[Ads-l] "Afric" -- not in poetry, 1778 (and probably 1744)

[Martin, Katherine]

Thank you for this. The OED doesn’t typically cover place names, but Afric is mentioned at the etymology for African:

The name Africa is attested in English from the Old English period onwards (also in Old English, Middle English, and early modern English as Affrica), originally as a borrowing from classical Latin, subsequently (in the now obsolete forms ending either in a consonant or final -e, e.g. Afric, Afrike, etc.) reinforced by Anglo-Norman Afrike, Aufrique, Anglo-Norman and Middle French Affrique, Middle French Affricque, Middle French, French Afrique (attested from c1100).

The current entry for Afric is confusing on this count, and could be made clearer.

The Phillis Wheatley interdating for the ‘person’ sense and the interdating of the adjective would make very good additions to the entry; I’ve added them to the file.

Best wishes,
Katherine

From: Joel Berson [mailto:berson at att.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2016 3:34 PM
To: American Dialect Society
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Afric" -- not in poetry, 1778 (and probably 1744)

Poetic use hadn't occurred to me.  I wonder whether "Afric" will be found in prose ...


“... and to give up all their claim to the islands between Italy and Afric ...”.

M. T. Cicero’s Cato Major, or Discourse on Old Age. ... With Explanatory Notes. By Benjamin Franklin, LL. D.  London: Printed for Fielding and Walker, Pater-Noster Row.  1778.  Page 39; and on five other pages.  [Harvard’s Hollis says of this “Translated and annotated by James Logan. The prefatory notice by Benjamin Franklin has been so altered from the 1744 original (printed by "Honest Ben" Franklin) as to make him appear to be the translator.”]

Google Books shows other prose uses as a place-name between 1700 and 1799.  And a few (plus some poetry) in the late 17th century.


Joel

________________________________
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU<mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, April 7, 2016 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Afric" -- Gaps in OED3

Note that in each of the examples here the bisyllabic (and trochaic) rendering of "Afric" as against the standardly trisyllabic (dactylic) version in "Africa" is metrically motivated.

LH

> On Apr 7, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net<mailto:berson at att.net>> wrote:
>
> For "Afric", noun, OED3, updated Sept. 2012, has only the definition as a person.  The quotations have the customary lack of 18th-century examples, with a long gap from 1606 to 1821.  There is no definition for "Afric" as a place.
>
> For "Afric", adj., OED3 has a gap between 1733 and 1834.
>
>
> The following all arose from Manisha Sinha, The Slave's Cause, A History of Abolition (Yale University Press, 2016).  I have not traced sources, so I have few primary source titles or page numbers.
>
>
> I.  Noun.
>
> A.  Person: Mind the gap.
>
>
> 1773.  "MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine, / Your vent’rous Afric in her great design."  Phillis Wheatley, "On Recollection".  Sinha, page 30, par. 1.
>
> B.  Place: No quotations.
>
>
> (1)  1773.  "I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate / Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat".  Phillis Whealey.  [Poem title not known to me.]  Sinha, page 31, last par.  In Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects.
>
>
> (2)  [Circa 1775.]  "But how, presumptuous shall we hope to find / Divine acceptance with th' Almighty mind -- / While yet (O deed ungenerous!) they disgrace / And hold in bondage Afric's blameless race?"  Phillis Wheatley.  Unpublished.  Sinha, page 32, par. 3.  Probably in Phillis Wheatley, The Collected Works of PhillisWheatley, ed. John C. Shields (OxfordUniv. Press, 1988), page 149.
>
>
> C.  Adjective: Gap.
>
>
> 1771.  "Shall [Whitefield’s] due praises be so loudlysung / By a young Afric damsels virgin tongue? / And I be silent!l".  Jane Dunlap.  [Untitled.]  Sinha, page 30, par. 3.  Probably in Dunlap, Poems Upon Several Sermons, page 17.
> -----
> Other examples from the 18th century should be locatable in the usual suspects -- er, databases (including EAI), and perhaps earlier uses of "Afric" as a place name can also be found.
>
>
> Joel
>
>
>
>
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