Black Sea

:For the XTC album, see Black Sea (album).

Name

An equivalent of the name "Black Sea", ????? ???????, cannot be traced to an earlier date than the 13th century. Strabo (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called "the Sea" (pontos), just like Homer was often simply called "the Poet". For the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as ???????? ?????? Euxeinos Pontos "Hospitable sea". This is an euphemism replacing an earlier Pontos Axeinos "Inhospitable Sea", first attested in Pindar (early 5th century BC). Strabo (7.3.6) thinks that the Black Sea was called "inhospitable" before Greek colonialization, because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes, and that the name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians had colonized, as it were making it part of the Greek civilization. It is, however, likely, that the name Axeinos arose by popular etymology, either from an Iranian axaina "dark", or from Ascanian, i.e. Phrygian. If from axaina "dark", the designation "Black Sea" would, after all, go back to Antiquity. The motive for the name may be an ancient assignment of colours to the direction of the compass, "black" referring to the north, and "red" referring to the south. Herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and "Southern Sea" interchangeably.

Related Topics:
13th century - Strabo - Homer - Euphemism - Pindar - Milesians - Phrygian - Herodotus - Red Sea

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Modern names of the Sea are universally translations of ????? ??????? "Black Sea", Turkish Kara Deniz, Russian Chernoye More, Bulgarian Cherno More, ????? ????, Ukrainian Chorne More, Romanian Marea Neagr?, Laz Ucha Zu?a (or simple Zu?a "Sea").

Related Topics:
Turkish - Russian - Bulgarian - Ukrainian - Romanian - Laz

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