83 native languages. Instead, it’s a Greek word that can be loosely translated to “burnt face”. It was the way the ancient Greeks wrote about the black people they encountered. Apparently, they considered a black skin to be the burnt version of what a “normal skin” should look like. And so, they coined that term thousands of years ago to describe Africans. But, somewhere down the line, it ended up being a title for a country with more than a hundred million people. Prior to the renaming of our country as Ethiopia, our state had been known as the kingdom of Abyssinia for centuries. However, due to the lack of mainstream knowledge about the actual definition of the word Ethiopia, many generations of Abyssinians have grown up unknowingly identifying themselves as the people with burnt faces. 

 

The same can be said about present day Ghana, whose original name was Wagadu. The term Ghana is said to have been derived from the Arabic word “Ghinna” which means gold and great wealth. Have in mind that this isn’t exactly a bad name. Rather, it’s an attribute complementing their gold and wealth. But then again, so was the name “Gold Coast” which was given to the state by their British colonizers. Nevertheless, it was changed after their independence because they wanted their name to be autonomous from foreign hegemony. The name, Ghana, was then quickly adopted because it was indicated that the present day people are descendants of the ancient kingdom of Ghana. However, this ancient kingdom, they choose to identify with, was actually called Wagadu by its natives. And through time, it was replaced by the Arabians' account of it as Ghana. So when they decided to be named after of their ancestors, they were tricked by the one-sided account of their history into being named by foreigner Arab historians. 

 

This pattern of Eurocentric renaming of African nations can be seen all throughout the continent. Tanzania, Cameroon, Mauritius, Sierra Leone and Guinea are a few of many countries that still identify themselves with foreign terms. And whether these terms were originally intended to be offensive or not, the problem lies with the fact that they deny people the chance to name and represent themselves. The most problematic and devastating effect that I have discerned with this pattern, however, is in the term Africa itself.

The name, Africa, was given to this continent by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Some theories suggest that this word was derived from both a Greek and Latin origin. The Greek word “Phrike” meaning cold and horror, and the Latin word “Aprica’’ meaning sunny. However, the ancient and indigenous name of this continent was “Alkebulan”, which means the mother of mankind or the garden of Eden. This was proven so as ancient writings, all mentioning this name, were discovered from civilizations of the Moors, Numidians, Carthaginians and Abyssinians. Yet even after its discovery, the knowledge of this name has not reached the appropriate number of people. 
 
This has a significantly worse impact because it affects far more people than just the people of specific countries. No matter which nation one is from, they will still refer to themselves as an African, regardless of any cultural differences they may have with each other. Not only that, but every black person in the world, whether they are Caribbean, Latin American, European or North American, they are still ultimately considered as an African. We associate a huge portion of our identity with this terminology. Our ancestry (Afro-descendant: a person of African origin who lives outside the continent), our hair (Afro hair: a natural growth of curly or kinky textured hair), our music (Afro beat: a musical genre that combines west African musical styles with African American funk and jazz influences), our dance (Afro dance: a dance genre that refers mainly to the dance styles of sub-Saharan Africa and the Bantu people), our language (Afroasiatic: the second-largest language family on the continent, which could otherwise have been known as Hamito-Semitic). But most importantly, our title (African). 
 
“Africa” is one word that describes each and every single part of us. It is a word that represents approximately 1.5 billion people across the world. There is so much self-awareness, acceptance, and love that is associated with this word. As a result, when I learned that it’s not even rightfully ours, I felt like I had lost some part of my identity. This is because parts of me were tied so strongly to this terminology. I was left with questions like: “if I can’t call my hair an Afro, what am I supposed to call it?”. The only way that I understood its kinky texture and accepted it, was through learning about the term “Afro” and how beautiful it can be. But now I realize that this word is not my legacy. It is neither of my 2000 languages nor of my myriad of cultures. And unless we all acknowledge it as such, we will continue to give so much power to a word that was coined by people who were trying to take it from us. 
 
At present, there are many historians that are working to discover the multidimensional history of the African continent. This is in an effort to contradict the Eurocentric approach that was taken to describe it in earlier times. However, there aren't enough people trying to bring these new discoveries to the awareness of the general public. People are not being given a chance to reconnect with their ancestors and the history, as well as titles left by them. Armed with this knowledge, we have an obligation to redefine ourselves by our own titles, to tell our stories with our own languages and to understand as well as make use of our true ancestral heritage.