Upper Senegal and Niger, Vol. 2

the Arabic language; Yaqut tells us this, moreover. It likely did not belong to the Berber language either, or else it would have had another meaning in that language (1). There does exist in Soninke a word kana which is employed sometimes with the acceptance of "chief," but the title given to the kings in that language seems to have always been tounka or tonka, a word which was already employed in this sense in the time of the Soninke dynasty of Ghana, since it was transmitted to us by Bekri as the title preceding the name of the emperor of this dynasty who lived in his time: Tounka Ménin. In Mandingo, the corresponding title is mansa or massa. Finally, in many countries of the Sudan, people used and still use the words fari, farima, farhama, fama (Mande), faran (Songhay), fara (Hausa), far-ba (Wolof), which perhaps originate from the Semitic root far' "summit, peak, chief, prince," from which the title of the Pharaohs also derives. But nowhere do we find today a word resembling ghana employed as a title of sovereignty. Perhaps this word belonged to the language of the first founders of the empire of Ghana, that is to say to that language which no doubt originated from elements at once Aramaic, Egyptian, and Berber, which the Judeo-Syrians spoke upon their arrival in the Aoukar, and upon which we can only offer conjectures.

I will add that, according to Mohammed-Lahmed Yôra, a marabout of the Mauritanian tribe of the Oulad-Daïmân, the current name of the Tagant would be nothing other than the Berberized form of Ghana or Gana; "Tagant" would therefore signify in Berber "country of Ghana," but this word would have taken on, with time, a more restricted meaning and would no longer be applied except to the region that formed the western province of the empire of Ghana at the moment of its peak (2).

(1) Two Berber roots exist from which the word gana could, strictly speaking, be derived: one expresses the idea of elevation, the other the idea of darkness.
(2) This interpretation of the name of the Tagant was communicated to me by Commander Gaden; M. Houdas shares the opinion of Mohammed-Lahmed. I must add that, in several Berber dialects, there exists a word tagant having the meaning of "forest."