Is there an original/indigenous name for North America?

23 comments

1. the indigenous had no concept of continents, but the many different tribes would have called the land they lived on many different things.

   There was no one “indigenous” word for anything really.

2. Most Native Americans weren’t aware of the concept of a continent.

3. I’ve heard Turtle Island used by some indigenous activist groups to refer to the North American continent.

4. I suspect the answer is “not really”, at least with respect to the entire continent, but this might be a good question for r/AskHistorians.

5. Many individual locations have known native names, many of which are still in use in some form today. (For example, the Lenape *manaháhtaan* became Manhattan.) If you’re asking about the landmass of North America as a whole, I’m not aware of any native term for that. I’d be surprised if there was — the continent was inhabited by numerous tribes all with their own languages, so I’m not sure that any one tribe even had the concept of “North America” as a distinct geographical entity.

6. For the entire continent, I’m not aware of one.

   There are certainly indigenous place names, for example the Lenape referred to the land they inhabited as “Lenapehoking” (corresponding to roughly the area between Philadelphia and New York City, including New Jersey).

7. Turtle Island

8. I don’t know about the entire North American continent but I’ve heard America itself had been known as Turtle Island.

9. There are currently 574 Indian tribes or groups that are federally recognized. I’m sure one of them has one. r/indiancountry is the place to ask.

10. If there was one it was probably lost to time.
    Think of the word Shenandoah it’s used to name so many things and we have no idea what it actually referred to it just stuck around.
    Something similar could have easily happened. You could argue natives had no concept of a continent but everyone names things with the limited knowledge they have. (Like how we called the planet earth when ocean would have made more sense.)

11. I’m sure there was a coastal tribe or two that likely understood that other landmasses existed, but if they had a name for it I’ve never heard it.

    You see “turtle island” come up occasionally but the usage of that to refer solely to North America is a modern invention, nor was it used by every tribe.

12. A lot of place names are based on indigenous names for places. The idea of continents didn’t exist and as such there is no general continental term in most indigenous languages.

    Individual places have names tho.

13. [Relevant map](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/qld1lx/new_style_for_uscanada_indigenous_languages_map/)

    Probably not. The idea of North America as a distinct region is a relatively new thing. That, combined with the fact that indigenous groups generally kept to their ancestral land and the surrounding regions—they didn’t do a whole lot of continental exploring—means it’s unlikely there was any word for North America as a whole.

14. A TON of us cities, counties and even some states are anglicized native names for that region, but I don’t know of one for the whole continent.

15. There were/are so many different tribes that spoke many different languages that it could be any number of names. Most names were just certain locations within the Americas.

16. There were hundreds of different native American languages, I’m sure they all had some sort of word that basically just meant “terra”

17. I know much of eastern Virginia was Tsenacommacoh, but I don’t know of any native names for the continent.

18. I’ve seen/heard “Turtle Island”, but I am not an expert.

19. The different tribes all had different names for it. Some of them simply mean ‘This is the place’.

20. I don’t know if any Native tribes even had a vague idea of what the North American landmass consisted of in order to have a name for it. To them it was probably just whatever they called the world or earth in their language. Locations in North America had and have many Native names given by the various tribes that lived in those areas, but I have never heard of any (Pre-Columbian) name for the entirety of North America.

21. TBH, “indigenous” isn’t a fair description. There were hundreds of individual tribes, most of whom never interacted with each other. It’s analogous to comparing all Africans to each other. There is so much diversity in that continent.

    So while tribes had names for their land, there really wasn’t the concept of the continent.

    The closest may have been Mayan or Aztecs, who controlled vast areas.

22. I’m guessing it would be tribe-dependent.

23. Probably not since their word for native American was human and they just thought north America was the world. North American tribes (within the US and Canada) didn’t even know about south American tribes. (However Mexico which is apart of north America had the Maya and Aztec which did know and did trade with central American tribes).

    So, probably not.