Afri
Sign in to save'''''' (singular ) was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya).
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- Etymology
- Africa
- See also
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'''' (singular ) was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya).
==Etymology== The etymology of the term remains uncertain. It may derive from a Punic term for an indigenous population of the area surrounding Carthage. (See Terence for discussion.) The name is usually connected with Phoenician ʿafar "dust" (also found in other Semitic languages), but a 1981 hypothesis asserted that it stems from the Berber ifri (plural ifran) "cave", in reference to cave dwellers. (See Tataouine.) The same word may be found in the name of the Moroccan city of Ifrane and in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, a Berber tribe originally from Yafran (also known as Ifrane'') in northwestern Libya.