Gulf of Bothnia - Name

Name

Bothnia is a latinization. "Botten" in the Swedish name "Bottenviken" originally meant "gulf" or "bay"; hence "Bottenviken" means "the Gulf-gulf".

The name botn was applied to the Gulf of Bothnia as Helsingjabotn in Old Norse, after Hälsingland, which at the time referred to the coastland west of the gulf. Later, botten was applied to the regions Västerbotten on the western side and Österbotten the eastern side ("East Bottom" and "West Bottom"). The Finnish name of Österbotten, Pohjanmaa, or "Pohja"-land, gives a hint as to the meaning in both languages: pohja means both "bottom" and "north."

Botn/botten is cognate with the English word bottom, and it might be part of a general north European distinction of lowlands, as opposed to highlands, such as the Netherlandic region, Samogitia (Lithuanian), and Sambia (Russia).

A second possibility is that botten follows an alternative Scandinavian connotation of 'furthermost'. Thus, the Gulf of Bothnia would be the farthest extent of the Ocean.

Julius Pokorny gives the extended Indo-European root as *bhudh-m(e)n with a *bhudh-no- variant, from which the Latin fundus, as in fundament, is derived. The original meaning of English north, from Indo-European *ner- "under", indicates an original sense of "lowlands" for "bottomlands". On the other hand, by "north" the classical authors usually meant "outermost", as the northern lands were outermost to them.

The origin of the word is indeed very ancient, belonging to a period before the world discoveries by the Portuguese. Until then, North was not seen as the magnetic top of the world, East being the normal orientation of a map.

Also, in Saami, the cardinal directions were named according to the different parts of the typical tent used by this nomadic people. The door of the tent was traditionally pointed South, in the most sunny direction, and the bottom of the tent would be aligned with the North. Thus the origin of the word 'Pohja' in its use as "North". Deriving as well from this logic is the affinity in the Finnish language of the words 'eteinen', meaning "hall" and 'Etelä', "South".