International Journal of English Literature and Culture

International Journal of English Literature and Culture

Vol. 9(6), pp. 166-170, November 2021

 ISSN: 2360-7831

https://doi.org/10.14662/ijelc2021270

 

Review

 

Personal names speak for themselves: exploration into anthroponymy among Fulah in Mali

 

1Minkailou, Mohamed and 2Cissé, Amadou

 

1Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako (Mali). Correspondingauthor’s E-mail: mohamedminkailou@yahoo.fr

2Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako (Mali). E-mail : cisseamadouditdadie@gmail.com

Accepted 14 November 2021

Abstract

 

The Fulah ethnic group of Mali, though strongly Islam-influenced still keeps some authentic personal names, tainted with the Fulah cultural history. This paper is interested in identifying the typologies of Fulah personal names and determining the socio-cultural circumstances surrounding their emergence. It makes use of Duranti’s (1997) theory of performance, indexicality and participation. The qualitative method was adopted for data collection and analysis. The findings reveal that Fulah personal names are the result of particular life events including, inter alia, the birth order in the family, the birth period, week days, gender, and survival desire.

 

Keywords: anthroponymy, Fulah, Fulfulde, onomastics, personal names.  


 

Cite This Article As: Minkailou, M., Cissé, A.(2021). Personal names speak for themselves: exploration into anthroponymy among Fulah in Mali. Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult. 9(6):166-170