Affiliation:
1. University of Khartoum
2. Sultan Qaboos University
Abstract
Among many groups of the Nuba Mountains, personal names denote birth order, i.e., whether a child is the first, second, third, etc., among their siblings. Tagoi, a Niger-Congo language spoken in the north-eastern Nuba Mountains, shows such a naming system. Tagoi children receive another name, used in official documents and associated with certain birth practices. Over time, these non-order-based names have been adapted to an Islamic/Arabic naming system based on days of the week. Birth-order names were retained for some time after Islamization and Arabicization, but factors including urbanization and education have led to the gradual loss of both types of names. This paper describes the Tagoi naming system in its sociohistorical context and considers these names from linguistic and anthropological perspectives.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
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