Talk:New World

Eurocentric changed to eurocultural


The "New World" is a eurocultural term applied to the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas.

I did leave the term linked to eurocentrism, because that does provide useful context.

I must confess that I do get a bit hot under the collar over the reverse bigotry implied by blindly lumping "New World" under eurocentrism.

"New" was effectively a synonym for "unexplored" and this was not a European construct. None of the peoples of the New World possessed even rudimentary maps of the continental extent of the Western Hemisphere, and most likely every native population had a different (and incompatible) human origin story.

As a result, suitable non-Eurocentric vocabulary for the entire enchilada was extremely thin on the ground.

I suppose the optimally inclusive solution was along the lines of LGBTQ+, with an additional letter or symbol added with each distinct population encountered, thought that might finally have become bulky with 28 distinct languages groups now identified in North America alone. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:34, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I looked at that map again. You actually need to add the legends on the left and right together, so 28 is a vast underestimate. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:42, 11 April 2021 (UTC)