Talk:Americas

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Contents

1 More Information Desired 2 Better Map 3 Why it should be America and not "America" when being discussed as a name or word 4 Page Move 5 Continent or Continents? 6 Naming Theories

More Information Desired

land mass? population? stats?

Better Map

Perhaps someone can find a map/image of the hemesphere that doesn't cut off the top third of Canada? -- Infrogmation 18:59, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Done, same CIA map, cropped better. - Patrick 20:02, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Why it should be America and not "America" when being discussed as a name or word

I just went through the article again changing all the uses of "words as words" to italics and removing "quotes". This is done for clarity and readability, as per the Wikipedia: Manual of Style:

Words as words

Italicize words when they are being written about, rather than being used to write about what they refer to. Similarly for letters.

• The term panning is derived from panorama, a word originally coined in 1787
  • The term ''panning'' is derived from ''panorama'', a word originally coined in [[1787]]
• The letter E is the most common letter in English.

Please stop changing this. Ortolan88 16:28, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand your logic. Above, when should we use the panning version and when should we use the "panning" version? In the English language, italics are used to denote names of works, whereas quotes are used to denote pieces within works. The number of times I have had to correct articles because they were written by people who do not understand this concept is astounding. panorama would denote a music album, a book, a movie, a play, a novel, or another such title of a work; whereas the quotes would refer to a part of the work (e.g. a song title on an album, a chapter in a book, the name of an act in a play, or a part played by an actor in a movie). So, please, clarify why Wikipedia often seems to employ its own standards--or are several contributors merely ignorant of the proper punctuation?172.147.111.208 17:57, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Page Move

Doesn't seem to pass the "capitalised The in running text" test; naming conventions would seem to apply. Alai 02:52, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Support. I agree with Alai. Jonathunder 08:04, 2005 Apr 4 (UTC)

Template:Moved violet/riga (t) 12:32, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Continent or Continents?

The following was previously by itself toward the top of the talk page without a heading. I've moved it here. For what it's worth, Central America is not a continent, and National Geographic does not recognize it as one. I believe it is more of a cultural division. Additionally, please sign comments in the future. If nothing else, it makes the flow of conversation much clearer. -- Dpark 00:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Most references consider there to be two continents, North America and South America. However, most Spanish language references consider the two to be a single continent, "America".

Dears Most References??? The National Geographic maps shows clearly

Nort America

central america

South America

Also If you read afficial papers fromt he US governement they usually spoke about central america........

I Think that the article needs to stick to the three divisions in teh continent Milton 10:33, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

It is true that, as the article states, most references in English describe North America and South America as two continents. This article is a reference in English; why doesn't it do the same? It is confusing for the article to begin "The Americas is an alternative name in the English language for the continent of America," when for the typical reader the Americas are two continents. AJD 20:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I went through and cleaned that up a bit. I removed the mention that English texts "assume" The Americas are two continents. This is basic geography. (See continent). As far as I can tell, this "The Americas are one continent" thing is a view held primarily by Spanish-speaking people. I don't pretend to understand the view, or where it comes from, but there are definitely two continents. At least, that's the accepted view in English-speaking areas. If there's some debate about the number of continents, let it be hashed out on the continent talk page. The Americas should present accepted information. In English, it's accepted that there are two continents. -- Dpark 06:13, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, see continent, where it says that a continent is "a large contiguous landmass". But then it goes on to ignore its own definition, and then re-uses it as if it is a deviation (a landbridge) in stead of the definition itself that makes the whole of America one continent. Confusing. There's a tension between logic and custom here. Well, in English, anyway. Not in Dutch, for example. I'm Dutch and In my entire life I've only once come across the plural form (Amerikas), which I pointed out to someone and we had a bit of a laugh at such stupidity.

Google 'de Amerikas' for dutch sites (.nl) and you'll get just one hit! Do the same for 'les Ameriques' for french sites (.fr) and you'll get 7000 hits versus 224.000 for 'l'Amerique'. In German it's 2640 versus 1.440.000. Of course, the use of Amerique/Amerika for the USA has to be substracted from these figures, and that requires quite some more research.

Or try Wikipedia. The German Wikipedia doesn't know about 'Amerikas' and has a disambiguation page for 'Amerika' that says it's either the continent (yes, one continent) or, colloquially, the USA. The French Wikipedia says 'Amerique' is one of the five continents (no mention of the plural). The Spanish Wikipedia says America is one continent with two subcontinents. And my other languages are a bit rusty :), but it seems that the Indonesian, Danish, Esperanto, Latin and Portuguese Wikipedias call America one continent. The Swedish Wikipedia seems to call it a double-continent and only the Italian, Romanian and Polish Wikipedias seem to say that there are two continents (North and South), although even these seem to suggest an ambiguity.

So it's not the Spanish who deviate, it's more like the English language is the odd one out (avoiding ambiguity with the colloquial naming of the USA), with some other languages following suit rather half-heartedly. Of course, this is the Enlish Wikipedia, so usage in the English language is the criterium, but don't pretend it's a Spanish oddity to call America one continent. That's even scientifically the most correct naming.

DirkvdM 09:40, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

Then again, shouldn't an encyclopedia be language-independent? Or rather, shouldn't there be a version of Wikipedia for the people of the world (and thus language-independent), and, if so, in what language should that then be? English seems the most logical choice (Esperanto isn't big enough). And having two English versions (actually three, if you count the 'simple English' version) seems too much. So this version should reflect the average view in the world and not just the English speaking part of it. Right? I'm sure this has already been discussed somewhere, but where?

A language independent encyclopedia has no meaning. Any useful information presented in any language is necessarily biased toward the way of thinking of those who use that language.

And I don't think it's appropriate to refer to other languages in an attempt to define the "proper" meaning of English words. Maybe in other languages, "America" refers to the Americas, and maybe in other languages, it's taught that the Americas is only one continent. I really don't know. I know that in English, we have an accepted meaning to the terms, and if they don't match other languages, maybe we should leave it that way. Native speakers of other languages would be (and often are) terribly offended if it were implied that they must change their use of a word because it doesn't match that of English speakers. I see no reason we shouldn't feel the same. It's not reasonable to warp our language to meet someone else's definitions.

For example, German has no distinction between "many" and "much", but there's a clear distinction in English. You could argue that the English way is "wrong", because most languages (I believe) don't have the distinction, but people would call you silly (at best). German has only "viele", but English has "much" and "many". German (perhaps) has only "Amerika". English has "America" and "the Americas". It makes no more sense to adopt the German use of "America" than it does to adopt the German's consolidated "much/many". You cannot avoid bias. It's better for the German speakers to have their encyclopedia and the English speakers to have theirs. Trying to suit everyone results in a product which suits no one. -- Dpark 04:59, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The difference between 'many' and 'much' is something purely linguistic (which, by the way also exists in German; 'viele' and 'viel'). Like the differences between American and English English. But the difference between 'America' and 'Americas' can be seen as a statement about a fact outside language; whether it's one or two continents. Anyway, can there really not be a language-independent encyclopedia? By this I mean one that isn't biased by linguistic oddities, in which language follows fact in stead of the other way around. Putting it that way, I now think Esperanto (or another 'synthetic' language) would probably be the best choice for that. But that leaves the problem that hardly anyone speaks it (me included). DirkvdM 09:36, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Maybe my German is rustier than I thought. I remember trying to explainthe difference between "much" and "many" to some Germans, though. Maybe I just lacked an understanding of the equivalent structure in German. Anyway, I have no doubt that there are other similar situations. They are eluding me right now, though.

The problem with saying that whether America is one or two continents is that there is no concensus. Look at the continent page. Look at the German continent page. The French one. None of them give a hard number of continents. For whatever reason, geographers cannot seem to decide what constitutes a continent any more. I remember learning the 7, and later learning about "Eurasia" being a single continent. I'm pretty sure everyone I know was taught the same thing, but I can't guarantee it. But if we can't even agree on how many continents there are, how are we to assert that it's "wrong" to refer to North and South America as two separate continents? I don't think we can make calls like that. Again, that kind of thing is best left to the continent talk page. Until that debate is decided, I feel it's better to give the accepted opinion in English-speaking countries.

And yes, I firmly believe that there's no such thing as a language-independent encyclopedia (or anything else in written form). Debates like this show us why it doesn't really work. Esperanto isn't especially neutral, either. It's more than just a little Euro-centric. -- Dpark 14:32, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

By the way, is this view of America consisting of two continents a North American thing or is this view also held in the British Isles? DirkvdM 06:45, 2005 Jun 7 (UTC)

British and Irish usage would generally be to see them as distinct continents. No-one much uses the "large contiguous landmass" defn, otherwise not only are Europe and Asia the same continent, so's Africa (though there's a nano-article here for that too, admittedly. "Scientifically", one might argue that continental plates are more significant. And the whole terminology of "the Americas" rather assumes the plurality, no? Alai 07:35, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's the issue at hand. Is it one or two continents and should it therefore be singular or plural? DirkvdM 09:36, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

The standard in America, and I believe other English-speaking countries as well, is to teach that there are 7 continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, and Antarctica. More recently, it's been common to teach that Europe and Asia can potentially be regarded as a single continent (Eurasia), but still teaching the 7 continents first. Webster's still says there's 7 continents. -- Dpark 04:59, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dpark just reverted almost all of my changes (with no comment here), saying they're confusing. But my purpose was in part to make the text clearer, incorporating the ideas in this discussion. I won't be so childish to revert it again straight away, so could others maybe comment on it? For one, I think my version of the beginning, about the differences between languages, is easier to read. Then there's the rings of the Olympic flag. That they "represent the five parts of the world which embrace healthy competition" is indeed taken form that article, but it sounds downright silly to me. I read elsewhere in Wikipedia that they represent the five inhabited continents, and that sounds a lot better and it is in keeping with the lists at the bottom of the olympic flag article. And why drop "as one continent"? That clarifies the point (and clarification was my main purpose). I now agree with the first two reverts in the second paragraph (although I corrected the doubling of the 'the'). But the last sentence is just wrong if you ask me. The western hemisphere is the half west of the prime meridian. So to say that (the) America(s) is the western hemisphere is nonsense, it just happens to be the major occupant of it. The western hemisphere article gets this wrong too (I'll start a discussion about that there too). DirkvdM 20:14, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Fine, we can discuss my reverts. I certainly didn't mean to offend you, and I'm sorry if I did.

The term Americas is often used to refer collectively to North and South America ...

This seems to imply that "Americas" may also be used for another meaning, which is not the case as far as I know.

... America, which is often used to designate the United States of America. However, it is often considered to be one continent, so in many languages the singular form is used.

I felt that this was somewhat confusing. It seems to me to be less clear than the other text in explaining the contexts in which America refers to the United States and when America refers to the Americas (the contexts being primarily English vs. non-English). Think the information is pretty much the same, but I felt it read a little less smoothly, and was a little less clear.

The use of the term America to refer to the the Americas as a whole is also found in English in reference to the pre-Columbian or early Columbian era, such as in the common phrase "Christopher Columbus discovered America".

This actually just got cut in the shuffle. I've put it back now. It actually does flow better.

... Olympic flag represent the five inhabited continents. A single ring represents all of the Americas as one continent.

After finding this pdf (http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_672.pdf) on the Olympic site, I've reverted to your text. I'll change Olympic flag as well.

And because, apart from a slice of Africa and Europe, it's the only major landmass in the Western Hemisphere, that term is also sometimes used.

I'm not going to debate the meaning of "Western Hemisphere" here. There's nothing geographical that divides the Earth into eastern and western hemispheres. I'll just refer you to Bartleby (http://www.bartleby.com/61/86/W0098600.html) and Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=western%20hemisphere) I also added a comment on Talk:Western Hemisphere

-- Dpark 17:13, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Blarg, apparently originally Pierre de Coubertin didn't specify that the rings represented continents. He actually did say "parts of the world" (albeit in French). The continent thing is a more recent interpretation. Whatever. I've updated the Olympic flag page to clarify the modern interpretation, and I'll just leave that alone for now. -- Dpark 17:38, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hey, the comment I placed here yesterday has disappeared!? Well, I'll write it again then. We seem to disagree on what is clear writing, and there's hardly a way to resolve that, so I'll leave it. I corrected the bit about the Olympic flag and moved 'as a continent' to the front. As for the western hemisphere, I'm fine with your edit as long as the meaning is expained in that article. Let's continue that discussion there.

I just edited your edit because the one continent view is more common in languages other than English. And it looks strange to speak of one continent and still use the plural form. I'm still in doubt about the implicit assumption at the beginning that North and South America are two continents. It is one thing to use the plural form Americas in the English language (implicating two continents) but another to implicitly state that there actually are two continents in the 'real world'. So I'm in favour of dropping 'the continents of'. That doesn't really change the meaning of the text and avoids the issue. DirkvdM 07:13, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

I removed "the continents of" and reorganized the article somewhat. I also added info about the single vs. multiple continent debate. See if you like the changes. Feel free to discuss any you don't like, and improve where ever you want/can. -- Dpark 22:20, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks good now. I just shortened it here and there for legibility (hope we won't go head to head again over what constitutes clear writing). Just one thing. You say "Traditionally in English-speaking countries, North and South America are considered two continents." But at the beginning of the article it says that the introduction of the plural is relatively recent. I always thought that at first the term America was used for the continent, then the USA became so important for many cultures that it came to represent the entire continent (pars pro totem), so it got the name of the continent (totem pro pars?) (also helped by the problem of what to call the inhabitants of the country). So an ambiguity arose that was resolved by using the plural for the Continent(s). And maybe the notion of two continents was even inspired by this. And that would be very interesting. Language is supposed to represent and thus reflect the world we perceive. But in this case (if this is the case) our perception (or that of English speakers) was influenced by the development of the language. So the perception reflects the language in stead of the other way around. That would be odd. Might there be more instances of this phenomenon? (I have a feeling there are many.) Anyway, to come back to the question: how traditional is the perception of (the) America(s) as two continents? DirkvdM 10:17, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

I don't fully agree with your legibility changes, but I don't disagree with any of them strongly enough to revert them. They're fine.

As for how "traditional" the two-continent view is, I guess that's debateable. I wasn't especially fond of the "recent" tag added at the beginning (especially since it replaced "less ambiguous"), but rather than revert, I simply added back the "less ambiguous" modifier. I'm fairly certain that the use of "the Americas", and the idea that the Americas are two continents has been around for quite some time. The National Geographic Society recognizes seven continents. So far as I know, this has always been its stance, since 1888 (when it was founded). I believe this reflects the American opinion since (at least) then, all the way up to now. If nothing else, I'd say that the National Geographic view has had a significant effect on all English-speaking countries, so assuming the 7-continent view goes all the way back to 1888, I'd bet it spread to the rest of the English-speaking world (any parts which didn't share the view, anyway) at least a century ago.

-- Dpark 22:07, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'd say that 1888 is fairly recent, well at least recent enough not to constitute a tradition. If for 400 years before that the singular name (and the one continent concept) were in use, I'd say that is more like tradition. But is that the case? DirkvdM 08:52, 2005 Jun 16 (UTC)

If you want to rewrite it, feel free to, but I think it's worth pointing out that it's been used for over a century. It's not like it came about in the 1980s. Phrase it however you like, though. -- Dpark 15:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Naming Theories

I'm not especially interested in trying to find a single theory for Wikipedia to put forward, at least not if there isn't a single widely accepted one, but the last sentence in this one strikes me as very, very odd:

Yet another theory states that Vespucci named America after Amorica, the continent of ancient Greek and Roman myth. It is assumed that the Italian Vespucci would have been familiar with Roman myth. Early explorers often believed they were rediscovering islands and continents of myth or religion, such as the idea that South America was the Garden of Eden or 'Earthly Paradise'. After Vespucci's death, people forgot where the name America came from, so they changed his name to Amerigo to explain the naming of America.

Is there any question of Vespucci's first name? If not, that last sentence is very strange, and extremely misleading. If so, then it's still very strange, and needs to be explained. Comments? -- Dpark 00:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)