Charles de Foucauld’s Dictionnaire abrégé touareg-français de noms propres “Abridged Tuareg–French dictionary of proper names” is not only a valuable gazetteer of the Tuareg-inhabited central Sahara, but also a historical source capturing a time when European understanding of Tuareg toponymy had not yet taken on a life of its own.

One example of this divergence between traditional usage of local native speakers, and European reception, is the name and possibly the extent and nature of the Ăhaggar.

The Ăhaggar, clearly and unanimously, is a mountain range or mountain massif. In the early 1900s, Ăhaggar is also attested as the name of a country containing the Ăhaggar mountains. To my knowledge, the usage continues today (in the sense of a land, perceived as culturally or socially distinct, though not politically independent).

In Europe, it’s also known by the name Hoggar, a form which came about through contact with Arabic. Besides, the central part of the mountain massif is often introduced to tourists as the Atakor, apparently also giving rise to the geologically defined area of the Atakor volcanic field. Some overlapping area is now also protected as the Ahaggar Cultural Park.

I’d like to first and mainly look at the historical explanations given in Foucauld’s Dictionnaire, which are interesting as approximations to the local usage prior to major European (or other foreign) influence. After that, I’ll also go over some representations of the Ăhaggar in online databases.

The historical usages

The mountains

According to a first entry in Foucauld’s gazetteer, the Ăhaggar is …

la région appelée proprement Ăhaggar est le massif montagneux central du pays des Kel-Ăhaggar, massif de forme ovale, […] qui est compris entre 23° et 23° 30′ lat. N. et 2° 50′ et 3° 40′ long. E.

… See full entry

I’ve mapped some intermittent waterways (i.e. oueds, wadis, dry rivers …) in the central Sahara (Ahaggar region, mainly) and left most intersections with highways untagged. In the larger part of these cases, this is intentional on my part – because I mostly can’t be more specific based on Bing imagery:

fords

Some intersections of intermittent waterways and highways have been tagged as fords (e.g. here). Some of these seem plausible to me, generally where the waterway may be classified as a stream and little water flow may be expected (e.g. here).

However, where the waterway is wider, in many cases I don’t think one can make a safe judgement from aerial imagery alone whether a given intersection will be fordable during wet season or not. Images of the dry rivers in their peak flooded state might be a start, but they seem rare in the Bing imagery.

From knowledge on the ground, I can’t recommend to assume by default that a waterway–highway intersection is a ford. People drown in places like that.

bridges

At many of these intersections, there is no particular built infrastructure. Many or most earth roads simply cross the dry river bed without change in surface or structure. After a rain and flooding, these crossings may be damaged and be repaired or perhaps even relocated.

On major highways, there may be built infrastructure. In the region I’m interested in, this is probably rather the exception than the rule. In a few places, there appear to be bridges which are discernible by their shadow in Bing imagery (e.g. here).

In other places, the road is built to be flood-resistant (e.g. on concrete foundations) – without necessarily being usable during flooding, I’d judge.

… See full entry