Black Africa
1
3.9
- noun
- Archaic
:
África Negra
- Recent work on the connotations of black has served to give a more nuanced picture of the values attributed to blackness and whiteness, light and dark, not least in Black Africa itself, as well as in the United States.
Examples
-
Tourism is flourishing in many countries in black Africa, attracting visitors from around the globe.
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Thus, the roots of Western civilization lie not in Greece and Rome, but in Egypt and, ultimately, in black Africa.
Academic text (1990) -
You're talking too much about black Africa, Henry.
Fiction book (1995) -
Zambia was feted as a role model for other African countries to follow and was projected around the world as a bellwether, generating optimism for much of the rest of black Africa.
Academic text (1994) -
The painting's "rhetoric" owes much to those anticolonial satires on black Africa that are central to Jarry's oeuvre.
Academic text (1990) -
Ironically, these two monsters, which since antiquity have symbolized for Europeans the bestial nature of some inhabitants of black Africa, were carved by Sierra Leonean artists who were totally unaware of their meaning.
Academic text (1994) -
Zambia is often regarded as a shining example of progress in black Africa.
-
The cultural diversity found in black Africa is reflected in its vibrant music and art scene.
Synonyms
3
2.5
The part of Africa that is south of the Sahara Desert
Surface Forms
Morphology
A learner who knows 'black' and 'Africa' can reasonably infer this refers to parts of Africa associated with Black people, so the basic sense is partly predictable from the constituents. However, the specific conventional geographic demarcation ('south of the Sahara') and the term's historical/political nuances are not fully derivable from the words alone, so it is only partially transparent despite cross‑linguistic equivalents.
Etymology
The name Black Africa may come from old European map-makers who divided the continent at the Sahara. They used Black to mean the people living 'south of the Sahara', so Black Africa came to mean the parts of Africa below the desert.