Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology, (griech.) etymología, (lat.) etymologia, (esper.) etimologio
Kontinent, Continente, Continent, Continente, Continent, (esper.) kontinentoj
@m Amerika, América, Amérique, America, America
Allgemein, general, en général, generale, in general

Landes-Name in den Amtssprachen der Staaten der Welt

AMTLICHE BEZEICHNUNGEN AUSLÄNDISCHER STAATEN IN DEN LANDESSPRACHEN

LÄNDERVERZEICHNIS für den amtlichen Gebrauch in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Country Named Authority List

Country Index

Recommandation concernant les noms d’États, d’habitants, de capitales, de sièges diplomatiques ou consulaires (liste établie par le ministère des affaires étrangères et européennes)

America (W3)

Amerika (W3)

How America got its name

The surprising story of an obscure scholar, an adventurer’s letter, and a pun

Der Begleiter des Kolumbus, Amerigo Vespucci, war der erste, der darauf hinwies, dass ein neuer Kontinent entdeckt worden war und nicht etwa Indien. Er war auch der erste, der diesen Kontinent erreichte, so dass der Straßburger Professor Martin Waldseemüller den neuen Erdteil auf seiner Weltkarte »Carta marina universalis« von 1507 Amerika nannte.
...
Matthias Ringmann was born in an Alsatian village in 1482. After studying the classics at university he settled in the Strasbourg area, where he began to eke out a living by proofing texts for local printers and teaching school. It was a forgettable life, of a sort that countless others like him were leading. But sometime in early 1505, Ringmann came across a recently published pamphlet titled “Mundus Novus,” and that changed everything.
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Ringmann may well have been the first European to entertain this idea, and he acted on it quickly. Soon he had teamed up with a local German mapmaker named Martin Waldseemüller, and the two men printed 1,000 copies of a giant world map designed to broadcast the news: the famous Waldseemüller map of 1507. One copy of the map still survives, and it’s recognized as one of the most important geographical documents of all time.

That’s because it’s the first to depict the New World as surrounded by water;
the first to suggest the existence of the Pacific Ocean;
the first to portray the world’s continents and oceans roughly as we know them today;
and, of course, the first to use a strange new name: "America", which Ringmann and Waldseemüller printed in block letters across what today we would call "Brazil".
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The naming-of-America passage in “Introduction to Cosmography” is rich in precisely the sort of word play Ringmann loved. The key to the passage is the curious name "Amerigen", which combines the name "Amerigo" with the Greek word "gen", or "earth", to create the meaning "land of Amerigo". But the name yields other meanings. "Gen" can also mean "born", and the word "ameros" can mean "new", suggesting, as many Renaissance observers had begun to hope, that the land of Amerigo was a place where European civilization could go to be reborn — an idea, of course, that still resonates today. The name may also contain a play on "meros", a Greek word sometimes translated as "place", in which case "Amerigen" would become "A-meri-gen", or "No-place-land": not a bad way to describe a previously unnamed continent whose full extent was still uncertain.

Whatever its meanings, the name "America" filled a need. By the middle of the 16th century it had caught on, and mapmakers were using it to define not only South but North America. But Ringmann himself didn’t live to see the day. By 1511 he was complaining of weakness and shortness of breath, and before the year’s end he was dead, probably of tuberculosis. He hadn’t yet reached 30.

Both Ringmann and Waldseemüller soon slipped into obscurity. The two would remain forgotten for centuries, but Waldseemüller’s star rose again in the 20th century, thanks to the accidental rediscovery, in 1901, of the sole surviving copy of his great map. A century later, calling it" America’s birth certificate", the Library of Congress bought the map for the astonishing sum of $10 million — and in 2007, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the naming of America, put it on public display. Waldseemüller now seems guaranteed permanent celebrity as the author of one of the most important documents ever created.
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Am 9. März 1454 (?) wurde in Florenz ein bekannter Mann geboren: "Amerigo Vespucci". Wenn du dir seinen Vornamen anschaust, kannst du dir vielleicht denken, warum er eine solche Berühmtheit war. Genau: Er war es, nach dem "Amerika" benannt wurde. Außerdem war er einer der Männer, die in der Zeit von Christoph Kolumbus auf Entdeckungsreisen durch die Weltmeere unterwegs waren.

In Florenz wurde Vespucci geboren.

Angefangen hat Vespucci aber als Bankkaufmann. In Florenz arbeitete er für Lorenzo de Medici, einem Mitglied der berühmten Florentiner Bankiersfamilie. Unter Lorenzo wurde Florenz zur führenden Macht in Italien. Er war es auch, der Vespucci bald darauf nach Sevilla schickte.

Dort war der Italiener unter der Leitung von Giannotto Berardi hauptsächlich mit der Ausrüstung von Schiffen beschäftigt. Dabei lernte er auch Kolumbus kennen, dem er bei den Vorbereitungen für dessen zweite und dritte Reise half. Nach dem Tod Berardis wurde er selbst Leiter des Büros in Sevilla.

Zwischen 1499 und 1502 unternahm Vespucci dann seine zwei großen Fahrten. So erkundete er 1499 und 1500 die Nordküste Südamerikas im Auftrag Spaniens. Gleich ein Jahr später von 1501 bis 1502 brach er unter portugiesischer Flagge an die brasilianische Küste auf.

Noch während seiner ersten Reise glaubte Vespucci, die Ostküste Asiens vor sich zu haben. Ein Irrtum, dem auch Christoph Kolumbus unterlegen war. Erst auf seiner zweiten Fahrt machte Vespucci die geschichtsträchtige Entdeckung: Er hatte es nicht mit Asien, sondern mit einer Neuen Welt zu tun! So erlangte diese zweite Reise eine enorme Bedeutung in der Geschichte der geografischen Entdeckungen.

Wohl aus diesem Grund galt Vespucci auch lange Zeit als der Entdecker von Amerika. Der Kontinent wurde sogar nach ihm benannt. Man behielt den Namen "Amerika" auch bei, als klar war, dass eigentlich Christoph Kolumbus Amerika als erster entdeckt hatte und nicht Vespucci.
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Most people know that America is named after "Amerigo Vespucci", but few know why. Two myths about Vespucci are common. The first is that Vespucci was a fraud who never traveled to the New World. The second is that he was the first European to set foot on mainland America. Both are untrue.

Vespucci made two trips to the New World as a ship’s navigator, the first in 1499. Then in 1503 and 1504 he published two letters he had written to Lorenzo de Medici about his voyages. In the letters he put forward the idea that what Columbus had discovered was not in fact a new route to Asia, but rather a new continent. Vespucci also published the first letter under the title "Novus Mundus", or "New World", thereby coining that phrase. The letters were a media hit (but whether their popularity was because of his innovative navigational theories or his description of the sex lives of American Indians is a question), and Vespucci became a celebrity.

In 1507, the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller and writer Matthias Ringmann published a map in their book Cosmographiae Introductio that designated the "new world" as "America" and the name was coined. Like many Italians of his era, Vespucci used the Latinized version of his first name, "Americus", in formal writing. The text that accompanied Waldseemüller’s map, which was probably written by Ringmann, explains why the feminine form of the name, "America", was selected — because the names of Europe and Asia were also in the feminine:
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Andes
Anden (W3)

The longest range in the world, in South America. From Quechua Amerind "andi" = "high summit".

Neue Welt (W3)

Nouveau Monde
Ancien Monde (W3)