Re: Afrasian?

Nik Taylor wrote:
>Tim May wrote:
> > Let's not forget, also, that Europe is a lot smaller.  If we were only
> > now to name the continents for the first time, no-one would create
> > Asia and Europe.  You might give Europe a name, as a cultural
> > grouping
>
>Or as a geographical segment, similar to how India and neighbors are
>often referred to as a "subcontinent", that's how I tend to think of
>Europe, anyways, as a subcontinent of Asia on a part with the Indian
>subcontinent.
With the small difference that the Indian subcontinent has pretty
well-defined borders in the forms of high mountain ranges (the Himalaya, the
Afghan mountains etc), whereas Europe just generally peters out on the
Eurasian Steppe NE of the Caspian Sea. The Urals aren't much of a border
'gainst Siberia either.

>For that matter, Africa is arguably part of the continent, too, as,
>until the creation of the Suez Canal, there was no separation between
>the two, same with the Americas and the Panama Canal.
>
>I suppose that during the last Ice Age, one could've considered the
>world to have only 3 continent, Amero-Afro-Eurasia (or whatever you want
>to call it), Australia, and Antarctica.  :-)
Well, to pursue this line of thought, we'd need to better define what we
mean by continent. If we take the simplistic definition of "connected
landmass", then what you say is perfecly reasonable. If we take a more
tectonic view, North America simply isn't a piece of the Eurasian plate.
Neither, of course, is India.

>ObConlang: My conculture lives on another planet.  The landmass that
>they inhabit is a little over half the size of Australia, and I am thus
>uncertain as to whether to consider it a large island or a small
>continent.  Their planet's landmass is mostly concentrated in a single
>gigantic landmass with an area a bit more than half again all of Earth's
>land (the planet's diameter is about 10% greater than ours), and a few
>smaller landmasses scattered over the ocean
If this landmass occupies a plate of its own, or one shared by similar sized
landmasses, I'd probably consider it a contient. If the belongs to the same
plate as the supercontinent, or a significant piece thereof, I'd probably
consider it an island. If the planet in question doesn't have plate
tectonics, I'd probably better shut up.

                                              Andreas

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