Biography B‑class

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There is a parallel article about her: Nzingha. Andres 00:16, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I requested a merger from the author of the Nzingha article, Pandora a few weeks ago but I have not had a response. I went ahead and merged the text with the article a few weeks ago. The problem with Nzinga is that she has so many different names and even more surnames, the most common spelling is Nzinga; but that is also a first name of many other people, sometimes her surname Mbande or royal title Ngola are included in her name.

When I created the article Ann Nzinga Mbande, I tried to be as specific in the title as possible to avoid confusion. I also created several redirects to various spellings. Unfortunately, I had never come across the spelling Nzingha, interestingly it is the second most common speling, before and did not discover the previous article. I would like to propose that Nzingha become a redirect page to Ann Nzinga Mbande, since the text there has already been merged and the title is more specific.

--JCarriker 05:48, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

If her name as the Queen was Nzinga, and the other names are necessary just to identify her, then perhaps the best title would be Nzinga of Ndongo, according the nomenclature guidelines of Wikipedia.

If you are sure all information in Nzingha has been merged, then just make it a redirect page, delete the merger note and notice that under Wikipedia:Duplicate articles.

==: I think "Nzinga" could be a disambiguation page (there are also different places called Nzinga, and Nzinga Hill, and probably some institutions are called after her). I think we need not mention people whose first name is Nzinga, but we probably should mention Daniel Ntoni-Nzinga, maybe Sekile Nzinga-Johnson. The name Nzinga also was given to a gorilla.

I found the following alternate names: Queen Nzinga, Nzinga I, Queen Nzinga Mdongo, Nzinga Mbandi, Jinga, Singa, Zhinga, Ana Nzinga, NZinga (?), Ngola Nzinga, Nzinga of Matamba (plus German Nzinga von Matamba), Nzinga Mbandi, Queen Nzingha of Ndongo, Ann Nzingha, Nxingha, Mbande Ana Nzingha, Ann Nzingha. Perhaps all of them should be redirects. I would also list them (or at least different spellings of Nzinga) in the article, as this is important information Andres 08:52, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The introduction of this article currently closes with the statemet: "Ngola was both a name and a title in Ndongo." Unfortunately, I know too little about this subject to edit an improvement to the following criticism myself: Since the term "Ngola" has not appeared in the article up to this point, in terms of style this statement lacks motivation. Moreover, considering the content of this statement one will wonder, whether this woman is called Ndongo--which the article does not. Tomeasy 08:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that Nzinga should become a disambiguation page, and that Nzingha become a redirect. I intially created redirect pages for Dona Ana de Souza, Singa, Jinga, Ginga, and Ngola Nzinga. Changing the article title to Nzinga of Ndongo would be alright with me but I do have two concerns; one that there was more than one Nzinga and to that she also ruled over Matamba. May I suggest the name, Ngola Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba. I will add the alternate spellings to the article after I finish posting, but I think we should wait until we have decided on a article name before we create any new redirect pages.

--JCarriker 10:36, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

Then I propose "Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba", since "Ngola" is not part of name. I think this would follow the nomenclature guidelines. Andres 19:56, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I would like to learn which territories Ndongo comprised? As I see, Matamba is different? And is it right to call her Queen of Angola? There are no articles about Ndongo and Matamba here. Andres 08:52, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, I will move the page. I will change Nzinga to a disambiguation page and adjust the existing reditrects first and create the new ones.

I would like to learn which territories Ndongo comprised?

I would too. I've been at it for years but I still have not been to come to a satifactory conclusion. I will tell you what I do know. The general area of both Ndongo, Mataba, and the Jaga were to the south and east of Bakongo. Bakongo was located in the area around what is now Kinshasa and Point Noire. Nzinga was a member of the Mbundu or Kimbundu ethno-linguistic group who today inhabit Northern Angola and portions of the DR Congo, therefore Ndongo was in Northern Angola.

OK, I see, thank you.

As I see, Matamba is different?

Yes it was, Nzinga conquered Matamba with the help of her allies and then used it in turn to reconquer Ndongo and then, I assume, ruled over them both, I assume, as seperate but unifed kingdoms, similar to Austria-Hungary or Poland-Lithuania.

Ok, thank you. While browsing the Web I somewhere saw a map with Matamba, but no Ndongo.

And is it right to call her Queen of Angola?

I don't beleive the article says she was, but no. She was not Queen of Angola because it did not exist and also she never dominated a majority of it's territory, so even saying what is now Angola would be misleading.

I saw such a formulation elsewhere.

There are no articles about Ndongo and Matamba here.

Unfortunately there aren't yet, but hopefully there will be eventually. They are on my to do list, but I have come across difficulties in defining what, where and when exactly they were. If you can understand German, perhaps you could find some additional sources and we could work togather to weed out false information.

--JCarriker 10:36, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps we could create at least stubs about Ndongo and Matamba. Yes, I understand German. I got interested in the topic and I will do some research. Andres 19:56, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

With the cross referencing of two languages and the knowledge we have of Nzinga we should be able to create more than stubs, possibly three or more good paragraphs. Please post on my talk page, since those pages do not yet exist.

JCarriker 02:48, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC) ( Talk)

-- I know that I am late to this, but my research (and that of at least one noted scholar of African and African-America history) shows that "Nzinga" is a title. In your article, you note that the leader we now call "Queen Nzinga" refused to allow her people to call her "Queen," preferring to be called "King" instead. Actually, the title that she insisted upon was "Nzinga." It is a title that had been used by the chiefs or rulers of her territory before her, including at least one brother. When she took her brother's place, she insisted on being called the title that had been reserved for the top leader, Nzinga. Other names that have been added usually denote people, territory, or adopted religion. For example, to improve relations with the Portugese, Queen Nzinga became a Christian and added the name "Ann."

As to Nzinga being a title, I have never heard of the name used in that manner. Only the title of Ngola, though I have realized that Nzinga is also part of her brother's title/name. Might I suggest that you look up that reference and then include it in the latter part of the article as Dr. So and So said this in so and so. This way you can add the information to the article with out changeing the accuracy or neutrality of the article, as a matter of fact adding it in that manner could only improve the article.

-JCarriker 02:34, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

This does not seem to be a useful template as it will immediately be abused. In addition, how does it apply to this article? I'm not up on this topic. What is racist about it? - Tεxτurε 22:22, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It seems to be pure unadulterated vandalism. I'm suppose to be on a wikiholiday, but as a major contributor to this article I have an intereset in any allegations that it is racist. Please keep me aprised of the situation Tεxτurε, especially what happens after the ban on Mäximus Rex expires.

-JCarriker 02:36, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

Other versions of her name include: Njinga Nbandi and Anna Nzinga

Dawn22 18:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Anna Nzinga, Queen." African Biography. 3 vols. U*X*L, 1999.

Dawn22 18:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wish to propose that the article be renamed spell the queen's name as Njinga, and preserve alternative spellings as alternates. My reason is that the spelling Njinga represents the correct spelling and pronounciation of the name in the modern orthography of Kimbundu. Njinga wrote about a dozen letters and in the signature line, she was quite consistent in spelling her name "Ginga". This spelling represented a Portuguese orthography (she wrote in Portuguese) that made the first sound a soft, Portuguese style "j" which is the equivalent of the French "j" or the sound made by "z" in the English word "azure". She did not put the nasal "n" in front of it because in normal spoken Kimbundu nasals are not pronounced unless they are preceded by a vowel which "hardens" them. Most modern orthographies of Kimbundu present nasals consistently in words whether they are pronounced or not. Antonio Gaeta da Napoli, an Italian priest who lived in her court, expained this nasal in any case in his book on her, published in Naples in 1669, and gave an exact account of its pronounciation. Since the 1890s when Heli Chatelain produced a modern orthography form Kimbundu, the "j" has been used consistently when soft "g" was used in previous orthographies (such as the catechism of 1661) and this has been widely accepted, for example in the small number of books and pamphlets, translations, and the like produced in Kimbundu since then. In 1980 the Instituto das Linguas in Luanda also created an official orthography of Kimbundu that uses the same rule. In Angola the queen is most often referred to as "Jinga". The street honoring her in Luanda is Rua Rainha Jinga. However, even there the modern orthography has won out, for the recently installed statue to the queen in the square at Kinixixi spells her name "Mwene Njinga Mbande". I hope that this modification will make sense and that Wikipedia will adopt what is becoming a convention among modern scholars of Njinga such as John Thornton, Beatrix Heintze, Linda Heywood, and Rosa Cruz e Silva.Beepsie 15:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)beepsieBeepsie 15:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph under Final Years seems to be incomplete. Dawn22 08:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]