Afri-Asiatica Familia de Afrika-Ifriqiya* and West Asia (Nubian teens from pic / Aswan Egypt)

The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family with about

375 living language (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout

North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Southwest Asia, and parts of the Sahel

(including some 300 million speakers) of (Arabic Dialects).

Afro-Asiatic also includes several ancient languages, such as

Ancient Egyptian, Biblical Hebrew, and Akkadian.

The term “Afroasiatic” was coined by Maurice Delafosse (1914). It did not come into general use until it was adopted by Joseph Greenberg

(1950) to replace the earlier term “Hamito-Semitic“, following his demonstration that Hamitic is not a valid language family.

The Hamitic family is located in Nile Valley’s Land of Ham, example. (Cush/ Nubia/ Egypt and West Asia).

The name is now most often spelled “Afro-Asiatic”, though both spellings are in use. Some replace “Afro-Asiatic” with “Afrasian”.

I myself often utter plain “ol’ Asiatic !”

Though i sometimes prefer,  Afri-Asiatic-West Asian Individual scholars have called the family

“Erythraean” (Tucker 1966) and “Lisramic” (Hodge 1972).

The term “Hamito-Semitic” remains in use in the academic traditions of some European countries.

Afro-Asiatic is one of the four language families of Africa identified by

Joseph Greenberg in his book The Languages of Africa (1963).

It is the only one that extends outside of Africa, via the Semitic branch.

There are no generally accepted relations between Afro-Asiatics and any other language family.

The name  “AFRICA “ came into Western use through the Romans…   it is not the native name.

The “Original people of AfRICA” never referred to it by that name.

Africa/Egypt was called:

” Ta-Meri/ Ta-mery = ታመርይ,”…  “Kampt /Kemit/kmt = ክምት ,”… or  “Sais = ሳኢስ“… by  Ancient Asiatic inhabitants…

The Romans used the name Africa terra — “land of the Afri” (plural, or “Afer” singular) — for the northern part of the continent,

“The North Africa Sahara” as the province of “Africa” with its capital “Carthage”, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia.

The origin of Afer may either come from:

Phoenician `afar, dust; 
-the Afri, a tribe—possibly Berber—who dwelt in North Africa in the Carthage area;

The Greek word aphrike, meaning without cold; 
-or The Latin word aprica, meaning sunny.

The Moorish historian Leo Africanus (1495-1554) attributed the origin to the

Greek word phrike (φρικε, meaning “cold and horror”),

combined with the negating prefix a-, so meaning, a land free of cold and horror.

But the change of sound from ph to f in Greek is datable to about the first century,

so this cannot really be the origin of the name…

Egypt was considered part of  “ASIA” by the “Ancients,” and first assigned to “Africa” by the geographer Ptolemy (85 – 165 AD)

, who accepted Alexandria as Prime Meridian and made the isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea the “boundary” between Asia and Africa.

As Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge.

Afri (singular, Afer) was the Latin name for an ancient people located on the shores of the

Southern Mediterranean Sea near the city of Carthage, nowadays Tunisia.

The first record of their existence was made during the Punic Wars (264-146 BC) between ancient Rome and Carthage.

The name may be connected with Phoenician `afar, dust (also found in other Semitic languages), or with Berber `ifri, cave.  Back in medieval history, Ifri-qi-ya or Ifriqiyah (Arabic: إفريقية‎) was the area comprising the coastal regions of what are today western Libya, Tunisia, and eastern Algeria. This area included what had been the Roman province called Africa, whose name it inherited. (North Africa)…

Ifriqiya was bounded on the south by the semi-arid areas and salt marshes called el-Djerid. At various times, the rulers of this area also conquered Sicily and parts of mainland Italy, and the western boundary was in continual flux but usually went as far as Bejaia. Its capital was Qayrawan (Kairouan) in central Tunisia.

The classical historian Flavius Josephus asserted that the region had been invaded by

Descendants of Abraham‘s grandson Epher, who gave it their name.

Phoenicians:

The name Africa has been connected with the Phoenician word afar, which means ”dust.” It has also has been connected to two Phoenician terms friqi or pharika, which means “land of corn or fruit.” It has also been hypothesized that Africa may have derived from a Phoenician root faraqa or faraq, meaning “separation or diaspora.”

Romans:
The Romans have been given credit for popularizing the name Africa in the West. They used the name Africa terra meaning “land of the Afri” (or singular version “Afer”) for the northern part of the continent. Its capital was Carthage, which is modern-day Tunisia.
The story told by some historians is that the Romans got the term from the Carthaginians, as a native term for their country. The Latin suffix “-ica” can sometimes be used to denote a land (e.g., in Celtica from Celtae, as used by Julius Caesar).
Another theory is that the continent was named after the Roman general “Scicipio Africanus,” but his name meant “Sicipio of Africa,” which would mean the general was named for being from Africa.
Some say the term is drawn from the Latin adjective aprica (sunny).

Greeks:
The historian Leo Africanus (1495-1554) attributed the origin of “Africa” to the Greek word aprikē or aphrike. Phrike means cold and horror, when combined with the negating prefix a-, it means a land free of cold and horror.

Jewish:
The 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus asserted that Africa was named for Epher, grandson of Abraham, according to the Bible’s Genesis 25:4, whose descendants invaded Libya. The Hebrew name for the continent, Auphirah is supposedly written as Ophir in many Jewish records.

Arabic:
Some have attributed the name to the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya (sunny place) in modern-day Tunisia. However, the Arab version is considered by most historians to be a derivative of the Latin version.

Hindi:
Another theory is that the word might stem from Sanskrit and Hindi in which the root Apara or Africa denotes that which, in geographical terms, “comes after” or to the west — in which case Africa is the western continent.

Yemeni:

Some have postulated that it is the name of a Yemenite chief named Africus who invaded North Africa in the second millennium B.C. and founded a town called Afrikyah.

Berber:
A number of historians believe the Romans got the name from a corruption of what the Berbers called the region in which they lived. The theory asserts that “Africa” stems from the Berber ifri (plural ifran), the word for “cave,” in reference to cave dwellers. The same word is 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.

Egyptian:
A few historians argue that the word “Africa” is indigenous to the continent, and the idea that the Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Hindus or any Caucasoid group created the name Africa is absolutely inaccurate.
This theory asserts that Romans and Greeks began using the term only after coming in contact with African people, such as the Greek conquest of Egypt and the Roman conquest of North Africa and Egypt.
The term “Afru-ika” means “birthplace” or “Motherland,” according to historian Ivan Van Sertima. Af-rui-ka means “to turn toward the opening of the Ka, womb or birthplace.”
Another hypothesis is that the name of the 4th dynasty pharaoh, Kh-afre, reveals that an early Egyptian king had the name “Africa.” It’s believed by some that because modern Egyptologists and others often mix the order of the hieroglyphs that the ancients wrote Kh-afre is supposedly written as Afre-Kh or Africa.

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