Naming and Othering in Africa: Imagining Supremacy and Inferiority through Language

217 Pages·2022·1.6 MB·

by  Sambulo Ndlovu

Naming and Othering in Africa
This book examines how names have been fashioned to create dominance and
subjugation, inclusion and exclusion, others and self in Africa.
Taking examples from Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, the author demonstrates
how names are used in class, race, ethnic, national, gender, sexuality, religious
and business struggles in society as weapons by ingroups and outgroups. Using
othering theory as a framework, the chapters explore themes such as globalised
names and their demonstration of the other; onomastic erasure in colonial
naming and the subsequent decoloniality in African name changes; othering
of women in onomastics; and crude and sophisticated phaulisms in the areas of
race, ethnicity, nationality, disability and sexuality.
Highlighting social power dynamics through onomastics, this book will be
of interest to scholars of onomastics, social anthropology, sociolinguistics and
African culture and history.
Sambulo Ndlovu is a Humbolt Research Fellow at the Institut fur Ethnologie
und Afrikanstudien at Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat, Germany and a
Professor at Great Zimbabwe University.
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Naming and Othering
in Africa
Imagining Supremacy and Inferiority
through Language
Sambulo Ndlovu
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Sambulo Ndlovu
The right of Sambulo Ndlovu to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ndlovu, Sambulo, author.
Title: Naming and othering in Africa : imagining supremacy and inferiority
through language / Sambulo Ndlovu.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021028743 (print) | LCCN 2021028744 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367773106 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367773151 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003170761 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: African languages—Etymology—Names. | Names,
African—Social aspects. | Onomastics. | African languages—Social
aspects. | Dominance (Psychology) | Other (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC PL8005 .N35 2022 (print) | LCC PL8005 (ebook) |
DDC 929.9/7096—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028743
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028744
ISBN: 978-0-367-77310-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-77315-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-17076-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003170761
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of figures viii
List of tables ix
1 Introduction 1
SECTION ONE
Global, cultural and ethnophaulic nomen othering
of Africa 15
2 Africa and global onomastic othering dichotomies 17
3 Names as cultural othering of Africa 38
4 Ethnophaulisms as crude nomen othering in African
contexts 59
SECTION TWO
Selfing and othering in colonial and de-colonial
onomastics in Africa 85
5 UMlungu/Mzungu/Oborofo decoloniality and coloniality
nuances 87
6 Onomastic attestations of coloniality in Africa 105
7 Colonial othering of African anthroponymy 129
vi Contents
SECTION THREE
Names as exhibits of gendered, disablist, exclusion and
sexist subalternities in African contexts 149
8 The woman other in African names and naming 151
9 Disablist, homophobic and sexist nomen othering in Africa 168
10 Socio-political onomastic exclusions in Africa 186
11 Conclusions and recommendations 199
Index 204
Acknowledgements
I acknowledge with gratitude the opportunity I was granted by the Alex-
ander von Humboldt Foundation to work on this book. I also extend my
acknowledgements to the Department of Anthropology and African Studies
and colleagues at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and the
Department of African Languages and Culture at the Great Zimbabwe Univer-
sity. Thank you very much to my data sources, across Africa and to my family
for the support.
Figures
2.1 The development factor in the naming of Global North
countries 26
2.2 Characterisation of developed, developing and
underdeveloped country nomenclature 31
4.1 Eugenics’ imagined degeneration of Mongoloids and
Negroids from the perfection in Caucasoids 64
5.1 Implications of divine race hierarchies in naming White
people in Africa 101
5.2 Amelioration of names of White people in Africa 102
Tables
3.1 Disparaging names given to African flora 42
3.2 Names that animalise and savage African flora 43
3.3 Naming African fauna for European ownership and honour 45
3.4 Implied traditional-modern dichotomy in naming African systems 47
3.5 Indigenised African culture vs globalised European culture 48
3.6 Names satanising African religious concepts and selfing
Christian concepts 51
3.7 African (Ndebele) self othering cultural names 54
4.1 Flagrant ethnophaulic transphonologies between the Ndebele
and the Shona of Zimbabwe 72
5.1 AbeLungu relational frame metaphor analysis 91
5.2 Aboforo/abeLumbi/vaRumbi metaphor mappings 96
6.1 Colonial toponyms indicating ownership of Africa by
European countries 109
6.2 Colonial figures in African hodonymy 113
6.3 Hodonyms glorifying colonial institutions in Africa 114
6.4 Colonial renaming of African water bodies 115
6.5 Meaningless English transphonologies of indigenous
Zimbabwean toponyms 116
6.6 Weird semantic inferences in some English transphonologies
of Zimbabwean toponyms 117
6.7 Coloniality of African currencies 120
6.8 Indigenous African names of currency 121
6.9 Names attesting to African resource coloniality 121
6.10 Imperial toponymy in some Zimbabwean church names 124
7.1 Euro-American toponyms used as anthroponyms in Zimbabwe 137
7.2 Nguni anthroponyms derived from African culture and
colonial culture 138
7.3 Slavery and colonial connotations in naming Africans as boy or girl 139
7.4 English translations of some African names 142
8.1 The agentive status for men and object position of women in
Nguni social verbs 154
8.2 Active and passive names in naming boys and girls in Nguni 155