Wales' Greatest Achievement: The United States of America!

[I AM MOBIUS]

Finally!

And yes, I agree that I think the Caribbean option is the most plausible option, especially when you consider how prominent native place names are in present day countries...

The conventional Vespucci theory just doesn't sit right, and whilst I'd love the Richard Amerike theory to be right, there just simply isn't strong enough evidence to say so for certain.

[grumbler]

The conventional Vespicci story is by far the most plausible, though it certainly could also be influenced by native languages. "Amerigo" would have been Vespicci's cognomen in Latin, not his nomen (and that would explain why he started using it rather than Albericus later in life). We knew Caesar as Caesar, not Gaius or Julius. Ditto Cato, Scipio Africanus, and Cicero. The assumption that America must have been named after a Welshman just because there was a Welshman with a similar name at the time doesn't hold up, nor do hypotheses about missing maps serve as evidence of anything.

It's a fun thread, though, so let's not let mere implausibility (like the idea that Lincoln is a Welsh name) stand in the way.

[Dauphin]

My proof: two links to original 16th C. documents published by none other than Vespucci himself...

Please tell me why America is not called 'Vespuccia' instead, or if we are to believe they went completely off-convention: 'Alberica', huh, huh?

And the consensus also was that the Earth was flat. I never took you for a flat-earther, rah...

When was this consensus that the Earth was flat?

[grumbler]

When was this consensus that the Earth was flat?

That was an amusing convention created by the Columbus fans - that he was the first modern European to realize the world was round. Of course every educated person at the time knew it was round; the Greeks had proven that. The issue was the size of the world, and how close Asia was by the Western route. Columbus argued that Asia was only about 8,0000 miles west of Europe. It took him a long time to find someone willing to back that silly idea.

[The Mad Monk]

Count on the Welsh to be late to the party...

[Alexander's Horse]

*snicker*

[pchang]

Eratosthenes estimate was a lot more accurate than Columbus'.

[Egbert]

I think the greatest achievement for Wales was having an Australian state named after the south of Wales.

* Horsey, back me up

[jsorense]

Count on the Welsh to be late to the party...

I thought you could count on them to come early and leave late to a party.

[Lorizael]

America: named after Welshman Richard ap Meryk, Anglicised to Richard Amerike (or Ameryk).

Nope.

In Chapter 8 of the Cosmographiae Introductio, The Climatic Zones that Divide the Earth, Ringmann, the author, writes:

The fourth part of the earth we have decided to call Americe, the land of Amerigo we might even say, or America because it was discovered by Amerigo.

Further on in Chaper 9, Rudiments of Cosmography, he explains why they used this name for the recently discovered territory:

Today these parts of the earth [Europe, Africa and Asia] have been more extensively explored than a fourth part of the world, as will be explained in what follows, and that has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci. Because it is well known that Europe and Asia were named after women, I can see no reason why anyone would have good reason to object to calling this fourth part Amerige, the land of Amerigo, or America, after the man who discovered it. The location of this part and the customs of its people can be clearly understood from the four voyages of Amerigo Vespucci that we have placed after this introduction.

Richard Ap Meric, a Welsh name anglicised to Amerike, was a successful Bristol trader who was one of the investors in the voyages to America made by John Cabot from the port of Bristol. The theory is that Cabot named part, or all, of his discovery after Amerike on the map(s) he made and that this map/these maps are the origin of the name America. So far, so good. This theory suffers from a few problems. Firstly, although he may have made maps of his discoveries in North America none of them has survived so we have no idea what they contained. Secondly there exists no other source of any kind suggesting that Cabot named anything at all after Richard Amerike, end of story!

[Dinner]

I am not surprised that some radical revisionist theory turns out to be wrong.

[I AM MOBIUS]

What an awesome thread!