Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainlands of Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Öresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. Kattegat then continues in the Skagerrak into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is linked to the White Sea by the White Sea Canal and directly to the North Sea by the Kiel Canal.

Name

The first one to name it the Baltic Sea was Adam of Bremen and he seems to have based it on a large island, Baltia, mentioned by Xenophon and located in northern Europe. It is possibly connected to the Germanic belt, a name used for some of the Danish straits, while others claim it to be derived from Latin balteus (belt)http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nfbb/0435.html. From this use, Baltic has been applied to the Baltic countries. Another proposed derivation from the Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, shining seems speculative.

Related Topics:
Adam of Bremen - Xenophon - Latin - Baltic countries - Indo-European

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Baltic Sea is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• In the Germanic languages except English East Sea is used: Danish (Østersøen), Dutch (Oostzee), German (Ostsee), Norwegian (Østersjøen), and Swedish (Östersjön); in addition, Finnish, a Balto-Fennic language has calqued the Swedish term as Itämeri, disregarding the geography; the sea is west of Finland.
• In another Balto-Fennic language, Estonian, it is called the West Sea (Läänemeri).
• Baltic Sea is used in English; in Latin (Mare Balticum) and the Romance languages French (Mer Baltique), Italian (Mare Baltico), Romanian (Marea Baltic?) and Spanish (Mar Báltico); in the Slavic languages Polish (Morze Ba?tyckie or Ba?tyk), Kashubian (Bô?t), and Russian (Baltiyskoye Morye (?????????? ????)); and in the Baltic languages Latvian (Baltijas j?ra) and Lithuanian (Baltijos j?ra).