Re: OT: Renaming the continents

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim May" <butsuri@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 8:18 PM
Subject: Re: Renaming the continents


> Tristan writes:
>  > Tim May wrote:
>  >
>  > >It seems to me that Vespucci was a fairly minor figure, and if you're
>  > >going to name the continent after a European explorer at all, it
>  > >should have been Columbus.  (And it probably would have been, if he
>  > >hadn't insisted it was Asia.)
>  > >
>  > Didn't Columbus die believing he'd made it to Asia?* With that in mind,
>  > I don't think you can say that Columbus made the European discovery of
>  > America (and not just because it wasn't America at that stage :) ).
>  >
> Well, that is a point of view, I suppose.  Vespucci may, in fact, have
> been the first person to realize that it was a new continent.  But I'd
> still say Columbus discovered it - he was the one who sailed out
> there, found land at a certain distance, and sailed back, even if he
> was labouring under a misapprehension.
It comes down to your definition of discovery.  Mine would require the
following:

1) You must actually see/experience/find the new thing.
2) You must realize that it is something new and different.

This would mean that of all the people that went to the Americas, the
Vikings are most likely the first discoverers.  If the "natives"* walked
across a land bridge over a long period of time, it would just seem like
Siberia extended onwards.  And Columbus didn't realize he'd found something
new.  He certainly _observed_ the new world, but didn't understand what he
was seeing.

That would be my take on discovery.  I'm interested in what other people
think, especially how everyone else defines discovery.

Joe Fatula


* It just sounds really odd to talk of the Native Americans as being native
to a place that they were going to.  Those people were Native Siberians, but
in the process of becoming Native Americans.