Talk:Old World/Archive 1

Archive 1

Biological usage

Previously, this article said that Australasian organisms are called "Old World" in a biological context. I changed this to "sometimes" and removed the explanatory sentence about evolution.

I have no problem with talking about evolution (as some earlier editors apparently have), and I would not mind some comment on it being put back in. However, I want the paragraph on biological usage to be in accord with how biologists actually talk. I am not a biologist, but I did a Google search and found some articles talking about Australasian species as contrasted with Old World species and other articles that lumped them all together as "Old World". For example, an article of the former type is this one: [1]. Here is the relevant passage from that link:

The Australasian collections have been separated from the Old World specimens, with which they were previously filed, and the whole collection is now filed, within each genus, by species and then colour-coded geographic regions (i.e. N. America, Michigan, Caribbean Islands, Central & South America, Australasia and Old World), rather than by species within geographical region.

That, and other passages from other articles, suggest to me that the previous discussion was incorrect.

— Nowhither 11:51, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Map

To improve this page would you be able to include a map of the Old World?

Another definition?

I think Old World can also mean a much smaller area if we use an European sense to understand it (obviously we should use an European sense because the term is seldom used outside Europe and USA), the parts that are much more detailedly known to Europeans, i.e. including North Africa (most importantly Egypt) and Middle-East along with Europe, not including other parts of Asia or Africa. These North African and Middle-Eastern parts have constantly been in interaction with Europe and have sometimes been conquered by European nations (Roman Empire, Crusades, Napoleon, etc.). Aranherunar 12:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans, Asians, and Africans..."

I can't speak for the Africans, but I think the knowledge of Asians (or at least East Asians) are irrevalent to the definition of Old World. If there were non-trivial landmasses (not part of Afro-Eurasia) known to Asians but kept as a super secrete from Europeans due to some conspiracy, those lands would not have been considered part of the Old World. On the other hand, had there been lands known only to Europeans and not to Asians, those lands would still be considered part of the Old World. It just so happens that the Europeans knew all that the Asians knew, but it's actually irrevalent what the Asians knew and didn't know. IMHO. -67.172.181.206 23:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Australasia vs. Oceania

Australasia seems to contain Oceania (according to their respective articles), so it would seem that to say that the New World contains Australasia, but not Oceania, is a contradiction. According to the actual New World article, it would seem that it does not include either Australasia or Oceania.

The relevant quotes are:

From Old World:

The term is in distinction from the New World, meaning the Americas and Australasia.

And

Oceania and Antarctica are neither definitively Old World nor New World, since the terms "Old World" and "New World" predate their discovery by Europeans

From Australasia:

Australasia is a term variably used to describe a region of Oceania: New Zealand, Australia, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean.

This should be changed by someone with relevant historical knowledge on the subject.

-- Enjoy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.186.133.249 (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Add Iceland to the map as green

Morons 60.242.126.65 (talk) 12:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

No call for being rude, but yes, Iceland and Greenland need to be added to the map, since their existence was known to Europeans in the 15th century. Iceland had already been settled for centuries by people of Norse origins, and was part of the Kingdom of Denmark. -- Palthrow (talk) 22:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

My ancestors lived in a union of three kingdoms, the Kalmar Union which stretched from the Labrador Sea to the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland almost one hundred years before Columbus "dicovered" America. This area is today called the Nordic region, with a common political and historical bond. With a living history in North America from before year 1000. Do Americans read about this in their American History classes? Now add a map and get Greenland on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.210.118.119 (talk) 08:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Is this name really appropriate/accurate?

Where was the decision made that one part of the world is "old" and another is "new"? This seems really POV and Eurocentric to me. Yes, I know Africa and Asia are included. It's still POV. There is nothing "new" about the Americas to those who are Indigenous here. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 18:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

New World says who coined the terms. :) --JWB (talk) 00:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

These terms originate from a European perspective, but then again, so do concepts like 'Western' vs. 'Eastern' and so on. The New World was 'new' to the Europeans, that is the point. -- Palthrow (talk) 22:49, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It is also "pov" and "Eurocentric", nay Anglocentric, to use the English language. And it is pov and Eurocentric to use the Latin alphabet, and a computer, and electricity. Why, it is "Old Word"-centric to use metal tools and the wheel. Wikipedia's "npov" isn't trying to describe the universe from a neutral point somewhere in the gravitational center of the Virgo Supercluster. If that was the idea, we could scrap the project as hopelessly geocentric and anthropocentric. The policy is merely insisting that we do not introduce the subjective "povs" of Wikipedia editors. It is perfectly alright and indeed necessary to follow the various "povs" already prevalent in the world at large. --dab (𒁳) 17:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Ofc it is eurocentric term, this is where the term comes from, to describe new places they had not had significant contact with before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.154.151 (talk) 18:11, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Unsourced claims

"The region of the Old World corresponds to the Midgard of Germanic languages, ..."

To my knowledge, the Midgard "of germanic languages" is the world of men (as in humans) in general. The Asgard - Midgard - Utgard concept wasn't a system to geographically divide the real world, it was a mythological concept.

"... popularized as Middle-earth in the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien"

The fictional land of middle-earth may be inspired by germanic mythology, amongst other sources, but it is neither a representation of the mythological midgard nor of any real-world geographical sphere.--2.240.135.219 (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the equation of Old World with Midgard is nonsense, and I think that the equation with the Oikumene is equally dubious. Both terms refer to the part of the world inhabited by human beings. To the ancient and medieval Germanic-speaking peoples, Africa south of the Sahara and East Asia were probably not salient parts of the inhabited world, even if they may have vaguely been aware of the existence of these regions of the world, and they hardly thought that regions of the world unknown to Europeans would inherently not qualify for "the part of the world inhabited by human beings".

At least Ptolemy's Known World was very close to the early modern concept of the "Old World", effectively, but he was well aware that his Known World only constituted less than a fourth of the actual planet (see also Terra Australis § Origins), and likewise was Pomponius Mela well aware that the world was far larger than what the Romans knew of it. (See Ecumene § Greece.)

Medieval Europeans were most likely aware of the existence of lands unknown to them too, given their debates about undiscovered parts of the world (see Antipodes § Historical significance) and assumption of various legendary phantom islands. Everyone seems to have agreed that there must have been other inhabited lands at least in the northern hemisphere.

I've tagged the claims as dubious. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Second picture

if Australia is considered neither new or old world can it be shaded in blue or something so we can easily tell which is part of which? Bumblebritches57 (talk) 19:19, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Redirect

Shouldn't we just redirect Old World to Afro-Eurasia or redirect Afro-Eurasia to Old World? Dinosaur Fan (T - @ - C )

Updating Third World, New World and Old World

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Third World#We need more on the shift in usage for discussion on how to bring these three articles up to date with modern (i.e. last 3 decades or so) uses of these terms in socio-political discourse.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)