Toponymy of Africa

The toponymy of Africa in comparison with toponymy of other continents is less explored. Interest in an origin and formation of geographical names has considerably increased only after 1960 when the majority of African countries have gained independence. Even superficial acquaintance with an environment, history of settling and linguistic features leads us to a conclusion about extreme complexity of toponyms of this continent. It is connected with a huge number of languages which are spoken by the people of Africa. They are estimated in hundreds. However, among this variety stand out "big" languages which are spoken by hundreds of millions of people, and ''small" languages, limited in the distribution by insignificant territories and small groups of people. Among "big" languages the main place belongs to the Arabic language occupying the whole North of the continent. Along with Arabic Berber languages are widely spread in the same areas. In the east of Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania) language of Swahili is widespread and tens of millions of people use it. There are hundreds of "small" languages in the south of the continent.

Northern part - Egypt and the Mediterranean coast - long since was a part of antique states. Many geographical names of this region have arisen in very ancient times and have reached our days greatly transformed. The toponymy of this part of the continent is in many respects similar to geographical names of all Mediterranean.

After opening the territory of the Central and South Africa it has been established that local geographical terminology and geographical names were slightly used by inhabitants. Many names appeared on maps in the distorted form because of Europeans who were in complete ignorance of local languages and their features and had difficulties in transferring them into European maps.

The era of opening and researches of internal and southern areas (generally the 18th and 19th centuries) was marked by emergence of a large number of memorial names of European origin. The first authors of maps of Africa quite often wrote down names according to conductors who were the representatives from the people which had contacted Europeans during a long time. When forming Russian maps of Africa usually French or English maps were used as source. Therefore, almost each name was distorted twice - by transferring it by means of Western European languages, and then at transposition from these languages into Russian transcription. As there were no regular settlements in the internal and southern regions of Africa before the arrival of Europeans, names of the cities in these regions of the continent quite often have the European origin. So that is how the English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German and Dutch toponymy appeared in Africa.

Therefore, many geographical names of Africa are the monuments of colonial system. The national names of cities and states have appeared rather recently. It was also promoted by liberation movement in colonial countries of the continent and emergence of a set of new states. Sometimes in such cases there was a curious transformation of names. Thus, as a result of association of African countries on the map of the continent the state of Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar) has appeared.

During a colonial era the map of this continent dazzled with such names of territories and geographical objects which directly indicated the country owning colony: Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Belgian Congo; Spanish Sahara, Portuguese Guinea. Besides these names there were names formed from a combination of the local African name (the tribe or a geographical object) with the English word land (country), for example: Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Njyasaland. Now from similar names of the states connected with languages of the European conquerors remained Cape Verde (port.) (Cape Verde Islands); Cameroon (port.) (Rio dos Camarones - "the river of shrimps"); Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast, fr.); Liberia ("The free country", from lat. liber - ''free''). The name was given in the first half of the 19th century by Americans: lands in the Western Africa became populated by Negros released from slavery in the USA; São Tomé and Príncipe (on islands, in the Gulf of Guinea, discovered by the Portuguese seafarers in the 70th of the 15th century), where San Tome - letters. "Saint Foma", Prinsipi - from the Portuguese principe - "prince", the successor of a throne, "unique"; Swaziland (from the name of the African tribe svazi and eng. land); Sierra Leone ("Lion's mountains", span.), etc.

During the time of colonial possession, based on phonetic character of the speech, some people of the South of Africa have been called "gottentota" which means ''stutterers". For the same reasons ancient Hellenes have been called by Romans "Greeks" which means "croaking".

Many names were given according to large rivers flowing across the national territory (Gambia, Zaire, Zambia, Nigeria); according to names of peoples: Malawi (from the people of Malawi), Botswana (from the people of Setswana), Burundi (from the people of Burundi), etc.

For many names of the countries in Africa the big role was played by names of large geographical objects. So, the state of Chad - from the lake Chad, Kenya - from Mount Kenya; Namibia - from the Namib Desert, etc.

A romantic name has received the new state of Bourkina-Faso which is in the Western Africa. Untill 1984 it was called Upper Volta - according to the name of two large rivers Black and White Volta. Bourkina-Faso is formed from the words of language mosa, which are "burkin" - worthy and "faco" - the father's center, the homeland, the republic. Thus, the name Burkina Faso in translation means "the homeland of worthy people".

Similar tendencies of naming new states are also typical for many other regions of the world where people got freedom from colonial and political dependence.

According to the current international standard, the names of new modern states should be, as a rule, transferred into other languages equally. For example: Bourkina-Faso, Burundi, Botswana equally sound in the Russian, Finnish, Swedish, English and French languages (Bourkina-Faso, Burundi, Botswana).

For two last centuries of the European colonization on the African continent many ancient names have disappeared, but the fundamentals of toponymy of the continent were made up by the names of the European kings and queens, princes and princesses, famous people of Spain, Italy, France, England, Belgium, Portugal, Germany.

But in 1978 at a state conference of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was made the decision of returning old geographical names. However grateful Africans have decided to keep the names given by the famous missionary David Livingston and names given in honor of David Livingston forever. Other European toponyms should be renamed. Let's give a number of examples: Abyssinia became Ethiopia again; there is no more lake Eduard, but there is a lake Idi-Amin-Dada; Albert's lake became Mobutu-Sese-Seko; Rudolf's lake - Turkana (according to the name of people); the city of Salisbury - Harare; Northern Rhodesia – Zambia, the Central Rhodesia - Malawi; Southern Rhodesia - Zimbabwe; the Cape Verde Islands - Cape Verde; the Murchison waterfall (White Neil's upper course) became Kabarega waterfall; Leopold's lake - Mai-Ndombie; the island of Fernando Po is called Bioko now. But names which were given by D. Livingston remained: Victoria waterfall, Livingston waterfalls (lower reach of Congo) and others.

As for the name Lake Victoria, it has no relation to D. Livingston. A name to the lake was given by the English lieutenant and traveler D. Speke. Therefore the fate of renaming can gripe also the name of the Lake Victoria.

Nowadays a lot of transformations happen in African’s names. Few years ago a name of small wildlife reserve of Sinamatell (in Zimbabwe) has appeared. Place where numerous animals and birds are put under protection. From time immemorial this plain was called "Asina materu" that in translation from locals’ dialect means "the plain without slopes", i.e. without barriers. The security guards from Bushmen employed by administration of the park transformed this name into Sinamatella.