It typically refers to southwest Asia, particularly Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other nations of the Arabian Peninsula. Today, the region of the Near East is imprecise and overlaps with the Middle East. Today, it still refers to China, Japan and other countries on the eastern rim of Asia, but its use has declined steadily in the latter twentieth century.įirst used in 1856, the term “Near East” was defined specifically against the Far East and referred to the region in Asia that’s west of India. The term was used to describe all British colonies east of India. First recorded in 1616, the phrase “Far East” came into common usage in the 1800s because of British colonial expansion to eastern Asia. The simplest of these slippery phrases is the Far East. So, what about those three confusing phrases: Far East, Middle East, and Near East? Learn about a language that does not have words for “left” and “right” here. Language can dictate how we perceive the world around us. Our words for geography reveal where we are. Conversely, the word “west” comes from the word for “evening” from the Sanskrit word “avah” meaning “to go down.” These words are all relational and dictate the space around the speaker. The word “east” is derived from the Sanskrit word “usās” meaning “dawn” or “morning.” From the perspective of Europe and Asia, this makes sense because the sun rises in the east. Some (like Far East) were born during British colonization, but “Near East” and “Middle East” are more modern than that. It’s no surprise that many of our place names are relatively new to English.
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