# Roman words for India, Arabia, China, etc. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 17, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268 "2005-01-17T23:51:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/1 "2005-01-17T23:51:33Z")
What were the Roman words (aorund 0 AD to 200 AD) for: Greece, Italy itself apart from Rome, Sicily, China, India, and the Sahara? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m curious and wish to write a short sketch for a game I’m planning that includes those names. ---
**Author:** ![Eurograff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Eurograff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eurograff)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/2 "2005-01-18T00:06:04Z")
Not exactly sure about the others, but the first three are Graecia, Italia and Sicilia. All these are feminine and contain only short vowels. And as you probably know, “c” is always pronounced as “k” in classical Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/3 "2005-01-18T00:27:11Z")
[This site](http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/hist_sites.html) has some excellent and detailed maps of the ancient world. May help. Good hunting! ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/4 "2005-01-18T00:33:50Z")
Sicily was also knows as Magna Graecia. My guess would be that the Romans had no word for China; why would they? I do not know if they had a word for India. “Africa” was a Roman province on what we now think of as the North African coast. I do not know whether the Romans had a name for the desert which lay to the south of “Africa”. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/5 "2005-01-18T01:10:14Z")
There are Roman references, for instance in Pliny’s _Natural History_, to a land called [Seres](http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/III-2-F-b-2/V-1/page/0172.html.en), where silk came from. This has been identified by some as China, but their knowledge of the place and its people is so vague that there is room for considerable doubt. ---
**Author:** ![Eurograff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Eurograff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eurograff)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/6 "2005-01-18T01:57:48Z")
A bit more information: Arabia was Arabia even back then; this included both Sinai and Arabian peninsulas. Later Roman empire also had a province called Arabia Petraea. [More here](http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/arabia/arabia.html). India was also called India. It was well-known (the Indus river region anyway) because earlier empires of Persia and Alexander’s conquests extended there, and also there was always quite a lot of trade with Indians. Indian Ocean was known as Mare Indicum. It seems that the name for Sahara was “Libyan Desert”, Deserta Libia (or Libya). I’m not entirely sure about this. Anyway, Libya was the term used for lands west of Egypt (Aegyptus in Latin) and was broader than Africa. China is most unknown about these. There certainly was constant trade between Chinese Han and Roman empires, but no individual trader travelled the whole route between them, so China remained more or less mythical, it was probably just known as the land where silk etc. comes from. But some sites make the claim that certain second century AD writers or cartographers had used word Sina or Sinae to describe a big country in the eastern end of the world, and that this term comes as a loan from India or Persia. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/7 "2005-01-18T03:22:43Z")
**Roman words = Latin** ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/8 "2005-01-18T03:23:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Not exactly sure about the others, but the first three are Graecia, Italia and Sicilia. All these are feminine and contain only short vowels. And as you probably know, “c” is always pronounced as “k” in classical Latin. Thanks. Actually, I didn’t know that. Should I ever put that into an RPG book (we may well write one while working through the campaign, if we do this instead of WoD or the Gothic game) I’ll note that fact. I’ve never actually taken Latin, partly because I couldn’t take it along with German, Japanese, and Russian. I may well change a couple of name or simply mooth some of the borders together on the quick map Im making up - I’ll probably be fuzzy about the border between Libia and Judea. I’m also putting in some kingdoms in the north that didn’t exactly exist, since the game starts around 1000 AD or so. Rome, in this game, never fell. of course, now the Atturki (Mongols, Manchu, and Xiongnu tribesmen) are geting restless… ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/9 "2005-01-18T08:05:04Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > “Africa” was a Roman province on what we now think of as the North African coast. I do not know whether the Romans had a name for the desert which lay to the south of “Africa”. Fascinating. I never knew that. > [@kniz](#): > > Roman words = Latin Roman words are Latin but Latin words aren’t necessarily Roman. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/10 "2005-01-18T08:49:16Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] . . . I may well change a couple of name or simply mooth some of the borders together on the quick map Im making up - I’ll probably be fuzzy about the border between Libia and Judea. [QUOTE] That would be wise. They didn’t have a border. Aegyptus bordered Judaea to the west. Libia was a region rather than a specific province, but it wasn’t generally considered to include Aegyptus. [This map](http://intranet.dalton.org/groups/Rome/RMap.html) may be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/11 "2005-01-18T14:34:37Z")
Thanks. I was planning to make more a regional map than a province-based one. I just need to note some of the more important places and cities for everyone involved. ---
**Author:** ![violet9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ea666f/32.png) [@violet9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/violet9)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/12 "2005-01-18T22:18:30Z")
In this same vein: I’ve always been curious about the origin of the name Cathay for China - and when did it stop being “Cathay” & start being “China?” ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/13 "2005-01-18T23:10:44Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Sicily was also knows as Magna Graecia. Actually Magna Graecia referred to the collective Greek colonies of mainland southern Italy. I notice some authors including Sicily as well, which makes sense from a cultural standpoint, but geographically I believe they were generally referred to seperately. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Lars\_Aruns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/14 "2005-01-18T23:14:13Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Sicily was also knows as Magna Graecia. Just FYI, Magna Graecia was a name applied to Sicily and to much of Southern Italy, approximately from Gaeta downwards, because of heavy immigration from Greece during early Roman times. > [@Eurograff](#): > > Deserta Libia (or Libya) It’s _Desertus Lybiae_. > [@Aesiron](#): > > Roman words are Latin but Latin words aren’t necessarily Roman. Uhh, dialectal forms certainly evolved all over the Empire, but dialectal words that were not coming from Rome metaphorically speaking (whether preserved or mutated), were borrowed from pre-existing languages. So there were words used in various local forms of Latin that were not Roman, and they were Latinized to a certain amount to use them within the grammar, but they were not Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Lars\_Aruns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/15 "2005-01-18T23:16:04Z")
Whoops, simulpost. **Tamerlane** , you might be interested to know that all of my Italian sources lump Sicily with Magna Graecia. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roman-words-for-india-arabia-china-etc/285268/16 "2005-01-18T23:29:39Z")
> [@violet9](#): > > In this same vein: I’ve always been curious about the origin of the name Cathay for China - and when did it stop being “Cathay” & start being “China?” “Cathay” probably comes from _Khitai_, from _Khitan_ or _Qidan_, a Turco-Mongolian people. The Khitans established a dominion in northern China as the Liao dynasty, before being ousted by the Jurchen ( Manchus ) who established their own north Chinese kingdom ( the Chin, Jin or Kin dynasty ) which was eventually conquered by Genghis Khan. The Khitan elite fled westwards and established the Qara-Khitai empire in central Asia, defeating the last great Seljuq Sultan in the east at the epic battle of the Qatwan Steppe in 1140 to incorporate western central Asia ( Transoxania - eventually lost again to their vassal the Khwarizm Shah ). The Qara-Khitai state, which dominated the overland trade in Asia ( the central sections of the “Silk Road” ) was fairly sophisticated for a “steppe empire”, not surprisingly after 200 years of Chinese acculturation. They were ruled by a tolerant Buddhist elite with a largely Muslim subject population and with their own written script based on the Turkic language of the Uighurs and the Arabic alphabet. They were the only large state to be incorporated fairly peacefully into the Mongol empire ( a rapid and stunning coup by Genghis’ brilliant general Jebe Noyan ) and much of the Mongol administrative apparatus and their written script seems to have been adopted from them. It is likely the Qara-Khitai, rather than their earlier predecessors the Liao that spawned the term “Cathay”. - Tamerlane