The naming of America

Amerrique,  "the land where the wind always blows"


According to Jules Marcou, a French geographer who investigated the subject at the end of the 19th century, the word Amerrique designates the mountain range that separates Lake Nicaragua from the humid plain of the Caribbean coast. Marcou was based on A. Le Plongeon, a scholar specialized in Mayan and Central American cultures, who affirmed that the word Amerrique was of Mayan origin and meant "the land where the wind blows." In the Mayan dialects, the endings iqqe, ik and ika mean, not only "wind" but also "air", "the spirit that breathes" and "life". Therefore, Amerrique may want to say "the land where the wind blows", "the place of the spirit that breathes" and even "the living earth". Alfonso Valle reached similar conclusions. Dávila Bolaños, for his part, maintains that the name comes from Amac-rique (long mountain range). It should be noted that the Sierra de Amerrique is designated as such in numerous maps (for example in the Atlas of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in the Larousse dictionary and others), as well as in some works and bibliographic references
A reference of the president of Nicaragua In 1886, in a letter sent to Don Manuel Peralta and referred by Jules Marcou, the President of Nicaragua, Don Adan Cárdenas, affirmed that the Amerrique mountain range was inhabited by "an Indian tribe known as the Amerriques, today reduced to a small number of individuals "but that" in ancient times "this nation was" of some importance ". Cárdenas also pointed out that "these Amerrique Indians have been in communication more or less frequently with Cabo Gracias a Dios and the entire Misquita Coast" 29
The first mention of America related to Vespucci The name America, explicitly awarded as a tribute to Vespucci, appears for the first time in a publication entitled "Cosmographiae Introductio", im-prison in 1507 at the Gymnase Vosgien in the city of Saint Dié, together with the Latin translation of the famous Vespucci letters identified as "Quatour Americi Navegationes". The Gymnase Vosgien, a school and printing press located in a small town in French Lorraine, published documents about the "new lands" uncovered beyond the ocean. One of these publications was the one mentioned above. We also recall that Saint Dié is located in one of the most anti-European printing tradition zones (a short distance from the city of Strasbourg where Johann Gutenberg had developed the first printing press in 1439, barely 70 years before). The work was attributed to Martin Hylacomylus Waldseemüller (the name also appears written as Ilacomylus and Waltzemüller). In the type-graphic mark of the Waldseemüller printing press it appears as M.I. (Martin Ilacomylus). According to Jules Marcou, Waldseemüller's position was that of draftsman-cartographer, while intellectual authorship should be assigned to Jean Basin, who had also translated Vespucci's letters into Latin. The name America is mentioned in said article stating that its use is done as a homage to Américo Vespucci.
The pseudonym of Don Albérico Vespucci
The above information seems to show that the name America does not come from Albérico Vespucci. It was also pointed out that the Amerigo or Americo names were common in Florence, since they were not included in the Christian saintship which was the source of all the first names used in the Italian republics of that time. Marcou's hypothesis, which seems very logical, is that Amerigo or Americo were actually pseudonyms that had adopted (late, in Castile) Don Albérico to adjust its name to the successful name of the old continent.
(to be continued)
From the book "La Mentira del Milenio" (The Mysteries of America), D.Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones.