The word "continent" comes from the Latin "continens", which has something
to do with "contain" which is rooted in two words which mean "to hold
together". Going further back, the theoretical Indo-European root of these
words has to do with pulling, with holding taut, with stretching.
"Continent" actually has  the same root as the word "tenant".

In a way then what the word itself is telling us is that the concept of
continents is really a way for us to "contain" and to classify the people
who live on these land masses. We forget however that the people who live
on these continents are really just tenants whose identity may or may not
be determined by the continents on which they live. Often people are pulled
together, are held together by other forces other than geography.

I suppose when the map makers were mapping the world in their image, it was
convenient to divide the world into continents. Since many of these map
makers were places which we now recognize as European then they could not
conceive of their corner of the world as anything but a continent. But what
is a continent? Isn't it just a lable? How useful is a lable?

We think of Africa and we presume that Madagascar is an African island
since it is so near Africa. But is it not true that many people living on
Madagascar are linguistically more closely related to the people of South
East Asia? So are they Africans or Asians? Also, weren't Asia and Africa
defined differently in Hellenistic times?

Someone once said with regard the difference between a language and a
dialect that a language is a dialect with an army of its own. So perhaps it
is with continents and islands. Perhaps a continent is an island with an
army of geographers.

So it seems that we make the world in our image and our geographical
categories only reflect these images. I think then that a museum may not
necessary settle the question of islands and continents conclusively but it
can help explain why that question exists in the first place.

Victorino Manalo
Philippines