The South Sea

[justawench]

I tend to think in terms of Atlantic and Pacific when I think of oceans, but these names had not solidified in the 18th century.

This article, Naming the Pacific, gives a thorough history of the names that were used for the oceans and the surrounding landmasses (and theoretical landmasses

Comments

[meowbooks]

They have the option to subscribe to their newsletter as well. :D Thanks very much for that!

[p0wdermonkey]

Thanks for that!

This was a big issue for me and my poor beta readers recently. How do you make it clear to readers that a ship is in Polynesia when
a) said ship is about as lost as a ship can be;
b) there are no period names for different regions of the Pacific because no-one had any idea how much Pacific there was, what shape it was, or what might be in it?

For what it's worth, research (including a very pleasant wander round the Greenwich Maritime Museum with viva_gloria) concluded that the terms used on early 18th C charts were "South Sea" (singular) or Spanish or French versions of same. And variants of "Pacific" - but that *felt* too modern, even though, historically and cartographically, it was out there plenty early enough.