Continent names

[falcotron]

Since any new threads created between now and the IPB 4 upgrade will be lost anyway, I figured this is a good time to ask a stupid question to which I'm 90% sure there is no good answer...

Common, bastard Valyrian, and modern Ghiscari all appear to refer to the same continents with the same name.

This makes sense--in our world everyone (even modern Greek) borrowed the Latin names for the three "old world" continents and shared made-up Latin names for the four new ones, so why shouldn't the same be true in their world?

But then why are the continents clearly named for Common directions, not Valyrian? Westeros, Essos, and Sothyros clearly come from Common, not Valyrian. (For comparison, the Anglo-Saxon directions are West, Est, and Süth, while the Latin ones are Vesper or Occidēns, Oriens, and Meridies or Australis.)

The odd thing is that Ulthos pretty clearly comes from Latin Ultima or Ulter, meaning the last continent or the beyond continent. So, the Valyrians invented their own name for Uthos, but borrowed the Andals' name for their own continent, Essos?

I'm guessing there is no actual answer here. GRRM just didn't think through why the people of Essos would call it a word meaning East in the Andal language, and, oh well, no big deal.

But if anyone has any interesting ideas, why not post them on this ephemeral thread?

(The best fanwank I can come up with is this: The Andals have been calling their continent Westeros for 6000 years,² and Valyria probably wasn't interested in it enough to care what it was called until they'd colonized most of western Essos, so they eventually just borrowed their name. As for Essos, maybe the Valyrians originally had a much smaller notion of continents--much as the Romans did--and they had a native word that applied to central Essos, or even just to the Valyrian peninsula, but not to the whole continent. They borrowed the Andal term "Essos" for western Essos, and later, maybe even only during the Century of Blood, people began using it to refer to the whole continent. For Sothyros... I've got nothing. So Ulthos is the only original Valyrian name left in Valyrian. Common borrowed the Valyrianized Andal names back, which is why they all have that "os" ending that doesn't seem at all Anglo-Saxon. And modern Ghiscari borrowed the Valyrian names for the same reason modern Greek borrowed the Latin names--because Valyria conquered and assimilated their empire.)

¹ ... or Common is translated into something almost English, and likewise for the other languages, if you prefer. Doesn't matter here.

² Feel free to substitute your favorite New Chronology here, where the Andals actually came to Westeros only X years ago and so on; it still works.

[Ruby Fforde]

I figure they would only need to make names for the continents once they were aware that there were more than one. Otherwise they would just talk about 'Valyria', or 'Ghis', or whatever. Once the awareness of two distinct massive landmasses, and therefore the necessity for names to refer to them, became prevalent, it makes sense that they would just call them something along the lines of 'the one to the west' and 'the one to the east' for simplicity's sake. Then they have a pattern to work with.

[falcotron]

I figure they would only need to make names for the continents once they were aware that there were more than one. Otherwise they would just talk about 'Valyria', or 'Ghis', or whatever. Once the awareness of two distinct massive landmasses, and therefore the necessity for names to refer to them, became prevalent, it makes sense that they would just call them something along the lines of 'the one to the west' and 'the one to the east' for simplicity's sake. Then they have a pattern to work with.

Sure, but the question is why the Valyrians would use the Andal words for west, east, and south instead of the Valyrian ones.

[Lady Blackmont]

You're thinking too hard about this one methinks.

[anonnyscouse]

Do we know if Essosi refer to their continent as Essos and Sothyrosi refer to their continent as Sothyros in their own languages? We only see the translation into Westerosi or people talking in Westerosi.

[falcotron]

You're thinking too hard about this one methinks.

Nah. It bothered me a few years ago when I first noticed it, but I never thought about it too much, or bothered to post about it, because, as I've said, I'm at least 90% sure GRRM just didn't think it through and it's a trivial mistake that means nothing. But I figured that, while we know that our new posts are going away in a couple days or something, this would be a good time to get it off my chest and see if anyone had any clever ideas.

[falcotron]

Do we know if Essosi refer to their continent as Essos and Sothyrosi refer to their continent as Sothyros in their own languages? We only see the translation into Westerosi or people talking in Westerosi.

I'm pretty sure there's a reason I started wondering about this a few years ago. But, since the drive with all my ebooks is still dead, I can't easily check. And, now that I think about it, it seems likely that it was the show, rather than the books, in which case I guess it means even less (and I'm posting on the wrong forum).