Where does the word Caribbean derive from?

Answer 1

carib or caribe is the name of the race of Indians the europeans found living thruout northern south America & the west indies & whom they then largely exterminated except for small groups who have survived til today on the islands of dominica & saint Vincent & in the interior of Guyana

the greater carib area thus came to be called the Caribbean in English & soon the Caribbean too by the rule of doubling a final consonant in inflections to indicate that the preceding vowel is short

as also occurs in words like rib & ribbed etc

but the carib name for carib was actually pronounced variously

as calina or galibi etc

or so it seemed to europeans

who also repeated & wrote it just as variously

so when Columbus for example first heard the name in Cuba

he heard & passed it on as caniba

which soon gave the adjectives canibal alongside caribal in spanish

& reached English also as the noun cannibal

for the caribs were

in fact

cannibals

& so the Caribbean sea is actually also the cannibal sea

in its alternative probability