Conversa:eilandenzee

Interesting. I did not even know that this word existed... But I do find it in some 18th and 19th century descriptions. It does not really mean archipelago though. It means a sea that has lots of islands in it. So it is not about the land but about the water. It is also pretty obsolete despite all the (wrong) foreign translations on the internet. And rare. I cannot even find it in WNT, which is the most complete dictionary (but ante 1928) Jcwf (conversa) 19 de xuño de 2014 ás 05:52 (UTC)

The normal word for archipelago is eilandengroep or eilandenrijk.

Ah! I found out what happened. The Egean Sea is a sea with many island (i.e. an island-sea=eilandenzee). Its Greek name was Archipelagus (main sea). Later the meaning of the word archipelago shifted from the sea to the islands in it. So eilandenzee is a translation of the orginal word Archipelagus, not the modern word archipel. Jcwf (conversa) 19 de xuño de 2014 ás 07:05 (UTC)

And eilandengroep, what happens with it? It looks like the same case... Can we consider them as "rare words" for archipel? Thanks.--Calq (conversa) 20 de xuño de 2014 ás 02:27 (UTC)

No eilandengroep is a pretty common term for the islands of an archipel and a synonym of that word in its modern meaning. Jcwf (conversa) 20 de xuño de 2014 ás 02:31 (UTC)