Falklands: A skilled reconciler would come in handy on our beautiful, troubled planet

You might be surprised to learn that both the English and Spanish versions of the islands’ names have their roots in the Celtic languages. Argentina's Giovani Lo Celso adjusts a banner reading 'The Malvinas [Falkland Islands] belong to Argentina,' after his team's victory over England in the World Cup semi-final on July 15th. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Forty-four years after the Falkland Islands made headlines around the world, 24 letters written in black paint on a white sheet catapulted the long-standing territorial dispute between Argentina and Britain into the spotlight once again. “Las Malvinas son Argentinas,” cried the Albiceleste. “No, they aren’t,” replied London and the 3,700-odd Falklanders. Another claim to the windswept islands comes from the Mapuche – an indigenous nation whose ancestral territory encompassed much of what is now Argentina, long before the current state existed – and whose activists have suggested in the past that the Falklands should be transferred to them as compensation for the lands they lost in Patagonia during Spanish and Argentinian colonial expansion. Although it’s agreed there were no human settlements on the isolated Falklands before Europeans arrived, it’s not difficult to understand their point. But let’s set the competing sovereignty claims aside for now and focus instead on a less controversial – though no less intriguing – question: the origins of the islands’ names. What do the Falklands and Las Malvinas actually mean? Well, you might be surprised to learn that both the English and Spanish versions ultimately have their roots in the Celtic languages. First of all, let’s take the F-word. The English language placename can be traced back to Anthony Cary, aka Viscount Falkland, a wealthy aristocrat who financed an expedition to the islands in 1690, the same year another military campaign left Sasana’s shores for a colony much closer to home. Cary, it appears, made some of his fortune pillaging treasure from a wrecked Spanish galleon in the Caribbean, briefly became head of the British navy, spent several days imprisoned in the Tower of London on corruption charges, and died of smallpox before reaching 40. Initially, a strait running between the two main islands was named after him, and by 1765 the Falkland Islands had become the English name for the entire archipelago. But where does the word Falkland itself come from? It refers to the small town of Falkland in Fife, Scotland. (The Cary family had received the title from a Stuart king, even though they themselves were based in England and originally from Devon.) While there remains some speculation that the name may preserve an older Pictish word, the most widely accepted explanation is that it derives from Gaelic. The first element may come either from falach (meaning “hidden”) or falc (“to wash” or “heavy rain”), with the second part being the common, lann, which means “plot of land” or “church enclosure”. A suitably damp toponym, you might think, for a town in the east of Alba and its rugged namesake in the South Atlantic, though in both spots the rain isn’t as relentless as you would imagine. The Celtic connections don’t end there, however. The Spanish name, Las Malvinas, derives from the French Îles Malouines, the title stamped on the islands by musketeer mathematician Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1764. This imperial explorer would later become the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe and brazenly claim Tahiti for Louis XV. Malouines itself means “people from Saint-Malo”, the Breton port from which de Bougainville’s crew set sail. Today the town is famous for its magnificent walled old town, popular crêperies and bustling cider houses. But who was St Malo? It turns out he was a Welsh monk who is said to have taken part in the legendary voyage of our own St Brendan before travelling to Brittany to spread the gospel. His name likely derives from the Old Breton Machlou, meaning a “beautiful hostage” or “bright pledge”. Once again, the title is quite fitting: a seafaring saint who sailed the high seas lending his name, indirectly, to a distant ocean-bound archipelago. While the Celtic language origins of the Falkands-Malvinas may have no impact on the ebb and flow of contemporary geopolitics, they do offer a clear reminder of how meanings and labels evolve across time and tides, how conquest marks both land and sea, and how unlikely linguistic connections can span the globe. One story told about St Malo is that he once left an island community in Brittany because of a bitter dispute over land. The people later begged him to return, which he did, and he duly restored peace and order. Such a skilled reconciler would come in handy today, you would think, be it in discussions regarding the islands named in his honour or elsewhere on our beautiful, troubled planet.