Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.15938

c10.15938

ZANZIBAR, n.p. This name was originally general, and applied widely to the East African coast, at least south of the River Jubb, and as far as the Arab traffic extended. But it was also specifically applied to the island on which the Sultan of Zanzibar now lives (and to which we now generally restrict the name); and this was the case at least since the 15th century, as we see from the *Roteiro*. The Pers. *Zangī-bār*, ‘Region of the Blacks,’ was known to the ancients in the form *Zingis* (Ptolemy, i. 17, 9; iv. 7, 11) and *Zingium*. The Arab softening of the *g* made the name into *Zanjibār*, and this the Portuguese made into *Zanzibar*.