Exonyms vs. Endonyms: Rename Continents?
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- čas přidán 15. 05. 2019
- Every name comes from somewhere, but often they are given to people and places by someone else, an exonym, as opposed to someone deciding a name for themselves, an endonym. Today we're exploring what the continent's might've been named had the native people's word for their land been used instead.
Make sure to check out WonderWhy's video after this one!
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"Ave Marimba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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endonym for Antarctica: *whatever noise the penguins make*
Noot noot
@@ammaren9459 ladies and gentlemen, now we commence our descent towards Noot Noot International
@@ammaren9459 Noot is too greenland with this name you should know this.
mysteriousDSF
*SQWUAAARK*
Tap dancing?
Africa: * has black people *
Atlas Pro: *black land*
In Poland Africa is sometimes called "Czarny Ląd", which means "Black Land" ;) Because of people, of course.
Trollers Beasters the Arabs had the same idea when they called the south of the Sahara the Sudan, literally the land of the blacks.
@@Terrus_38 but it comes from black spots on map, terra incognita
Separating America but not Africa to Saharan and Sub-saharan and then just calling the place "black people place" is kinda... yeah.
@@talentleesdorito9771 australia?
"Dunia is a Swahili word"
"We should call the Middle east Mashriq"
*Iranians faint*
Dunia/dunya, when used to refer to "the world", definitely comes from Arabic. It more literally means either "lower" or "nearer. There's a phrase that literally means "the lower/nearer life". I believe it's meant to be the opposite of the higher/farther life (i.e. afterlife). By extension, "dunya" has come to mean the realm in which we spend this life. Then, generalizing it further, it can also mean any world/realm.
Actually we also call 'the world' dunia, in Hindi
Indonesian and Malay language too call the world as 'dunia'. I got surprised by it haha
@@caschiayuu5645 yes borrowed from arabic
yeah, Kiswahili really isn't that old, and it has a bunch of Arabic influences, as it was formed around the Tanzanian coastline (where today we find Dar Es-Salam) and Zanzibar, where local and foreign cultures met.
When you are a Maori person watching this vid get to see Europe get renamed "Blessed field" and you think that Australia might get a cool name too, only for it to be reamed "land"
Also at 14:12, the map chops off New Zealand to label only Australia "land" in maori, probably unintentional, but a bit of a silly mistake to make nevertheless .
Also ocean ocean
I mean europe really is a blessed continent with blessed people
If Australia were to be called "land", NZ would become "the long white cloud"
"obviously mexico can't be named by the aztecs"
**uses a name the aztecs made for an ancient city they found, thereby still making it an exonym**
True, but I'll still take it since we don't know what else its ever been called.
@@PolarisCastillo ...Mexico, also a name given to it by aztecs, but not an exonym
**oof**
he could have just drawn the border further up to include the aztec homeland
What about the Olmecs who lived and died well before the Mexica people? or what about the Otomi? Even though they got their names from the Mexicas, or even the Totonac?
Teotihuacan is an exonym. Thats just how the Aztec called the civilization as they never met each other. It means where men turn into gods
That’s a pretty metal translation
*sick guitar riff*
Also there were 2 other cultures at the same time as teotihuacans who were as equal if not more influential, the mixtecs and the toltecs.
@@HarlenEAP ...Not...exactly.
The Toltecs came some centuries after the Teotihuacanos, and while the Nahua polities at the time all liked to trace their heritage to Tula, it's actually hard to say how much of the Toltecs' history is actually true or if there even was a "Toltec Empire"...as opposed to a once popular city-state that was used by later people to claim legitimacy and then created many trumped-up stories about it. The modern archaeological record is starting to suggest that Tula was merely following a cultural trend in the rest of Mesoamerica and that many sites attributed to a "Toltec Empire" were not only older than Tula but simply following the same "International Style".
The Mixtecs were pretty much always around, but were more or less the vassals and weaker rivals of the more powerful Zapotec who dominated a portion of southern Mesoamerica off and on for almost two millennia. The Mixtec only had their time in the sun around the second millennium AD when they captured the then Zapotec capital of Mitla and when 8 Deer Jaguar Claw began his wars of expansion. The Mixtecs were contemporaneous with the Aztecs, Tarascans, Huastec and various Maya kingdoms at the time of Spanish conquest.
Wouldn't the Olmec be the precurous civilization to these people?
"Central America was home to two recognizable civilizations."
Olmecs and Caribs: ...
I feel your pain let it out. Our civilizations were killed by the Aztecs and we get this BS hundreds of years later.
History
It would be like saying North america is orignially inhabitated by white colonials because they killed all the Aboriginals.
@@kyleellis9177 as he said though, the aztecs, incans, mayan, etc weren't the originals. The Europeans took land from other people who took land from other people.. in a strange way the Europeans actually got rid of the people who had conquered and subjugated the actual natives
Not to mention the most powerful and advanced kingdom were the Purepechas.
"Anahuac" is the name that the aztecs (mexicas, nahuas) gave to the north America subcontinent, or the name to refer their world (the continent) and mean "land between water" or "land surrounded by water"
@Some Dude i know that, Cem Anahuac is actually the name the mexicas gives to the land their known, but Anahuac is the name of the valley
I would be happy to live in Anahuac instead of "America"
If you're worried about changing the Pacific Ocean into the Tahuaroa Ocean, just remember, the Sahara Desert is the Desert Desert (sahara is the Arabic word for desert).
I Googled "tautological place names" after watching an episode of QI; the list is long, and amazing, so many River Rivers and Lake Lakes. and one notable Desert Desert! Wiki has lists.
There's a place in Pakistan which is known as "Registan Desert" which literally translates to 'Desert Desert'
@@saadamansayyed "Thar" also means desert in some local dialects I believe. So Thar desert is also Desert Desert. The Indus or Sindhu river comes from a sanskrit word which could mean "river" or "ocean".
The US state of Michigan is named from the Native American word for "large lake" so Lake Michigan means "lake large lake.
@@jbach2002 Always remember that the word "Soviet" in Russian translates roughly to "Workers Council" or better put in English "Union". This means that the Soviet Union translates into Union Union.
atlas pro: "the most populous people's of Oceania are the Māori"... aboriginal people in Australia: *sad boomerang noise*
Papua New Guineans are actually the most populous...
oh crap, your right lol
@@jeredaitken4178 There is no "Papua New Guinean" People. Papuan is a nationality. The country has hundreds and hundreds of small groups of people.
I thought he was gonna say tonga for a second..
Do you even didgeridoo?
"What I wanted to do was to try to figure out what the endonyns would be [for each continent]"
*Proceeds to ignore all existing endonyms, and instead use names for subregions within a continent, names for the entire world, and coin entirely new words*
Name them "East Pangea", "North Pangea", "Central Pangea" (and so on) by their position in the ancient super continent.
The longer I consider this... he more it works.
Those are exonyms though, so I'm thinking
Auughf (South America)
Grdrdrcrri (North America)
Maaaaaah (Antarctica)
Hauauuuu (Africa)
Burrruuuuuh (Europe)
Zchaayaah (Asia)
Raawwww (Oceania)
Blublupup (All the oceans)
I like this approach, bring us all back to Pangea!
How do you name India, once south and now north?
Fun fact: Canada's name is already sort of an endonym. It derives from the Canadian aboriginal word "Kanata" meaning village or settlement.
Ah the classic Canadian history commercial. Thanks Jacques Cartier.
No it's obviously that they put all the letters in a hat and the drawer said, "C, eh. N, eh. D, eh." and the scribe wrote it down as C-A-N-A-D-A. We can't let the Americans know that what I just stated is clearly out to fool them.
Its Its official new name for America is Canada as a American i would love to have to see my country renamed the united states of Canada
@@miamiwendigo The United States of South Canada, eh? The USSC is awfully close to the USSR...
@@impishDullahan even more pefect this i just want the who world to turn on its head
New Zealand already has a endonym which is "Aotearoa" (Uh-Te-Ro-A) which means "Land of the long white cloud"
And we also have a name for the whole of Zealandia "Te Riu-a-Māui"
@@cybobacon1156 Te Riu-a-Māui is a cool fucking name and that's just what imma call Oceania from now on
@@NeophyteGD Te Riu-a-Māui is not equivalent to Oceania, google Zeelandia, that is Te Riu-a-Māui
Mer
@@negativeneggie3885 good one m8
10:40 *'Bhārata'* ('ā' vowel sound is pronounced as "ah', & 'a' vowel sound is pronounced as "uh") is pronounced as _"Bhah+ruh+tuh"._ Similarly *'Khanda'* (means landmass, also used for Continent) is pronounced as _"Khuhn+duh"_ ('h' is used in 'Kh' so it's pronounced to aspirate 'K' which in English is done without the 'h'). Indian Ocean can be *'Bhāratiya'* (means Indian) *'Mahāsamudra'* (Mahā is great, samudra is sea) pronounced as _"Bhah+ruh+tee+yuh" "Muh+haa+suh+moo+druh"._
Bharatiya Mahasagar works as well.
@@bhavyamod4979 Yes, Bhāratiya Mahāsāgara (Muh+haa+saa+guh+ruh) works too.
In Telugu we call it as Hindu mahasamudram
@@subhashanvs3229 Yes, I think most Indian languages call Indian ocean as Hindu Mahasamudra (or other variants of the word Mahasamudra), right?
@@NikhileshSurve
Tamil - inthiya perunkadal
Kannada - hindu mahasagara
Malayalam - inthiyan mahasamudram
I mean for each continent you’ve been using the oldest native peoples to name it, and that means I reckon a Australian Aboriginal name would be better then a Maori as they have been there for only 3000 years, while aboriginal Australians for 65000+ years
50,000 yrs actually, but great guess anyway
In Celtic languages, the descriptor often goes last, so the appropriate way to arrange the names would be the other way around.
“Maesgwen” and “Maghfionn”.
Fionnmhá would be more contemporary Irish Gaelic - I'm not as expert in Welsh but that could be Gwenfaes - while it is true that generally adjectives follow nouns, in compounds you can get the reverse
Gwynfaes might be better as maes is masculine I see from wiktionary
@@gearaltach Its Maesgwyn - I'm Welsh and speak Welsh, there are literally places in wales called Maesgwyn.
I would think the surname Magowan has similar roots, yeah?
@@MerkhVision mac Gabhann, son of the smith
Endonym: Earth meaning dirt
Exonym: _zeebeewa alien language_ _meaning blue dot_
If you say it in a weird alien accent it really does sound funny
Jetfire (ino): [Earth,] Terrible name for a planet, might as well call it dirt. Planet Dirt.
You should follow Alt DictionaryBot on Facebook
I personally prefer the martian word Iorrt for Earth.
That's one hell of a reference, let's see how many people get it.
Calling Holy Terra dirt is a very serious case of heresy
Asia : Exist
Every Asian countries : Finally, someone will notice my country's ancient name
Atlas Pro : let's called it Tianxia, I think it fits
Every Asian Countries that isn't China : let's call the entire US as Alabama, we think it fits
He excluded India, Central Asia, Siberia, and the Middle East, which makes China more than half of the population of Asia. Under that logic, The U.S. would probably be called The Eastern United States of America because Washington DC is to the east, therefore being the center of the country.
You will never be able to find an endonym for all of Asia because nobody ever had a name for all of Asia, except Asia.
Ikh Mongol Uls
@@sanaddaoud6541 it’s very hard to find one name for an entire continent that contains billions of people, and most of the world lands
@@sanaddaoud6541 I think Atlas Pro made it clear already that Tianxia supposedly to be the endonym for East Asia instead of Asia as a whole.
This should be named "Renaming Region", as it goes more in that direction than a geological definition of "continent"
As a resident of Magyarország, I'm way too familiar with this. We have the worst exonym ever. Hung(a)ry? Really?
As a Magyar, I agree with this
I am still baffled how they came up with this name
@@AtlasPro1
Wait what
At least it makes good puns. Speaking of which, I am quite Hungary
@@porguinturtle3854 yeah, "good" puns..
You should have split up Africa like North America especially because of how different north and south Africa are due to the isolation caused by the Sahara
South Africa is a country
@@bri1085 You know what he means..
Yeah, especially because of the many different tribes and cultures there
The moment he said Egypt was the oldest my mind just went "Is it though?" because while I can't remember to save my mind, and yeah Egypt was probably the biggest and most recognized, I can't guarantee for it to have been the oldest. Sure on the Northern side maaaaybe? But middle and Southern? Not so sure anymore
Emma Reiman the Egyptians themselves even said they weren’t the oldest civilization in the region and that it was the people south of them, most likely a Nilotic people which could be the ancient Nubian/Cushitic peoples since they actually fit the descriptions of the people the ancient Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians and Assyrians described as having dark skin, bow legs and woolly hair. At this point, I’m pretty confident in my belief that ancient Egyptians were just dark skinned Nubians who migrated up (down to the them) the Nile and began setting lands. It probably explains why Egypt and Nubia had such close relations
@@antoniobrooks1113 lol ancient Egyptians were not sub Saharan aka black
Tawantinsuyu is Quechua, a lenguage that was only spoked in the Andes. And those four are not the most distintive climate zones of the region, there also savannas in Brazil and steppes in Argentina. South America can be a Exonym but is the best name for a region that is incredible diverse.
so Emilio Marcus is basically Antarctican, making him king of the whole continent
There was more than one person born in Antartica.
@@orans_ nice, he already got some people for his kingdom
Yep, they born in Antartica because some dirtactors order it. So they no have right to Antartica.
I can't believe you missed the entire Southeast Asia
You mean little China?
South East Asia isnt a continent
Might as well call it Nusantara
Also Central Asia.
Practically all of Asia, really.
And Russia
NativLang would have a field day with this video.
I was also thinking of NativLang during this. Would love to see his version. And listen to his enunciations.
I think nativlang has retired from youtube.
he just uploaded today
@@trentrobi oh awesome. hmm maybe I got him mixed up with langfocus or one of the other linguists.
@@zitools You're not entirely wrong, he just took a break though.
The problem with trying to specifically Create Endonyms is where does one's 'Endo' meet their 'Exo'...
You propose renaming the whole of South America after a Society that didn't leave much of a mark East of the Andes
Central America is remade in the name of the Aztec's Version of their alleged ancestors...
Your North American re-branding is based on the Powhaten Confederacy/Algonquin language... whatever Their Endonym might be... it is an Exonym to the countless other First Nation/Native American/Aleutian Nations in Greater Canada and West of the Mississippi River (and considering they all didn't always like one another very much it might not have gone over so well asking them to share a name
etc and so on
Yeah he did a horrible job. He should have been giving several names for each continent as a possibility and not just given one name and said we're using this.
@@kyleellis9177 Alright, if he can’t do it, you should do it.
@@ShipsandGames ?
all theyre saying is that he completely ignored most cultures in the area, same with the rest of the continents, naming the whole of africa after a small part of it in the north is just dumb, its a genuinely horrible video
In Irish the noun comes before the adjective, like teach dubh (house black), so in this case it’d be Magh Fionn, but fionn is normally only used to refer to hair colour, so Magh Bán (bán meaning white)
Looks at final map
*Missing the Siberian wilderness and Inuit peoples*
Looks closer
*Also missing Central Asia*
also missing southeast asia
The inuit people live in the northern North America the Siberian wildernessnis Russia, which is a part of russia and so is Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
@@randomguy263 No, what the fuck are you on about?
Lorin Chak Nunavut is a pretty good name for Northern North America, meaning "our land" in inupiaat
Lorin Chak Siberia is also quite apt
Note about Maori: when a word is written with “wh,” it is pronounced as an F. For example, whenua would be pronounced “fenua.”
And in Indo-Malay it is called BENUA or continent
Fenua in Tahiti too!:)
@0 0 Dunno, man. I'm Hawaiian; go ask a Maori.
@@ariog485 In Hawaiian, we call in ʻāina, or land. Different strokes.
@0 0 theres no F in the maori alphabet
The Olmec where the first and true influencers of meso America rather than Teotihuacan
But their language has not survived
@@RocketHarry865 Let's revive it. Won't be easy, that's for sure.
In Brazil we use the term “Pindorama” to call the country/eastern South America in Tupi-Guarani languages.
Teotihuacan is also an exonym. It was given to the city by the Aztecs. We don't really know its original name.
All the info on the americas is wrong
His exercise it's kinda useless cause at the end it's a foreigner suggesting names for land he doesn't inhabit making'em again exonyms.
The classical Mayans called the region ojl kaab' or some version of that, which literally means Middle Earth.
They're taking the Aztecs to Isengard!
@@partlycurrent Actually it is also wrong to call it Americas. Because the name of the continent is America.
I think maybe you missed out of Southeast Asia, which is actually a highly important geographical region.
Bharatianxia, a calque translation for "Indochina" hahaha
I came here to say this!
@@Bheithir I didn't know that Central America, the Middle East and India were considered continents. dang
I think he missed a lot of regions tbh
South East Asia will be nusantara.
Atlas Pro: “most countries names are exonyms”
10 minutes later: We’ll, Europe, Africa, Arabia, and India are most likely endonyms
Only one of those is a country though
@ThisIsMyRealName what’s the continent called
India isn't.
As Atlas Pro said, it was a mistake by outsiders. Sidhu is the river, NOT the land. It should either be Aryavart or Bharat.
12:09 Close, but 下 (xia) is “under”, while 天 (tian) is “heaven”.
i would say 天 (tian) could also be translated as sky, so under the sky could also be a possible translation
@@yungtrashlord Yes, but I was pointing out that he swapped the characters’ meanings.
Yea but xia tian in chinese means tomorrow, so he got it the right way round in English.
@@socoolikeicetea I wasn’t saying he didn’t order the English words correctly in English; I was saying he associated them with the wrong characters. Subtle change, but it makes a huge difference.
@YungTrashLord "heaven" also means sky if "h" is lowercase. @nailbyte "xia tian" means summer. Maybe you mean "ming tian."
Brasil was called Pindorama by the Tupi; the land of palm trees.
citizengiants Blessed Karl
Was it really that widespread among different Tupi-speaking peoples though?
Btw, that ending in "-rama" has always sounded so Greek-like to me. hahaha
@@sohopedeco I've no idea. I heard some teachers tell me about it and that's it. The Tupi truly are very diverse, I don't know if such a unified term would be possible. Wikipedia says it's a mythology related name tho, so idk.
Pindorama! Where... Pindo, happens? What?
Asia: *Exists*
People of Asia from Yemen to Turkey all the way to Indonesia and north to the Turkic peoples of Siberia to the Kamchatka Peninsula: *I'm about to end this whole mans career.*
Coffee Succubus I wanna visit kamchatka one day, its so empty and alien to me
asean people : am i a joke to you ?
Bring back Astana.
Asia is idea forced on by colonizers to keep Europe separate. Actual biggest division of land and culture in the world is into Latinos, Anglophones, Blacks, Europeans, Arabs, Iranics, Turkics, Indics, East Asians and SE Asians, with some degree of overlap. Other groups that exist are too small
BTW there are about a dozen different ways to speak 天下 in that area labeled Tianxia so good luck with that
This chimes in so nicely to a video I just put out! Nice job Atlas
Most of Europe It's a field thought or it didn't used to be.
The whole of Europe used to be one big forest pretty much.
Yeah, but the Indo-Europeans either quickly deforested much of it, if it wasn’t already. Considering almost all modern Europeans have little to no ties to the previous European inhabitants, I’d say it still fits.
Idk about Australia man, we've had Indigenous people living here for like 40,000+ years so I don't really think a maori/poly name would be correct.
Yes but humans came to Australia not long ago (just few hundred years ago )
Is having a Latin name better?
@@danielgorzelniak3209 well this is awkward. Humans have been in australia for 40 000 years.
True, Indigenous Australians were here 40-50 thousand years ago and Maori were in NZ 700 years ago. I think the Indigenous Australians would win that one.
@mojor struś You are proof that that twelve year olds should not be allowed to use the internet,
Southeast Asia, Russia, The Arctic Areas: Am I a joke to you?
I think I have a name for Southeast Asia: Suwannaphum (written in Thai as สุวรรณภูมิ) this name also refer to some random international airport near Bangkok and its the name Thai people originally called the Mainland Southeast Asia(Indochina) meaning "The Golden Land"
@@asiandoge2088 that doesn't do any to the people who don't live in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam which takes about 420m peoples and 62% of the southeast asian peoples
@@asiandoge2088 the maritime SEA would be called Nusantara, from Malay for 'nusa' means 'island' and 'antara' means 'in between'.
@@arsal8917 there's also name for The Islands too like "SuwanThawip (สุวรรณทวีป)" included whole area of Malaysia and More than half of Indonesia and maybe include the Philippines
@@arsal8917 and Suwannaphum is more well known but people populated in the SuwanThawip more than how people populate in Suwannaphum so we better goes with SuwanThawip
Atlas Pro: *Renames continent after very minor ethnic group.*
Atlas Pro: This can't possibly cause issues.
Real good stuff. Fun facts: Whenua is pronounced like "Fenua", and the translation is accurate. In NZ the Maori name for the country is Aotearoa, which translates to "Land of the Long White Cloud", and the Pacific is called "Te Moana Nui A Kiwa."
Fun Fact: India is officially called Bharat in Hindi (and all of the Indian languages). No need to add 'khanda' with it because 'khanda' literally means piece. Also, Kshetra means area, not temple or residence. And lastly, Indian ocean is actually called 'Hind Mahasagar' in Hindi.
Kiwi Captain here: (Wh) in Te Reo Maori is pronounced the same way as the letter F. So Whenua should sound like Fenua.
When have you started to call it Land Of Long White Cloud?
Unless you're one of those cheeky buggers from the west coast like in W(h)anganui.
@@jersood9059 Kiwi here too. This it the Maori name applying specifically to the islands of Aotearoa, or New Zealand. As the story goes, it's the clouds coming off the land you'll see first, when arriving here by sea. Which would technically make it an exonym brought by the Polynesian Maori when they settled here 800 odd years ago. But it's also the oldest known language for this tiny part of the world, so you can hapily call it an endonym too. Benifits of such a young country is there is a very rich and relatively complete oral and archaeological history here, it's surprising just how many oral stories still exsist of the first people to settle here...
In Māori, is "wh" directly equivalent to an English [f]? I always that it was halfway between an [f] the breathy "wh" sound that some people have on words like "when" and "whale". Something analogous to /xw/ in IPA but described as /f/ for convenience.
@@impishDullahan It depends on the age of the speaker and dialect, mostly. From what I can remember, it was written as because it was pronounced as a voiceless labiovelar approximant (the "wh" sound pronounced by some English speakers, usually considered "posh"). Over time it shifted to a voiceless bilabial fricative (sort of like an /f/ but pronounced wholly with the lips, not the lips and the teeth), and more recently, presumably under influence from English, to a voiceless labiodental fricative (a bog-standard English "f").
You have to break up Asia man. As a Thai, I can't even pronounce Tianxia.
The Indian subcontinent is actually known as jambu dwipa in which jambu meaning indian gooseberries and dwipa means continent so it means means the continent of indian gooseberries. The name is used in the rituals of hindu, buddhist and jains the major religions of this subcontinent.
"Asia" was literally made in the middle east for the middle east.
If you are going to make it its own continent might as well give its actual own name: Asia
so we meet again
Soy de River soy de River yo soy I agree but the problem is the Romans used the term Asia too and even called Anatolia Asia Minor sometimes so it's an exo and endonym kinda
And however he skipped totally phoenician semitic Mesopotamia persiana And everithing that lived there for around like 5000 years ahahahahaah
Francisco Rivas whats that logic? If you call yourself something and your neighbours then call you the same thing is that make it less your name?
"Asia" is ancient Greek for East.
Dunia is not an endonym, though. It comes from the Arabic word Dunya
دنيا
Meaning, literally, "the world"
Za warudoo....
Same with Malay
@@tommer5696 It's interesting, both East Africa and Indonesia/Malaysia spent 800 years largely in the Arab cultural sphere as a result on trans-Indian ocean trade.
Its also through trade that Islam spread to Southeast Asia and North and East Africa.
Technically it could be. Since its used in Swahili even if its a borrowed word its still considered a native word for Swahili language and Swahili language is native to the continent.
12:07
The "tian" part means sky/heaven/day, and the "xia" means under
The Maori actually have a name for New Zealand: Aotearoa,
Meaning "land of the long white cloud"
You should have used a babylonian or Persian word for the Middle East instead of a word that only describes the Arab Word.
Yeah, heck, the Arabs could be considered exogenous as they colonised these lands pretty well after the 8th century. They're still preaching the religion and language of their colonisers. I'm sure the British are very jealous of the success of Arab colonialism and how the Arabs get away with it and they don't. xD
Even Turkish would fit better honestly
What's the world called in the Epic of Gilgamesh? Before it's translated into English, obviously... use that word
@Mathphysicnerd Uh, no lmao. Turks are the newest arrivals to the region. And they got there by colonisation and genocide. What is now Turkey used to be Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian.
Honestly It'd probably be better to use either an Aramaic or Akkadian word to describe the Middle East.
@@orangedude7632 Yeah, I agree. Now I think Aramaic would be the best
12:05
Xia is under
Tian is heaven
The colours made it look as if the reverse was true, just so that no confusion arises
Jet was looking for this comment, thanks!
天下
Was about to comment the same. As someone who speaks Mandarin, that threw me off because he mentioned it as “literal translation” 😂
also it seems too wide. 天下 basically means "creation". That would be like calling Europe "Mundi"
I prefer 華夏 which is more of an endonym
@@appa609 Who in the world taught you 天下 is creation
“Maeswen” or “maghfionn” would be more accurate based on Celtic grammar structures, since the adjective generally comes after the noun
The word "Jambudveepam" also used in context of "Eurasia" or "Asia" in Sanskrit.
12:20
"Or what people have started to refer to..."
Me: The land down under!
"Oceania"
Downundria
Actually as Arabs we use already the word "Mashriq" to refer to the middle east. Although that doesn't include Persia and Turkey
"Sham" is a better term, as it doesn't refer to Egypt, which was his main drawback from the name.
Mine is that using the Arabic language to name the region deflates the video's quest for aboriginality, as its influence on the region is pretty late... I'd specifically pick a word from Akkadian or Aramaic... Heck, I'd even say Canaan is a better fitting word...
Adrian Blake
Sham only means the levant. The entire middle east can’t be called sham.
southeast asia was left out tho
Another endonym for the Pacific could be the Moana Kai Ocean. Moana Kai comes from Hawaiian and translates to ocean. I think it’s where Disney got the name from.
I find it mildly curious that "South Africa" has not yet changed its name to "Azania".
Woah woah. As a new Zealander, are we just gonna forget that the Maori already had a word for the country, Aotearoa? It's still one we use today. And forget the aboriginal people of Australia who have been there for possibly more than 40,000 years, at least 39,000 years before the Maori arrived in NZ, and at least 38,000 years before Polynesian even began settling the Pacific islands?
I mean, I get that this video is kinda lighthearted but that's a pretty massive oversight right there
Also that New Zealand is not actually part of the Australian continent.
Why would we name the whole continent after the name for a single country? It's impossible to have every single people group represented when you choose the name for a continent anyway, and I dont see why a Maori word is a bad choice.
@@scottforsythe2024 The majority of the world would classify NZ as part of the same continent as Australia. I understand that the countries are technically on different continental plates, but since when has that actually mattered when it comes to continents like Europe for example.
@@EdJones99 Well firstly, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that Zealandia is a separate continent - plenty of videos on that development in the last few years. Secondly, I feel like you missed my main point that Maori (and all Polynesians) are also basically immigrants and settlers in the land when you consider that Australian Aboriginals were there at least TWENTY times longer than they were. Not even giving them a mention was a huge oversight when considering what to name Oceania, of which Australia is obviously the largest land feature. Thirdly, when discussing Europe he at least made an attempt to use the reconstructed Proto-Celtic word, while Maori is a comparatively recent language that has some close brothers in Samoan and Tongan but is basically absolutely different to every other language in Oceania. Take "whenua" anywhere outside NZ and no one will have any idea wtf you're talking about.
@@SamuelKristopher Evidence or not, virtually no one actually recognises Zealandia as a continent.
Atlas Pro I really enjoy your videos, but I am not sure this video did your knowledge base and skillset justice. Maybe more specific topics might be your niche? I can foresee many viewers being unhappy or unfulfilled with this video. Keep up the good work nevertheless and I look forward to your next video!
South east asia actually have our endonym, from the sanskrit the name of south east asia is NUSANTARA its popular in indonesia, malaysia, singapore, brunei
But that would also make it an exonym. Sanskrit is Indian, not South-East Asian
Nice video @Atlas Pro. Most Bantu languages in Africa including Hausa, Igbo, Swahili & Zulu use "Tu" in their word for people. The word for land in African languages is too different for each language so using the word for people as a reference Kantu/Kwantu/Katu can be another name for Africa, simply meaning "land of people".
I was thinking the exact same thing. African culture and language is also called isintu, the people abantu, the unity ubuntu, it makes sense for the continent to be Kwantu.
Mate, you have Australian history 100% wrong. The original descendants have been there 40-60,000 years, the Maori only settled NZ in the 1300's.
The Australian Aboriginals left Africa during Ice Age and kept on walking land bridges until they arrived on the continent. It is one of the oldest and most beautiful cultures on earth.
this tbh
He doesn’t say anything against what u said in this video?
@@mcswaggerdog5451 I think more so the fact Aborigines aren't even mentioned, and instead used Maori to name the whole area.
Personally feel the Maori works for Oceania region, but doesn't fit with Australia mainland.
>most beautiful
Yes, very beautiful how they turned the vast majority of Australia into a desert by burning forests to hunt instead of creating agriculture.
@@Seethenhagen That is a monumentally crass and ill-conceived conclusion from all evidence, and probably a discussion for a different format than the comments section of this video.
Uses Māori word to describe Oceania....proceeds to leave New Zealand off the world map 😂
I'm a native Tunisian. And as far as i know, the name "Africa" comes from the ancient name of Tunisia which was 'Ifriqiya' . And it got it's name by the Romans when they entered the continent.
Since Middle East was added, why not South East Asia? They are very different compared to China and India. Anyway, naming it would be hard since there are 2 clear divisions of it - Mainland SEA and Maritime SEA.
I can only speak for Maritime SEA and a very proper name for it would be Malaya. Combined name? idk lol
Aztecs: Starts off as a small tribe but later found nice structures that they literally just claimed it
*_ILLUSION 100_*
*_SPEECH 100_*
12:05
Don't want to be a downer, but you got the two mixed up
Tian = Heaven/Sky
Xia = Under/ Fall/down
Ps: You're pronunciation has gotten way better ^-^
Ooooh, so that is where Skyfall got its name from!
I came here for this comment
Yea, I was confused for a moment there as well, since Tian is the few words I know of in Chinese.
Came down here to see if anyone had posted this yet! Thanks! Some further explanation and examples:
Chinese uses a lot of POSTpositions instead of PREpositions, which English uses. Good examples can be found in the names of the provinces:
Hu = Lake; Nan = South
Hunan -> South of the Lake
Bei = North
Hubei -> North of the Lake
He = River
Henan and Hebei -> ?
Shan = Mountain; Dong = East; Xi = West
Shandong and Shanxi -> ?
Shanxi being different from Shaanxi, where Xi'an is.
Unfortunately, his Sanskrit pronunciation still needs work
This has no right to be as interesting as it is. Great video!😁
6:25 In Indonesian Language a word for earth is also "Dunia"
It's an Islamic word
The Swahili word Dunia comes from Arabic دُنْيا (pronounced the same) meaning "world", referring to the temporal world
That explains why the word Duniya is also there in Hindi (दुनिया)
Same as Indonesian
To add to this, literally it means "The Lowest".
Somali, Swahili, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Malay-Indonesian, Persian, Afghan, Turkish, etc use the very same word deriving from Arabic, Dunya.
Sounds like Atlas Pro needs to do more research
Why
He got lots of things wrong
@@sir_dreadlord_on_blitz7042 And you did do the grammars wrong too.
@@kieranomohundro7516 that's autocorrect biting me in the ass
@@sir_dreadlord_on_blitz7042 What did he get wrong?
As an ethnic Chinese, I find calling East Asia "Tianxia" funny
天下非一人之天下也天下之天下也
For Antarctica you could’ve used the Inuit name for their land in the arctic and use the opposite
Cemanahuca is the original name for North America. Teotihuacan Toltecs Aztecs all developed in "Anahuac" aka "The Valley of Mexico" where present day mexico city is located. This is Mexicos core as well as the core of civilzations in North America. The domesticated plants that sustained Americans biggest tribes originated here. Plants such as Corn, Squash Beans. Mexica language is a Nahua part of the Uto-Aztec language family which features tribes in Arizona New Mexico. Mexico has always been Culturally economically politically linked in North America aka CemAnhuac
Say it again louder, for the people in the back!
Actually mainland Central America only goes up to the Central Corridor which only includes Chiapas and the Yucatan Peninsula, but otherwise great video! Keep up the good work.
North America is often referred to as Turtle Island. The conversation about this has been going for a while now.
Amesome to see someone make an effort on moari pronunciation! Best I've seen on YT so far. It's a tricky one though, a wh makes a 'fah' sound
Europe is sometimes called Tír na óg in Irish (land of the young) after a tale from Irish mythology. That could fit in well as a Celtic name
Europa
All I can think of is the song.
Don‘t worry apparently Sahara means desert in Arabic, soo...
Also, that Irish version for Europe sounded EPIC actually!
Agreed
Arctic is derived from the Greek work "arktos" meaning "bear" so "arctic circle" is "circle of bears" and "Antarctica" is basically "land opposite of bears". So we've got Bearland and That Place Opposite of Bearland
@@arthas640
So Russia, & not Russia? (It's a joke Russia)
@@arthas640 bearland and bearn'tland
Didn't bear also mean brown before it was used to refer to bears?
Naj Renchelf Arabs are from Asia not Africa so it doesn’t count.
Southeast Asia: *I guess we don't exist*
The name for Europe could have also been from the Greek “europa”
Meaning “unknown lands” as the didn’t venture north into mainland Europe and Scandinavia
Nope europa does NOT mean unknown lands in Greek language. As far as i know europa ( "Ευρώπη" in greek) is named from a mythological princess called by that name
@@idizzzful That story seems to be younger than the name Europa.
@@damienthonk1506 well how you can say "younger" for something is pre-historic...
Indians tell "Indian Ocean" as
"Bharat Mahasagar" 🇮🇳
sound really cool
Mahasagar sounds suspiciously like Madagascar. Makes sense.
@@RWBHere mahasagar means ocean in hindi
@@RWBHere it's just a coincidence 😅, Sagar means sea and maha means big, so it's the Bharat bigsea or simply the Bharat ocean
Ok man i find it interesting that “bharat” means “spices” in Arabic..
great placeholders for an alternate history novel
@@ramoun16 thank you
Well ancient India's name was Bharat Varsh (Land where Bharat used to rule/live) or even Jambu dweep (Island or continent of Indian BlackBerry fruit), Khand means continent so Bharat Khand essentially also means Land of Kind Bharat.
For anybody interested in why King Bharat is considered legendary is that aside from ruling a massive region and doing many heroic deeds he didn't pass his kingdom to any of his son's, instead he personally searched for the most able person to succeed him.
Also Bharat is one of the two official names of India, the constitution explicitly mentions "India that is Bharat...."
Hello!!!
Maori person from Aotearoa (New Zealand). First off, I would like to thank you for including our native culture in your video. Aotearoa's indigenous people are not well known outside of our country so I appreciate. Although, I would like to quickly correct you on your pronunciation of "whenua." The "wh" sound found in Maori actually sounds like an "f" and not the normal "w" sound you think when you say words like "when" or "who." If you search up how to pronounce the word, google shows it as "feh-noo-uh." To anyone reading this, please do your research on the pronunciations of words in other languages. I would also like to point out that my people did not just live on Te-Ika-a-Maui (The North Island) but also inhabited Te Wai Pounamu (The South Island), Rakiura (Stewart Island), and other surrounding islands. My own iwi (tribe), Ngai Tahu, is actually the primary iwi found on Te Wai Pounamu. Just to clarify though, although whenua translates to land, Aotearoa is actually the Maori name we use for New Zealand. Aotearoa translates to "Land of the Long White Cloud." I would also like to add that you completely skipped over the existence of the Aboriginal people in Australia. Finally, please do a video dedicated to Aotearoa. My country is beautiful and very unique, and I would love to see a video about it's ecology, biology, and geography!!
Y'all shout a lot
Cem Anahuac (land surrounded by water) would be a better endonym for Central America.
I like that too!
NorthAmerica. Anahuac describing the "valley of Mexico" located on the Mexican Plateau that extends outward to the North liftted by the Sierra madres that break into the Colorado Rockies and the Sierra Nevada.
Great video! Only thing is that Teotihuacan is an Aztec name (the original name of the civilization is lost to time), so by your own definition that would make it an exonym as well.
The Aztecs were in the gulf of California so It does makes it an endonym
3:51 actually if this had happened they almost certainly would have called North America something along the lines of “Ihavenoideawhatyouresayingistan”
Many “native names” for things that stuck in European languages often weren’t actually the name of the plant or animal or land, but some variation of “I don’t understand your language”
"Black Land fits better than Red Land" - shows people on red land.
For the Middle East, wouldn't the Iranian people groups have a better claim to field a name for the region (considering the Achaemenid Empire) or if not them, the Phoenicians, as both of these cultures had established and documented civilisations prior to the Arabs...
The Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians and early Persians (Achaemenids) called the region "kibrāt erbetti" which literally means 4 corners of the world, the 4 regions referring to Amuuru, Subartu, Akkad and Elam.
I don't agree with Persians getting the right (since they are a bit further east, they can take central Asia) but Phoenicians maybe. they are also semetic and therefore Arabic is very similar to it, so Mashriq still holds.
Surely the Sumerians ought to take the claim, being the first literate civilization? They called their land Kienĝir, meaning “land of the native lords”, which I think is appropriate enough.
The Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians (not to mention Phoenicians and Hebrews later down the line) were all speaking Semitic languages, so I think using a Semitic root word would be suitable over an Iranian one, or any Indo-European for that matter. Alternatively, Sumerian should be used, although much of it was picked up by Semites through the Akkadians anyways.
Semitic people have been residing the land for thousands of years. Let's go with them
You forgot us from South East Asia... We have more population than Australia, South America, North America and the Middle East.
Then give us examples of whatever you think it should be called! :D plss
@@Djeljosue I'll pass, I dunno that's why I was hoping to it see here. I'm not well versed enough in the history of my language since and we've been using loan words all over the world. Maybe the Indonesians, Malaysians, Khmer, Thais, Vietnamese and Lao could do it. The Burmese are not native to SEA so they're out.
*Sad in Indonesian*
It would be really hard to find a name who could encapasses both Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, since they have radical different cultures, one being indu-buddhist in nature (Thailand, Camboja, Myamnar) (not counting Vietnam, who is almost East Asia and chinese in culture) and the other being islamic (Indonesia and Malasia), both being equally important regions , I guess it's rather to split both, one refering to the mainland and other for the islands.
@@Djeljosue maybe it can be called as "Nusantara"... But its only a melayu (Malaysia and West Indonesia) origin... But it was used to call all the islands in SEA region...
Another name maybe "Bola" or "Balla", but it a term that came from a small kingdom in the middle SEA...
The whole Australia/Oceania part of the video is a big bruh moment
Since there’s a common theme within Native American mythology that the earth is a giant turtle swimming in the ocean, there’s a movement to identify the pre-European new world as Turtle Island/Isla Tortuga.
I'm Irish myself, but I feel sorry for the Scottish people watching who got left out in this one lol.
Also if you're translating it into modern Irish, instead of Fionnmach you would actually say Machaire Fionn if you wanted to be persnickety about it, most Irish placenames not combine the two words together like they way English placenames do. If anyone cares 😅.
NORTH AMERICA IS TURTLE ISLAND!!!
James Selkirk - Thank YOU!!!! I was yelling at the Video with the CORRECT name for North America!!
though that is an anglicization, we'd need to find an indigenous language to find an original version.
@@koohikoo can't find one... GOD DAMNED RACIST CANADA....
James Selkirk - LOL.. No worries.. My Social Work education was obtained at Humboldt State University in California- which has an emphasis in Indigenous Peoples and worldviews. I will ask some of my former professors which belong to the Hopa and Yurok Tribes... And I will definitely come back and let you all know!! 😇
Only some of the people call it that, and it's a pretty bad idea to privilege one group over another in naming the whole continent. In this case exonyms are safer.
Would make a cool movie or video game concept... You wake up or start playing as character in some alternate reality where these places are called this.
You slowly piece together that is actually earth
I live in New Zealand near a mountain called My maunganui. Maunga translates to mountain, so mountain mountain, so weird double names exist in already in NZ so the ocean ocean thing is ok.
Well, since we didn't developed a common language as a species which would be useful for toponymy, tautologies like that were bound to happen on our home planet.
I mean ffs... Southern Australia just means "the southern part of the southern land".