Which continent is called the New World and why? Why was the new world called America?

The history of the names of each of the continents is very interesting. Why was Asia called Asia and Antarctica - Antarctica? The origin of some names is associated with ancient myths - the merit of the ancient Greeks in the etymology of many words, including their own names, is very great. For example, Europe is a mythical heroine that appeared thanks to the boundless imagination of the ancient Greeks, who created an incredible number of myths.

Why was Europe called Europe?

There are several versions. Here is one of the most common.

In the place where the state of Lebanon is now located, in ancient times Phenicia was located. According to ancient Greek myths, the god Zeus fell in love with an incredibly beautiful earthly woman named Europa. Historians suggest that the word “Europe” in Phoenician meant “set” (the word itself is most likely Assyrian).

Beauty Europa was the daughter of Agenor, king of Phenicia. The Thunderer Zeus wanted to make Europe his wife, but King Agenor would not allow this. Zeus had no choice but to kidnap the beauty.

Having turned into a white bull, Zeus stole Europa and transported her to the island of Crete. Later, according to some myths, Europa became the wife of the Cretan king. Therefore, the inhabitants of Crete began to call their land Europe.

“The Rape of Europe”, V. Serov, 1910

In the 5th century BC, the name Europe spread to all of Greece. Gradually, gaining new knowledge about the world around them and traveling more and more, ancient people pushed back the borders of Europe. And only in the middle of the 18th century were the final boundaries of Europe established, which are also marked on modern geographical maps.

Perhaps this is exactly what happened, and Europe was called Europe in honor of the heroine of ancient Greek myths. In any case, this is a very interesting and curious version.

Why was Asia called Asia?

The name “Asia” as applied to the continent also appeared thanks to the ancient Greeks and their myths. However, the word “Asia” itself is Assyrian, translated as “sunrise.” Now it’s clear why the largest part of the world was called Asia, because that’s where the sun rises.

The word “Asia” among the Assyrians was just a word, but it became the name of a part of the world thanks to the Greeks. In ancient Greek mythology there is a titan god named Ocean. Asia (Asia) is his oceanid daughter, whom the Greeks themselves depicted riding a camel. In her hands she had a shield and a box of aromatic spices. In some versions of myths, Asia is the mother (and in some - the wife) of Prometheus himself - the very hero who brought fire to people.

G. Dore "Oceanids", 1860

The ancient Greeks began to call everything east of Europe and closer to the place where the sun rises Asia. The Scythians, who lived beyond the Caspian Sea, were called Asians by the Greeks. And the ancient Romans, by the way, called the inhabitants of their eastern province Asians.

When the period of great geographical discoveries began, it was decided to use the word “Asia” to designate vast areas of land located closer to sunrise (that is, to the east). Thus, we owe the appearance on the map of a part of the world called Asia to the Assyrians and ancient Greeks.

Did ancient Greek mythology influence the name of any other part of the world? Yes! And this part of the world is Antarctica.

How did Antarctica get its name?

Antarctica is a derivative of the word "Antarctica". The southern polar region was called Antarctica. Translated from Greek, Antarctica means “opposite to the Arctic,” because the name “Arctic” appeared earlier as a designation for the area adjacent to the North Pole. It is the word “Arctic” that is directly related to ancient Greek mythology.

The Thunderer Zeus fell in love with the nymph Callisto, but the envious gods could not see how happy Zeus and Callisto were and turned the pregnant woman into a bear. After this she gave birth to a son. Arkad, that was the name of his son (in Greek, bear is arktos), grew up without a mother. One day, while hunting, he swung a spear at his mother bear Callisto (of course, he did not know who she was). Seeing this, Zeus turned both creatures dear to himself into constellations - this is how Big Dipper and Ursa Minor.

These constellations helped to find polar star, always pointing north. Therefore, the ancient Greeks began to call the entire northern region the Arctic. Then the name Antarctica (the opposite of the Arctic) appeared. Well, later the word Antarctica arose - a sixth of the world, the southern continent at the very pole of the Earth.

This part of the world was discovered by Russian sailors under the command of Thaddeus Bellingshausen on January 28, 1820. True, this is the official date - it was then that the sailors saw the “ice continent”. A year later, the sailors saw the shore and called this area the Land of Alexander the First. However, this name never spread to the entire continent, which eventually received the name Antarctica, associated with ancient Greece.

So, three parts of the world - Europe, Asia and Antarctica - got their names thanks to ancient Greek myths. But how did the names of other parts of the world and continents appear?

Even children know that America was discovered by Christopher Columbus. Then why was this part of the world not called Colombia or Columbia? And what is the origin of the name America?

Christopher Columbus, of course, discovered America, but he himself did not know that he had discovered a new part of the world, believing that the land on the other side of the Atlantic was China (Catay, as it was called in the time of Columbus).

Columbus still became famous for centuries. But much less often they talk about the Florentine navigator, who lived at the same time as Columbus, but was younger than him. Amerigo made four trips to the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean, but historians consider two of them nothing more than a hoax. However, at least one journey actually took place - Amerigo made it in 1501-1502 to the shores of Brazil.

Upon returning, Amerigo Vespucci began to colorfully describe the progress of the trip and his impressions, sending these notes in letters to his friends and the banker Lorenzo Medici. After some time, Vespucci's letters were published and were a great success among readers.

Vespucci himself proposed to name the land he discovered New World, but in 1507 a Lorraine cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller decided to put it on the map new land and name it in honor of the “discoverer” - Amerigo Vespucci. After all, reading Amerigo’s notes, many came to the conclusion that Vespucci discovered some new continent that had nothing to do with China, discovered by Columbus on the other side of the Atlantic.

However, not much time passed, and geographers and cartographers concluded that both Columbus and Vespucci discovered the same continent. Cartographers left the name for it “ America", dividing it into North and South.

Thus, already in 1538, North America and South America appeared on the maps. However, until the end of the 17th century, that is, another two and a half centuries, these lands in Europe continued to be called the New World. But, as we know, the name America was officially recognized.

Stefan Zweig called this whole story a comedy of errors, and A. Humboldt dubbed the very name of this part of the world “a monument to human injustice.” It’s not for nothing that they say that Columbus had alternate luck: “he went to discover one thing, found another, but what he found was given the name of a third.”

Australia, the fifth continent, was discovered at the beginning of the 17th century by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon. Since then, this part of the world has appeared on geographical maps, but under the name New Holland. However, the boundaries of the continent were unknown at that time. How Australia name changed its own, ceasing to be just New Holland?

Australia. Photo from space

The answer must be sought in the depths of centuries. People started talking about Australia long before it was discovered. Even the great Ptolemy was sure that in the southern hemisphere there is a huge continent that should “balance” the planet. The mysterious land, which either exists or doesn’t exist, has been given a conventional name Terra Australis Incognita, which translated from Latin means “Mysterious (or Unknown) South Land».

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British were actively searching for the Mysterious South Land or New Holland. And finally, James Cook and Matthew Flinders, having completed several voyages, contributed to the appearance of the shores of the fifth continent on the maps.

Flinders was the first to circumnavigate the mainland. He wrote that he was constrained by the name Terra Australis (Southern Land), but with great pleasure he would have called the continent differently -. So, with the light hand of Flinders, this continent began to be called Australia, because the option proposed by the navigator seemed very, very successful to cartographers and geographers.

Why is Africa called Africa?
There is no exact and only accepted answer to this question. There are many theories, each of which has the right to life. Let's give just a few.

How the name “Africa” appeared: the first version. The name "Africa" ​​was invented by the Greco-Romans. The territory of North Africa west of Egypt was long called Libya by the ancient Greeks and Romans because it was inhabited by tribes whom the Romans called “Livs.” Everything south of Libya was called Ethiopia.

In 146 BC, Rome defeated Carthage. A colony was founded on the territory captured as a result of the war, where Tunisia is now located. This colony was given the name “Africa”, since local warlike Afarik tribes lived in these places. According to another theory, the inhabitants of Carthage themselves called people who did not live in cities with the word “afri,” which is supposedly derived from the Phoenician afar (dust). The Romans, after defeating Carthage, used the word "afri" to name the colony. Gradually, all other lands of this continent began to be called Africa.

The ruins of one of the cities of the state of Carthage

How the name “Africa” came about: version two. The name "Africa" ​​was invented by the Arabs. Arab geographers have long known that Asia and Africa are separated from each other by the Red Sea. The Arabic word "faraqa" is translated as "to divide", "to separate one from the other."

From the word farak, the Arabs formed the word “Ifriqiya” - this is what they called the fourth continent ( ancient name can be translated as “Separated”). The famous Arab scholar of the 16th century, Muhammad al-Wazan, wrote about this. Later, Ifriqiya turned into Africa, which was due to the peculiarities of borrowing foreign names in different languages.

And also find out whether it is really and true that The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -

H The man after whom America is now named, Amerigo Vespucci, was born in 1454 in Florence. Americo, Emerigo - this is also him; Such spellings of his name are found in archival materials.

He belonged to one of the noble families of the city, the head of which was a notary. Amerigo received a good education. In 1492, he settled in Seville, becoming an employee of Juanoto Berardi, who, along with others, financed Columbus's first two voyages. In 1505 Vespucci accepted Spanish citizenship.

In the atmosphere of those years, the general impulse to travel to India could not help but capture the Florentine, who in his youth studied astronomy, geography, and was interested in navigation. He visited the New World.

His two letters, written in 1503 and 1504, brought him fame. The first was addressed to Piero de' Medici, the other to Pietro Soderini. Their originals have been lost, but copies have survived. The first letter, about the voyage of 1501, entitled "Mundus Novus" (New World) was published in1504, the second - about all four expeditions of Columbus - was published in

1505 in Florence. So enlightened Europe for the first time I learned about the existence of the New World and who was the discoverer of South America.

Vespucci's widespread fame was the reason that his name began to be associated with the New World, and this continent began to be called America. To be fair, it should be said that Vespucci did not take part in perpetuating his name and died without suspecting anything.

Some researchers believe that the letters mentioned were prepared by opponents of Columbus. However, in any case, they remain the first European responses to an unexpected insight: the world has grown by an entire hemisphere. In addition, these literary and historical monuments surpass the examples of Columbus's epistolary heritage in the elegance of their style.

Vespucci complained in his first letter about the fickleness of fortune: “How it changes its frail and transitory favors, how it can sometimes lift a person to the top of its wheel, and at other times throw it off.” Fate turned out to be very favorable towards him. As Victor Hugo noted: “There are unfortunate people: Christopher Columbus cannot write his name on his discovery; Guillotin cannot remove his name from his invention."

(From the diary of Columbus's first voyage)

“Since they behaved friendly towards us and since I realized that it was better to convert them to our holy faith by love and not by force, I gave them red caps and glass rosaries that hang around their necks, and many other items of little value that gave them great pleasure. And they treated us so well that it seemed like a miracle. They swam over to the boats where we were and brought us parrots and skeins of cotton yarn, and darts, and many other things, and exchanged all this for other items that we gave them, such as small glass rosaries and rattles They willingly gave away everything they owned.

But it seemed to me that these people were poor and needed everything. They all walk around naked, as their mother gave birth, and so do the women, although I only saw one of them, and she was still a girl. And all the people I saw were still young, none of them was more than 30 years old, and they were well built, and their bodies were very beautiful, and their hair was coarse, just like horse hair, and short... Some paint themselves with black paint (and their skin is the same color as the inhabitants of the Canary Islands, who are neither black nor white), others with red paint; others with whatever comes to hand, and some of them paint the face, others the whole body, and there are those who only have their eyes or nose painted.

They do not carry or know iron weapons: when I showed them swords, they grabbed the blades and, out of ignorance, cut off their fingers. They don't have any iron. Their darts are clubs without iron. Some darts have fish teeth at the end, while others have tips made of a different material...

They must be good, and intelligent, and quick-witted servants - I noticed that they very quickly learned to repeat what was said to them, and I believe that they will easily become Christians, since it seemed to me that they had no beliefs. And, with God's help, I will bring six people from here for your Highnesses, whom I will take on my return journey so that they learn to speak Spanish. I didn’t see any creatures on the island except parrots.”

Often in the press there is a mention of historical injustice to Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, but never immortalized his name in its name. America was named after someone else. What is the injustice? Columbus did not discover America. He discovered the West Indies, for which he reaped all the laurels due to him. He sailed to open a new trade route, with the help of which he could bypass troubled Asia and shorten the journey. What I went for, I found.

Following him sailed Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed many times along the northern and eastern shores of the open land. Columbus's maps added almost nothing to Magellan's maps, but Vespucci's maps made it possible to form a correct idea of ​​America as a continent. Vespucci helped equip Columbus's expeditions and was his friend. According to contemporaries, Vespucci was an honest, intelligent man and possessed considerable talent. Thanks to this talent, he left notes about new lands, in which he described their nature, animal world, starry sky, Aboriginal customs. They say that I exaggerated a little, but the writer’s talent is to blame.

By the way, Vespucci never tried to claim Columbus's laurels as a discoverer. Columbus's sons made no claims against their father's friend. It was Vespucci who proposed calling the open lands the “New World.” It is not his fault that Martin Waldseemülle, a cartographer from Lorraine, one of the greatest specialists of his time in this field, declared him the discoverer of the “fourth part of the world.” The cartographer's decision was based on the material that was provided to him by Vespucci, not by Columbus. So Waldseemülle named the continent in honor of its discoverer Amerigo - America. Thirty years after this, the name became generally recognized and spread in the Mercator map and to North America.

There is another version that has documentary evidence. Simultaneously with the expeditions of Columbus and Vespucci, the expeditions of John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) from Bristol set off twice towards the new continent.

* John Cabot

The second of them was financed by the Italian philanthropist Ricardo Americo. Cabot reached the shores of Labrador, setting foot on North American soil before Vespucci. Cabot was the first to map the coast of North America from Nova Scotia to p.o. Newfoundland. Cabot named the new continent in honor of his sponsor. There is an entry about this event in the Bristol calendar for 1497: “... on the day of St. John the Baptist (June 24), the land of America was found by merchants from Bristol, who arrived on a ship from Bristol with the name "Matthew." So, according to this version, Vespucci took a nickname for himself in honor of the already named continent. Both versions have documentary grounds, both have the right to exist and evidence. But no one offended Columbus.
P.S. First reproduction of the post: S. Dali “Discovery of America through the sleep of Christopher Columbus.” Second - Amerigo Vespucci