What is the origin of the continent name Asia?

(I want to learn how to write good reports, constructive feedback will be much appreciated, thank you.)

In the course of writing this report, I consulted several online sources, mostly Wikipedia and to a lesser degree Etymology Online and Merriam Webster. After a short review of mainstream consensus on the etymology of the term Asia, I will offer an alternate suggestion.

Wikipedia claims the term Asia originated in ancient Greece, first attributed to Herodotus in reference to Anatolia or the Persian Empire. It was originally a name just for the east bank of the Aegean Sea, an area known to the Hittites as Assuwa.

Additionally, two more possibilities are also provided. The term could have originated from the Aegean root "Asis", or it could derive from borrowed Semitic root “Asu”.

The problem is a lack of a definitive answer. Even more strange, in the English language the word Asia is pronounced with a soft (G), which sounds similar to the word Aegean, as in Aegean Sea.

In all probability the term Asia did not originate in ancient Greece but rather it was adopted from a more ancient language. There are a few possible candidates, however this report will explore the Persian language as an avenue for determining the etymology of the word Asia.

There are two primary reasons for choosing the Persian language. First of all, the author of this report is a native speaker of the language. Secondly, the Greek Empire was in breadth and size almost the same as the Persian empire. Perhaps Alexander made easy work of the weakened Persian overlords and simply took over managing an already existing albeit dying empire. Thus, well established place names were not changed but rather adopted by the new Greek overlords.

Our first clue comes from Wikipedia wherein we find the following claim, the term Asia was originally just a name for the east bank of the Aegean Sea, an area known to the Hittites as Assuwa. However, the term eventually came to be associated with the entire land mass we now call the continent of Asia.

Though not entirely necessary, a little information about the Hittites won't hurt. They established an empire round about 1600 BCE and ruled over most of Anatolia, which is modern day Turkey and northern Iraq. In western Anatolia, along the banks of the Aegean Sea, a region referred to as Assuwa, a host of smaller nations banded together to resist the Hittites. This band of nations came to be called the Assuwa League. They were finally defeated by the Hittites round about 1400 BCE.

So the term Asia was initially used to refer to a small region on the west coast of Anatolia. The name Anatolia apparently means “sunrise, place from where the sun rises, the east”. There is a modern town on the southern shores of Turkey by the name Antalya and its coordinates are approximately 36° degrees North Latitude and 30° degrees East Longitude. A straight line going southward would pass right over the Giza Plateau and the Great Pyramids.

Our second clue is the Persian pronunciation of the term Asia using a soft (c) sound. At the very least this pronunciation sounds similar to Assuwa.

In Persian, the word for walking stick is 'asaw'. To be more precise, in Asia minor, tall reed plants called Cane were used to build everything from houses to walking sticks. As such, the word Cane can be found rooted in dozens of words. If you had an 'asaw' in all probability it was made from Cane.

Since cane is purportedly of Semitic origin, I had to consult covert sources like the bible (insert happy face here). For our purposes, we will concentrate on two meanings attributed to the word cane. Firstly, the word was used to refer to the beam between two scales. Even more tantalizing, Cain was the first born of Adam and Eve. I can't begin to tell you how many times I came across sources which stressed that Cain was the world's first murderer. It would seem, this act put Cain on the map. You will understand this pun at the end.

The word murder descends from the Indo-European language group. In fact, in the Persian language mord means 'died' and bemyr means 'to die'. The Anglo-Saxon spelling for the word is far more telling, myrdrian.

Chalk it up to my dyslexia, from the word myrdrian, I made the natural jump to the word meridian which can be traced to pre Latin sources, however for now the following explanation will do; Medi die, locative of medius “mid-” + dies “day”. So, the word meridian stems from a word meaning noon or mid-day. The time of day when the sun reaches its highest point then begins to die or set for the day.

A meridian is an imaginary line of longitude passing through the North Pole and South Pole. Each meridian is the same length as the circumference of the earth, as each great circle divides the Earth into equal hemispheres, east and west. However, there is a prime meridian or first meridian presently situated in Greenwich, London since the 1800's. Not too long ago, the prime or first meridian was 30 degrees east of its current location. The prime meridian used to pass through the Giza plateau and upwards straight through the city of Antalya and of course through the region which used to be called Assuwa.

The claim, Cain was the world's first murderer, could very well be bible speak for 'asaw' the first meridian. As stated earlier, the word cane was used to refer to the beam between two scales.

Meridian lines do not actually exist, they are a device used by humans to chart and map the movements of the earth and the heavens.

In conclusion, I propose, the word Asia stems from the Persian word 'asaw' which means cane. This designation was restricted to a specific location, which no doubt got its name because it was at one time and for a very long time, the location of the world's prime meridian.

Perhaps, we can now explain why a flock of crows are called a murder. Crows fly by the thousands in a line formation according to set times in the day. Maybe, we should call them a meridian of crows.