Etymograph

English

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica comes from Spanish Mesoamérica, and goes back to Italian Amerigo.

  1. Italianc. 1300–presentAmerigo
  2. New LatinmodernAmerica
  3. Spanishc. 1500–presentAmérica
  4. Spanish, derivedc. 1500–presentMesoamérica
  5. Englishearliest quotation 2023Mesoamerica

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Italianc. 1300–presentAmerigo
  2. New LatinmodernAmerica
  3. Spanishc. 1500–presentAmérica
  4. Spanish, derivedc. 1500–presentMesoamérica
  5. Englishearliest quotation 2023Mesoamerica

Earliest quotation: 2023, Mindy Weisberger: “Intentional skull reshaping is found in burials across Asia,…”

Equivalent to meso- + America

Proto-Indo-European *médʰi ‘with, among’

Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos ‘middle’

Proto-Hellenic *métsos ‘middle’

Ancient Greek μέσος ‘middle’

English meso-

New Latin America

English America

The story

Borrowed from Spanish Mesoamérica, coined by German-Mexican anthropologist Paul Kirchhoff in 1943.

Linked words

through Spanish América

kano, americano

Today it means

name A pre-Columbian cultural region extending from southern Mexico to roughly the area that comprises modern Honduras and El Salvador.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Italian Amerigo / Mesoamerica

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