The term “Ethiopia”

A map of north-eastern Africa in 1850 showing, from north to south along the Nile: Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia. And below the Nile, the Mountains of the Moons. From Cruchley’s 1850 map of the world, via Geographicus.

The term “Ethiopia” (since -850) has meant different things at different times. It comes from Latin, Aethiopia, which in turn comes from the Greek word, Αἰθιοπία, meaning the land of burnt faces – the land of Black people.

“Ethiopia” has had three main meanings:

1. Black Africa – the main meaning it had in Greek and Roman times and in English as late as the 1800s. What The Economist calls “sub-Saharan Africa”.
2. Nubia – the meaning in the Bible. Nubia was the country just south of Ancient Egypt in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan, the land of the cities of Meroe and Napata. Also known as Cush or the Kushite kingdom. The Nubians are still there, though outnumbered now by Arabs.
3. Abyssinia – the main meaning since the 1930s. It is a  country south-east of Nubia (see map), to the east of what is now Sudan. Its capital city is Addis Ababa and was once ruled by Haile Selassie. It calls itself Ethiopia, possibly as early as the 300s when it converted to Christianity. “Abyssinia” comes from its Arab name.

Ethiopia through the years, in Greek, Latin and English:

-850: Homer – the first to write down the term.

-450: Herodotus – mainly means Nubia. But he also talks about other Ethiopians: the long-lived Ethiopians and the cave-dwelling Ethiopians, both presumably in Africa, and the Asian Ethiopians, the dark-skinned people of India.

+20: Strabo: in his map of the world, Ethiopia is the whole southern part of Africa:

150: Ptolemy, in his book “Geography”, names the land south of Egypt “Ethiopia” along with the whole southern part of Africa. It includes Nubia – but also a town called Axum, the one that will give birth to Abyssinia. Here is a simplified version of Ptolemy’s map of Africa (click to enlarge):

633: Isidore of Seville writes “Etymologies”, which becomes a standard reference book of the West during the Middle Ages. In it he says that Ethiopia is pretty much all of Africa south of Egypt, as in Strabo’s map.

1300s: “Ethiop”, meaning a Black person, enters the English language from Latin. It is not “Ethiopian” till the 1550s.

1611: King James Bible: translates the Old Testament Hebrew word Cush as Ethiopia, which was the Greek New Testament name for the same country – Nubia.

1773: Phillis Wheatley calls herself an Ethiop. She was from Senegal. As late as the 1700s there were still maps showing Senegal as part of “Ethiopia”. But she was probably thinking more of the Greek and Roman use of the term.

1795: J.F. Blumenbach divides mankind into five races: Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, American, and Ethiopian.

1800s: “Ethiopian” is a fancy way of saying Black people. The “Ethiopian Serenaders”, for example, were a US blackface minstrel troupe.

1920: H.G. Wells, in his “Outline of History”, uses “Ethiopia” to mean Nubia. W.E.B. Du Bois uses it as a poetic term for Black Africa. What we call Ethiopia they both call Abyssinia.

1934: Du Bois now uses “Ethiopia” to mean “Abyssinia”. In English “Ethiopia” is now the more common term for the country, making its other meanings obsolete.

– Abagond, 2021.

See also:

• Black people according to Herodotus
• Nubia
• Kush
• Axum
• Ethiopia
• Ancient Egypt
• other odd geographical terms:
  • America
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • sub-Saharan Africa
  • Caucasian
  • Indian
• Words for Black Americans:
  • African American
  • Negro
  • coloured
  • the N-word
  • black
  • African

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