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Morocco has more Moors than Mauritania

There are many countries on Earth that can be said to have misleading names. Iceland is perpetually on fire because of active volcanos. Germany calls itself Deutschland, but we think of Dutch people as those from the Netherlands. However, this is not a purely European phenomenon. Go a bit farther south and you will find Globle answer for June 15: Mauritania.

The name originally comes from the Roman province Mauretania. Mauri was the Latin name for the Berber people, an ethnic group that spans much of northern Africa including modern day Mauritania. The word Mauri has evolved into another antiquated, but still sometimes relevant word: Moor.

In medieval times, the meaning of Moor expanded to include all the Muslim people of North Africa and Southern Europe. Back then, our relationship with race wasn’t the same that it is today, but it can be inferred from old texts that the word had a racial connotation. For the Shakespeare fans that enjoyed last week’s newsletter, they can find this theme explored in the play Othello, more formally known as The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.

Today, the word Moor has more in common with the Roman meaning than the medieval one, but that comes with a bit of irony. The Roman province Mauretania was actually farther north, and overlapped with Morocco, another country whose name is derived from “Moor”. Morocco also has a much higher population of ethnic Moors. Conversely, the island nation Mauritius does not get its name not from the word Moor, but rather from the name Maurice.

Mauritania is, by many measures, not an easy place to live. It is one of the few countries where a slave trade is still active and atheism is punishable by death. However, things may be turning around: they recently had their first democratic, peaceful transfer of power. Hopefully that was the first of many, because when it comes to democracies there’s only one thing to say: the Moor the merrier!

Answers to last week's games

Monday, June 10 to Sunday, June 16.

Linxicon

The following are the shortest paths from last week:

• #119 software -> users -> everybody

• #120 lesson -> knowledge -> possession -> possessive -> mine

• #121 arm -> armed -> security -> privacy

• #122 stock -> supply -> provide -> imply -> implication

• #123 narrow -> expansive -> imaginative -> fiction

• #124 someone -> artist -> canvas -> surface

• #125 journalist -> helper -> extra -> add

• #126 Play now!

Forgeous

Courbet, Gustave. Nude with Flowering Branch. 1863. Oil on canvas, 74.9 cm x 61 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The MET, metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436018.

Play Forgeous for June 17.