African countries named "Guinea"?

[Jinx]

Why are there like three African countries with "Guinea" in their name? Is there some significance to this word? And, if so...what? :confused:

[Tamerlane]

My slightly altered reply from an older thread on this topic (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=502013):


Because they are all named for the Gulf of Guinea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Guinea) in the old sense - loosely covering the coastal region of West Africa below the western tip of the continent to the Bight of Benin. As various powers gobbled up various areas they became local "Guineas". The country of Guinea was French Guinea, the country of Guinea-Bissau was Portuguese Guinea, Equatorial Guinea was Spanish Guinea. New Guinea comes from the melanesian inhabitants superficially resembling black Africans. The Guinea coin comes from the fact that most of the gold originally used to make them came from the general region of Guinea, etc.

ETA: Well, obviously only the African ones are on the Gulf of Guinea . What I meant is they all derive from the name for that general region, which on some wiki poking apparently derives from a Berber word for "black", as filtered through Portuguese.

[Tom Tildrum]

So why is "guinea" an ethnic slur upon Italians?

Name the movie: "That's it, break it all you spoiled guinea brat -- break it all!"

[Tamerlane]

So why is "guinea" an ethnic slur upon Italians?


Apparently it derives from the slightly darker complexioned southern Italians ( the predominant Italian immigrants to America ) relative to native WASPs. It's like "sand nigger" for Arabs - a denigration based on skin color by likening them to black Africans, considered the lowest of the low.

[Mike H]

So why is "guinea" an ethnic slur upon Italians?

Name the movie: "That's it, break it all you spoiled guinea brat -- break it all!"

To answer Tom's second question, it's The Godfather.

[Tom Tildrum]

Thanks. And well done.

[Askance]

And in case anyone's wondering about the guinea pig, here's an extract from a book I'm writing on misleading geographical terms:
There is no record that anyone was under the impression they were from those parts of Africa known as the Guinea Coast (roughly from present-day Equatorial Guinea to Guinea-Bissau, appropriately enough). It was once thought that they came to European awareness from South America via the African Guinea coast and so got named from the place of first contact (as with Panama hats and many other examples in this book), but there’s no evidence for this, and in any case guinea pigs come from the wrong side of South America.

A similar problem arises with the theory that “guinea” is a corruption of Guiana in northeastern South America, as guinea pigs are not found there either. Nor could they be named after the English guinea coin as their name was in use in 1653, ten years before that coin was first struck. As an aside, the coin was named “guinea” because it was made from gold mined in the Guinea area of Africa. The animals were called “pig coneys” in a 1607 treatise on quadrupeds (coney being a word for rabbit in some dialects of English), and in 1653 there is record of them being called “ginny-pigs”. So “pig coney” became “coney-pig”, which then corrupted to “ginny-pig”, which then became spelt “guineapig” under the influence of the new guinea coin.