Talk:History of Antarctica/Archive 1

Archive 1

First principles

This discussion page is now so cluttered that we almost need another one to discuss what to do with this one. I'm placing this item up here partly as a cry for help from more experienced contributors.

One of the problems with the article as it now stands is that it aspires to become a history of the Antarctic region, not a history of the continent of Antarctica, which is what it currently calls itself. There is of course nothing wrong with having an article on the history of the Antarctic, but no encyclopedia can serve its readers unless it calls things by their proper names. With that in mind I would like to offer one or two potential guidelines.

What Whether or not we carry on developing a history of the whole Antarctic region, and whatever we decide to call the article, we need to bear in mind not only the distinction between (1) "the Antarctic" and (2) "Antarctica", but also and more importantly that different languages make (or decline to make) this distinction in different ways. For example French call them both "l'Antartique", Italian "il antartico" and German "die Antarktis". English make the distinction as above, and Russian use "Антарктика" for the region, "Антарктида" for the continent. In Spanish it depends which country you are in, but generally speaking "el antártico" means the region, "la antártica" means the continent, and "la antártida" can mean either. Several of these languages can also make things clearer by means of other expressions which mean things like "Southern Ice Sea", "South Pole", "Southern Ice Continent" etc. Anyway the point is that whenever a colleague says that someone did something or other south of the Antarctic Circle, English speakers may need to pause for a moment to make sure they have understood whether they were referring to the continent of Antarctica or the Antarctic region in general. And yes please, of course I'd like native speakers to come and tweak this if they think it needs tweaking.

Another item under this heading is the alleged distinction between "base" and "station". There are different cultural traditions. In English English and Russian there has been a tendency to go for "station", partly to emphasize the scientific role and also because neither country had any purely military installations in Antarctica. In American English a major non-scientific support complex like McMurdo naturally gets called a base - partly also because it was established and run by the military for so long. In Chile and Argentina the armed services also played prominent roles for many years and the word "base" was the primary term. When special scientific installations were created, such as the first Luís Risopatrón facility, there was an inclination to call them "estaciones".

Who Appeals for respect for the achievements of people from all countries might be more convincing if we could all also start respecting the many other people who took part in expeditions and stop writing as if everything was always done by their commanders. The commanders themselves usually had the good sense to write that "we sailed there, saw that...", etc. so why don't we follow their example? It wasn't Bellingshausen who discovered Peter I Island in 1820, it was the Bellingshausen expedition. Much the same goes for expressions like "Bellingshausen's claim". He never claimed to have discovered Antarctica.

When Why is the history of the Antarctic being reduced to which European saw which bit of which bit first? If I was one of the billions of people who don't speak any European language, and someone told me what this page is about, I doubt if I'd sign up for a language class any time soon. Another thing to bear in mind, even for the people who can't break the habit, is that most continents were not discovered by particular groups of people on particular dates. People bumped into them, lost them, called them by misleading names etc. Other people were usually already living in them. For example there were plenty of Europeans at home when the Chinese came along and discovered Europe. That is why Ross cautioned his fellow Antarctic explorers against being too quick to assume that they were dealing with a continent. No single encounter has ever added a continent to the sum of human (or European) knowledge. Nargoon (talk) 14:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC) Nargoon (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nargoon (talk • contribs) 13:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

ACE?

What is ACE? Is it suppsoed to be some variation of CE? If so, ACE should be changed to the more commonly accepted CE. -- jackturner3 (talk) 14:22, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Bransfield discovery

The statement that Bransfield discovered the continent requires amplification/qualification. Traditionally the discovery is disputed between Bransfield (UK), Palmer (USA) and Bellingshausen (Russian Empire). Life in the Freezer accepts Bellingshausen's claim as the most credible. -- Alan Peakall 15:15 Dec 2, 2002 (UTC)

Clarified a bit, in more detail see in the article Fabian von Bellingshausen. Cmapm 00:48, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)