Re: OT: Renaming the continents

Quoting Tim May <butsuri@...>:

> All the continents seem to have essentially
> been named by Europeans, which in itself seems rather unfair.  Europe
> clearly doesn't deserve the same status as the other continents on any
> geographical ground.
You're forgetting that for centuries, even well after the discovery
of the Americas, Europeans did not refer to "Europe" as a
geographical or geopolitical entity at all.  They referred
to "Christendom", which was, until just before the discovery
of the Americas, essentially coextensive with what we now call
"Europe".  "Europe" only came to be used in its current sense
after the humanism of the late Renaissance and the extension
of the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire deep into the Balkans.

Besides, I don't see why geography should be the only salient
determiner of placenames.

> Returning to the new world, Vespucci doesn't seem to have done
> anything to justify naming most of the Western Hemisphere after
> him.
Actually, Amerigo Vespucci didn't name them after himself.
The German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller, who produced
the first map of the world that incorporated the two
continents, named them after him.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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