{{short description|Latin name for some North Africans}} {{Other uses}} {{More citations needed|date=July 2008}}
'''{{lang|la|Āfrī}}''' (singular {{lang|la|Āfer}})<ref>[https://alatius.com/latin/bennetthidden.html Chapter 3], Charles E. Bennett (1907) ''The Latin Language – a historical outline of its sounds, inflections, and syntax''. Allyn & Bacon, Boston.</ref> was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya).<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Georges|first1=Karl Ernst|editor1-last=Georges|editor1-first=Heinrich|encyclopedia=Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch|date=1913–1918|location=Hannover|edition=8th|url=http://latin_german.deacademic.com/1644|access-date=20 September 2015|language=de|title=Afri|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160116044500/http://latin_german.deacademic.com/1644|archive-date=16 January 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Lewis|first1=Charlton T.|last2=Short|first2=Charles|encyclopedia=A Latin Dictionary|date=1879|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3DAfer|access-date=20 September 2015|title=Afer}}</ref>
==Etymology== The etymology of the term remains uncertain. The name is usually connected with Phoenician ''ʿafar'' "dust"<ref>Venter & Neuland, ''NEPAD and the African Renaissance'' (2005), p. 16</ref> (also found in other Semitic languages), but a 1981 hypothesis asserted that it stems from the Berber ''ifri'' (plural ''ifran'') "cave", in reference to cave dwellers.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20190627022921/http://michel-desfayes.org/namesofcountries.html Names of countries]}}, Decret and Fantar, 1981.</ref><ref name="Michell">[https://www.jstor.org/pss/714549 Geo. Babington Michell, "The Berbers"], ''Journal of the Royal African Society'', Vol. 2, No. 6 (January 1903), pp. 161–194.</ref> (See Tataouine.) The same word<ref name=Michell /> may be found in the name of the Moroccan city of Ifrane and in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, a Berber tribe originally from Yafran (also known as ''Ifrane'') in northwestern Libya.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SLSzNfdcqfoC&pg=PA200&dq=Itineraria+Phoenicia+Ifren&sig=opSH-an97IhmB6GtJjMvn7bt4tc#PPA200,M1 Edward Lipinski, ''Itineraria Phoenicia''], Peeters Publishers, 2004, p. 200. {{ISBN|90-429-1344-4}}.</ref>
Flavius Josephus claimed that descendants of Abraham's grandson Epher invaded the region and gave it their own name.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/L242JosephusVJewishAntiquities13 |title=L 242 Josephus V Jewish Antiquities 1 3 |language=English}}</ref>
==Africa== This ethnonym provided the source of the term ''Africa''. The Romans referred to the region as ''Africa terra'' (land of the Afri), based on the stem ''Afr-'' with the adjective suffix ''-ic'', giving ''Africus'', ''Africa'', ''Africum'' in the nominative singular of the three Latin genders.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}} Following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War, Rome set up the province of Africa Proconsularis. ''Afer'' came to be a cognomen for people from this province.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}
The Germanic tribe of the Vandals conquered the Roman Diocese of Africa in the 5th century; the empire reconquered it as the Praetorian prefecture of Africa in AD 534. The Latin name ''Africa'' came into Arabic after the Islamic conquest as ''Ifriqiya''.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20190627022921/http://michel-desfayes.org/namesofcountries.html Names of countries]}}, Decret & Fantar, 1981</ref>
The name survives today as Ifira and Ifri-n-Dellal in Greater Kabylie (Algeria). A Berber tribe was called Banu Ifran in the Middle Ages, and Ifurace was the name of a Tripolitan people in the 6th century.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rouighi|first=Ramzi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ap67DwAAQBAJ|title=Inventing the Berbers: History and Ideology in the Maghrib|date=2019-08-02|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-5130-2|pages=44|language=en}}</ref>
== See also == * Roman Africans
== References == <references/>
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060916162032/http://www2.bc.edu/~lugira/africism2.htm Africism], bc.edu
Category:History of Africa