and where was he born?

John D. Rateliff, an excellent scholar who doesn't usually trip up like this, has again trotted out his favorite bugaboo: objecting to statements in books about Tolkien that say his birth in 1892 was in South Africa. What he was born in, John explains, was Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State, one of the Boer Republics.

This last sentence is true, but the argument is likely to confuse the casual reader. What Tolkien wasn't born in was the Republic of South Africa, which (as the Union of South Africa) wasn't established as a governmental entity until 1910. Before 1900-02, when it was captured by the British, the Orange Free State was indeed an independent republic. After 1910, Bloemfontein was in both the country of South Africa and the Orange Free State, now a province thereof, until the latter was dissolved in 1994.

Saying that Tolkien wasn't born in the Republic of South Africa is like saying that George Washington wasn't born in the United States: both true and misleading, but more misleading than true.

Emphasizing Tolkien's birth as being in a Boer Republic is even more misleading, because Tolkien wasn't a Boer, nor even of long-resident British stock. His parents were both very recent immigrants from Birmingham in central England, and they'd moved to Bloemfontein in pursuance of his father's banking career.

But regardless of whether it is useful to deny that Tolkien was born in the Republic of South Africa, it is not true to deny that Tolkien was born in South Africa. "South Africa," as a geographical expression with a capital S, was in common use long before Tolkien was born. (Example: Compendium of the History and Geography of South Africa (spelled that way in the text) by George McCall Theal, 3rd ed., 1878.)

What anybody hardly ever writes is "south Africa" with a small s, which is John's suggestion. Somewhat more common today is "southern Africa," which more neatly distinguishes the geographic region from the nation, but even that is more often seen with a capital S. People write "West Africa," with a capital W, all the time, even though there's never been a country by that name (unless you count the colonial federations of French West Africa and British West Africa). Hardly anyone writes "west Africa" with a small w.

All this can easily be verified by the Google Ngram Viewer, which is case-sensitive unless you turn that function off.

Tolkien was born in South Africa. It is legitimate and accurate to say that.

This has been another lesson in, Don't correct people if you're not correct yourself.