
Why the world has so many Guineas - pselbert
https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/economist-explains-8
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dogruck
Wikipedia has a good explanation of the etymology:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_(region)#Etymology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_\(region\)#Etymology)

Summary: It comes from an old Portuguese word for a subset of dark skinned
North African people.

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firefoxd
I'm from Guinea... The one in west Africa...hmmm right there are two of them
there. So Guinea Conakry it is.

I don't know the Western origin of the word Guinea but I remember someone
jokingly telling a story when we were kids. He used to say when the french
colonists docked at the coast, they saw nobody. They went deep into the land
and found a river. On that river, they saw women washing their clothes. "What
do you call this land?" The french asked. The word land sounded like their
word for "men".

"Only women here..." (word for women in Soso is Guinée) "distracting you while
the men steal your boats"

So there you go, Guinée/Guinea means Women.

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jerrre
I like the question, hadn't thought about it before and now I want to know.
The article doesn't give me much answers though. Mostly seems to clarify the
question.

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xchip
TL;DR

The article doesn't really answer the question, it just mentions how many
different Guineas exist.

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simplicitea
It does; it stems from Portugal meaning black people according to the article.
If I understood it correctly, it's some mashup of colony and black people.
It's an artifact of early modern colonialism and zenophobia.

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caio1982
I can't access the article but it sounds bullshit to me; although the
portuguese didn't mind at all being super racist towards their colonies.
Guinea comes from portuguese Guiné, which has (so far) an unknown origin but
historically described a long portion of sub-saharan costal land in Africa. In
the region there used to be local powers called that because it would mean
"warrior chiefs" or something in a local language. It's not exactly known if
they were from Mali (whose city of Djenné traded with portuguese folks) or
from Gana (another name related to the story and with uncertain origin).

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grecy
I spent a month exploring the country Guinea last year and absolutely loved
it. Extremely friendly people, amazing landscapes and by far the best hiking
in West Africa. Tons of waterfalls that make your jaw drop, tons of culture
and extremely cheap. I loved that country!

Since Ebola virtually no tourists go there, and Lonely Planet does not even
cover it due to "a general lack of interest" ! HA. They could not be more
wrong.

Stories and photos:
[http://theroadchoseme.com/category/guinea](http://theroadchoseme.com/category/guinea)

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jpatokal
Lonely Planet does cover Guinea?
[https://www.lonelyplanet.com/guinea](https://www.lonelyplanet.com/guinea)

That said, they used to pride themselves on covering the entire world,
including countries that weren't really commercially viable, but with the
decimation of printed guidebook sales they've been pulling back for quite some
time. IIRC the first place to get the axe was Micronesia, which gets next to
no tourists, completely lacks the beaches that are the main driver of Pacific
island tourism, and is frightfully expensive to get to and travel in.

(Source: I used to work there, but it's been a few years.)

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ThinkingGuy
These days, if I want a quick overview of an unfamiliar country, from a
traveler's perspective, I tend to go to Wikivoyage:

[https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Guinea](https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Guinea)

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jondubois
I would highly recommend Guineafowl. It's one of the very few birds I tried
that tastes better than chicken.

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mercer
better than duck?

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KozmoNau7
Trick question, nothing is better than duck.

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ajmurmann
Goose can be! Especially Hungarian goose. It is a tough call though. There is
also squab, but that is so different in flavor and preparation that it's
really a bad comparison.

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governate
This is one of those words you just avoid using, as an American, because it’s
an insult to persons of Italian descent in the United States. That may be due
to an association with some of the trivia related in this article?

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kwhitefoot
So how do you go about buying a guinea pig?

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oblio
> Could I have that cute 2 months old Cavia porcellus, please?

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Freak_NL
Or just ask for 'that cavy'.

The article mentions 'guinea men' to refer to the trading ships that shuttled
between Britain, South America and 'Guinea', but I can't help but imagine a
hypothetical breed of six feet tall, dapperly clothed, bipedal guinea pig.

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finin
Like the one that Beatrix Potter
imagined?[https://imgur.com/a/tjktk](https://imgur.com/a/tjktk)

