Abyssinia vs. Ethiopia: What's the difference?

[SouthernKing]

What's the difference between the two names? This is something I've never been able to figure out the answer to and just came back to my mind today, and I thought somebody here would know.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Abyssinia comes from the Arabic name for the Habesha people, who are one of the major ethnic groups in Ethiopia.

The ruling Solomonid dynasty of Ethiopia (Ethiopian Empire) were of the Habesha people IIRC, thus it was common to refer to the country as Abyssinia.

That's how I understand it anyway.

 

[History_Buff]

I've always seen them as pretty interchangable. Usually Abyssinia in old-timey works, Ethiopia in modern (say, post WWII).

 

[Plotinus]

Also, "Ethiopia" in antiquity generally meant what we would call southern Egypt and Sudan, which is why the Ethiopian in Acts isn't really an Ethiopian at all.

Then there's Axum, just to add to the confusion.

 

[Agent327]

I think ancient Egyptians were pretty much aware of the difference between Nubia (approx. present day Sudan) and the peoples beyond, due to their trade contacts. As with the somewhat vague term "Abyssinian", to ancient Egyptians "Ethiopian" meant probably nothing more than a black person (which they knew were living to the south of Egypt proper).

Historically both terms have eventually become associated with present day Ethiopia rather than with a specific people (and Ethiopia itself is comprised of several different people, who are only considered Ethiopians, because they live in the country known as Ethiopia).

Compare the term America, which can either mean the continent or the US, depending on usage, such as Americans can mean either people living in the Americas or US citizens. (The comparison ends there, as the very term America was ofcourse completely unknown prior to the 1500s - unlike Ethiopia/Abyssinia.)

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Ah, beautiful flashbacks to The Desert and the Mountain, and those dreadful Beta Israel games...

 

[Flying Pig]

In older English texts, an 'ethiop' is any dark-skinned African; 'Aetheopia' was the Roman name for most of what we would call Africa, which to them meant Tunisia.

 

[bombshoo]

Ah, beautiful flashbacks to The Desert and the Mountain, and those dreadful Beta Israel games...

It's still my favorite Civilization III scenario.

 

[innonimatu]

The the region of the country that is now Ethiopia was known in the Mediterranean during antiquity by a name coming from a greek tradition, aethiops, apparently meaning the country of the blackened faces, which applied originally to the kingdom of Kush. The arab tradition called the region (or rather, its inhabitants) ahäbish, which had been presumed to have originated during the time of the early incense trade.
In medieval Europe the term ethiopian could mean an east african, arab or even indian, according to the european medieval division of the world in three parts. Marco Polo, for example, wrote that "Abassia, to which we call Ethiopia" was a land in the "Middle or Second India".
In the 15th century some maps used the name Ethiopia for the whole of Africa west of the Nile and south of the Senegal rivers, and Abissinia for the african lands east of the Nile and by the Red Sea: the concept of the Nile as a continental divide had not yet faded.

The ancient ethiopians themselves if they called something to their land might have call it "land of free men" bëherä 'äg'azi. Those in Ethiopia who still followed a greek tradition imported from the north also used the term Ityopya. If we are to believe the european missionaries who went there by the 16th century the nobility called themselves "amharas", but there was no common name in use for the whole population of the ethiopian kingdom except for the arab name of "Habex" or "Abassia" which became (how?) the modern "Abissinia". Already in the early 17th century (Pedro Paez, Historia de Ethiopia) missionaries were blaming each other for corrupting the local name of the land from Habex / Habesh to Abissinia.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Well there was no "United Ethiopia". There was the main Solomonid Habesha kingdom that dominated nearby areas and constantly contested power with Muslim states in the region, as well as many petty kingdoms to the south and west of the Solomonid Empire. Even the main Solomonid Kingdom was a mish-mash of many ethnic groups.

The concept of a unified "Ethiopian" state was likely alien to the various ethnic groups and petty kingdoms in the area. I'd be surprised if they did have a word for one.

 

[Agent327]

The the region of the country that is now Ethiopia was known in the Mediterranean during antiquity by a name coming from a greek tradition, aethiops, apparently meaning the country of the blackened faces, which applied originally to the kingdom of Kush. The arab tradition called the region (or rather, its inhabitants) ahäbish, which had been presumed to have originated during the time of the early incense trade.
In medieval Europe the term ethiopian could mean an east african, arab or even indian, according to the european medieval division of the world in three parts. Marco Polo, for example, wrote that "Abassia, to which we call Ethiopia" was a land in the "Middle or Second India".
In the 15th century some maps used the name Ethiopia for the whole of Africa west of the Nile and south of the Senegal rivers, and Abissinia for the african lands east of the Nile and by the Red Sea: the concept of the Nile as a continental divide had not yet faded.

The ancient ethiopians themselves if they called something to their land might have call it "land of free men" bëherä 'äg'azi. Those in Ethiopia who still followed a greek tradition imported from the north also used the term Ityopya. If we are to believe the european missionaries who went there by the 16th century the nobility called themselves "amharas", but there was no common name in use for the whole population of the ethiopian kingdom except for the arab name of "Habex" or "Abassia" which became (how?) the modern "Abissinia". Already in the early 17th century (Pedro Paez, Historia de Ethiopia) missionaries were blaming each other for corrupting the local name of the land from Habex / Habesh to Abissinia.

That's essentially correct, except that the region we now call Ethiopia wasn't really well known in antiquity. (As is clear from what follows after your first sentence; "Ethiopian" was a term describing a person's skin color.)

 

[Antilogic]

In older English texts, an 'ethiop' is any dark-skinned African; 'Aetheopia' was the Roman name for most of what we would call Africa, which to them meant Tunisia.

I thought the Romans used the term Africa to refer to the northern coast of the said continent (mostly Tunisia, and adjacent parts of Algeria and Libya). This wiki page seems to imply the term Aethiopia/Aetheopia applied to sub-Saharan Africa at minimum, if not a region corresponding more or less to modern Sudan and Ethiopia.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Africa was certainly the area around Carthage/Numidia.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

That's essentially correct, except that the region we now call Ethiopia wasn't really well known in antiquity. (As is clear from what follows after your first sentence; "Ethiopian" was a term describing a person's skin color.)

Sure it was. They called parts of it Nubia and Sheba. They appear in both the Bible and the Tanakh, and documented histories. The Near East traded extensively along the Red Sea and Nile.

 

[History_Buff]

Well they knew of it, and were fairly familiar with the coastal sections, but I've never seen any half-way correct representation of present-day Ethiopia on an ancient map.