African people refers to natives or inhabitants of Africa and to people of African descent.

Etymology

Many etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa": Derived from the Roman province of Africa, which included much of northern Africa. The origin of ''Afer'' may be the Phoenician ''afar'', dust; the Afri tribe, who dwelt in Northern Africa around the area of Carthage; Greek ''aphrike'' (αφρίκη), without cold; or Latin ''aprica'', sunny. The term "African", derived from the name of the province, did not refer to a particular people, but rather to anyone or anything pertaining to the Roman province of Africa, i.e. the northern coast of Africa.

the Greek word ''aphrike'' (Αφρική), meaning "without cold." This was proposed by historian Leo Africanus (1488–1554), who suggested the Greek word ''phrike'' (φρίκη, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the privative prefix "a-", thus indicating a land free of cold and horror.

Latin word ''aprica'' ("sunny") mentioned by Isidore of Seville in ''Etymologiae'' XIV.5.2.

Massey, in 1881, derived an etymology from the Egyptian ''af-rui-ka'', "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The Ka is the energetic double of every person and "opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the birthplace."

Yet another hypothesis was proposed by Michèle Fruyt in ''Revue de Philologie'' 50, 1976: 221–238, linking the Latin word with ''africus'' 'south wind', which would be of Umbrian origin and mean originally 'rainy wind'.

The peoples of Africa

The African continent is home to many different ethnic and racial groups, with wide-ranging phenotypical traits, both indigenous and foreign to the continent. Many of these populations have diverse origins, with differing cultural, linguistic and social traits and mores. Distinctions within Africa's geography, such as the varying climates across the continent, have also served to nurture diverse lifestyles among its various populations. The continent's inhabitants live amidst deserts and jungles, as well as in modern cities across the continent.

Prehistoric populations

Perhaps it is a function of the number of excavations actually performed in given areas, but it is at least suggestive that the five very earliest out of the twelve of earliest archaeological discoveries of ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' have been in Africa and the adjacent Arabian peninsula.

As early as 1964, A. W. F. Edwards and others had discovered that three populations in Africa were related but distinguishable on the basis of a relatively small set of genetic information (20 alleles). Those populations were called Tigre (Ethiopians), Bantu (in southern Africa), and Ghanaian (West Africa).

When general anthropometrics were taken as the criteria for grouping, the African population was split into a different three groups: the more closely related Pygmy (such as the Mbuti) and Bushmen (such as the Khoisan) and the Bantu.

By 1988 more genetic detail were known, more groups could be distinguished on the basis of genetic information, but the relationships among these groups were accounted as different depending on which was the data was construed. The groups analyzed at this time were Bantu, Berber and North African, Ethiopian, Mbuti Pygmy, Nilotic, San (Bushman), West African.

Spencer Wells a geneticist and anthropologist, has traced the migration of the early Africans beyond their own continent by noting the appearance of new genetic markers on the Y-chromosome as the migrations progressed. Studies of mitochondrial DNA conducted within the continent of Africa have shown that the indigenous population has diverged into three divergent main lines of descent.

A number of scholars such as Alan Templeton hold that support is found for traditional racial categories only because many studies use the pre-defined categories to begin with, and subsequently insert data into those categories rather than let data speak for itself. Templeton uses modern DNA analysis to argue that human "races" were never "pure", and that human evolution is based on "many locally differentiated populations coexisting at any given time" - a single lineage with many locally gradated variants, all sharing a common fate.

Researchers such as Richard Lewontin maintain that most of the variation within human population is found ''within'' local geographic groups and differences attributable to traditional "race" groups are a minor part of human genetic variability. Several other researchers (Barbajuni, Latter, Dean, et al.) have replicated Lewontin's results. According to a study by researcher L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza:

It is often taken for granted that the human species is divided in rather homogeneous groups or races, among which biological differences are large. Studies of allele frequencies do not support this view, but they have not been sufficient to rule it out either. We analyzed human molecular diversity at 109 DNA markers, namely 30 microsatellite loci and 79 polymorphic restriction sites (restriction fragment length polymorphism loci) in 16 populations of the world. By partitioning genetic variances at three hierarchical levels of population subdivision, we found that differences between members of the same population account for 84.4% of the total, which is in excellent agreement with estimates based on allele frequencies of classic, protein polymorphisms. Genetic variation remains high even within small population groups. On the average, microsatellite and restriction fragment length polymorphism loci yield identical estimates. Differences among continents represent roughly 1/10 of human molecular diversity, which does not suggest that the racial subdivision of our species reflects any major discontinuity in our genome.

In the wake of this research, a number of writers question the classification of African peoples like Ethiopians into "Caucasian" groups, holding that given the minor proportion of human genetic diversity attributable to "race", grouping of such African peoples is arbitrary and flawed, and that DNA analysis points to a range or gradation of types rather than distinct racial categories. Rather than arbitrarily allocating such African groups to a European "race", the range of physical characteristics like skin colour, hair or facial features are more than adequately covered by the differentiation ''within'' local geographic groupings.

A 2009 study detailed the genome-wide relationship among the largest number of African populations sampled to date, accordingly, Fourteen ancestral population clusters were found in Africa that correlate with self-described ethnicity and shared cultural and/or linguistic properties;

Indigenous peoples and ancient settlers

The population of North Africa in ancient times consisted predominantly of Berbers in the West and Egyptians in the East. The Semitic Phoenicians and Jews, the Iranian Alans, and the European Greeks, Romans and Vandals settled in North Africa as well. The indigenous Berbers still constitute the majority in Morocco, while they are a significant minority within Algeria which is now a predominantly Arabic-speaking country. They are also still present in small numbers in Tunisia and Libya. The Tuareg and other often-nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. The Nubians, who developed an ancient civilization in Northeast Africa, are among the predominately Nilo-Saharan-speaking groups found in Sudan, in addition to the Fur, Zaghawa and Nuba, among others.

Speakers of non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages predominate in West Africa, with the Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani and Wolof ethnic groups among the largest. There are also Chadic-speaking West Africans in northerly areas bordering the Sahara, most predominately the Hausa, and small numbers of Nilo-Saharan speaking Africans in Nigeria, Chad and the Central African Republic as well such as the Kanuri, Sao and others.

Speakers of Bantu languages (part of the Niger–Congo language family) are the majority in southern, central and east Africa proper, due to the Bantu expansion from West Africa. However, there are several Nilotic groups in East Africa, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan ('San' or 'Bushmen') and Pygmy peoples in southern and central Africa, respectively. Bantu-speaking Africans also predominate in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and are found in parts of southern Cameroon and southern Somalia.

In the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, the distinct people known as the Bushmen (also "San", closely related to, but distinct from "Hottentots") have long been present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans and are the pre-Bantu indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of central Africa.

In the Horn of Africa, most populations speak Afro-Asiatic languages. Certain Ethiopian and Eritrean groups (like the Amhara and Tigray-Tigrinya people, collectively known as "Habesha") speak Semitic languages. The Oromo, Afar, Beja and Somali peoples speak Cushitic languages, but some Somali clans claim Arab descent.

Colonisation

Arab

The Arabs arrived from Asia in the seventh century, introducing the Arabic language, and Islam to North Africa. Over several centuries, the majority of the indigenous African population of the region became Arabised by adopting the Arabic language, and developing a common identity with other peoples throughout the Arab World. Today, the majority of North Africans are Arabic-speaking, although the Berber language still predominates among Berber communities in certain areas. Sudan and Mauritania are divided between a mostly Arabized north and a Nilotic south. The Nubians have also been partly Arabised, although their original language is still in use.

In East Africa, some areas, particularly the island of Zanzibar and the Kenyan island of Lamu, received Arab Muslim and Southwest Asian settlers and merchants throughout the Middle Ages and even in antiquity. This gave birth to the Swahili culture.

European

Despite having presence in Africa since Greek and Roman times, it was not until the sixteenth century that Europeans such as the Portuguese and Dutch began to establish trading posts and forts along the coasts of western and southern Africa. Eventually, a large number of Dutch augmented by French Huguenots and Germans settled in what is today South Africa. Their descendants, the Afrikaners and the Coloureds, are the largest European-descended groups in Africa today. In the nineteenth century, a second phase of colonisation brought a large number of French and British settlers to Africa. The Portuguese settled mainly in Angola, but also in Mozambique. The Italians settled in Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The French settled in large numbers in Algeria where they became known collectively as ''pieds-noirs'', and on a smaller scale in other areas of North and West Africa as well as in Madagascar. The British settled chiefly in South Africa as well as the colony of Rhodesia, and in the highlands of what is now Kenya. Germans settled in what is now Tanzania and Namibia, and there is still a population of German-speaking white Namibians. Smaller numbers of European soldiers, businessmen, and officials also established themselves in administrative centers such as Nairobi and Dakar. Decolonisation during the 1960s often resulted in the mass emigration of European-descended settlers out of Africa — especially from Algeria, Angola, Kenya and Rhodesia. However, in South Africa and Namibia, the white minority remained politically dominant after independence from Europe, and a significant population of Europeans remained in these two countries even after democracy was finally instituted at the end of the Cold War. South Africa has also become the preferred destination of white Anglo-Zimbabweans, and of migrants from all over southern Africa.

Indian

European colonisation also brought sizable groups of Asians, particularly people from the Indian subcontinent, to British colonies. Large Indian communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and east African countries. The large Indian community in Uganda was expelled by the dictator Idi Amin in 1972, though many have since returned. The islands in the Indian Ocean are also populated primarily by people of South Asian origin, often mixed with Africans and Europeans.

The Malagasy of Madagascar are an Austronesian people, but those along the coast are generally mixed with Bantu, Arab, Indian and European populations. Malay and Indian ancestries are also important components in the group of people known in South Africa as Cape Coloureds (people with origins in two or more races and continents). In Mauritius, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean that is included in the African continent, Indian people form a majority.

Other

During the past century or so, small but economically important colonies of Lebanese and Chinese have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively.

Decolonisation

Decolonisation has left some nations in power and marginalized others.

Conflicts with ethnic aspects taking place in Africa since Decolonisation include

Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960)

Zanzibar Revolution (1964)

First and Second Chimurenga (1896–1897)(1966–1980)

Casamance Conflict (since 1990)

Conflict in the Niger Delta (since 1990)

Insurgency in Ogaden (since 1995)

Second Congo War (1998–2003)

War in Darfur (since 2003)

Kivu conflict (since 2004)

Civil war in Chad (since 2005)

Second Tuareg Rebellion (since 2007)

Contemporary demographics

Total population of Africa is estimated at 1 billion as of 2009.

See also

List of African ethnic groups

List of topics related to Black and African people

White Africans

African diaspora

Pan-Africanism

References

External links

People of Africa

Africa Interactive Map from the United States Army Africa

Category:African diaspora

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{{infobox writer | name	Martha Beck

Martha Nibley Beck (born November 29, 1962) is an American sociologist, therapist, life coach and best-selling author. Beck is the daughter of deceased LDS (Mormon) scholar and apologist, Hugh Nibley. She received national attention after publication in 2005 of her best-seller, ''Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith'' in which she accuses her father of sexual abuse.

Biography

Martha Nibley was born in Provo, Utah in 1962, one of eight children of Hugh Nibley and Phyllis Nibley, and raised LDS in a prominent Utah family. Her father was a professor at Brigham Young University. She received an BA degree in East Asian studies, along with an MA and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.

Beck met John Christen Beck, a fellow Mormon from Utah, during her undergraduate studies at Harvard. They married in the LDS Salt Lake Temple on June 21, 1983 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and eventually had three children together.

After the birth of their second child, Adam, who had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome prior to his birth, Beck returned with her husband and children to Utah, to be nearer to family and support. ''Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth and Everyday Magic'' is Beck's story about her decision to give birth to and raise Adam.

In 1990, soon after the birth of her third child, Beck joined the faculty of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, teaching a course on the Sociology of Gender in the Department of Social Science. During her tenure at BYU, five faculty members were excommunicated from the LDS Church as a consequence of public writings that were deemed critical of the church. a group known as the September Six. She and husband John Beck also made critical public statements about both the excommunications and other church and BYU matters, which led to first John, then Martha herself, leaving the LDS Church in 1993.

Beck later wrote a book detailing the catalyst for her resignation from the church, ''Leaving the Saints'', in which she alleges having been sexually abused as a child, and the Mormon community's subsequent reaction.

Her first book, coauthored with her husband, John Beck, ''Breaking the Cycle of Compulsive Behavior'' treated homosexuality as one of several "compulsive behaviors," like bulimia. However, both Martha Beck and her now ex-husband subsequently came out publicly as gay and have stated that they no longer consider homosexuality a form of compulsive behavior. In 2003, Beck separated from her husband, divorcing from him in 2004. She began living with her partner Karen Gerdes, a social worker and professor, during her marriage and has continued this relationship.

Today, Beck lives in Phoenix, Arizona and is a partner in NorthStar, Inc. a life coaching consulting and seminar company. Beck also writes a monthly column in ''O: The Oprah Magazine''. She has also written several self-help books, including ''Finding Your Own North Star'', a book aimed at providing guidance to finding a purpose in life, ''The Joy Diet: 10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life'', which offers insights into the importance of healthy and happy living habits to a fulfilling life, and ''Breaking Point: Why Women Fall Apart and How They Can Re-create Their Lives'', which analyzes stresses and challenges that modern women face and offers advice on coping with and overcoming these issues.

''Leaving the Saints''

In 2005, she received national attention for her bestselling book, ''Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith''. According to Sunstone magazine, the book may have originally been conceived as a novel, loosely based on her life (with a male main character), but was changed to recount her personal experiences, with the encouragement of her publishers. Ultimately released in March 2005, the book is a narrative in which Beck describes recovered memories of alleged sexual abuse by her father, prominent LDS academician Hugh Nibley; her experiences teaching at Brigham Young University; cultural dissonance and anomalies in Utah; her spiritual journey leaving the LDS Church. Prior to and after publication of the book, several national newspapers in the United States reported that Beck's memoir had quickly become controversial in Mormon circles.

Articles were published in response to the book, including a critical essay by the Mormon author, Boyd Jay Petersen. Petersen, who wrote a biography about Nibley and is his son-in-law, states in his conclusions, "Throughout this book, as with her other books, it is obvious that she distorts the record as much as or more than she reports it, jumps to conclusions more than provides evidence leading to conclusions, and blurs fact and fantasy. But to stick to the facts requires more than simply assuring readers that you do. You actually have to stick to them, something it seems Martha seldom does." Beck responded to some of these criticisms by stating that she began having memories of her traumatic events prior to the use of any therapy (including hypnosis), that her vagina had scarring that may have been the result of sexual abuse, and that her memories were vivid and intrusive. Nibley family members also pointed out the impossibility of activities such as Beck described being carried out in the tiny Nibley home, where there was little or no privacy and multiple children shared every bedroom. Some members of Nibley's surviving family also challenge Beck's allegations by pointing out inconsistencies in her descriptions of events to various media sources. Hugh Nibley's family, including Beck's siblings, have claimed the book's accusations against their father are false and have expressed "outrage" at the book and accusations.

Although most of the criticism centered around Beck's allegations of sexual abuse, a substantial portion of the book involves a discussion of the LDS Church and its policies. BYU professor Robert L. Millet criticized some of her portrayals as "nonsense", "ludicrous", or "paranoia", saying that she "seems to be a magnet for improbable happenings" and "equate[s] weird anomalies in Mormon culture with the norm." The book also claims that her father intentionally misinterpreted certain Egyptian hieroglyphics in order to support some of the writings of early church leaders, including Joseph Smith.

Books

References

External links

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:Former Latter Day Saints Category:Brigham Young University faculty Category:Mormonism-related controversies Category:Homosexuality and Mormonism Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Lesbian writers Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:American writers Category:American sociologists Category:American self-help writers Category:American columnists