The Spanish Fork press. [volume] (Spanish Fork, Utah) 1902-current, 1895-09-20
Origin of the Names of the Cont
nents

In the Journal des Voyages, M. Uly
see Robert gives the results of recent
pathological research regarding the
names of the continents. We translate
an abstract of his article from ILLUS.
tration Europeenne, Brussels, June
| 23rd:
1T is difficult to discover the origin
| of the name of Europe Herodotus
avows ingeniously that no mortal can
| give its meaning. Several savants,
| nevertheless, agree in recognizing in
this name a word of Semitic origin,
| oreb or ereb, which in Hebrew means
| evening or setting and the word &C
cordingly signifies the land of evening
or the twilight land
I'm any case, the word Europe is
later than Homer, for it is not found
in any of his works. 1t is mentioned
for the first time in a hymn to Apollo,
where 1t serves to distinguish CONT
mental from insular Greece. In word,
no one is sure of the exact origin of
the name of Europe, and M. Elysee
Reclus himself has been obliged to con-
fine himself to very vague conjectures.
LAS for Asia, some think that 1t gets
It's name from the Semitic root Hatsi,
which means central Others derive
1t from the Sanscrit word ushas, signi-
flying dawn Others still think that it
means simply the country of the Asians
or Aseens, "a people mentioned by Ptole-
my and Strabo, who lived east of the
Sea of Azov in the regions of the eau
casus. Here also Reclus is non-com-
initial; he says that the word Asia
means perhaps land of the rising SUM-
'As for Africa, called Libya' in an
tiquity, its present appellation seems
to be derived from that Of Berber
tribe of the Atlas, the Aires, or rather
the Avraghen, today limited to the
Desert of Sahara, but once spread far
and wide along the northern coast or,
in the GASES of the salt-lake region that
forms the boundary of Tunis.
1.-THE Romans gave to this country
the name Of its inhabitants and called
IL Afrikia. Later, the Arabs extended
this name to all the countries that they
found, and as far as the Pillars Of Her.
cules 0he Straits of Gibraltar). And,
following them, the Europeans dwell
ing to the north of the Dark Continent
believed that all the region to the South
was called by the same name. Africa
thus now extends from the shores of
Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope.
LAS for America, we must destroy a
legend. 1t is generally believed that
this continent gets its name from the
Florentine Americas Vespucius, who,
having landed, after Christopher Co.
lumbus, at the mouth of the Orlnoco,
boosted, in the narrative of his voyage
that he had been the first to re "ch II e
mainland. The editor of this narrative
Hylaromylus. Of st. Die, in Lorraine,
LUX upon ullllSell W give 10 the
Atlantic land, in memory of Vespucius,
the name America, and no one protest
ed.
Now, 1t appears that America, or
rather Amerique, Is an Indian word
designating the highest lands of Nj
caragua. In these lands gold Is found
in abundance, and when Columbus in
his fourth voyage asked of the natives
where they found the precious metal,
they repeated, pointed toward the hori-
zon, 'Americ.' America, then, signi-
fes the land of gold and this name.
like that of Africa, has extended from
it's starting point over the rest OF the
continent. The publisher Hylaromylus,
in baptiZing a continent, was giving
to posterity only a myth, which it ac-
cepted with its eyes shut.
There remains only Oceanica, which
gets it's name simply from the ocean.
or perhaps from Oceanides, daughters
of Oceanus. According to Hesiod this
god was the son of Uranus and Gaea.
He had by Tethys, the story goes, three
thousand daughters, the Oceanldes, and
as many sons. This considerable fam
lily was changed into the innumerable
isles of which the fifth part of the
world Is composed. Translate from
the Literary Digest.