Where are you from? Quisqueya, Santo Domingo, Haiti, La Espanola o la Hispaniola?
I was having an argument in South Florida.An old friend of mine was arguing that he was from la Hispaniola, I told him I am from the Island of Santo Domingo, so probably we are from different countries.
Sometimes when people ask me where i am from, saying i am Dominican, I have to clarify that i am dominican from Dominican republic, not from the island of Dominica, so it get more confusing..
To clarify this I have to go back to my own people history...
La Española es una isla situada en el archipiélago de las Antillas Mayores en el Caribe, la cual contiene a los estados soberanos República Dominicana y Haití.
La Española es conocida por ser el lugar del primer asentamiento europeo en el Nuevo Mundo, descubierta por Cristóbal Colón en su primer viaje en 1492.
Es la décima isla más poblada del mundo, y la más poblada de América.
Es la isla número 22 en tamaño en el mundo.
The island bears various names originated by its native people, the Taíno Amerindians. When Columbus took possession of the island in 1492 he named it Hispana in Latin and La Isla Española, meaning "The Spanish Island", in Spanish. Bartolomé de las Casas shortened the name to "Española", and when Pietro Martyr d‘Anghiera detailed his account of the island in Latin, he translated the name as Hispaniola, Because Anghiera’s literary work was translated into English and French in a short period of time, the name "Hispaniola" became the most frequently used term in English-speaking countries for the island in scientific and cartographic works.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and de las Casas documented that the island was called Haití ("Mountainous Land"
by the Taíno. D‘Anghiera added another name, Quizqueia (supposedly "Mother of all Lands",
but later research shows that the word does not seem to derive from the
original Arawak Taíno language.] Although the Taínos use of Haití is
verified and the name was used by all three historians, evidence
suggests that it probably was not the Taíno name of the whole island. Haití
was the Taíno name of a region (now known as Los Haitises) in the
northeastern section of the present-day Dominican Republic. In the
oldest documented map of the island, created by Andrés de Morales, that
region is named Montes de Haití ("Haiti Mountains".
Las Casas apparently named the whole island Haití on the basis of that particular region;] d‘Anghiera said that the name of one part was given to the whole island
The colonial terms Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo are sometimes still applied to the whole island, although these names refer, respectively, to the colonies that became Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The name] Haïti was adopted by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors. Quisqueya (disambiguation needed] (from Quizqueia) is used to refer to the Dominican Republic.
So, after this small research, I am confused how to answer the question of "where are you from?"
So ,after all this information, in the future..If somebody ask you..where are you from..What will you answer and why?
I was having an argument in South Florida.An old friend of mine was arguing that he was from la Hispaniola, I told him I am from the Island of Santo Domingo, so probably we are from different countries.
Sometimes when people ask me where i am from, saying i am Dominican, I have to clarify that i am dominican from Dominican republic, not from the island of Dominica, so it get more confusing..
To clarify this I have to go back to my own people history...
La Española es una isla situada en el archipiélago de las Antillas Mayores en el Caribe, la cual contiene a los estados soberanos República Dominicana y Haití.
La Española es conocida por ser el lugar del primer asentamiento europeo en el Nuevo Mundo, descubierta por Cristóbal Colón en su primer viaje en 1492.
Es la décima isla más poblada del mundo, y la más poblada de América.
Es la isla número 22 en tamaño en el mundo.
The island bears various names originated by its native people, the Taíno Amerindians. When Columbus took possession of the island in 1492 he named it Hispana in Latin and La Isla Española, meaning "The Spanish Island", in Spanish. Bartolomé de las Casas shortened the name to "Española", and when Pietro Martyr d‘Anghiera detailed his account of the island in Latin, he translated the name as Hispaniola, Because Anghiera’s literary work was translated into English and French in a short period of time, the name "Hispaniola" became the most frequently used term in English-speaking countries for the island in scientific and cartographic works.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and de las Casas documented that the island was called Haití ("Mountainous Land"
by the Taíno. D‘Anghiera added another name, Quizqueia (supposedly "Mother of all Lands",
but later research shows that the word does not seem to derive from the
original Arawak Taíno language.] Although the Taínos use of Haití is
verified and the name was used by all three historians, evidence
suggests that it probably was not the Taíno name of the whole island. Haití
was the Taíno name of a region (now known as Los Haitises) in the
northeastern section of the present-day Dominican Republic. In the
oldest documented map of the island, created by Andrés de Morales, that
region is named Montes de Haití ("Haiti Mountains".Las Casas apparently named the whole island Haití on the basis of that particular region;] d‘Anghiera said that the name of one part was given to the whole island
The colonial terms Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo are sometimes still applied to the whole island, although these names refer, respectively, to the colonies that became Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The name] Haïti was adopted by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors. Quisqueya (disambiguation needed] (from Quizqueia) is used to refer to the Dominican Republic.
So, after this small research, I am confused how to answer the question of "where are you from?"
So ,after all this information, in the future..If somebody ask you..where are you from..What will you answer and why?
Edited on 6/12/2013 2:24 PM by ohhhvictor.
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