Re: Language naming terminology

Carlos Eugenio Thompson Pinzon wrote:

>In the Americas things were somehow different.  Most European cultures
>displaced the original ones and the countries were founded after the
>dessendens fo Europeans.
>I don't know where Peru or Chile came from.
I think I read somewhere that Chile comes from Araucano (or some other
Indian language) _chiri_, 'cold'. And Peru from _biru_ (another native
word, but I don't know what it means).

>the Viceroi(...) of Nueva Granada
You mean Virreinato, right?

>Venezuela where named after Venecia.
That was because the original inhabitants lived on houses over pillars (to
keep them from floods).

>the Northamerican Union, who had no name of their own, took the name
>of the continent: The United States of America, with the adjective
American
>_stoled_ from all we other Americans.
_Stolen_, yes. It's a shame that the rest of the people in America (the
continent) cannot say that we are 'American' or that we have, say, an
American character (as there is European character, or Asian character, for
example).

You didn't mention Brazil and Argentina. 'Brasil' comes from the same root
as 'brasa' (lit piece of coal, burnt wood reduced to carbon; what's the
English word?). Apparently there was a tree which produced a flaming red
tint or something like that, so it was called 'palo brasil', hence the name
given to the whole country.

Argentina comes from Latin _argentum_ 'silver'. There were supposedly huge
mines of silver here... (This was obviously an invention, the same as
Eldorado.) Indeed the first explorers found a river and they first named it
_Mar Dulce_ ('Sweet Sea'), because it was so wide; then they realized it
was a proper river and they named it _Rio de la Plata_ 'River Plate' (lit.
'River of Silver'). I don't know where modern Spanish _plata_ 'silver'
comes from. _Argentino_ is both the Argentine inhabitant's name, and an
adjective which means 'like/made of silver', but it's archaic. Today
Spanish 'plata' also means 'money' informally. In French you say 'argent'
/ar'Za~/ for the same meaning.

The name 'Argentina' was decided after a debate. At first it formed part of
the Virreinato del Rio de la Plata (_virreinato_ 'vice-kingdom'). It
included today's Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Then the name 'Provincias Unidas del Sur' ('United Provinces of the South')
was used, and indeed it appears in our national anthem. (And seven blocks
from my house there's an avenue called 'Provincias Unidas'!).

And I'd forgot about Paraguay and Uruguay. Both of them come from Guarani
(an agglutinating language featuring nasal harmony, still spoken in
Northeastern Argentina and Paraguay). They are compounds. The final -y is a
Guarani word with a central high unrounded vowel (between an /i/ and an
unrounded /u/?); _y_ means 'water' or 'river' (_paragua y_ 'river of the
snails', I think).

Some other preserved names: the Argentine city of Bariloche, from Araucano
_vuriloche_ 'the people on the back of the mountains'.

I wonder if the final -che could somehow be related to Guarani _che_,
'people'. BTW, that's the source of the colloquial addressing term 'che',
which you might have heard in the name of Che Guevara. (Ernesto Guevara was
born in Rosario, Argentina, right here in my own city.)


--Pablo Flores