Roof of the World
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The Roof of the World or Top of the World is a metaphoric epithet or phrase used to describe the highest region in the world, also known as High Asia. The term usually refers to the mountainous interior of Asia, including the Pamirs, the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau, the Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan, the country of Nepal, and the Altai Mountains.
Attested usage
The British explorer John Wood, writing in 1838, described Bam-i-Duniah (Roof of the World) as a "native expression" (presumably Wakhi),[1] and it was generally used for the Pamirs in Victorian times: In 1876, another British traveler, Sir Thomas Edward Gordon, employed it as the title of a book[2] and wrote in Chapter IX:
Older encyclopedias also used "Roof of the World" to describe the Pamirs:
- Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): "PAMIRS, a mountainous region of central Asia...the Bam-i-Dunya ('The Roof of the World')".[3]
- The Columbia Encyclopedia, 1942 edition: "the Pamirs (Persian = roof of the world)".[4]
- Hachette, 1890: Script error: No such module "Lang"., French for "Roof of the World (Pamir)".[5]
- Script error: No such module "Lang"., Leipzig 1928–1935: Script error: No such module "Lang". (German: "roof of the world, term describing the Pamir highlands"),[6] and (in translation): "Pamir highlands, the nodal point of the mountain systems of Tien-Shan, Kun-lun, Karakoram, the Himalayas and Hindukush, and therefore called the roof of the world."[7]
With the awakening of public interest in Tibet, the Pamirs, "since 1875 ... probably the best explored region in High Asia",[3] went out of the limelight and the description "Roof of the World" has been increasingly applied to Tibet[8][9] and the Tibetan Plateau, and occasionally, especially in French (Script error: No such module "Lang".), even to Mount Everest,[10]Template:Fcn but the traditional use is still alive.[11]Template:Fcn
See also
References
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- ↑ Keay, John (1983) When Men and Mountains Meet Template:ISBN; p. 153
- ↑ Sir Thomas Edward Gordon, The Roof of the World: being a narrative of a journey over the high plateau of Tibet to the Russian frontier and the Oxus sources on Pamir, Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1876
- ↑ a b Template:Cite EB1911
- ↑ The Columbia Encyclopedia; 1942 edition, p. 1335
- ↑ Guillaume Capus (1890), Script error: No such module "Lang"., Paris: Hachette et Cie. = Bibliographia Marmotarum. Ramousse R., International Marmot Network, Lyon, 1997. Template:ISBN Guillaume Capus
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Lang"., 15th ed., Leipzig 1928–1935, vol. 4 (1929), p. 319.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Lang"., vol. 14 (1933), p. 96.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "Lang"..
- ↑ The Pamirs, a region known to locals as Pomir – "the roof of the world".