Why is it called ME?

[Pekka]

I was just thinking.. why is Middle East called what it is called?

Now, if it was in the middle, there should be east before it, right? But that's Europe. That's not east. Then there is the far east.. so.. where's the close east, and if there is not one, then why is there ME?

do your worst.

[Harovan]

It has always been called this way in the news. Near east is the region around Egypt, Israel etc. Far east is Thailand, Laos, Vietnam etc. Middle east is what's between, that simple.

[Pekka]

So there IS near east? Ok..

[Pekka]

Kind of funny.. we don't call ME like that in our native language.. ME translates into near east in finnish .

[POTUS]

Because it was in the Middle of the East. From Western Europe, it is farther east than Eastern Europe, but not as east as the Far East, i.e. China.

[Pekka]

POTUS, yeah, but you shouldn't count Eastern Europe into East. That's Europe, right?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Pekka
So there IS near east? Ok..

Yes. The conflict between Israel and Egypt in the late 60's/early 70's has been the "Nahostkonflikt" (near east conflict) in our news.

[Pekka]

Hmm I wonder why there is no ME in finnish language.. there is only near east (which refers to ME), east and far east.

If I was God, and I now thought 'wait.. in reality.. there is no ME...I guess I thought wrong!' and all things would vanish there right then? I'm glad I'm not God.. only Supercitizen.. though my powers are not yet matched with any other living being..

Or if this was the Matrix... and I was the code maintaining person.. and I started speaking finnish all fo the sudden, the indicators would be all wrong, so planes just entering ME would drop, and there would be just one big fatal error....... you see my powers? You see them? No you can't see them, but believe me they are real.

[Asher]

Millennium Edition.

[Saint Marcus]

Near East = Turkey, etc
Middle East = Iraq, etc
Far East = China, etc

[Pekka]

Saint Marcus, yeah. I got it from the earlier posts.. jsut that we don't have the same terms in finnsih... I didn't know that there is near east, and that we call ME near east makes it confusing to me.

I just call them all dirty easterners from here on. I'm just that powerful.

[Bereta_Eder]

I also found this

http://www.psych.uchicago.edu/~regier/mideast-name.html

[Buck Birdseed]

To me the Near East is the Russian Near East, ie. Western siberia going down towards the Caspian sea.

[Kassiopeia]

Hmm I wonder why there is no ME in finnish language..

There is, it's just not used that often. Keski-itä refers to the region between the Middle East (Lähi-itä) and India, like Iran and Pakistan. Lähi-itä is Iraq, Turkey and the land that falls inbetween, I think. In common language I think Keski-itä has simply become a part of Lähi-itä, though.

[Andemagne]

my 2 (Euro) Cents:

Asia Minor = Turkey
Middle East = Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordania, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia and so on.....
Far East: China, Japan and so on.....