In the English-speaking world, America almost always refers only to the United States, even though technically it could refer to North and South America together. The usual etymological story is that America comes from Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian navigator who voyaged to the Americas shortly after Columbus and claimed to have discovered them. His name appeared Latinized as America in a geographical treatise published around that time, and the name stuck. To be fair, Vespucci was the first to claim that the Americas were separate continents, and he was the first to refer to them as Mundus Novus, the New World. Why the cartographer rejected the name Vespucia is unknown, but personally I think we can all be grateful to him for choosing America.

The name Amerigo, by the way, is Italian, but ultimately derived from Gothic Almarich, “work-ruler” (compare German reich, “kingdom”), and is cognate with the English names Emmerich and Emery. Thus America is not originally Latin or Italian, but Germanic.

There are a couple of alternative theories for the origin of America – fascinating ones, if unlikely. One is that America was originally named after a region of Nicaragua called Amerrique, visited by both Columbus and Vespucci, and rich in gold; and that Vespucci actually changed his name from Alberigo to Amerigo to reflect the importance of the discovery. If this is true, then America is not derived from Germanic, but from an indigenous name. Another is that it is named after Richard Amerike, an English financier who may have underwritten the voyages of John Cabot as well as pre-Columbus voyages to North America in search of cod. The name Amerike is an Anglicized version of the original Welsh name ap Meryk, “son of Meryk”; so in this case America is originally a Celtic name!

The sounds in America seem to parallel the history of the United States. The first syllable, “a”, is pronounced “uh” and indicates both freedom and thoughtfulness, and is appropriate for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. Its primary syllable, “mer”, is similar to the Middle English mere of mermaid, and Latin mare of maritime – the sea – and suggests a manifestation of strength and power, appropriate for the military and economic strength of the United States as it extended its domain across the continent. The next syllable, “ric”, is similar to rich, reach, and Reich, and indicates solidification and containment of power, appropriate to America’s imperial ambitions. The final syllable, “a”, is pronounced “ah”, and indicates a return to Source energy. This corresponds to nothing in America’s history… so far. We can only hope.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 9:21 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.