Afri

For other uses, see Afri (disambiguation).

Afri (singular, Afer) was a Latin name for the non-punic-speaking population surrounding the Carthaginians^{[citation needed]}. It was received by the Romans from the local opponents of the Carthaginians, as a native term for their country.^{[citation needed]} Afer was at first used as an adjective, meaning "an ally, not of Carthage", "of Africa". As a substantive, it denoted a native of Africa, i.e. a non-Carthaginian.

The ultimate etymology of the Libyan term for the country is uncertain. It is derived from a Punic term for an indigenous population of the area surrounding Carthage.^{[citation needed]} The name may be connected with Phoenician `afar, dust (also found in other Semitic languages), or with Berber ifri, cave (see Tataouine). The classical historian Flavius Josephus asserted that the region had been invaded by descendants of Abraham's grandson Epher, who gave it their name.

During the Roman Empire period, Afer came to be a cognomen for people from the Africa Province.

This ethnonym is 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). Following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War, Rome set up the province of Africa.

The Roman Diocese of Africa was conquered by the Vandals in the 5th century, and re-conquered by the empire as the Praetorian prefecture of Africa in AD 534. The Latin name Africa was received in Arabic after the Islamic conquest, as Ifriqiya.

The name is still extant today as Ifira and Ifri-n-Dellal in Greater Kabylia (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. Troglodytism was frequent in northern Africa and still occurs today in southern Tunisia. Herodotus wrote that the Garamantes, a North African people, used to live in caves. The Greeks also called an African people who lived in caves Troglodytae.

See also

• Zenata

External links

• Africism, bc.edu