Re: OT: Renaming the continents

Padraic Brown writes:

 > About now, it might be nice to hear what _you_
 > would call them. You don't seem to like any of
 > the proposed names or systems (many of which have
 > met your neutrality condition and your new
 > natural sounding condition); and you don't like
 > the "real" names and how they came to be. So,
 > what are _your_ solutions!

Heh.  Unfortunately, I'm a slow thinker at this kind of thing.  If
that weren't so, I'd have a working conlang to show you by now.  But of
what I've seen here, I quite like Nik Taylor's set (with certain
reservations, which I've noted elsewhere).

 >
 > The ranking is based on the timescale of when
 > humans got to which continent - it too is totally
 > divorced from politics and the sticky situation
 > of "discovery".
 >
Not unreasonable.  Really, the idea of a numeric system appeals to me
in many ways, but then you have to ask yourself - why stop there?
Such a system can be applied to many areas.  Biological taxonomy, for
one.  And there would be certain advantages.  But humans seem to like
names.  We don't dispense with names for settelements and regions just
because we have postal codes.

And anyway, I'm doing this for my own amusement.  I have to define the
problem in such a way as to make the process of solution interesting.
Numbering the continents is analogous to a trivial solution to an
equation.

 > > I'd say that the basic definition of
 > > "continent" in contemporary
 > > English, is "A landmass which is big enough*
 > > and is completely
 > > surrounded by water or is joined to another
 > > continent by a narrow
 > > enough* isthmus (unless it's Europe or Asia)."
 >
 > How convenient for your pet peeve! How about we
 > try "One of the principal landmasses of the
 > Earth". Geology might add to that "...resting
 > upon one of the principal techtonic plates".
 > That's a little less antieuropean and displays a
 > little less "personal taste".
 >
There's nothing "antieuropean" about it.  And that's how I understand
the term "continent" in English, and according to Andreas it's the
meaning of _kontinenter_ in Swedish*.  In any case, it's a less
arbitrary set than the existing one.  If you were to to come across an
Earthlike planet (without any existing population with their own names
for things, what criterion would you use to decide which landmasses
should be considered continents?

* Or at any rate something sufficiently similar to define the same set.

 > > * How big a landmass has to be to qualify, and how narrow an
 > > isthmus must be for the land at either end to be considered
 > > seperate continents, is not a question which can be precisely
 > > answered.
 >
 > Agreed. Then the definition will most likely
 > fail.
 >
I don't know what you mean by "fail".  It's to a certain degree
arbitrary, but so is "planet".  It doesn't mean we don't find it
useful to be able to say that our solar system has 9 planets, even
though Pluto must be included or excluded by fiat.

 >
 > You seem to want a Native name for "continent";
 > or else a Native name for any particular
 > continent - I'm not sure. Either way, I don't
 > think you're going to find one. That's why I
 > asked what I asked.
 >
 > Are you looking for a Native name that equals
 > "North America"; or are you looking for a Native
 > word that directly translates "continent"?
 >
The former.  Perhaps I should have emphasized "their" in my answer.
The idea of "continent" applies equally to all of them - what
advantage could there be to taking it from any particular area?  If
I'm speaking English, I'll use "continent".

And I agree that it's likely to be difficult to find such a term, but
that doesn't prevent me from asking.  If they do exist, it would be
unfortunate to ignore them simply through a failure to look.  As it
happens, the Iroquois term "Turtle Island" has been suggested,
although I'd want to find out more

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