Africa's (Fake & Problematic) Native Name
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
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SOURCES & FURTHER READING
The Original Name For Africa: / alkebulan-the-original...
Alkebulan: www.awaytoafrica.com/know-afr...
What Was The Original Name For Africa: www.worldatlas.com/articles/w...
Continent Etymologies: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Afrocentrism: www.britannica.com/event/Afro...
Alkebulan FB Post 1: / 1958432467627223
Alkebulan FB Post 2: theafricanhi...
Had you heard of this name for Africa before this video?
yes! alkebulan is a producer/rapper
No
No
Nope
Nope
There was never a native name for Africa, because the idea that Africa is a unified land is in itself a product of colonialism.
Africa has 54 NATIONS
@@kathleenking47 *Countries
It has, by my guess, thousands of nations that either have equal Power over a country or are completely stateless
That's a bit too simplistic. There's a reason so many countries in Africa ripped off Ethiopia's Imperial Colors. Pan Africanism is a reaction to Colonialism.
@@Donut-Eater The words state, nation, and country can be used interchangeably in many contexts... so you're both right 🙂
Did African kingdoms and tribes see Africa as something divided? Was there a concept of West Africa, Central Africa, etc. but with native names? I can think of Libya, Africa and Ethiopia referring to various parts of Africa, but that's a European thing too.
Edited for clarity.
Historically, no native people named their land based on their skin color; such names were usually given by foreigners. For instance, the Arabs named Sudan, the Greeks named Ethiopia, and the Berbers named Guinea. Moreover, naming the entire continent solely as the land of blacks is not fully accurate, as North Africa is predominantly not dark-skinned, not to mention the linguistic diversity of the region.
You reminded me that one time where some extremists accused north Africans in the internet to not be "real" Africans because we didn't have black skin and said that we were arabs that have taken over the land,
@@snibo1024 The original people who lived there were. Archaeology and artwork from 4000 years ago already shows it.
@@iburuma3621 how can archeology show that people had a dark skin? Beside drawings there's no way to prove that using archeology and even drawing can't be trusted because people take some artistic all the time
@snibo1024 we know where light skin come from and its not from africa, and its recent.
@@croixfadas Yeah, 4000 years is long enough for a population to change its physical appearance. That doesnt mean they arent native, or at least been there long enough they might as well be.
The problem with the Idea that Africa should have a native name is to the contrary of Afro Centrism. Africa has and probably will never be a united land of one people.
Its a land full of different people, tribes and languages.
Which language should be chosen then? Should it be the largest spoken? Should it be the oldest? How do you pick one that represents the whole continent.
Even the UK wasn't united until King James🇬🇧
He wasn't English, but Scottish.
However, he insisted on English over Scottish or Welsh, as their language🇬🇧
Welsh & Scottish, sound nothing like English
what language should be chosen? english. even in ASEAN, the official language is english, not malaysian or indonesian despite it has the largest speaker.
It fits into western Afrocentrism in particular, not so much for real Africans.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 ... y'do realize that the nation of southeast _asia_ have absolutely nothing to do with the nations of _africa,_ right
That's just what the evil man jakub and his horrible eurasians would have you believe.
This is an obligatory comment on how Africa is too large and immensely multicultural to have any one native name.
Diversity is overrated. Alot of actual Africans in Africa would prefer a united African state, the only reason there is none is because Africans are also the least empowered people in the world. And oh, when I say "Africa" I mean Sub Saharan Africa only. And before you say it, yes, it's ironic, but that's word everyone most associates with this part of the world.
No continent has native names. In this case, let's rename Europe to Rome, Asia to Mongolia, and Australia to Kangaroo
No this one is bad because im a white savior and the poor people of africa have an exonym name 🥺
*Australia to Budj Bim, the largest and most complex Aboriginal site
We was kangs and sheeeettt 😂😂😂😂
Africa is too large and has too many language families to have one singular endonym. Probably, many endonyms for every language family or every language.
The African Union could come together and decide among themselves what to call the continent.
@@taylormadealpha I don't think that's necessary, we don't share a culture.
@@alitheia_It being diverse, that's my point. How else do you get people from a continent that big with so many cultures to agree to what to call Africa? Everyone would need, want, a seat at the table.
And even those would be recent, post-colonialism. A Bantu in 14th century Kongo would have no idea they lived in a recognizable landmass, and would laugh at the idea that there was a word that could describe his land, a Khoi-San's land, an Amazigh's land, an Chadian's land... all at the same time.
(I mean, he would laugh if he knew those other peoples even existed...)
And even those are recent inventions, because when those languages were developing they had no idea they were living in that specific landmass. They knew the region they lived and neighbouring ones, and that was it.
At the end of the day, the whole concept of continents having names is quite recent in history. Most people in the world were not really able to be concerned with much beyond their own borders and the borders of their immediate neighbors. Unless you were nomadic or a trader, the world effectively ended a hundred miles from your home, and stories of places beyond that distance might as well have been a dream.
And its common sense
Funnily enough, the word Abd/Abeed is still used in Arabic for black people and it means “slave”….
Slavs were slaves, and it's how the word got into English
not exactly slave, more like servant.
What dialect is this? In the dialect I speak we say “أسود”
i thought abd was mainly used with a more religious connotation, like slave to god/[word related to some virtue], but i don’t speak arabic
@@morgan0 it has 2 meanings, worshiper and slave, a lot of muslims have "abd" in their name like for example "abd allah" which means "worshiper of god" meanwhile the word abd for slave is used by racists in the Arabic speaking world to mock black people, it's also used in sudan although majority of Sudanese people is black but it's still used there by light skinned people to mock dark skinned people
I'm sorry but the native name of Antarctica is Kwaknoot, named after the great penguin Pharaoh Kwaknoot III., who once unified the lands under penguin rule.
(i'll show myself out, thank you very much)
i’m not surprised there’s never been a united native name for Africa given how diverse the continent is. the idea is just another product of colonization and ethno monolith beliefs that only harm the perception of multiple cultures and its respective countries
It was not just the trans-Atlantic slave trade that took people away from Africa. There was a thriving trans-Saharan slave trade run by Arabs that lasted much longer than the European slave trade. One of the reasons the Arab slave trade is overlooked is that male slaves were routinely castrated while the half-Arab, half-African offspring of the female slaves ended up being absorbed into Arab society so that there was no opportunity for a separate African-Arab population to build up.
Today, males are being castrated....also, they used to castrate males in the middle ages
Alto, was high male
Because of castrati
Alto, means HIGH
The castrati
looking into it some more, it seems that in total, the trans-saharan slave trade took half or fewer people. 7-10 million in total vs 12 not counting those who died before, during, or after. and that’s over 1300 vs 400 years. so in terms of the cost to african civilizations, the trans-atlantic slave trade was far more significant.
@@morgan0 10 is not "half or fewer" than 12.
also you confused "less advantageous to my socio-political ideology" with "far more significant"
@@morgan0You're only counting those who had made it to port. There were millions that died en route.
@@dan8910100 12 does not count those who died along the way, which afaik was quite a lot. but only a small amount of rounding up to 14 does make it twice 7, which seemed to be the more accepted figure for the trans-saharan slave trade
Not mentioned in this piece is the fact that the term Africa might in fact BE NATIVE! Don't forget that the Ancient Egyptians existed BEFORE the Ancient Greeks and before the Romans, and so, the reason why those two cultures gave the land to the south of the Mediterranean the name of Africa might ultimately go back to Egypt.
Just clicked on the video, but I don't imagine there's very many traditional (pre colonization, including Roman) native names for Africa because it's so big. Different areas of the continent, sure, but not the landmass as a whole.
Yeah, we run into the same issue when asking what the Pre-Columbian, native name for America. (Didn't Patric make a video on that?). It hinges on the idea that said natives thought of this landmass as a defined area that needed a name. Which is not a given, divisions like that are somewhat arbitrary and context-dependent.
Maybe the AU could come together and they could decide what to call the continent for themselves. That would suffice.
@@taylormadealpha Yeah, sounds like a good idea.
@@taylormadealphathey have. It's Africa
@@kightsunAfrica is a name given by the Romans.
Africa was the ancient name of Tunisia
I honestly don't think there could have even been one. I mean, i think that in antiquity the Egyptians new of everything up to modern somalia in east africa and about the north african coast, but I don't think anyone, not even africans, knew about the entire continent.
I know the carthaginians made it to about modern day Gabon and I don’t even think they had a name for it
@@malegria9641 Really? Wow, that's so cool! I thought that to sail that distance, you'd need something like the caravel haha
@@malegria9641 they had two competing names for it: Ethiopia for the people living there and Libya for the fact it was pretty clearly the same land mass as what they knew before their voyage of what Libya was. Note the account of the voyage was translated into Greek so the Punic names for the regions were different
Wasn't all of Africa just called Ethiopia?
Of course, the real test for if Alkebulan becomes the new name for Africa is if people start using it that way.
There is a non-zero chance that in 100 years, some linguist will make the equivalent of a YT video. "Did you know the name Alkebulan (which now everybody uses), is really based on a folk etymology?"
I mean, I do agree with Patric that a name with a solid foundations in native languages would be preferable. But that raises further questions. Like: "Which native language, exactly?"
And of course, that is just my opinion, and I am not even from Africa myself. (Though I did live there for five years as a child, thinking of Tanzania as my second home, so not completely lacking skin in this game.)
Linguistics is a very new so called science. So it’s not everything on languages. Its etymology is, applying their rules is GUNES DIL, which is very ancient Turkish tribes called as the Sun People.
As a native Arabic speaker. The word Kebul -كبل- means tied using chains, so the name might refer to slaves, or the slave market docks in the east of Africa.
The word land however isn't a part of the word, "an" is a suffix used to indicate more or the fullness of something (like "ful")
TL;DR Al-Kebulan = The Chainful
Considering how antidemocratic many of the pan Africanist leaders are not surprising. Also I thought the suffix -an could double as either the accusative case marker or the اً part after an adjective
Africa is a native name too contrary to popular belief it's not named by Romans it's a native name the Romans heard but yeah it was the name of North only
If i remember cirrectly it comes from a people from north africa called the Afri
@@callnight1441 it's a mountain in Algeria and the name of a tribe
Technically its the name that the Romans gave to the area around Carthage. Thus Scipio Africanus, the conquor of the Africans. Later on it was expanded more and more to apply to the whole continent.
@@rebeccaorman1823 no he got the name from the place not vice versa
@@nziom that's more or less what I said. The Romans called the area around Carthage Africa. Therefore, when Publus Cornelius Scipio won a big victory there they added the conquor of Africa to his name.
The most offensive things I find with Afrocentrism amongst African Americans is not hatred towards white people but thinking Africa is one unified entity like one nation rather than just a geographic continent with the largest diversities of ethnicities, cultures and even genetics on earth. That shows that most African Americans are basically just like most other westerners from the colonized America today: being obsessed with thinking everyone's unified based on appearances and "race".
In fact, America is more unified than Africa due to being heavily rooted in dominating colonialism as the native population was almost mostly replaced entirely.
Like in any other non-American continents, different African ethnicities and nationalities don't see each other the same like Americans do just because they share similar skin color. Most of them sees African Americans like any other Americans for sharing the basic westernized American values and mostly sees Africans the same for their appearances.
Well that's kind of what happens when you've been striped of all ancestry and history, and accepted what you've been taught by the mainstream culture for a couple hundred years. Then you use that incomplete knowledge to cobble together some semblance of a "culture." It's human nature to believe that everyone does it the way you do; whether it's Europeans believing that every American (North or South) does everything the same way, every white American believing that everyone in America does things the same way, or whether it's every black American who believes that everyone who is black in America shares the same cultural values just because they are black. Then extending that to every dark skinned person, regardless of culture. Sometimes to the point of calling others not "black enough" if they have practices outside of the cultural norm. In truth it's all imagined and short sighted, but when confronted with the truth it's easier to believe what fits their narrative of the "motherland". There is the dream of the motherland---and going back to a time when our people were something, in a country where we were free, and lived in harmony, until the white man stole us. However, just like those "good, old days" I often hear folks talking about, both scenarios are historically inaccurate and downright fantasy.
@@SomethingBeautifulHandcrafts In reality, Africa was probably rife with intertribal wars like in my country. 😅
If I remember correctly, some black tribe chiefs actually sold members of the rival tribe to the Europeans?
@@myspleenisbursting4825 In fact, that was the practice. Not boogey man white man from Europe with a net snatching African children.
Instead, the strongest slaver kingdoms started being more aggressive so they could secure a monopoly on slave trade with Europeans in exchange for goods like guns, which they'd use to capture even more slaves, in a vicious cycles.
An infamous example is the kingdom of Kongo. Their kings formed deep ties with the Portuguese and became a local hegemon in the Congo, using European weaponry to secure a steady supply of slaves to trade
It's fucking brutal, all because of the greed of empire, millions died either crossing the atlantic or toiling to death in foreign shores
@@SomethingBeautifulHandcrafts It's a tragedy to see so many people live in a ficticious fantasy of a "gone great past" instead of living in the present and building an actually real worthwhile future.
@@SomethingBeautifulHandcrafts It has an alarming similarity to historic revisionism in europe. The way some afrocentrists talk about the lighter-skinned north african population eerily reminds me about german rhetoric against poles ("We were there before them, they stole our land, they falsly claim our cultural achievments as their own" etc.). The horribly inaccurate Netflix documentary about Cleopatra really highlights this ideology.
It reminds of the nationalistic use of Maharlika to refer to the Philippines, despite the problems that arise when you look into the background of such a term
Etymology of the word aside, it's tacky af too
@@lockecole4894In regards to the use of Alkebulan, I’ve only ever seen in used in small Facebook communities back in 2014 and as a fun fact here and there
What I learnt is that "maharlika" is cognate with Indonesian "merdeka" and both are from Sanskrit महर्द्धिक (maharddhika), meaning "prosperious".
This was very interesting, although I’d make the contribution that the name Africa is also believed to derive from that of a native Amazigh group in what is now Tunisia, being used by the Romans to refer to the area. As Europeans encountered more of the continent over time, it gradually came to refer to the entire landmass.
Talking about a "native name" (singular) of Africa makes as much sense as talking about a "native name" (singular) of our planet...
Is it "Terra"? Is it "Earth"? Is it "Zeme"? Is it "Föld"? Is it "Toprak"?...
0:27 bro casually gave tunisia to algeria and thought we wouldn't notice 💀🙏
Well, the concept of continents itself is European in its nature. What is and is not a continent and the boundaries separating them are mostly arbitrary. I would say that it is impossible to give a single name to something as big as a continent while accurately representing all the different cultures of the land.
Right..... One could argue that Europe, Africa and Asia make one super continent since it's all connected. Many people already view Asia and Europe as Eurasia.
Continents are social constructs
wrong continental plates exist
@@belstar1128they seem to be talking more about the landmasses and the cultural separation between them.
@@belstar1128 And they don't line up with our continents in many cases.
@@belstar1128 if continents are defined by continental plates then New Zealand is a continent
if you around hoteps you hear this word a lot. someone gave me a map of Africa upside down and it was titled "Alkebulan". They say thats the "original" name for Africa but it sounds VERY arabic. It sound like an exonym.
Alkebulan isn't Arabic tho
its called Abibrem in twi but most African languages just call it a variant of Africa. some have unique names for Europe and other continents for some reason i think people in west Africa and the horn of Africa and some other parts of east Africa probably knew about continents. but i also think some parts like in southern Africa and central Africa really didn't know what was going on on the other side of the continent and just assumed Africa was the entire world .
It is reported that there was contact and trade between Carthage and Mande and Atlantic-Congo peoples
@@everettduncan7543but do they open trade?
A video on names of indian states? 😅 Maybe next video!
There already exists such a video.
These new age "native" names for continents are not only stupid but baseless, just like when some tribes in the Americas tried forcing Abya Yala as a new name for the entire continent when it was barely used by like one tribe in Panama
Not even Africa started out as a term for all of Africa. There couldn't have been a native term until at least one group of people was aware of the whole land mass.
In a nutshell, you could try to dig if for example 16th century Ethiopia had one, as they probably had access to Portuguese maps. But that wouldn't have been any more universal than Africa to begin with.
Sadly, you are going to have a hell of a time telling people it is a fake. Same goes for the idea that picnic is a racist term.
not true. from the jim crow museum: “The etymology of the word picnic does not suggest racist or racial overtones. Picnic was originally a 17th Century French word, picque-nique. Its meaning was similar to today's meaning: a social gathering where each attendee brings a share of the food.”
Lmfao how the hell is “picnic” racist
@@texanarchy666 yep
True, when I informed a Gambian I used to work with that Alex Haley's Roots was an entirely made up saga, he refused to believe it.
Complaining about a continent name not being named form the people who lived there originally is stupid, especially if it turns out no continent was named by the original inhabitants
My woke sister scolded me for saying Africa and told me about this. I immediately called bullshit since her claim was that it was in universal use in pre colonial Africa, from north to south. It made absolutely no sense for all the different tribes with completely different languages to get together and come up with a name like that.
Don't worry, she's probably a white woman. She's allowed to be racist. As long as we brown people are used as their shields. They are fine with being racist towards us.
This is just a minor mistake, but I kept noticing that the main map you use for Africa doesn't show Tunisia.
Interestingly, the old Roman province of Africa was mostly Tunisia (the borders weren't exactly the same, but close enough).
Awesome as always!
Why bother giving native names to continents ? The people groups only name places that only (or mostly) they inhabit i.e. regions and countries.
Besides there are too many languages that each continent has, so what from which language should this name originate ? Will the others even agree.
Thats the reason why continents dont have native names. Its inconvenient and a waste of time. We have kther things to worry
Humans like categorising the world so we can understand it better.
3:20 Tunisa just dissapeared and became part of algeria
Great video
never heard of this name till today
Wayaryugeh is the real name of Africa, coined by His Majesty Simon Kaggwa Njala.
02:30 There is a theory that the name Europe comes from the river Evros (greek, Maritsa in Bulgarian, since thats where it starts today).
The thracian lands were called Europe and subsequently that name expanded to the whole continent, rather than the Balkan peninsula.
Do u know where the garden of Eden is located?
No
0:56 *forgets to mention the transaharan slave trade conducted by middle easteners*
He didn't mention the attack on Pearl Harbour either, clearly biased and woke. /s
It is practically impossible to find a truly "native" name for something as huge as a continent.
All of our modern continent names were either chosen arbitrarily (America & Australia) or derived from names for much smaller regions (Africa: Roman province based around former Carthage; Asia: a small portion of modern-day Türkiye).
To find a truly native name, several things would need to happen:
1) All the people on the continent would need to agree on a single language to take this name from.
2) They'd then have to find a language that actually contains a suitable term. Probably with a meaning like "home" or "all the land".
3) Once a suitable term has been agreed upon, it can then be loaned into all the other languages used on the continent.
On the other hand ...
If the people of Africa collectively decide to rename their continent to Alkebulan, that would basically make it a native name, regardless of its origins.
As an algerian I just don't like africosentrism because it gives a fake idea that Africa is just one culture and this is totally false africa is extremely rich with cultures and it's a shame that we talk about one culture for a hole continent.
Also I confirm that alkebulan is not Arabic I would translate it to ard al soud personally and the fact that it has an e in it's name stinks even more (case arabic only has 3 vowels a u i)
Snibo, you clearly don’t know Afro-centric thought. I know of no scholar who argues that Africa is one culture. Just like you Arabs are not all one culture. Rather, Afrocentrists argue that these varied cultures emanate from one stream. Similar to followers of Islam being many cultures but all basing themselves on the principles of Quran & Sunnah.
The stream we refer to is Kemet, Arabs call the same land Mizr & the Greeks before them called it Egypt. The inhabitants themselves knew it as Kmt, or the Land of the Blacks. Eurosceptics and Mr Z Hawass, concur black is integral in the name Kmt, but deviously suppose that it refers to the black land (ie fertile soil); but the Medu Netcher (Hieroglyphs to the uninformed) establishes that the word designates the people and not just the land.
The complete disregard for the temples, pyramids & sculpture of Kmt, in the Quran proves that this land was not peopled by Arabs or other Semitic/ Caucasians.
It is this certainty and our insistence in proclaiming the Kemetic stream that infuses every African language, culture and people we study. So why hate us?
Wouldn’t it be better for you to trace your lineage back to those white slave markets of North Africa, and find your roots back in Serbia/ Albania than chastise us for doing this Godly work of resurrecting our true memory from the hands of racists.
@@Ibnafrika I did not understand a lot of what you have said because you used too much terms that I didn't have but I'll assume that all that you said is real. Who cares about ethnicity. Arguing about that is just fighting a lost battle, human population movements have happened all over the history and saying who's the most legitimate of that land. Like in Europe most people are not from there but they are actually Indo-Europeans so if they go back long enough in time you will see that they originate from around iran or Pakistan. No you won't say that or let's just go and say that everyone is from Ethiopia and we are all Africans! No no one will ever say that. Maybe instead of fighting about your ethnicity make people understand your culture better. I know that had been shattered by colonization but it's still there and you better communicate that to people instead of bragging about your origine.
@@snibo1024 'As an Algerian' you started this thread and now 'Who cares about ethnicity?'. Can you not see your words do not match? Everybody wishes to preserve a socio-cultural memory. Everybody chooses to begin their memory where they prefer. Today, although Algerians live in Africa they align themselves to a land/ people (Arabia) that they might have originated from. (Although the white flesh slave markets of North Africa might disagree).
The problem with a United native African name is the exact same problem the Native Americans have if they proposed the same idea, both groups were never united under a single idea for many millennia, both groups on both continents were split in their own respective cultures and tribes and frequently fought wars over each others resources and land, which the losing side would often be sold into slavery if the winning side practiced the institution, which many of them did.
Make a video about aba yala , not sure if I spelled it right, the native name for north and south America
Only a few minutes in and I'd guess that the Al at the beginning of the name means it actually originates from Moorish (Arabic) influence, so again an exonym.
Has “turtle island” vibes. I get the idea of a united group of subjugated people against colonial powers, but let’s face it, most groups in the Americas and Africa got to be seperate groups by… being seperate and developing their own culture and worldviews and either peacefully, forcefully or inadvertently differentiating themselves from other groups.
The term Africa is short and catchy in the prefer than the previous name.
I think it's because of either Leo Africanus or the Greeks naming the Carthaginians in a derogatory way and it sticked ever since
Africa was called farafina bambara kesh tegdaoust kumbi saleh taghaza kanem bornu etc etc
How many concurring tribes? How many languages has Africa? How could there be at all just one name for something they even didn't knew yet that it is a continent? Afro-americans tend to see themself as africans but only them, africans do not identify as africans, they know their ancestory is different from tribe to tribe and some tribes have still a war because i don't know (clans).
It is to expect that it will lead to a war if one tribal name would be chosen as name for africa because this will disappoint all other tribes.
Africa's new name is *Garya,* named after Marcus Garvey
I like the idea of a word with unknown origin with known meaning
Africa is from Ifriqya a Phoenician term for modern day Tunisia
Europe also got its name from a Phoenician princess in mythology, Europa.
@@lesterstone8595 Phoenician gaming with continent names
Bilat As-Sudan does sounds suspiciously similar to a (well two really) country in Africa though.
Africa has hundreds of tribes and ethnicities, each with its own language and NONE had prior knowledge of the continent's existence. They only named their lands, the lands of their own people... So, considering a native name would be even more arbitrary than continuing to use the name Africa, which has been part of the continent's identity for millennia...
Ah, ultra-nationalist half-cooked insane theories. Such a fantastic topic. I like watching a youtuber that covers obscure and niche Russian games that are this same kind of absurd insanity of nonsensical ideas mashed together into a nonsensical ball that somehow for some people seems logical and valid. It's fascinating.
Even if invented i don't see why its a bad thing
Because it’s just a new name for a colonial idea. The idea of Africa as some grand unified whole (be by geography, race, culture etc) is one imposed by colonisers, not reflecting the genuine reality of the people living there. Giving a African flavoured name to a coloniser concept doesn’t make it less problematic as a coloniser concept
just here for a like and comment
I like South africa 🇿🇦
Has anyone here ever been to Africa or talked to any native Africans ?
I'm African. Are there any questions you'd want me to answer 😊?
If Europeans didn’t colonize Africa in the 19th century, it still likely wouldn’t have developed significantly for much of the soil is unfit for long term sustained agriculture, the cultural and linguistic diversity makes it hard to establish large centralized states (without genocide of fellow Africans) and beforehand, much of Africa was still tribal or in the iron age, and those lands which did have centralized states often utilized large scale slavery which long predated European arrival and which many African leaders wished to keep in place even as European powers like the British sought to end slavery. Slavery likely would’ve continued both from local kingdoms and from Arab slave merchants and with that, all of the harmful effects on social development that it brings
To be fair. The land would be developed. But not in the european idea of development.
Part of the reason why the Eastern Woodlands of North America was so easy for the Europeans to colonize was because the native peoples actively cleared out the underbrush but let the trees remain. Creating an open and clear enviroment that made hunting and traveling through the forests relatively easy. Their version of a highway.
Many Europeans thought that it was oddly suspicious that everything was so easy for them, and attributed it to God blessing their endeavors. But the reality was they were benefiting from the infrastructure the natives had cultivated without really realizing it.
I'm not saying natives were some fancy nature warrior, noble savages. Just that their systems of using and exploiting the land looked very different from how Europeans did it, and because of that the Europeans said they had little to none when they really had an advanced continent spanning system of forest paths, trade networks, and horticulture.
Named White
Thinks White
Writes Wrong.
Your suppositions are in your own head. You believe in your bedroom you can synthesise an entire timeline of what may have happened had your Cherished forbears not savaged and ravaged a people who did them no harm. Whose civility caused them wherever you look, caused them to welcome these haggard string haired strangers from the water. These children of Mami Wata. Pontificate all you want, it will never absolve the guilt you inherently hold in your heart. I hope this will help you in your quest to feel whole.
@@joendeo1890 thanks you
7:19 this Garden of Eden come from the afrocentric theory that Garden of Eden is in Africa and Adam is Africa
*Ta NTR Ta Netchru "God's land" is what Ancient Egyptians* (who were indigenous and locally adapted to Northern Africa and spoke an African language) called Africa...
Sources:
*Egyptologists* who confirmed the indigenous African origins of Kemet:
Jean-François Champollion, founder of Egyptology.
. Professor Christopher Ehret
. Dr Karen Bryson
. Dr Chiekh Anta Diop
. Dr Vannesa Davies PHD
. Dr Juan Carlos Morena Garcia
. Dr Rebecca Futo Kennedy
. Dr Elizabeth Minor
. Dr Shomarka Keita
. Nancy Lovel
. Stuart Tyson Smith
. Donald B Redford
. Robert Morett
. Barry J Kimp 2007
.
Anthropologists:
. Dr SR Zakrzewski
. Dr A-M Mekota & M Vermehren
. Dr Maria Carmela Gatto
Wow😊
I mean...Africa is Latin version of a name of an Amizigh tribe, so technically it already is a 'native' name.
The case for America (the Americas) is kinda the same.
Why don't you back it up with a source?
My source is that i made it the fuck up
Not your best video. It feels like you didn't approach it in an entirely unbiased way. You repeatedly mentioned that afrocentrism can manifest in extreme and angry ways that can further damage the image of Africa (???) without providing any argument on that statement. You also said that renaming Africa as Alkebulan is problematic, but didn't explain why. Ok, maybe the name is not historical, maybe it's a very recent invention by those afrocentric groups that you're so scared of, but if that's the case so what?? All names are made up anyway, what does it matter that this particular name was invented recently? I don't want to assume anything, but it feels like your actual issue with the name is who created it and why they use it. I think your videos would be much more better if you actually adopted a descriptive approach, not a prescriptive one, especially if you have some unchecked biases
It is wrong, if you talk to a lot of actual African people, they’ll tell you why. Afrocentrists don’t sell a real idea of what Africa is and should be, it’s their own inaccurate and outside voice that they’re trying to push over those of people actually born on the continent. The idea of a single unified continent of Africa is itself a coloniser concept designed to diminish the immense diversity of its native inhabitants, when Afrocentrism peddles the idea of a singular African identity, it diminishes that diversity. Just look at how indigenous North African peoples often face immense racism from Afrocentrists, because they don’t fit their specific idea of what an African is and should be
Honestly, I really like how you were so respectful during this video, I feared way worse. The only thing I disliked is the use of the term "afrocentric" because ethnocentrism is the idea that one's ethnicity is better than others and basing the value of the others' cultures on one's own; in the context of afrocentrism, it would to believe cultures and people who aren't African are lesser. Those who believe in the Alkebulan name theory don't think so, at least the majority doesn't. The definition you gave for afrocentrism is an old one which has sadly gone now and the one I explained has obviously a negative stigma attached to it because everyone who hears this, even Black people, thinks afrocentrists are ahistorical or racist or both. The absurd thing is that the old definition is at times used with the intent others will associate it with the newer one to discredit the "afrocentrists". This association has led people to come up with the term "afrocentricity", "afrocentricic" and "afrocentricist" to disassociate from the other terms. It's also really weird how the term afrocentrism is thrown around so oftenly even though we live in a eurocentric world while the term eurocentrism is barely used
Anyways, about the video idea about native names for the American double continent, I'm pretty sure Turtle Island is a pretty famous one, but not Zēmānāwac/Sēmānāwac (if you wanna research about it you prolly have to write it as Cemanahuac (whether with or without macron), I use an orthography I came up with myself to write Nāwatl, or rather more Mēxihcatlahtōlli/Mēxihcacopa since Nāwatl is a language branch just like Semitic and not a language and there isn't a standardized orthography anyhow), which is the name given to the region of the known earthly world of the Mēxihcah (Aztēcah): Mesoamerica (which isn't the same as Central America btw). But because it was their whole world it could also be used for the Americas
Bro... Eurocentric is more used than Afrocentric. In fact, I've never ever heard the word Afrocentric.
@@lbgamer6166
Ok, good for you, I do hear it more often though when talking about history or politics
now do Abya Yala
Yes, but who are you?
Before africa was given that name the greeks called it aethiopia
Eden may have some roots in Africa, though poss diff geog of Arabia more likely. However dont forget Africa-Arabia as land masses are very close together
Eden is a fictional location and can thus have whatever geography the authors like.
Alkebulan is Semitic (Caucasoid ) in origin
Is it Semitic or Caucasian, because those are unrelated language groups. And source?
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hmmmm interesting.
We shouldn't have to change our language just for another language.
Maybe pan africanism is a dumb concept created by people born outside of africa. Just a thought.
You dumb
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Pretty sure the current corruption is their problem and not something my great grandpa did lol
Then you don't know history
@@darkballerz No... Africa is a terrible place. The only country that seems to do very well at all is Botswana (if you discount one fifth of them having AIDS). Africans are just generally jealous of European domination and want to invent this idea of a African empire consisting of all black people. It is NEVER gonna happen because Africans aren't and have never been good enough to dominate the continent. They have too many enemies within their own continent that would want to be the dominating force in creating such an empire it is why so many African nations are in a civil war all the time.
Africa Proconsularis
You can have nationalist or afro centric ideas but for that you need to have indigenous history and names and culture and literature
Just having nationalist ideas with fake names and history is not going to help
I like your videos and understand your reasoning but the idea that a "native" name for the continent (or else) would be better isn't really sensible. The same goes for your other videos with a similar view. The reason is simply: language. If you speak English, you use English toponyms. They are a part of the English language. If you speak other languages, you use their toponyms (i.e. If you speak German, you say Deutschland, Frankreich, and Russland instead of Germany, France, or Russia). It isn't feasible (nor does it have any benefit) to implement native names. Especially because most of the common speakers wouldn't be able to pronounce (or even remember) it correctly which will lead sooner or later directly to some sort of corruption of that name. And even if it was possible, so what? How does it affect someone who can't understand English for example if you have your own toponym? The diplomates may use an "official" name but a normal Englishman can stick to Burma, New Zealand, and Africa.
Or you could update your language to show even a slight degree of respect for the people who live in a place.
Europe's name coming from an Asian language?
That's one of the explanations for Europe's name origin. It suggests that it originates from the Akkadian term "erebu" meaning sunset. But the more popular explanation is of Greek origin, with "eurys" meaning broad and "ops" meaning eye, so "wide eye" or "broad eye". The semitic origin is actually heavily argued against as phonologically it would have yielded a different name than Europe, whereas as a Greek term there are already many place names close to Europe in classical Greece, even in mythology you have the phoenician princess Europa, who was kidnapped by Zeus.
This video is very weird I don't like it, flooded with the same comments that point out that it's impossible to give a native name to an entire continent (which is true, such concept is very modern and hailing from Europe) and that pan africanism is a rather problematic concept, given the sheer diversity of people there is on the continent. He might habe f'ed up somewhere...
*SHEBA*
Alkebulan is Arabic…
8:15 No
The name alkebulan sounds like al-qiblat meaning the direction
@@scarymonster5541 it doesn't sound like that word, and what does "the direction" even supposed to mean?
@@Game_Hero oh you know when people are migrating from region to regions would say the direction they went through
@@scarymonster5541 from where to where? What makes it so special as to name a whole "place" from Libya to South Africa "the direction" compared to literally anywhere else?
You can't be serious.
Africa came from the grecoromans
I should remind people that when people refer to "Africa" they're talking about Sub Saharan Africa. And there is nothing wrong with Afrocentrism, just as there's nothing wrong with Eurocentrism. Afrocentrism and Pan Africanism are a reaction to colonialism and if it's clear that a lot of people here do not live in Africa cause the narrative that Pan Africanism isn't popular is straight up false. If you live here you'll see news about what's happening in other African countries, all ads put emphasis on "Africa", stuff like "delivering superior services to Africa", "best whatever in Africa" etc.
Even here in Namibia which is by far the most Westernized country IMO, you'll find people talking about Pan Africanism, it will only take one crisis or charismatic leader and you'll see just how "Pan African" most Africans are. Also, diversity is overrated, it is naive to preserve diversity for the sake of it, diversity is one of the main factors that weaken Africa until today, diversity should be secondary to development and bringing dignity to Africans.
As for the name, it doesn't really matter, the word Africa is already the name representative of the land and its people, even if it isn't an endonym.
There is definitely something wrong with both eurocentrism and Afrocentrism, centring any people or culture above any other is wrong
You mentioned the Atlantic slave trade but not the Islamic slave trade that went on before during and after the Atlantic slave trade and was far more brutal
No it wasn't, this is a common far right talking point trying to justify Atlantic slavery.
@@PlatinumAltariaplease explain. Just curious.
You missed one of the three colonizers and slave traders of Africa, and it is actually the biggest, worst, longest of the three. The Arab slave trade actually lasted into the 20th century.
>into the 20th century
All empires had slaves into the 20th century
@@burner555 What do you mean?
@@HesderOleh a basic look at history will tell you everyone had slaves even during the 20th century
And the Middle East still uses slaves *today*
@@burner555 people do all sorts of crimes. Slavery is illegal now everywhere. There is legal near slavery in the Middle East, but there was actually fully legal actual slavery until the 20th century there.
This is a common apologist argument for European slavery.
Endonym doesn't equal good its just how language works most maps started the continent concept in europe and thus they named most of them even if saud name was from a language outside of europe its dumb to argue otherwise because by that logic loaning any words should also be bad but rarely its treated as such especially when its asian or africans powers dominating each other's
It's still fair for a group of people to ask to be called by the thing they call themselves instead of an outside name, especially if that outside name has been used to insult them (like, a lot of American Indian nation's English names came from the nations around them, who were not always very friendly. That's how the Dene people got the name "Slavey" or "Slave". It was a translation of what the Cree called them, since they would sometimes be raided and enslaved by them.
I wouldn't want my people to be called that either (though not all exonym situations are like that exactly)
Also loan words are usually fine cause they're not usually tied directly to a group of people in the same way.
@syro33 africa is a made up concept though just like all continents so your point makes no sense . .
Have you ever heard of punctuation?
i think "problematic is a bit of a strong word for this video, especially gi en the recent usage of the word "problematic" in online discourse. "problematic" may be accurate, but the connotation is more negative than you likely intend. I genuinely see nothing wrong with using this term. People like it. It ultimately matters not where it came from if the purpose it is made to serve is indeed served by this name, regardless of the origin.
It's kinda like how, objectively speaking, the phrase "same difference" is confusing and not accurate to say when equating two things, but it nonetheless gets its point across.
Or how "irregardless" is a word with a lot of people who hate on it for being incorrect. When you hear it, you may disagree that it is proper, but *irregardless* it gets its point across.
I think that the information behind this is really neat and interesting, and is perhaps food for thought, but ultimately, saying that it is any less valid a name simply because it has an unclear history (even if it had a complete lack thereof) is an exercise in futility. The point is to provide a different word for the continent, one that is free from colonial influence. And as far as I can tell, this is accomplished by a name with no history at all.
Overall, this is a cool video, though I think there could be improvement.
It is problematic because it’s one that is used as part of the broader problematic nature of Afrocentrism. Afrocentrism itself is a mirrored image, and therefore product of, western colonialism, and both diminishes and restricts the idea of what Africa or Africans can and should be. Africa is the name that African people use, because most of them recognise that thinking of all of Africa as some unified whole is itself a foreign concept, deserving of a foreign name. Trying to give an arbitrary new name to a colonial idea with African flavour doesn’t make it not a colonial idea
There is no one word used by all or even most Africans to describe Africa. If I were to choose a native African word for the land, I would choose Kemit. Yes it originally applied to Egypt, but it does mean Black nation and was the earliest known word that we can verify in history to refer to a part of Africa.
7:38 : Hm? Isn’t the Middle East part of Africa? Or like, at least kinda?
... ok apparently, “east Asia”, not Africa.
Often Egypt is quite often included in the Middle East as it is transcontinental. The border between Africa and Asia being the Suez canal
@@Nahasapasa Thanks!
I was thinking mostly about Israel and/or Judaea (because, like, Judaism. The garden of Eden wasn’t introduced by Christianity after all.) and also the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as the Garden of Eden was said to be by the Tigris, the Euphrates, and two other not-as-clearly-identified rivers (one of which sometimes said to be the Nile?)
The Arab world it is part of, socioculturally, geographically, it's in Africa.
@@Game_Hero nope,arabs are not africa in origin
@@scarymonster5541 Arab league membership, the fact it is called officially the Arab Republic of Egypt and was once part of the United Arab Republic : " *let's pretend we're not here* "
But wait, now. Why is it important for a new name of the continent to be historically grounded? Suppose it's completely made up, but it's the choice of Afrocentrists; then isn't that still better than a name imposed from outside? Furthermore, I don't think you established where "Alkebulan" came from; if it was made up by Africans, then it would indeed be "native", whether or not it came from an ancient native language.
Many other comments on this page point out that the huge size of Africa, and the lack of unity of its peoples, precludes any ancient unified name for the continent. But isn't that a strong argument for making up a new one? Names don't have to be ancient. There are good reasons for coining new ones. I say if a majority of Africans choose it for their name, then that's good enough for me.
The one caveat is, if it turned out to have non-African origins, then that would defeat the whole purpose. It's okay if it's made up, but it would be nice to know *_where_* it was made up. But still, even if it were not of African origin (even a modern one), if it's the choice of Africans, so be it!
No continent except Europe has an endonymic name, so it's not special.
@@anniestumpy9918 Asia comes from an ancient region in what is now Asian Turkey. Africa comes from ancient Libya
"Suppose it's completely made up, but it's the choice of Afrocentrists; then isn't that still better than a name imposed from outside?"
But if it is the choice of Afrocentrists, then "Alkebulan" is also a name imposed from outside, because most Afrocentrists are Americans, not Africans.
@@gerardvanwilgen9917 Well if that's the case, then I just defer to my later statements: "I say if a majority of Africans choose it for their name, then that's good enough for me." And "if it's the choice of Africans, so be it!"
@@sharonminsuk Are you consistent in that? Most Germans call their country "Deutschland", most Fins call their country "Suomi", most Hungarians call their country "Magyarország ", most Albanians call their country "Shqipëria", most Greeks call theit country "Elláda", but I bet you do not use those names.
If a region is named after a person, it uses the surname, e.g. Tasmania from Abel Tasman, unless the person is a monarch, e.g. Victoria. Was Amerigo Vespucci a monarch? No. So America is not named after him.
Except for continent, that always have to start and end on the same vowel. So they couldn't call it Vespuccia.
That does not sound convincing at all. The names of regions named after monarchs are based on their given names rather than their surnames simply because monarchs are generally known by their given names.
@@gerardvanwilgen9917 I guess we won't find out until they name an island after Adele. A good name for an island, I think. Then there is of course an area Elisabeth I somewhat embarrassingly called Virginia.