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Good Hope Cape Agulhas
Mauritius Island (not shown) located about 500 miles east of Madagascar.
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Reunion Island (not shown) located about 450 miles east of Madagascar.
© 2006 Enc yo l oposd i a Br i tann i oa, I no.
© 2002 Encyclopaedia Britannic.
26 I Afro-Asiatic languages ► Agassiz
kaans speakers, regardless of ethnicity. The Afrikaners were originally called Boers (“farmers”), since many Dutch and Huguenot settlers of the old Cape Colony (founded 1652) became frontier farmers in the Trans¬ vaal and the Orange Free State. They established self-sufficient patriarchal communities, developed their own language and subculture, and were committed to a policy of racial segregation, later referred to as apartheid. They fought a bitter war with the British (the South African War, 1899— 1902) over the right to govern the frontier territories. Though defeated, they retained their old language and culture and eventually attained politi¬ cally the power they had failed to win militarily. They dominated South African politics for most of the 20th century but were obliged to give up national power after the first elections based on universal suffrage in 1994. See also Cape Town; Great Trek; National Party.
Afro-Asiatic languages formerly Hamito-Semitic languages
Family of about 250 languages spoken in North Africa, parts of sub- Saharan African, and the Middle East. It includes such languages as Ara¬ bic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Hausa. The total number of speakers is estimated to be more than 250 million. The major branches of Afro-Asiatic are Semitic, Berber, Egyptian, Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic. Berber languages are spoken by perhaps 15 million people in enclaves scattered across North Africa from Morocco to northwestern Egypt and in parts of the western Sahara. Cushitic consists of some 30 languages spoken by more than 30 million people in northeastern Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and a few areas of northeastern Tanzania. Omotic, for¬ merly classified as part of Cushitic, is a cluster of perhaps more than 30 languages spoken by 2-3 million people, most of whom live near the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia. Chadic comprises about 140 languages, spoken in northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, and northern Cameroon; except for Hausa, it is likely that no individual Chadic lan¬ guage has more than half a million speakers.
Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Brazilian, and Afro-American reli¬ gions Religions among persons of African ancestry in the Caribbean, Brazil, and U.S. These include Haitian vodun, the Jamaican Rastafarian movement, Santeria, and Candomble and other Macumba sects in Brazil. Similarly syncretistic religions appeared in the U.S. during the era of sla¬ very. The Nation of Islam combines black nationalism with an unortho¬ dox version of Islam. Black Protestant churches (especially Baptist and Pentecostal) have imported some forms of lively worship from Africa.
Afrocentrism Cultural, political, and ideological movement. Most Afrocentrists are African Americans who regard all blacks as syncretic Africans and who believe that their worldview should positively reflect traditional African values. Afrocentrists argue that for centuries blacks and other nonwhites have been dominated, through slavery and colonization, by Europeans and that European culture is either irrelevant or hostile to efforts by non-Europeans to achieve self-determination. Rooted in his¬ torical black nationalist movements such as Ethiopianism, Pan-Africanism, and Negritude, Afrocentrism asserts the cultural primacy of ancient Egypt and is seen as a spur to political activism. In addition to emphasizing cooperation and spirituality, it champions contemporary African Ameri¬ can expressive culture (language, cuisine, music, dance, and clothing). Coined by Molefi Asante in the 1980s, the term Afrocentrism was popu¬ larized by such books as Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classi¬ cal Civilization, 2 vol. (1987-91), by Martin Bernal. The book remains controversial among mainstream scholars who charge it with historical inaccuracy, scholarly ineptitude, and racism—prompting countercharges of racism from some of its defenders.
afterburner Second combustion chamber in a turbojet or turbofan engine, immediately in front of the engine’s exhaust nozzle. The injec¬ tion and combustion of extra fuel in this chamber provide additional thrust for takeoff or supersonic flight; in most cases, the afterburner can nearly double the thrust of a turbojet engine. The jet nozzle must be larger when using the afterburner, so an automatic, adjustable nozzle is an essential component of the afterburner system. Because the afterburner sharply increases fuel consumption and is generally less effective at subsonic speeds, its use is usually restricted to supersonic military aircraft.
afterpiece Supplementary entertainment offered after a full-length play in 18th-century England. A short comedy, farce, or pantomime was pre¬ sented to lighten the five-act Neoclassical tragedy that was commonly performed. A reduced admission price for latecomers, usually after the third act, enabled less-sophisticated playgoers and working people to see the end of the drama and the one-act afterpiece.
aftosa See foot-and-mouth disease
Aga Khan \,a-g3-'kan\ Persian Agha Khan or Aqa Khan Title of the imams of the Nizarl Isma'ilT sect of ShTite Islam. The title was first granted in 1818 to Hasan 'All Shah (1800-81) by the shah of Iran. As Aga Khan I, he later revolted against Iran (1838) and, defeated, fled to India. His eldest son, 'All Shah (d. 1885), was briefly Aga Khan II. 'All Shah’s son Sultan Sir Mohammed Shah (1877-1957) became Aga Khan III. He acquired a leading position among India’s Muslims, served as president of the All-India Muslim League, and played an important part in the Round Table conferences on Indian constitutional reform (1930-32); in 1937 he was appointed president of the League of Nations. He chose as his successor his grandson Karim al-Husayn Shah (b. 1937), who, as Aga Khan IV, became a strong leader; he founded the Aga Khan Foundation, an international philanthropic organization, and other agencies offering educational and other services.
Agadir \,a-ga-'dir\ Seaport city (pop., 1994: 155,240), southwestern Morocco on the Atlantic coast. It was occupied in the 16th century by the Portuguese but later became an independent Moroccan port. After the 1911 Moroccan Crisis, it was occupied by French troops in 1913. Mod¬ ern growth began with the port’s construction in 1914 and the develop¬ ment of the fishing industry. In 1960 the city was virtually destroyed by a pair of earthquakes, a tidal wave, and a fire; a new city centre was rebuilt south of its original location. It is also a marketplace for the surrounding agricultural area.
Agamemnon N.a-gs-'mem-.nanX In Greek legend, the son of Atreus, brother of Menelaus, and king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek forces that attacked Troy. By his wife, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon had a son, Orestes, and three daughters. When Paris carried off Menelaus’s wife, Helen, Agamemnon called on the Greeks to unite in a war of revenge against the Trojans. Artemis sent a calm or contrary winds to prevent the Greek fleet from sailing, and Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphige- neia to appease the goddess. After the Trojan War he returned home, where he was killed by his wife and her lover, Aegisthus. His murder was avenged by Orestes. These events formed the basis of Aeschylus' great dramatic trilogy the Oresteia.
Agana See Hagatna
agape \a-'ga-pa\ In the New Testament, the fatherly love of God for humans and their reciprocal love for God. The term extends to the love of one’s fellow humans. The Church Fathers used the Greek term to des¬ ignate both a rite using bread and wine and a meal of fellowship that included the poor. The historical relationship between this meal, the Lord’s Supper, and the Eucharist, the meal of fellowship and the sacra¬ ment, is uncertain.