Area studies

摘要

With the second edition of African Place-names, Adrian Room provides a revised and expanded version of the work originally published in 1994. Room is a prolific scholar of toponymy, the etymological study of placenames, and he has published similar volumes about regions all around the world. He has also published a number of etymological studies of pseudonyms, word origins, foreign words, and other topics.rnThe volume has over 2,500 entries. They are arranged alphabetically and provided for villages, towns, cities, and countries, as well as lakes, rivers, mountains, deserts and other natural features. Each entry includes a parenthetical note to identify type of place and general location, along with information about the etymology of the name and, in many cases, some basic history about the place. For example, many of the entries include a note of when it was founded, discovered or settled and any previous or alternates names of the location. Room notes that all information about name changes was current as of the end of 2007.