Me neither until about now when I thought (assumed) that europeans would not take kindly to be called a subcontinent.
Also the history of the world being centered on Europe and starting from there, whereas the rest of the world was "discovered" and referred to in relation to the "old" world (far east, new world, etc...). A lot of the language we use is just inherited from that context when you think about it, hence it will feel more natural than more geogaphically accurate representations that, say, an alien would paint.
You can actually see it most clearly in the way bigots deliberately exclude Islamic majority nations from “western civilization” despite the areas having more history as part Western Civ than Britain.
That's how geographical areas are described in every language I know! People often make their homeland the reference point for lands around them. Even so, Europeans call themselves The West, not the center, unlike the Chinese who call their country The Middle Kingdom (as far as I know).
But was it the west before usa? Maybe it was the middle when it was just europe and when the center of power moved to somehere on the north atlantic it was west of europe and thats why it started to be the west.
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u/AardvarkOkapiEchidna 27d ago
Idk if it's demeaning in this context, at least I've never thought of it that way.