NAMES THAT STICK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18553, 10 November 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

NAMES THAT STICK.

UNHAPPY SELECTIONS.S BT F. ,C ATJWOOD. • ' .';'■■: ' What -. debatin,gs and heait-searcliings go to the choosing of a suitable name for a suburban street or a i way-back railway siding! World-names seem to have descended upon us unasked, and tc have fastened themselves upon the map of the globe with a tenacity in inverse ratio to their -appropriateness. The "Dutch; authorities showed no verj spirited imagination when they named these islands after their own estuary province of Zeeland; unless, indeed, their fancy bodied forth a land that should be everything that old Zeeland was not. Tasmans own designation, Staten Land, was still wider of the mark, for it identified our western shores with Siaten Land, south of South America. Stamen Land (named after the States-General, was proved in 1643 to be an island, this discovery necessitating a new name foi Tasman's find, 50CO miles away. Our nearest neighbour has been more fortunate on the score of an appropriate name; nevertheless the designation "Australia'' is a borrowed title. Naming Australia. The name "Australia," as a definite appellation, was first given by Quiros to an island of the New Hebrides, which its discoverer believed to his dying day to form part of a great southern continent. Sent out from South America in 6% by the Spanish King to locate the "Earthly Paradise" reported in a previous voyage, Quiros firmly believed when he had passed the Solomon Islands that he was on the very threshold of tho mysterious South Land. ' His description echoes the opinions of Bacon and Albertus, when he speaks of the "Antipodes of all Europe and half of Asia and Africa."

Geographers of that period believed that a southern continent had ' yet to be discovered, to balance the great land masses of the Northern Hemisphere. Quiros named the new land "Australia del Espiritu Santo," becauso he be heved it to be part of tbi long lost continent; then after a pathetic attempt at establishing a colony without colonists, steered back for America with his starving remnant of a crew. After his departure Torres, his second in command, circumnavigated the supposed continent in a few hours, and continuing to the West, was carried by the equatorial current through Torres Strait, a waterway of which scientific men denied the existence till 1770. Thus faded out the ambitious dreams of the treasurehunting Spaniards, State servants in State ships. From the time of Tasman's voyage, 1642, Australia bore the name of New Holland, to distinguish it from <; the visionary South Land. True, maps made as early as 1536 by Desceliers of Dieppe and others showed what was vaguely sappos;i .to be a southern expansion of Java the Great," marked A La Terre Australle, non du tout descouverte;" and the word "Australia" was used in "Purchas his Pilgrimes," 1625, and other old works to designate the unknown Southern Continent. In these cases, however, we are dealing with conjecture only, and not with discovered land. It was not till about the year 1217 that the name "Australia was definitely adopted • for the island continent. Long before that. Captain Cook's misnomer, "New. South Wales," had ; become? firmly .- established, ail connoting the south-eastern portion of the Continent. .:.>/' America and Canada. Passing over the names of the older continents, as an interesting if rather onprofitable problem for philologists, one cannot refrain from wonder that so modern a name as "America" is already involved in controversy. Strange that the twin continents, settled by peoples oh some half-dozen nationalities, -Jl in an advanced stage of civilisation, and heirs to the learning of all the ages, should Dear a name the result if no selection, but rather fortuitously picked up, much *■££ st ™ e * arab P icks up a nickname. /I he Universal Geography, sore about the neglect of, and ingratitude to. Columbus, tells us sadly that "alliterative cadence contributed to perpetuate a manifest justice." But would not "Columbia" or -x. even .'.". C ? bota " mat equally well with "Africa" and "Asia?" Some think they seo the origin of the ■vord "America" in the name of the Amernque Mountains, a range in Nicaragua. Others flatter their patriotism and ' exercise their ingenuity by deriving America from a word in the language of ■> the aboriginal Incas, meaning "Great Land of the Sun," or "Holy Land." - The generally accepted derivation, ' however, is from the ; name of Amerigo Vespucci, one of the first explorers of the New World. The name dates from 1507 appearing for the first time in a publication issued in that year at Saint Die, by the "Gymnase Vosgien," a group of savants and printers constituted under the patronage of the Duke of Lorraine. 'Ihe name was inscribed in the treatise in honour of the aforesaid Vespucci, but he, like Columbus and all other contemporary navigators, was unaware that his explorations had contributed to reveal any regions except those of Asia. The name came slowly into general use, the erroneous term "India" being continued in literature and official documents, and even now applying to the Western Archipelago. The names "Indian" (in North America) and "Chenos" (in South America) are still frequently used to designate the aboriginal race. Canada stands among, the mighty regions that have forfeited without a protest their ; baptismal birthright. All that can be said is that the name is of Indian origin, probably meaning "town." The discoverer of Canada; was Jacques Cartier, a Breton sailor of St. Mallo. Sailing from that .port, he moored his three ships finder the rock of Quebec, then a native Indian village, and;dwelling-place of the Indian chief Donnaconha, styled in Cartier's narrative :?l/>rd of Canada." This chief was destined to be carried away to die in a far-off land, but his territory the districtaround Quebec, the "hot, fair land" of the narrative, was to have the honour of conferring its name upon half a continent. Cartier opened Canada; to the French, and though his X settlement failed, the French connection Remains; A Name of Good Omen V '■• .-.'-:■■ .■,'■"'-' : : ; "■■ '■■• '"•:-.V":,-:. ■''-•. , ; . .' v: '"•=:'"' '■ The name of Greenland, given by Eric the Red. of Norway, to that inhospitable region in the hope that a name of good omen might attract immigrants, has not had; the desired success. < For over :nine centuries the" expression has conveyed, a sense of ,',' irony. ''Desolation i Land"; was the appellation applied. by ' Baffin. Of all the names given by the Norsemen to their discoveries in the New % World before and nfter the year 1000, this 'eccentric term, Greenland, alone persists in; common usage.v \.'^'X:--.-';./-3:\^:^hy';:;^;:: : '.. ; .';C^ : : -■;;.;: , ; It is well established that Eric the Red was ;■ banished at the close of - the tenth century, # 500 years before ; the exploits of Columbus. For 400 years social, religious, and trading relations were maintained be-, tween Scandinavia and ! its Western colonies, i In the twelfth century Greenland boasted a cathedral church. > In 1261 Norway . seized the colonies. Eventually, intercourse ceased, and V; the annals of Eric's ; domain were preserved mainly by legendary '}? tradition. Scandinavia renewed; intercourse ; with Greenland ; in 1721 ;j and since then the land of the 'aggressive icecap has become -a dependency of Denmark. >;The aboriginal " inhabitants call themselves * "Innuit," i.e., : "men," r a term that, without being offensively caustic, easily caps any self-styled designations assumed by their neighbours; but they are-known to the world as Eskimos, a contemptuous epithet applied to them by the Red : Indians, • and signifying "Eaters of Raw Fish." ;■■''■. .A ."- - '" *' , * ■ * ' ■ ■■-■:■■!■■. ■-■■■: m -."■..■ - : /.v -::..:;■■• ..v.-- ■.%■' ■ - : : v ,u-. -^: