Alternative names of a maritime feature: The case of the Caribbean Sea
POKOLY Béla* 1)
The Caribbean Sea has been known by this name in the English language for several centuries. It is the widely accepted name in international contacts, and is so recorded by the International Hydrographic Organization. Still in some languages it is alternatively referred to as the Sea of the Antilles, especially in French. It may reflect the age of explorations, when the feature had various names. In Hungarian cartography it is one of the few marine features shown by giving the alter- native name in brackets: Karib (Antilla)‐ tenger (English Caribbean Sea /Sea of the Antilles/).
1. Introduction
A look at any map or encyclopaedia would confirm that the Caribbean Sea is one of the major bodies of water of the world. With an approximate area of 2,750,000 km² (1,050,000 square miles), only the five oceans and the Mediterranean Sea are larger by surface. The sea is deepest at the Cayman Trough (or Cayman Trench) which has a maximum depth of 7,686 metres, where the North American and Caribbean plates create a complex zone of spreading and transform faults. The area witnessed two major seismic catastrophes in the past centuries: the 1692 Jamaica earthquake, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
One associates the Caribbean, as a great sea with several features and facts.
The three arguably most important facts coupled with the Caribbean:
* Senior Advisor, Committee on Geographical Names, Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development, Hungary
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Exploration
Columbus’ voyages of discovery to the bordering archipelago. During his four epic voyages he had sailed to and explored much of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and pre- pared the eventual integration of all continents into the modern world.
Trade route
The sea is one of the major areas of marine trade since colonial times up to our mod- ern age. While its early commercial shipping of tropical goods and precious metals was plagued by piracy, recent cargo ships carry oil and oil products, bauxite and other raw materials.
Vacation area
A place of tourism. As people tend to travel more and more for touristic purposes the Caribbean area has grown to be one of the favourite regions for vacation. Many of the countries lining the sea rely on travel and tourism as the top contributor of their GDP (for the world record holder Antigua and Barbuda the figure was 74 % in 2011).
2. Early names of the sea
No early local Indian name for the sea is known. Following Columbus’ explorations and Spanish colonization the sea was labelled by different ways. Corresponding to con- temporary cartographic practice, naming of seas, marine features was very incon- sequent in the 16th through 19th centuries.
24 Alternative names of a maritime feature: The case of the Caribbean Sea
Antilles
Antilia (Antillia, Antilha) was a legendary island in Iberian mythology, to which sev- en bishops, fleeing the Arab invasion of Spain, supposedly sailed with their flocks and where they founded seven cities. Pre‐ Colombian charts and portolans depict the island. The first to do so was the Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano’s 1424 portolan. Piri Reis, 16th century admiral of the Ottoman Navy and cartographer stated, on an inscription of his famous World Map of 1513, that “These coasts (i.e. those discovered by Columbus) are called the shores of Antilia”.
Figure 1. Pizzigano Figure 2. Piri reis world map
Source : Wikimedia Commons Source : Wikimedia Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pizzigano.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piri_reis_w University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell orld_map_01.jpg Library Topkapi Museum in Istanbul
Figure 3. Cantino Planisphere Figure 4. João de Lisboa Livro de Marinharia (mariners’ handbook) 1514
Source : Wikimedia Commons Source : National Archive of Torre do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cantino_planisphere_(1502).jpg Tombo Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena, Italy http://antt.dgarq.gov.pt/
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Upon Columbus’ discoveries the islands that form the borders of the Caribbean were given the name Antilles (Antilhas, Antillas). The so‐ called Cantino world map (1502) al- ready displays the islands with the inscription on the sea area south of it: Ilhas anti- lhas del Rey de castella (The Antilles Islands of the Castilian King). In 1514 João de Lisboa in his Livro de Marinharia (mariners’ handbook) used the name “mar das Antilhas” for the title of two of his maps in the handbook. The maps carry only the name of the Antilles (‘as amtilhas’).
Figure 5. Ortelius Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1579) Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps
Source : Inc. http://www.raremaps.com/
On Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1579) the sea is partitioned to Sinus Yucatan (Gulf of Yucatan) for the Western and Sinus Carebum (Caribbean Gulf) for the Eastern part. It may well be one of the first instances of using the name “Caribbean” for a ma- rine feature.
North Sea - Gulf of Mexico
The sea had various other - sometimes inconsistent - names over the next centuries. It featured “Mer du Nort” (French North Sea - as part of the North Atlantic Ocean) in 1650 and “Golfe de Mexique” in 1657 on Nicholas Sanson’s maps.
26 Alternative names of a maritime feature: The case of the Caribbean Sea
Figure 6. N. Sanson 1650 North America Figure 7. N. Sanson 1657 Les Isles Antilles Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps
Source : Wikimedia Commons Source : http://www.raremaps.com/
No name or North Sea
During the 17th and 18th centuries cartographers either omitted to identify the sea by a name, or used variants of North Sea.
Figure 8. J. Jansson 1644 CaribMap Figure 9. G. de L’Isle 1703 CaribMap
Source : http://www.caribmap.org/ Source : http://www.caribmap.org/
Figure 10. R & J Ottens 1740 Figure 11. T. López de Vargas Machuca 1755 Library of Congress
Source : http://www.raremaps.com/ Source : http://www.loc.gov/item/74696149 Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps, Inc.
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Archipelago
As an alternative, the island group of the Antilles were named and placed on the sea area in the forms “Mexican Archipelago” (Archipelagus Mexicanus) or “Archipelago of the Antilles” (Arcipelago delle Antille).
Figure 12. P. Schenk 1710 Figure 13. Antonio Zatta 1785
Source : Library of Congress Source : http://www.raremaps.com/ http://www.loc.gov/item/2004629008 Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps, Inc.
3. From the middle of the 18th century two distinct names emerge for the sea
Caribbean Sea
Caribs were one of the major native American people on the Antilles at the time of Columbus’ arrival. Some descendants still trace their ancestry to this group of people on the islands and on mainland South America. The French version of the word is writ- ten caraïbe (hence the name of the sea: Mer des Caraïbes). The word cannibal is also etymologically related. It seems that (apart from early examples like Ortelius’ Sinus Carebum) English car- tographers started around 1750 to use the standard name Caribbean Sea. They gradu- ally appeared on maps of other European languages.
28 Alternative names of a maritime feature: The case of the Caribbean Sea
Figure 14. John Gibson An Accurate Map of the West Figure 15. Robert de Vaugondy Atlas Indies 1750 (Caribbean Sea) Portatif, Paris, c.1812
Source : Library of Congress Source : http://www.livre‐ rare‐ book.com http://www.loc.gov/resource/g4390.ar168000/ (Mer des Caraïbes)
Figure 16. Carl Ferdinand Weiland Allgemeiner Hand‐ Atlas (1855) Map of the West Indies (Karibisches oder Antillen Meer) CaribMap
Source : http://www.caribmap.org/
Sea of the Antilles
(Mar de las Antillas /Spanish/, Mer des Antilles /French/, Mare delle Antille /Italian/, from the name of the bordering Greater and Lesser Antilles). It became the usual name on Spanish, French and many Italian maps in the 19th century.
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Figure 17. Espinosa y Tello, José de ‐ Carta Esferica del Mar de las Antillas 1812
Source : University of Texas Map Collections http://texashistory.unt.edu
Figure 18. Alexandre Vuillemin Map of Figure 19. Fratelli Doyen Indie Occidentali, Turin, 1857 Antilles 1843
Source : Wikimedia Commons Source : http://www.raremaps.com/ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps, Inc. File:Carte_antilles_1843.jpg
4. 20th century cartographic practice
English‐ language maps continue to be consequent in giving the name Caribbean Sea to the feature.
30 Alternative names of a maritime feature: The case of the Caribbean Sea
Figure 20. National Geographic South America Map 1921
Source : NG Maps Print Collection http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/maps
Recent English online maps:
Figure 21. Google map Figure 22. Wikimedia Commons
Source : https://maps.google.com/ Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Sea
Recent French‐ language online maps apply Mer des Caraïbes, or alternatively Mer des Antilles:
Figure 23. Atlantide Communications Figure 24. Statistiques mondiales e‐ Voyageur.com
Source : http://www.e‐ voyageur.com/atlas/caraibes.htm Source : http://www.statistiques‐ mondiales.com
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In Hungarian cartographic tradition it is one of the few marine features shown by the method of giving the alternative name in brackets: Karib (Antilla)‐ tenger (tenger is the Hungarian word for sea). Other examples include Thai (Sziámi)‐ öböl (Gulf of Thailand /Siam/) and Japán (Keleti)– tenger (Sea of Japan/East Sea/).
Figure 25. Márton, Mátyás: Seas of the World (’A világtenger’) 2012, Dept of Cartography and Geoinformatics, Eötvös
Source : Loránd University, Budapest
References
CaribMap A cartographic history of the West Indies http://www.caribmap.org/ Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov University of Texas Map Collections http://texashistory.unt.edu Wikimedia Commons http://en.wikipedia.org Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps http://www.raremaps.com/ National Archive of Torre do Tombo http://antt.dgarq.gov.pt/
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