Names and Geography (original) (raw)

Names and Geography, The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming

and Keywords Place-names and geography are closely connected. It is impossible to understand either discipline without some knowledge of the other. Place-names should be seen as the spoken expression of humans' view of the surrounding landscape, thus acting within both physical and human geography, in as much as place-names describe aspects both of the natural world and of human created space. One of the challenges in using place-names in connection with geography is to establish when a name was established and the significance of the naming focus. In addition, later onomastic developments may create a mismatch between current denotation and the original place-name meaning. Since place-names may tell us about geography at the time of naming, they are excellent in teasing out information about past geographical realities. In recent years, Geographical Information Systems and geospatial databases have come to play a greater role in both onomastic research and geography.

Functions of Geographical Names and the Use of Endo- and Exonyms

In most cases the use of endo- and exonyms takes place within a text produced in a natural language. Geographical names are linguistic signs and fulfil in communication general functions of language as well as some additional specific functions that are typical of proper names only. Therefore, the description and assessment of endo- and (particularly) exonym use should take these functions into account. The aim of this paper is to propose a set of functions of geographical names, which, however, does apply to proper names in general as well. The set shall be useful in the evaluation of the use of exonyms. Some basic assumptions of the semiotic theory of proper name semantics are discussed in the paper. A concise presentation of Jakobson’s (general) functions of language is made and the two possible perspectives in the description of toponym functions are discussed: the naming act and the subsequent use of a name. The paper provides a brief survey of selected theoretical stands on the functions of proper names taken by (Slavic) onomastics. These theoretical proposals are then compared with the functions listed by Jakobson. Finally, an extended set of communicative functions of toponyms is proposed and then applied to the description of endo- and exonym use.

Teaching place-names and landscape

In the spring of 2011 I gave a course for university students in “Place-names and landscape”. The aim of the course was to introduce place-name studies and its place within historical geography to students coming from a variety of institutional backgrounds, such as linguistics, history, geography and archaeology. The course took the students through a variety of different source types and methods within historical geography connected to place-name studies. The paper presents the structure of the course, its intended aims, implementation and outcome. The article is based on a paper presented at the 24th congress of ICOS (The International Council of Onomastic Sciences) in Barcelona in 2011, and published in the online proceedings of this: ‘Els noms en la vida quotidiana - Actes del XXIV Congrés Internacional d'ICOS sobre Ciències Onomastiques’ (‘Biblioteca tècnica de política lingüística’ vol. 11), eds. J. Tort i Donada & M. Montagut (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 2014), Appendix pp. 1818-1822. The article is also available for download at http://www.gencat.cat/llengua/BTPL/ICOS2011/187.pdf.

Place-names in Landscape Archaeology

Place-names represent one of the most valuable resources available to the landscape archaeologist. Not only do they contribute to the task of reconstructing landscapes, they also offer vital insights into how people understood, ordered, and interacted with their surroundings (Jones and Semple 2012a; Carroll and Parsons 2013). For historic periods, place-names provide unique and unrivalled windows into the physical and cognitive worlds of past communities. They inform on all aspects of human experience from social organisation through economic activities to religion and belief. In short, place-names reveal how people once thought; and, for the contemporary landscape archaeologist, they prove to be good, to think with (Jones and Semple 2012b). Place-names can play this role because they were socially constructed and environmentally contingent. They were designed to carry and communicate information of relevance for those that encountered them. They were invariably created to be meaningful and useful, to be reflective of local conditions and human experience, and they were intended to be understandable.

Decoding of Place Names as Geographical Information Tools

Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft, 2019

; http://geoimasd.upm.es/ geograPhische namen Place Names 264 ayaR RodRíguez de CastRo and antonio Vázquez HoeHne Objekt. Deshalb sind geographische Namen wichtige Werkzeuge des Geographen beim ‚Lesen' und Interpretieren der Landschaft. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von geographischen Namen als Quellen geographischer Information besser verständlich zu machen. Deshalb werden Informationen, die aus geographischen Namen gewonnen werden können, nach der Art der Informationssammlung, der Interpretation und der Übermittlung durch die Bewohner des vom Namen bezeichneten Ortes mit den Mitteln der Feldforschung, ethnographischer Bestandsaufnahmen, der Dokumentensichtung in Archiven und von Mental Maps analysiert. Ferner wird auf die Fähigkeit geographischer Namen hingewiesen, den Diskurs über ein geographisches Objekt zu beeinflussen. Schließlich wird eine Kategorisierung der Beziehungsarten zwischen geographischen Namen und ihren Nutzern vorgeschlagen.

Proclaiming place: towards a geography of place name pronunciation

Social & Cultural Geography, 2002

This paper provides a critical review of recent geographical scholarship on place naming and contends that aural aspects of naming have yet to be fully worked into the research agenda. To begin to address this gap in the literature, we consider pronunciation to be an important element of the cultural politics of place naming within post-colonial societies. In asserting links between speaking and naming we are contributing to recent scholarship in cultural geography that has moved beyond the visual to consider a wider sensory spectrum in the constitution of place. Our case material is drawn from Aotearoa/ New Zealand where conservative reactions to sympathetic pronunciations of Maori names by media personalities are a frequent occurrence. By way of example, we interpret selected examples of unsolicited comment gleaned from newspapers during the period 1994-1999. We conclude that identity is at least in part narrated through place-reference d linguistic tactics such as pronunciation.

Names of Man-made Places and Natural Landscape Objects.pdf

Onomastica Uralica 11, 2018

It is well-known that place-names reflect the circumstances existing in the time of name-giving, and old place-names can convey information about bygone ages, which makes them an important part of both historical linguistic and onomastic studies. However, name-giving customs can be different in different types of places denoted by these names, which can result in linguistic differences between them. It is also known that place-names can be categorised in different ways, e.g. groups of microtoponyms and macrotoponyms can be distinguished, toponyms related to location types can be studied separately, etc. This study evaluates the differences between place-names focusing on the two main categories of toponyms: names of natural places (mountains, rivers, forest, etc.) and names of artificial places (settlements, castles, etc.).