Etymology of the word Africa

I got the following three entries over at H-Net --->

http://bit.ly/7g0VRq
"Ifriqiya is the medieval name for central North Africa, including
Tripolotania, Tunisia and Eastern Algeria. The Arabic root is f-r-q,
meaning to distinguish or separate, perhaps to identify people who
lived west of the Nile Valley. A derivative of that root, fareeq
(singular) or afreeqa' (plural), refers to a faction, a unit, a party
or a band, again recognizing the existence of a people who were
neither Northern Mediterranean nor Nilotic and who may have been
associated with the Saharan marsh cultures."

Wehr is of course the classic Arabic-English translation dictionary,

the first I ever used. While I do not have it with me, I can not
imagine that it would imply that a Fareeq (another meaning to include
would be "team") would have anything to do with a groups ethnicity.
The jump in logic is a bit to great. From what I know of Berber
groups in general, the "fareeq" could simply have referred to groups
of people, possibly bands of warriors or brigades of some sort (which
would not be far fetched if the naming group were not the people
themselves) or some other way of referring to clans of people. There
is nothing inherent in the term that suggests ethnicity or origins of
any sort.

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Members of the list who remain interested in this question may wish to
consult Relaño's work on the cartographic history of the African
continent.

Relaño, Francesc. "The Shaping of Africa: Cosmographic Discourse and

Cartographic Science in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe."
Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.

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It's a very stimulanting (non closed) discussion, inviting to

rereading of some classics, eg. :

Julien Charles-André, Histoire de l'Afrique du nord. Tome 1 Des

origines à la conquête arabe (Paris, Payot, 1951), especially p.9,
107-108.

Lonis Raoul (éd), Colloque de Dakar "Afrique noire et monde

méditerranéen dans l'antiquité" (Dakar-Abidjan, NEA, 1978) :
"En réalité, le terme Africa en latin a deux, voire trois acceptions
(la province soulmise, l'Africa opposée à l'Ethiopia, le continent
entier)"... (p.182) (intervention of J. Desanges)
Desanges Jehan, Recherches sur l'activité des Méditerranéens aux
confins de l'Afrique (Rome, École française de Rome, Palais Farnèse,
1978), passim.

I looked also at Joseph Cuoq' "Recueil des sources arabes concernant

l'Afrique occidentale du VIIIe au XVIe siècle" (Paris, CNRS, 1985)
Joseph Cuoq has not a specific discussion on the name, but a lot of
references quoting the term "Ifrikya", in his collection of arabic
documents on West African Islam.

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The following for links are from H-West Africa. This a compilation of contemporary Academic exchanges on the origin
of the word "Africa

http://bit.ly/6JNVKo

http://bit.ly/7V3MhS

http://bit.ly/6JNVKo

http://bit.ly/71p8VA

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for a detailed contemporary discussion see link Blank Darkness by Christopher Miller,
start on pg 10

http://bit.ly/6RRfJr
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source: http://bit.ly/5XyIXr

The geographical and racial names of Libya

changed ; Libya became Africa; the coast popula-
tion lost the names by which they were known to
Herodotus and the geographers who followed him;
the names of Cyrenaica and Africa appeared for
Carthaginian territory, of Numidia, of Mauritania, and
hence the Afri, the Numidi, the Mauri. Nor did
the changes cease at this point ; to the general name
of Libyans succeeded that of Berbers, which to-day is
being lost, to give place to other names, such, for
instance, as Schellachs or the Shluh. Geographers
and ethnographers have disputed concerning the

1 Kenan, 'La Socie'tc' Bcrbcrc," Rtvue Jet Deux Maudes, 1873.

1 Tissot, Gtograpkie cottiparfe, etc., p. 517.

* Tissot, (>/>. fit., pp. 518 el scq.\ cf. the following chapter on the
Egyptians.

54 THE MEDITERRANEAN RACE.

origins of these various successive names which have
designated the regions and inhabitants of Africa.
Libya, it is said, came from the name of a tribe,
Luba or Lovvata, pronounced Levata or Lebata, and
changed by the Greek colonists of Cyrene in their
own language into Libyes or Libya} Hence the
generalisation of the name Libya to the region known
to the Greeks, and to the populations distinct from
the Ethiopians.

The name of Africa was restricted to the territory

of Carthage ; the Romans eventually used it to de-
signate all the Libyan regions, and to-day it serves
to indicate the whole of the vast continent. Con-
cerning the origin of the word Africa many opinions
have been expressed, and it is possible that, like
Libya, it may also be derived from the name of a
tribe. 2

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According this source, the term "African was extended into western Europe.

http://bit.ly/5ZjPmn

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http://bit.ly/8x6PSl
This source states that Romans use to call the whole of northern Africa Libya. Libya replaced by Africa and African ove
rtime was used for the entire continent.