terra incognita 「未踏の地」「未知の分野」

前回の terra firma からの連想で、もうひとつラテン語由来の言葉 terra incognita を取り上げたい。 recognition や cognizant などの単語から「認識」に関係があると類推できるが、「知覚されていない土地」、つまり「人跡未踏の地」を指す。比喩的に「未知の領域」「未開拓の分野」の意味もある。

ウェブで見つかる実例から、世界は19世紀中にあらかた踏破されつくしたという Wikipedia の記述を引用しよう。

- During the 19th century, terra incognita disappeared from maps; both the coastlines and the inner parts of the continents became fully explored, even prior to the advent of aerial photography and satellite imagery in the 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_incognita

次に、火星のデジタル地図の作成について書いた論文のタイトルは

- Extra-terra incognita: Martian maps in the digital age

と、extra- をつけて「地球外の世界」という形にしていて、うまいなと思った。

大統領在任中のトランプ氏は、型破りで不安定な言動や政策でアメリカと世界を振り回したが、彼についてもこの言葉が使われていた。

- Trump, who has no foreign affairs or military experience, will confront the absence of a national or even Republican political consensus on how to deal with Syria, the Islamic State militant group, the rise of China and a newly assertive Russia.

“This is virtual terra incognita,” said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East negotiator who served Democratic and Republican presidents.
("Outlines of Trump foreign policy are largely uncharted territory" Reuters, November 9, 2016)

- No lessons were learned about how to restrain a lawless president once a conflict was under way, no alternative moves devised to stave off disaster. “I suppose you could say we were in terra incognita: no one could predict what would happen anymore,” Brooks told me in a follow-up email.
("The Election That Could Break America" The Atlantic, September 23, 2020)

英語圏の辞書から引用しよう。

- plural terrae incognitae
a place that has not been discovered or that is unknown
the terra incognita beyond those mountains
— often used figuratively
This subject is terra incognita for/to me. [=I don't know anything about this subject]
(Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary)

- unknown territory : an unexplored country or field of knowledge
When Roman mapmakers drew a land area that no one had yet explored, they often labeled it "Terra Incognita"—that is, "Unknown Territory"—and the term continued to be used for centuries afterward.
(Merriam-Webster.com)

後者の記述の通りだとすれば、ローマ帝国の時代に実際に地図で使われていた言葉、ということになる。

なお発音は、-ni- に強勢がある /ˈtɛrə ɪnkɒɡˈniːtə/ をなんとなく想像し、事実それで正解なのだが、-cog- に置いた /ɪnˈkɒɡnɪtə/ でも良いようだ。


にほんブログ村←参加中です