Anyone find it bizarre that there is no African Civilization?

CdGGambit · Oct 24, 2005

For all the arguments about continents and what their right name is, allow me to give you the continent song.

North America, South America, Europe too, good for you. Asia and Australia, don't forget Antarctica... Africa... Now you're through

Good, now that the nursery rhyme is through, we can go from there.

Oh, and the world was calling the USA "Americans" or "Colonials" back in the early 19th century. "Colonials" really isn't accurate anymore =p

Djc · Oct 24, 2005

EvilGuy said:
I must agree, since the US adopted "americans" for themselves, the rest of us on the continent are forced to be more specific

All in all its just an odd fact of life that the US is the only country in the world to use the name of the continent it's on to name its people.

Well, maybe if you guys had gotten around to declaring independence a bit sooner, there wouldn't have been quite so much time for the name to stick.

:joke:

DefenderofFutur · Oct 24, 2005

Djc said:
Well, maybe if you guys had gotten around to declaring independence a bit sooner, there wouldn't have been quite so much time for the name to stick.

Very true. Americans call ourselves Americans because we were the first independant nation in on the North American continent, and since we didn't have any single ethnicity, it only makes sense. In fact, the only "ethnicity" you could consider us would BE American. The USA stands for the United States of America, not the United States of the United States. "The United States" is a description of our country's organization, because the founding fathers wanted our government to be spread out, rather than focus on a single federal government. Contrary to what people think in other countries, the VAST majority of American politics is State-specific, not federal. Thus, to describe us as "United-Statesean" would be like calling the French "Federal Republicans", it doesn't make sense.

Crayton · Oct 24, 2005

Didn't Haiti achieve independence before the Uniteed States?

*poor attempt to somehow string this "America" talk to Africa*

Is there anybody who continues to believe that no African Civilization is represented?

EvilGuy · Oct 24, 2005

CdGGambit said:
North America, South America, Europe too, good for you. Asia and Australia, don't forget Antarctica... Africa... Now you're through

Nice song, too bad i don't know the melody.

Funny too how Africa comes last after Antarctica... :hmm:

And yeah, the continents names is something of debate, everywhere you look, its just a mess... (like the Europe/Asia/Eurasia deal, and where they exactly split)

IMO, Oceania just makes more sense , as it forms a larger mass that encompasses the hundreds (thousands?) of small islands around Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea. If it's just Australia, which continent do these islands belong to? None?

Any Aussies here? We need an arbitrator.

Urederra · Oct 24, 2005

King Jason said:
As the countries name is The United States of American, their nationality is simply; American. Canada has Canadian, Mexico has Mexicans, Cuba Cubans,etc.

The Reason being, what exactly would you call citizens of a country named the United States of America? Just as if say (like this would happen..) France, Germany, austria, belgium, holland all became one Country called "The grand republic of Europe" Odds are their citizenry would be named "European".

That's one of the technicalities you take on when you name your country after a Continent.

Yeah, that is the problem. USA is not a proper name. Canada is, Mexico is, Cuba is, but not USA. Get a name.

elderotter · Oct 24, 2005

EvilGuy said:
Nice song, too bad i don't know the melody.

Funny too how Africa comes last after Antarctica...

And yeah, the continents names is something of debate, everywhere you look, its just a mess... (like the Europe/Asia/Eurasia deal, and where they exactly split)

IMO, Oceania just makes more sense , as it forms a larger mass that encompasses the hundreds (thousands?) of small islands around Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea. If its just Australia, which continent do these islands belong to? None?

Any Aussies here? We need an arbitrator.

Not an aussie though I played softball(read drank beer) with alot of them in Hawaii in the mid 70's.
I think counting Oceania as a Civ continent is ok if you don't use Polynesians as a civ. Polynesians strikes me as being like Native Americans there were many cultures. Now Samoans, tahitians, Hawaiians, Easter Islanders, etc...etc as cultures would be fine - lol somebody go do a mod.

Urederra · Oct 24, 2005

CdGGambit said:
For all the arguments about continents and what their right name is, allow me to give you the continent song.

North America, South America, Europe too, good for you. Asia and Australia, don't forget Antarctica... Africa... Now you're through

Good, now that the nursery rhyme is through, we can go from there.

Oh, and the world was calling the USA "Americans" or "Colonials" back in the early 19th century. "Colonials" really isn't accurate anymore =p

Last time I checked, Columbus discovered ONE continent, and It was called America, He didn't discovered TWO continents, North America and South America.

DefenderofFutur · Oct 24, 2005

Urederra said:
Last time I checked, Columbus discovered ONE continent, and It was called America, He didn't discovered TWO continents, North America and South America.

Columbus didn't "discover" America. He was convinced he had found the passage to the East Indies until his death. Amerigo Vespucci (spelling?) is the person who acknowledged that America was in fact a separate landmass, which is why it is named after him. Otherwise, it would be called Columbia (or Christopheria).

CdGGambit · Oct 24, 2005

Urederra said:
Last time I checked, Columbus discovered ONE continent, and It was called America, He didn't discovered TWO continents, North America and South America.

That's gotta be the most twisted logic of all time. Europe, Asia and Africa are all connected by land, and yet we don't consider it one big continent.

Columbus didn't discover any continent, he discovered islands. AND Columbus didn't call what he found America, he thought he was in India. The term "America" is after a different explorer, though there are different opinions of who this other guy was.

I'd check again.

deo · Oct 24, 2005

USA isn't a civ because it's main population is anglosaxonian that is a civ like the slavs that are a civ and not russia. IMO

Evie · Oct 24, 2005

Urederra said:
Last time I checked, Columbus discovered ONE continent, and It was called America, He didn't discovered TWO continents, North America and South America.

The sad truth is, it depends. There are several separate COMMONLY USED continent lists over the world - THAT I AM AWARE OF - depending on two factors :

-Two Americas (North, South) or one.
-Europe, Asia, Africa; Eurasia and Africa, or Afrasia (the last mostly used among historians).

In Québec the continent list you hear about in high school has America and Eurasia for a total of five continents. Seems the US list has seven continents instead. These illustrate the two extremes of the list (and ALSO underline why Québecers feel more strongly than most other Canadians about the US of A taking up "americans" for their name)

English Canada, I'm told, go for six continents - same list as Québec, except using the two Americas rather than a single continent named "America". I'm also told places like Japan instead go for a single America, and split Eurasia into Europe and Asia.

The bottom line is, there is NO SINGLE RIGHT ANSWER as far as to "how many continents are there?"

Anyone who think someone is using "twisted logics" by refering to one of the OTHER common continent lists frankly need to get some education.

CdGGambit · Oct 24, 2005

I think you should check my post about what was twisted logical there Mr. Oda Nobunaga. In any event, I dun wanna get to embroiled in this discussion, I just wanted to put my nursery rhyme thingy in

Evie · Oct 24, 2005

Hmmmm. Actually, it's NOT twisted logic for the America to be held together as a continent. The twisted logic is in keeping Europe and Asia separate from each other, and most scientific (and many countries) have long since dropped THAT stupid notion (Africa, for a variety of reason, is a much murkier issue). It's mostly - outside the States - the Europeans and Asian themselves who seems to resist the notion of becoming "Eurasians". They seem attached to the notion of being separate from "the others"

And incidentally - Columbus did reach mainland (South) America on this third voyage (1498).

KrikkitTwo · Oct 24, 2005

Oda Nobunaga said:
Hmmmm. Actually, it's NOT twisted logic for the America to be held together as a continent. The twisted logic is in keeping Europe and Asia separate from each other, and most scientific (and many countries) have long since dropped THAT stupid notion (Africa, for a variety of reason, is a much murkier issue). It's mostly - outside the States - the Europeans and Asian themselves who seems to resist the notion of becoming "Eurasians". They seem attached to the notion of being separate from "the others"

And incidentally - Columbus did reach mainland (South) America on this third voyage (1498).

While I agree that Europe and Asia are geo-biologically part of Eurasia, If you do that you Really need to seperate North and South America (which are more separate than Eurasia and Africa)...admittedly they are more separate from Eurasia than anything else is, but when you can build a functioning canal across something it really can't be counted as something holding continents together. Culturally, one could say that Central America, Mexico and parts of the southwest US could be considered more South American, especially if considering pre-columbian times (but you can also say that North Africa could be considered more European)

Basically because keeping Europe and Asia seperate really is only based on tradition, as is keeping N+S America together (both based on early incomplete maps)

(Europe and Asia could still be seperated, but on that basis Asia should be partitioned too... sort of W. Eurasia=Europe, N. Eurasia=Siberia+Eastern Russia, E. Eurasia=China+surrounding, S. Eurasia=India+Indochina, Central Eurasia=Middle East, Iran, Kazakhstan..and then one gets more into regions...although those are resonable divisions for most purposes)

Perfxion · Oct 24, 2005

You are correct saying that there are anywhere from 4 to 8 continents. Some of the reasons for this is:

1: Some feel that Europe and Asia is one continent and thus Eurasia. Reasonable example of this is Russia.
2: Some feel that North and South America as one continent and thus America. Reasonable example of this is that the pamana canal is not a border.
3: Some feel that Antartica isn't really a continent at all, thus off the list. People like to define contents as a group of countries and this is void of any countries.
4: Some feel that Oceania is a "continent" and thus the new one of Oceania. IE: is Hawaii apart of North America or Asia because its in the middle of both. Same for alot of those islands.
5: Historians want to link Africa and Asia as Afrasia, but this is done more for the land of Egypt and Arabian states.

I personally see it as 6 continents: North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Antartica, Oceania(NZ, and Aussies in here).

For the maintopic: there are two civs from Africa in the game Mali and Egypt

drjones · Oct 24, 2005

Why should water define anything? Continents continue under the oceans, thus there is 1 continent. Lets call it shirly. Now if it's tectonic plates you want to talk about I am a proud Gwandwanalander.

-drjones

maartena · Oct 24, 2005

Urederra said:
Last time I checked, Columbus discovered ONE continent, and It was called America, He didn't discovered TWO continents, North America and South America.

Actually, he only discovered islands in the Caribean on his voyages. His 1502 voyage first hit the "main" continent in central America, south of Mexico and followed the coast southwards to almost the main continent of South America.

South America was mostly mapped out by Vespucci from 1499 and onwards.

The first visit to the part of North America that we now know as the United States was discovered around 1500 by the Spanish. They made landfall in Florida.

Furthermore, there are many scientific facts that support that Vikings from Norway landed in Newfoundland in the period between the year 980 and 1000 - some say it was 986.

There is also evidence in China that they sailed north via Alaska and left "proof" (items / carbondating) on the North American continent in Alaska and Canada that they were there in 1421.

I think nowadays it really doesn't matter who was there first. We surely aren't going to change Columbus Day into Viking Day.

Louis XXIV · Oct 24, 2005

deo said:
USA isn't a civ because it's main population is anglosaxonian that is a civ like the slavs that are a civ and not russia. IMO

The slavs aren't a civ, the Russians are. The Latins aren't a civ, the Romans are. The Mesoamericans aren't a civ, the Aztecs are. The Germanics aren't a civ, the French, Germans, and English are. America combines the culture and ethnicity of so many different peoples that calling them anglo-saxon is unfair. I am Italian, Irish, German, Polish, Scottish, and Swedish. Nowhere am I Anglo-Saxon. Much of early Pennsylvania (especially out west towards the appalachian mountains) was German. Much of South Carolina was from the gold coast, ivory coast, etc (although Anglican and scots-irish being the highest percentage of free peoples).

maartena · Oct 24, 2005

Urederra said:
Yeah, that is the problem. USA is not a proper name. Canada is, Mexico is, Cuba is, but not USA. Get a name.

Well, the U.S.A. is commonly known as "America" and its people "Americans". It is after all the "United States of AMERICA"

Just like the official name for South Africa is actually R.S.A. or "Republic of South Africa".

The United States simply have a unique history because they were 13 independent states each governed by their own governor when they "united" to one country.

If you want official names consider either "America" official, or name one of the 50 states. "Florida" was discovered in 1499 or 1500 by the spanish. "Virginia" was first explored by the English. "Louisiana" was first settled by the French.

P.S., I am not even American, but to say U.S.A is "not official enough" is simply..... dumb!

Anyone find it bizarre that there is no African Civilization?

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