New Guinea

New Guinea (Tok Pisin: Niugini; Dutch: Nieuw-Guinea; Indonesian: Papua or, historically, Irian) is a large Island in the South West Pacific region.

It is the world's second-largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 785,753 km², and the largest wholly within the southern hemisphere.

The island is divided among two countries: Papua New Guinea to the east, and Indonesia to the west.

Names

The island has been known by various names.

The name Papua was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West. Its etymology is unclear; one theory states that it is from Tidore, the language used by the Sultanate of Tidore, which controlled parts of the island's coastal region. The name came from papo (to unite) and ua (negation), which means not united or, territory that geographically is far away (and thus not united).

Ploeg reports that the word papua is often said to derive from the Malay word papua or pua-pua, meaning 'frizzly-haired', referring to the highly curly hair of the inhabitants of these areas. Another possibility, put forward by Sollewijn Gelpke in 1993, is that it comes from the Biak phrase sup i papwa which means 'the land below [the sunset]' and refers to the islands west of the Bird's Head, as far as Halmahera. Whatever the origin of the name Papua, it came to be associated with this area, and more especially with Halmahera, which was known to the Portuguese by this name during the era of their colonization in this part of the world.

Guinea

Coordinates: 11°N 10°W / 11°N 10°W / 11; -10

Guinea ⁱ/ˈɡɪni/, officially the Republic of Guinea (French: République de Guinée), is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea (French: Guinée française), the modern country is sometimes referred to as Guinea-Conakry in order to distinguish it from other parts of the wider region of the same name, such as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. Guinea has a population of 10.5 million and an area of 245,860 square kilometres (94,927 sq mi).

Guinea is a republic. The president is directly elected by the people and is head of state and head of government. The unicameral Guinean National Assembly is the legislative body of the country, and its members are also directly elected by the people. The judicial branch is led by the Guinea Supreme Court, the highest and final court of appeal in the country.

Guinea is a predominantly Islamic country, with Muslims representing 85 percent of the population. Guinea's people belong to twenty-four ethnic groups. French, the official language of Guinea, is the main language of communication in schools, in government administration, in the media, and among the country's security forces, but more than twenty-four indigenous languages are also spoken.

Guinea (region)

Guinea is a traditional name for the region of West Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It stretches north through the forested tropical regions and ends at the Sahel.

Etymology

The etymology of "Guinea" is uncertain. The English term Guinea comes directly from the Portuguese word Guiné, which emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the Guineus, a generic term for the black African peoples south of the Senegal River (as opposed to the 'tawny' Zenaga Berbers, north of it, whom they called Azenegues or Moors). The term "Guinea" is extensively used in the 1453 chronicle of Gomes Eanes de Zurara.

King John II of Portugal took up the title of Senhor da Guiné (Lord of Guinea) from 1483. It is believed the Portuguese borrowed Guineus from the Berber term Ghinawen (sometimes Arabized as Guinauha or Genewah) meaning "the burnt people" (analogous to the Classical Greek Aithiops, "of the burned face"). The Berber terms "aginaw" or "Akal n-Iguinawen" mean "black" or "land of the blacks."

Guinea (coin)

The guinea is a coin of approximately one quarter ounce of gold that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1814. It was the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally worth one pound sterling, equal to twenty shillings, but rises in the price of gold relative to silver caused the value of the guinea to increase, at times to as high as thirty shillings. From 1717 to 1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings. Then, Great Britain adopted the gold standard and guinea became a colloquial or specialised term.

The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, where much of the gold used to make the coins originated. Although no longer circulated, the term guinea survives in some circles, notably horse racing, and in the sale of rams to mean an amount of one pound and one shilling (21 shillings) or one pound and five pence in decimalised currency. The name also forms the basis for the Arabic word for the Egyptian pound الجنيه el-Genēh / el-Geni, as a sum of 100 qirsh (one pound) was worth approximately 21 shillings at the end of the 19th century.