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A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

economist.com

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Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#121

Post by [deleted] »

zeteo wrote: post #117
jmchuster wrote: post #19

> But it could help explain why Columbus, a Genoese, was prepared to set off across what most contemporaries considered a landless void. I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. He was just lucky enough there happened to be land halfway there, and then mistakenly assumed he made it, since…

I always find it fascinating that people are so much more interested in why he sailed for America rather than how . Columbus was a navigator, not a geographer. His true discovery was not America (which plenty of people, including some Europeans, had reached before) but the replicable transatlantic voyage.

[deleted]

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#122

Post by hirako2000 »

throw0101a wrote: post #34
jmchuster wrote: post #19

> But it could help explain why Columbus, a Genoese, was prepared to set off across what most contemporaries considered a landless void. I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. He was just lucky enough there happened to be land halfway there, and then mistakenly assumed he made it, since…

> I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. In the late 1400s people thought the Asian continent was larger than it is in reality. So when Columbus et co saw islands they thought they had hit Japan†… roughly where all the best maps of the day said it would be. See Toscanelli's 1474 map, wh…

It's interesting how deeply wrong we were at that time, while we precedently knew all the dimensions and distance of most parts of the globe with pretty high accuracy.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#123

Post by thaumasiotes »

crakenzak wrote: post #36
joecot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Columbus thought India was closer than it was because birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere . Portugal, Spain and anyone else he asked thought he was wrong because that would've required the Earth to be around 20k miles in circumference, when the Ancient Greeks had calculated it to be 24k miles in circumference (and they were very close in their calculations).…

> birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere. Are you saying birds were carrying twigs over the Atlantic from Americas -> Europe?? Genuinely curious as to if birds actually do that, seems pointless.

Not a twig, but there is a recorded case of a bird making it to Europe after being shot with an African arrow. (Which it involuntarily carried with it.)

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#124

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

weswpg wrote: post #114
dboreham wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably fake history. Modern thinking is that Columbus had a pretty good idea where he was going because others had already been there.

Why is the area referred to as "the west Indies" unless he thought it was India

My theory is that it means not the actual Indies, but a place like the Indies, but to the west. I suspect Europeans at the time though of India less as where the Indians live and more like a place to get cool stuff, and cool stuff was indeed found in the West Indies too.

A bit like chicken of the sea. It’s not that they’re saying that tuna is a form of waterfowl, just that the two have common applications.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#125

Post by hirako2000 »

ncmncm wrote: post #87
Andrex wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in current parlance that is called "hustle." (Or in less generous terms, "fraud.")

"Conspiracy" would mean somebody else was in on it. By definition.

Magellan must have been.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#126

Post by thaumasiotes »

prewett wrote: post #58
ummwhat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The informal Chinese word for white people is "Lao Wai" which literally translates as "old foreign" (the formal word for foreigners is Wai gou Ren (foreign country person)). The explanation I was given for the informal word is that it means "the old foreigners, as in the ones we've known about since antiquity."

Lao is often use as a colloquial form of respect. So “ba” means “father”, so “lao ba” is kind of like “my old man”. “Lao ban” (ban meaning business owner / boss) is “boss”. Wives might call their husband “lao gong”. I think “jiu4” is old as in the opposite of new (xin1), as in Jiujinshan (San Francisco, literal, old gold mountain).

I have read that 旧金山 originated as the term for the mountain of silver the foreigners who came to trade silver for silk must have had somewhere. (They did have such a mountain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Rico ) "Gold" is, in this analysis, just a more respectful way to refer to silver.

I'm curious when and how the name might have attached itself to San Francisco, which is not near Potosí.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#127

Post by thaumasiotes »

kinghtown wrote: post #54
ummwhat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The informal Chinese word for white people is "Lao Wai" which literally translates as "old foreign" (the formal word for foreigners is Wai gou Ren (foreign country person)). The explanation I was given for the informal word is that it means "the old foreigners, as in the ones we've known about since antiquity."

My experience living in Taiwan is that those terms may literally mean foreigner but their practical usage means white/western people. A native or black american would not be called that. Also, lao wai is the one they go for when they are angry or postering xenophobia amongst each other. I find it to be a needlessly othering term but I try to accept it as not said with explicitly bad intent.

Well, the traditional insult is quite different, 洋鬼子. ("Foreign devils" is the traditional translation.) People who are looking to insult foreigners have no need to use the ordinary, non-insulting word.

Though this may be less true in Taiwan; I think 洋鬼子 is fairly Maoist.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#128

Post by swalsh »

Thought i'd give a quick shout out to a book I recently read "1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles Mann, and his followup book 1493.

The 2 books really changed the way I view the history of the contienent, the people who were here before, my view on agriculture and disease. Just an all around great read. He does use some language I would consider politically incorrect... but it's not for ignorance. Indeed, he's clearly spent an enormous amount of effort trying best to figure out what language to use. Ultimately he concludes there weren't any good "accurate" terms that currently exist so he used what was accepted nomenclature. It does make parts hard to read though.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#130

Post by distances »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #123
crakenzak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere. Are you saying birds were carrying twigs over the Atlantic from Americas -> Europe?? Genuinely curious as to if birds actually do that, seems pointless.

Not a twig, but there is a recorded case of a bird making it to Europe after being shot with an African arrow. (Which it involuntarily carried with it.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfeilstorch

But that's different, I doubt birds intentionally carry anything from Africa either.

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