How Africa Got Its Name

Well I did Asia so I'm kinda bound to do the rest. Here's Africa.

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[gautam]

It got its name from the song Africa by Toto

[vessela]

"Where do you come from, friend?"
"I come from afar"
Never heard of it, but ok. I shall call you African"

[TekezeTV_]

That’s crazy. I’m Ethiopian & ‘Afer’ means soil/dirt in my language too

[ShirotheWiseWolf]

The term Africa had to exist before Roman occupation. My reason for this is, Scipio Africanus, (the Roman General) was granted the title for his campaigns in Africa against the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, but Rome never seized Northern Africa until the Third Punic War after Carthage was annexed almost 60 years later. This means the name had to exist before Roman conquest. Would you not agree?

[jonathanrotem]

Afar is soil in Hebrew as well, the sister language of pheonician. The bible says: "from Afar you came and to Afar you shall return"

[v.e.]

Nice lesson in one of my favorite subjects - etymology! Have always been fascinated w/ where words come from and how they evolve and are incorporated into a language. My mother impressed the power of words to me when she told me, "Words define everything in the world and, for all intents and purposes, if something doesn't have a word associated w/ it, that thing doesn't really exist." Without words we're dumb. Sorry, just had to, as it was hanging there, like a low lying fruit. lol

[jonatankelu]

I like the Greek name origin theory: not cold.

[leodomingox]

1:25 a video about Africa and then appears a random clip from a beach in Portugal

[SarraLovesTunisia]

Little correction: The Romans mostly settled in the fertile region of Tunisia (north + center + coastline). Only Southern Tunisia is a desert, the rest is Fertile. Actually Tunisia used to be called the bread basket of the Roman Empire.

Tunisia was called Africa/Ifriqyah up until the Ottoman Empire meaning that name lasted very long in Tunisia.
Sometimes Europeans would add "Africanus" to the names of People who came from around modern day Tunisia eg Leo Africanus or Constantine the African.

I believe it most likely comes from the Berber word Afri. In fact "the same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, a Berber tribe originally from Yafran (also known as Ifrane) in northwestern Libya".

[adlockhungry]

It’s amazing how many plausible sources of a name there can be.

[than]

3:49 the only time I've been to Africa I was in the Sahara desert and it was 117 Fahrenheit. It was burning my skin like a lighter just to stand outside of the shade. Quite fitting.

[jovian]

1:02 berber definitely needs a barber.

[JackAnna]

Although I really like your videos, including this one, you did miss out on a couple very good contenders for the name Africa. The Phoenicians called the unknown gold lands south of Egypt Ofir for example.

[fakherjribi]

The name Africa came from the northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia, So Tunisia gave Africa its name

[KMFBA]

Your channel is blowing up and I'm here for it. Keep up the amazing content!!

[Akaykimuy]

Your channel is great! I'm surprised you only have ~130 subscribers

[Kalleosini]

there's so many words that sound like "afrika" that perhaps it was just called afrika, and other languages adapted that word as a word that described it was to them.

[Illjwamh]

It could very well be a combination of all three of those origins. The Romans were not averse to clever wordplay.

[punkinholler]

I like the "sunny" etymology best, because if it's true, then the great Roman general who defeated Hannibal is named Scipio the Sunny (or Scipio of the sunny place, I suppose). That amuses me greatly.

[BulletGramm]

I usually go to african owned youtube channels for info about Africa, but this was decent!