Re: Hebrew, etc. [was: Multi-lingos

On 23 Aug, BP Jonsson wrote:

>At 08:54 23.8.2000 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
>
>>I am just beginning to see the phrase "West Asia" applied to the Middle
>>East, paralleling "South Asia" for the Indian subcontinent and
>>the much older "East Asia" and "Southeast Asia".
    It's starting to show up in Hebrew here too --- probably through
literal translation from the same sources.

<snip>

>BTW in my understanding "West Asia" includes Iran and Turkey/Asia Minor,
>while "Middle East" excludes these.  It may be just my urge to make a
>distinction...
>
>Also WA refers to ancient times, ME to modern political, in my mind.
    Obviously, terms for broad geographical areas can be
a bit vague, and what to include at the boundaries can
certainly be a matter of opinion.
    FWIW, I have a locally produced atlas of the "Middle East"
(among my other atlases :-)  ) and this one does include
both Turkey and Iran.
    My own personal understanding, FWIW, of the term "West Asia"
is the countries along the Mediterranian (as in " how far west
can you go before you have to start swimming?" ).
While Turkey does have a small strech of east Med. shore, the majority
of its coast is not on the eastern Med. Still, to get to Europe,
you'd have to go over water, so I suppose by my definition, I would
have to include Turkey (or at least Anatolia) as "West Asia" .
    But, thinking it over now, I guess, I'm confusing "the western end" of
Asia
with "the western _half_" (or third: east, central, west) of Asia.
Dividing Asia up by halves or thirds, I guess, the west would probably
include, as you say, Iran and definitely Turkey.

Dan Sulani

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