Sorry I didn’t see your message about French and white slavery in Algeria. I’ll find the source and post it here.

Regards

These Ethiopians might have taken their name from the Niger as the early Nigretai were supposed to have been nomadic peoples and are mentioned with the nomad Pharusii in early sources. The latter are undoubtedly the Iforas( or Ifuraces also anciently Afarik) Tuareg of modern Mali.

Interestingly Pliny speaks of the Gaetulians as extending to the river Nigris . From A History of Ancient Geography among the Greeks and Romans,. Vol. II, p. 435.

I also found this quote on the internet, “…in Maurusia, which we call Mauritania, the river Dyris, from Mount Atlas, which, rising in a northern region, proceeds westward to the lake Heptabolus, where, changing its name, it is called the Niger.” Marcus Vitruvius Pollio de Architectura Book VIII

Nehesy I just saw your funny comments about the Mathilda pseudohistory blog. I won’t put the word anthropology into it as she doesn’t even apparently understand when the neolithic began. I shouldn’t have been so surprised though.

Some Moroccans came up to me too and questioned if I were one of them. They thought I was trying to pass for something else because of the way most North Africans are treated in France I guess. I am around the same color as Obama though. I don’t consider myself fair.

This is very interesting about the French attacking North Africa because of the white slave trade. Do you have any sources i can look at about this. I will also look at this website Gallica. i like to read early European writings on the Berbers and other now mixed people. Many seemed to have been quite aware the original appearance of the Berbers and other ancient peoples of the Mediterranean. It was from Richmond Palmer I learned that Roman texts have many different European tribes settled in ancient Mauritania living along side the Berbers – iIncluding the Armeni, Phrygi, Vandali, and others aside from the Romans. The term “Berber” for modern fair-skinned Berber speakers must have come to be only within in the last two centuries or so since no mention is made of this before then.

This never theory ZENEGA/SENEGAL has never been validated by any senegalese scholar like Cheikh Anta DIOP, Aboubacry Moussa Lam, Ibrahima Sall, Birago DIOP, Ibrahima THIOUB, Leopold Sedar Senghor or any French scholar who understood wolof like the french Maurice Delafosse.

Actually Maurice Delafosse in his book “Haut Sénégal Niger , Tome 1″ in 1912, destroys this theory pages 58 to 62; he says that even El Bekri separated the name of the Zenaga and the river Senegal.

We and Berbers have fought each other, married, allied, dominated each over ( Black kings with berbers vassals, slaves and concubines, and it happened the same in the Berber side), I don’t have any problem with that theory but according to what I know ( may be I’m wrong too) which means our culture, our mentally , our language it seems to me wrong.

El Bekri said that North Senegal was ruled by woloff and they dominated Trarzas Tuaregs and The few Zenegas present in that region. Plus Maurice Delafosse presented many testimonies from the first European travelers (since the 15 th century) who always separated the Zenega Berbers with the name of the river Senegal.

You can download the book here :

http://gallica.bnf.fr/

Europeans in Africa have altered many names Zinguinchor from Izguichor, Angola who was Ngola, Guinea is from Ghana and was a Vassal of that Empire with Senegal and Mali;

I knew that Niger is not an autochtonous name like the Volta in Burkina Faso (Anciently named Haute Volta by the French), Martin Bernal in Black Athena II and III says that it’s a semitic word N(gr) which means “Water which flows(sinks) into the sand “;

However the Latin used this word NIGER as a synonym of beauty for the Nigretes or Nigretai Black tribes;

Great piece of narrative you have sent back to my question. However, you may be missing my point.

If it was the French that named the River as Senegal, would they not be the best ones to explain where they got that name and what they intended to say by it.

Insisting that the Wolof ethymology of Senegal suggests Suunugal rather than Zenega is somewhat of a leap.

The French named the River Niger after the Berber word “Ger” meaning River. So “Ni-Ger” simply means the River. But the French had to identify the origin of this fanciful name they bestowed on to River Jolliba, which is the name by which the great River is identified by many people in Guinea, Niger and Nigeria. One cannot legitimately seek for the ethymology of Niger iin any other root.

Lake Victoria was so named by the British. It is only legitimate that we use the British history of the naming of Victoria Lake to understand their reason for doing so. The indigenous Africans had different names for Lake Victoria, and we can look to those names when we seek the ethymology of the African names of the lake.

So back again to Senegal, my understanding is that the French named the River Senegal after their habits for re-naming African landmarks. However, according to the French sources, the origin of the name Senegal as they used it came from Zenega. Inspite of what the Wolofs may call Cannoe in their original language, the French did not keep that in consideration when they named the great River as the Zenega or the Senegal. At least, that is my understanding.

Sunugal as used by the Wolofs then may be a legitimate word in Wolof. But as used for the River, I think the French were trying to say Zenega.

Note: Guinea comes from a corruption of Gana (the old African Empire). Ghana was long dead and gone by the time the Europeans renamed the coast as the coast of Guinea. Also Old Ghana was also in North Africa and not down by the Atlantic coast.

It’s only a guess, but I think that French gave this name Senegal to our country Senegal according to the name given to the natives to that river ie sunugaal. Like Congo in central Africa or Niger in West Africa.

Sénégal was part of the Mandingo Empire (Soundjata Keita) . And before the French came the all country was called Djoloff by our ancestors.

When the first empire collapsed according to some wolof traditions, a moor (father Lemtuna and a fulani mother from the tekrour named Farimata Sall) renamed Ndiadiane Ndiaye by a priest was the first ruler.

His father being Lemtuna (from the zenega group) I guess some people made this relationship between Zenega and Senegal. This idea is not stupid though, but the key is the understanding of the wolof language.

Wo-lof or Wa-laf as said by Cheikh Anta Diop , is a maritime people. Laf means the river’s Bank. Perhaps they used the name sunugaal for this river because it was a mean for travel or transport, it would be an explanation for the meaning ” Our Pirogue”.

This Ndiadiane Ndiaye is different from the 1st we know in our tradition who came from the Sudan.

However in our tradition he (the 2nd Ndiadiane Ndiaye) had a brother called Barka who gave the name of the king of Walo (another kingdom in Senegal) : Barka; Barak; Brak.

Barka has a Carthaginian root.

Ndiadiane Ndiaye’s mother was a Belianke Fulani (Farimata Sall).

In our langage BEL + IANKE means Men of Bel or Baal a Phoenician or canaanite God. Like MALINKE is people from Mali;

The family Name BAL or BAAL is present within the tuculors of tekrour.

May be their forefathers are those people whose story is described by Hanno of Carthage .

Without no Doubt , Koushites from the Middle East and Arabia settled in “Africa” : East, North, West;

The best explanation I think could be given by our Elders ( they’re all agree about sunugaal gave senegal though ) and the senegalese scholars at university cheikh anta diop.

Peace

My question to you will be this:

Who first used the name “Senegal” for that body of River so called today?

Jahdey

No Doubt within the moors or black berbers in North AFrica ( Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya) many of them are black and they are autochtonous people.

In south Morocco you can find Bob marley’s doubles. Actually you have many north africans rastas specially Algerians, they wear dreadlocks and smoke ganja lol.

Many moors during roman times were blacks and had dreadlocks I’m sure about this ( I discovered it into Snowden and Van Sertima books, RIP Both). The word Moors was dedicated for black north Africans and then socialized to all North Africans.

Peace