Editing Khartoum (section)

==Etymology==
The origin of the word ''Khartoum'' is uncertain. 
Scholars posit that the name derives from the [[Dinka language|Dinka]] words {{lang|din|khar-tuom}} (Dinka-Bor dialect) or {{lang|din|khier-tuom}} (as is the pronunciation in various Dinka dialects), translating to "place where rivers meet". This is supported by historical accounts which place the [[Dinka people|Dinka]] homeland in central Sudan (around present-day Khartoum) as recently as the 13th-17th centuries A.D.<ref>{{cite book |last=Room |first=Adrian |date=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M1JIPAN-eJ4C |title=Placenames of the World |edition=2nd |publisher=McFarland |isbn=0-7864-2248-3 |page=194 |access-date=15 November 2015 |archive-date=19 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230219022556/https://books.google.com/books?id=M1JIPAN-eJ4C |url-status=live }}</ref>

One [[folk etymology]] is that it is derived from [[Arabic]] {{transliteration|ar|ALA|khurṭūm}} ({{lang|ar|خرطوم}} {{gloss|trunk}} or {{gloss|hose}}), probably referring to the narrow strip of land extending between the Blue and White Niles.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sudan's Blood Memory: The Legacy of War, Ethnicity, and Slavery in Early South Sudan |last=Beswick |first=Stephanie |page=39 |date=2013 |publisher=University Rochester Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r61i6BD0Vw0C&q=damadim+ancient+nubia&pg=PA39 |isbn=9781580461511 |access-date=14 November 2020 |archive-date=19 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419233116/https://books.google.com/books?id=r61i6BD0Vw0C&q=damadim+ancient+nubia&pg=PA39 |url-status=live }}</ref> 

Captain [[James Augustus Grant|J.A. Grant]], who reached Khartoum in 1863 with [[John Hanning Speke|Captain Speke]]'s expedition, thought the name was most probably from the Arabic {{transliteration|ar|ALA|qurtum}} ({{lang|ar|قرطم}} {{gloss|safflower}}, i.e., ''[[Carthamus tinctorius]]''), which was cultivated extensively in Egypt for its oil to be used as fuel.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Walkley |first1=C. E. J. |title=The Story of Khartoum |year=1935 |journal=Sudan Notes and Records |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=221–241 |publisher=University of Khartoum |jstor=41710712}}</ref> Some scholars speculate that the word derives from the [[Nubian language|Nubian]] word {{transliteration|nub|Agartum}}, meaning "the abode of [[Atum]]", Atum being the Nubian and Egyptian god of creation. Other [[Beja people|Beja]] scholars suggest ''Khartoum'' is derived from the [[Beja language|Beja]] word {{lang|bej-Latn|hartoom}}, "meeting".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0004.006/--beja-scholars-and-the-creativity-of-powerlessness?rgn=main;view=fulltext |publisher=University of Michigan Library |work=Passages |title=Beja scholars and the creativity of powerlessness |access-date=13 January 2016 |archive-date=16 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316081810/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0004.006/--beja-scholars-and-the-creativity-of-powerlessness?rgn=main;view=fulltext |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=Hasan |last=Shukri |title=Khartoum and Tuti 'Shreen Munz Qarnan |journal=Khartoum |volume=1 |number=11 |date=August 1966 |page=23}}</ref> Sociologist Vincent J. Donovan notes that in the [[Nilotic languages|Nilotic]] [[Maa languages|Maa]] language of the [[Maasai people]], {{lang|mas|khartoum}} means "we have acquired" and that the geographical location of Khartoum is where Maasai oral tradition claims that the ancestors of the Maasai first acquired [[cattle]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Donovan |first1=Vincent J. |title=Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai |publisher=Orbis Books |year=1978 |page=45}}</ref>