Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly
*Terra Nova and Labrador  |
Ooh, that's a good one. Most Canadians assume it's La bras d'or (the Golden Arm) in French, because that's their frame of reference.
But it's named for Portuguese explorer João Fernandes Lavrador, OR the name for a type of tool used on boats in that language. Europeans generally accept the former as historically proven, whereas we ourselves lend some credence to the latter. The reason for the discrepancy is that, according to our NL/Canada historians, "Labrador" originally referred to Greenland in the late 1400s and early 1500s. But either way, it's a Portuguese name, like basically every early place name in Newfoundland - and it was all resolved in the early 1500s so the name Labrador was already attributed to Labrador before there were French people in North America - so I don't see what the issue is.