Re: OT: Renaming the continents

Quoting Tim May <butsuri@...>:

> Thomas R. Wier writes:
>  > 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.
>  >
> In what sense was Europe used previously to this?
It was an extremely learned and never very well-defined name for
vaguely western lands.  The name likely derives from the Semitic
_ereb_ "land of the setting sun".

>  > 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.
>
> I know.  I didn't say he named them after himself - I said he didn't
> do anything to justify naming them after him.
Ah -- sorry.  I misinterpreted that as a typo.  Anyways, he didn't
name the entire Western Hemisphere after Amerigo Vespucci, but rather
only after what we now call South America, which Vespucci did in fact
discover;  at that time, North America was still called the "Indies".
It was only decades after both Waldseemüller and Vespucci were dead
that North America was called by that name as well.

 =========================================================================
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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