To my knowledge, Columbus called the native people he met in his American voyages Indians because he believed he had reached the East Indies. He wasn't where he thought he was. Most (well, all of it actually) of what I managed to find repeats this as the reason.
Well, I was listening to the commentary on one of the episodes of Family Guy Volume 5 and Seth Mcfarlane claims that Columbus called them Indians because "indio" in Spanish means "people of the land."
I can't find a thing to back up his claim (which is strange, usually you find at least one crazy blogger with a similar theory) and indio in Spanish means, well, Indian but then there may be some etymology to this word I can't find.
Now, Seth McFarlane is not an history professor but so far it looks like he made the whole thing up or he's believing a UL that hasn't quite caught on to the masses yet. Anyone else have anything on this?
Cogito, ergo sum; non sum qualis eram. Putting Descartes before the Horace every time.
Well, I was listening to the commentary on one of the episodes of Family Guy Volume 5 and Seth Mcfarlane claims that Columbus called them Indians because "indio" in Spanish means "people of the land."
I can't find a thing to back up his claim (which is strange, usually you find at least one crazy blogger with a similar theory) and indio in Spanish means, well, Indian but then there may be some etymology to this word I can't find.
Now, Seth McFarlane is not an history professor but so far it looks like he made the whole thing up or he's believing a UL that hasn't quite caught on to the masses yet. Anyone else have anything on this?
"To be an Indian from Trinidad is to be unlikely...this word 'Indian' has been abused as no other word...;almost every time it is used it has to be qualified. There was a time in Europe when everything Oriental or unsual was judged to come from Turkey or India. So Indian ink is really Chinese ink and India paper first came from China. When Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani, he thought he had got to Cathay. He ought therefore to have called the people Chinese. But East was East. He called them Indians, and Indians they remained, walking Indian file through the Indian corn. And so, too, that American bird which to English-speaking people is the turkey is to the French le dindon, the bird of India."
V.S. Naipaul, m'lud, in 1965, starting to describe the difficulties of his ethnicity. As a general rule, there is great difficulty in distinguishing between Sir Vidia and a lowering storm cloud, so anything in his work approaching a joke, from whatever angle, is to be prized.
Incidentally (whatever that ridiculous word means) Russian for turkey is indika; and in Portugese it's peru, which is probably why Luis Henrique last November briefly changed his screen name to Peru, Not Turkey.
I agree, not very helpful. But it passes the time.
V.S. Naipaul, m'lud, in 1965, starting to describe the difficulties of his ethnicity. As a general rule, there is great difficulty in distinguishing between Sir Vidia and a lowering storm cloud, so anything in his work approaching a joke, from whatever angle, is to be prized.
Incidentally (whatever that ridiculous word means) Russian for turkey is indika; and in Portugese it's peru, which is probably why Luis Henrique last November briefly changed his screen name to Peru, Not Turkey.
I agree, not very helpful. But it passes the time.
Cogito, ergo sum; non sum qualis eram. Putting Descartes before the Horace every time.
