The speakers refer to themselves and are known as Madi. In standard orthography, this is Ma'di; the aprostrophe indicates that d is implosive. The speakers refer to their language as madi ti , literally meaning Ma'di mouth. Among themselves, Ma'di refer to each other as belonging to a suru "clan" or "tribe" , which may further be broken down to pa , "the descendants of," which in some cases overlap with suru.
While a Madi can only marry someone from outside their clan, they must normally marry within the group that shares the Madi language. Many neighboring speakers of MoruβMadi languages go by the name of Madi. According to one popular folk tale, the name Madi came as an answer to a question by a white man to a Madi man. When the first white person in the area asked the question 'who are you?
This was taken to be the name of the people, which came to be corrupted to the present. Another Ma'di narrative tries to account for the names of some of the MoruβMa'di group members. When the progenitors of the Ma'di were pushed southwards, on reaching a strategic location they declared, Muro-Amadri, i.
And so they formed a cluster to defend themselves. This group came to be known as the Moru. A group broke off in search of greener pastures in a more or less famished state, until they found an edible tree called lugba 'desert dates' - ximenia aegyptiaca. After they ate some of the fruits, they took some with them. When the time came to refill their stomachs again, a woman who lost her harvest was heard enquiring about the lugba ri 'the desert dates'.
This group came to be known as logbara but the Ma'di still call them lugban. The final group on reaching fertile grounds resolved and declared ma di 'here I am finally '.
