Guinea (region)

Guinea is a traditional name for the region of the West coast of Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It is a naturally moist tropical forest or savanna that stretches along the coast and borders the Sahel belt in the north.

The etymology of "Guinea" is uncertain. The English term Guinea comes directly from the Portuguese word Guiné, which emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the Guineus, a generic term for the black African peoples south of the Senegal River (as opposed to the 'tawny' Zenaga Berbers, north of it, whom they called Azenegues or Moors). The term "Guinea" is extensively used in the 1453 chronicle of Gomes Eanes de Zurara.

King John II of Portugal took up the title of Senhor da Guiné (Lord of Guinea) from 1483. It is believed the Portuguese borrowed Guineus from the Berber term Ghinawen (sometimes Arabized as Guinauha or Genewah) meaning "the burnt people" (analogous to the Classical Greek Aithiops, "of the burned face"). The Berber terms "aginaw" and "Akal n-Iguinawen" mean "black" and "land of the blacks", respectively.

A competing theory, first forwarded by Leo Africanus in 1526, claims that 'Guinea' is derived from Djenné, the great interior commercial city on the Upper Niger River. Djenné dominated the gold and salt trade across West Africa, from the 11th century (fall of Ghana) until the 13th century (when the Mali invasion disrupted its routes and redirected trade to Timbuktu, hitherto just a small Djenné outpost). It is during the period of Djenné dominance that the term Genewah really comes forward into usage in Arab sources (al-Sudan - Arabic for "blacks" - is used more commonly before).

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