Etymology




The first historical evidence of the existence of an island now known as Mauritius is on a map produced by the Italian cartographer Alberto Cantino in 1502. From this, it appears that Mauritius bore the name Dina Arobi, very likely the name shared with the Portuguese by sailors from the subcontinent. In 1507, Portuguese sailors visited the uninhabited island. The island appears with a Portuguese name Cirne on early Portuguese maps, probably from the name of a ship in the 1507 expedition. Another Portuguese sailor, Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, gave the name Mascarenes to the Archipelago.

In 1598, Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and named the island Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice van Nassau, stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. Later the island became a French colony and was renamed Isle de France. On 3 December 1810, the French surrendered the island to Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Under British rule, the island's name reverted to Mauritius /məˈrɪʃəs/ (About this soundlisten). Mauritius is also commonly known as Maurice (pronounced mɔˈʁis) and Île Maurice in French, Moris (pronounced moʁis) in Mauritian Creole.

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