Most toponomastics research has ignored the importance of indigenous places as sites for identity and other cultural and social significance. Using Cape Coast as a historical site of the ...transatlantic slave trade, this study explores the origin, meanings and relevance of indigenous place names in the suburbs of Cape Coast, Ghana. Through an interdisciplinary approach that synergizes an interview with a chief, who is a prosopographer, historical documents, and literary sources, this study traces the city’s evolution from its ancestral hunting origins. The findings revealed that Cape Coast’s identity is encapsulated in the indigenous names, which point out the complex dynamics of culture, geography, identity and power. The names reference landmarks, events, environment and communities, transforming the city itself into a living archive with historical relevance. The literary interpretations uncovered metaphorical meanings encoded in some toponyms. Tracing connections across people, events, geography and time, these names reveal an interconnection often obscured by colonial ruptures. Based on these findings, there is a need to preserve the indigenous place names to foster intergenerational connections to the city’s storied landscape. The study contributes to Critical Toponymy theory and empirical insights into using indigenous toponyms to decolonize urban heritage.
The paper provides a critical review of a ten-chapter volume dealing with various aspects of the study of place names. Conceived as a concise but comprehensive reference source for students in ...toponomastics, the book has two distinct focuses, namely historical toponomastics (i.e. the study of place names within the framework of historical linguistics and contact language theory) and social toponomastics, but also covers the study of toponymy in the context of historical geography, language documentation, and cartography. Despite the fact that the book presents a good survey of some topics and contains relevant references to scholarly publications, which may be useful for students, it displays numerous issues in the chapters related to etymology, language change, and historical linguistics, which may give the readers a distorted idea of the research practices normally used in the corresponding sub-fields of toponomastics. In some cases, the analysis proposed in the book lacks arguments and further explanations, while in others, it is simply based on an a priori fallacy.
This article aims to reflect and suggest how the toponymic lexicon can be used in schools. Therefore, it presents a theoretical approach to Toponomastics (DICK, 1990a, 1990b; TRAPERO, 1995, 1999; ...CABRERA, 2002-2003) and its interdisciplinary character and its relation to education. In addition, a study of competencies in languages and their technologies, as well as Social and Applied Human sciences, provided for in the Brazilian Common National Curricular Base (BNCC), is presented. It is a qualitative, documentary research. It proposes some interdisciplinary pedagogical workshops to approach the names of places in school (CARLOS, 2007; THEISEN, 2008; FAZENDA, 2012), aimed at high school and related to the competencies presented by the BNCC. The study of the document has shown that interdisciplinarity is the proposed pedagogical approach and organize principle of the curriculum for this level of basic education. The choice to present toponomastic studies in the form of workshops is because they are group activities that promote the linking of knowledge between school subjects such as Portuguese, History and Geography, and also contribute to the development of the skills and abilities envisioned by the BNCC. --- TOPONOMÁSTICA, INTERDISCIPLINARIDADE E ENSINO: ENSAIOS DE PROPOSTAS PEDAGÓGICAS A PARTIR DA BNCC O objetivo deste artigo é suscitar reflexões e apresentar propostas de como trabalhar o léxico toponímico na escola. Para tanto, apresenta-se uma abordagem teórica sobre a Toponomástica (DICK, 1990a, 1990b; TRAPERO, 1995, 1999; CABRERA, 2002-2003) e seu caráter interdisciplinar, assim como sua relação com o ensino. Ademais, expõe-se um estudo das competências para as áreas de Linguagens e suas Tecnologias e Ciências Humanas e Sociais Aplicadas contempladas na Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC). A pesquisa é de base qualitativa, do tipo documental. Para abordar o estudo dos nomes de lugares na escola, são propostas oficinas pedagógicas interdisciplinares (CARLOS, 2007; THIESEN, 2008; FAZENDA, 2012), direcionadas à etapa do ensino médio e relacionadas às competências apresentadas pela BNCC. O estudo do documento demonstrou que a interdisciplinaridade é a abordagem pedagógica sugerida e o princípio organizador do currículo dessa etapa da educação básica. A escolha de apresentar os estudos toponomásticos por meio de oficinas se deve ao fato de que elas são atividades em grupos que promovem a articulação de conhecimentos entre as disciplinas escolares, como Língua Portuguesa, História e Geografia, além de contribuir para o desenvolvimento das competências e habilidades previstas pela BNCC. --- Original em inglês.
•An original and unpublished foundation myth from a Papuan (Abui) context.•‘Stratigraphic’ analysis of an Abui legend where animistic, polytheistic, and Christian elements diachronically ...converge.•The myth gives Abui places their names, establishing local toponymy and micro-toponomastics.•The etymological explanation of Abui toponyms and micro-toponyms is impossible without knowing (and interpreting) the story.•Historical toponomastics and anthropological linguistics are combined in the exegesis of this Abui foundation myth.
This paper reconstructs a number of Abui (Papuan) place names and micro-toponyms from the coastal area of Alor (South-East Indonesia) through the analysis of a legend centered on two gods from the Abui traditional religion, ending with the replacement of the first deity with the second one. The myth appears as diachronically ‘multi-layered’, from ancestral times to the arrival of Christianity in Alor, with the consequent identification of the ‘bad’ (or ‘weaker’) god as a demon and, then, as the devil. The story allows the etymological explanation of the meaning of around eight place names (toponyms and micro-toponyms), drawing a map of that ‘mythological’ space and landscape that is real and still attested, existing, known, and recognized by Abui native-speakers. The etymological and historical/diachronic analysis of place names, in this context, is fruitful not only in the reconstruction of their origins and in map-tracking, but it also involves an anthropological study of cultural aspects of oral tradition in the Abui religion. The story documented in this paper is considered true and not a legend by the Abui people and all the place names in this story known and accepted by the Abui people according to the parts they play in the legend. These place names and micro-toponyms, therefore, have a relevance that goes beyond their etymological reconstruction, allowing important insights into the fields of anthropology and history of culture and a close association between diachronic toponomastics and anthropological linguistics.
Father Stanisław Kozierowki (1874–1949) – a Forerunner of the Onomastic Research on Western Slavs Father Stanisław Kozierowski was one of the outstanding Polish researchers of Slavic onomastics in ...the first half of the twentieth century. He published numerous works on, often already forgotten, names of villages, lakes, rivers and marshes, particularly in the region of Greater Poland and the area historically inhabited by Slavic peoples, stretching as far as the river Elbe. His studies were part of the research stream described as “Western thought” (myśl zachodnia, followed at the University of Poznań after the First World War), a dispute with German scholars pursued with the aim of proving Poland’s right to the territories on the Baltic Sea which had been historically populated by West Slavic tribes. After the Second World War, Kozierowski contributed to setting Polish names of villages and railways stations in the so-called Recovered Territories. Ksiądz Stanisław Kozierowski (1874–1949) – prekursor badań onomastycznych Zachodniej Słowiańszczyzny Ksiądz Stanisław Kozierowski był jednym z wybitnych polskich badaczy onomastyki słowiańskiej pierwszej połowy XX wieku. Opublikował liczne prace, w których przypomniał dawne, często już zapomniane nazwy miejscowości, jezior, rzek i bagien, zwłaszcza z terenu Wielkopolski oraz terenów zamieszkałych niegdyś przez ludność słowiańską do rzeki Łaby. Jego badania naukowe były częścią prowadzonych na Uniwersytecie Poznańskim w okresie międzywojennym badań określanych jako „myśl zachodnia”. Stanowiły one polemikę z badaczami niemieckimi i miały wykazać prawa Polski do ziem leżących nad Bałtykiem, zamieszkałych niegdyś przez plemiona zachodniosłowiańskie. Po II wojnie światowej ksiądz Stanisław Kozierowski przyczynił się do ustalenia polskich nazw miejscowości i stacji kolejowych na tzw. Ziemiach Odzyskanych.
En un estudio anterior sobre toponomástica cubana se han marcado resortes semánticos y pragmáticos que, entre los nombres de las instituciones, motivaran la denominación de los círculos infantiles. ...Se advertía sobre la necesidad de ampliar a otros niveles el análisis, razón por la cual este trabajo planea abordar, en el mismo objeto, ciertos fenómenos morfosintácticos distintivos: su estructura, la derivación, interpretaciones del plural y la determinación. Se aplicaron métodos de orden teórico, empírico y especializado, y técnicas propias del análisis gramatical con enfoque descriptivo y funcional a fin de atender la trascendencia de los mecanismos identificados en la denominación de estos centros de educación preescolar. Los resultados contribuyen también a la descripción de la variante del español hablada en la isla.
The history of the names of Singapore and of their variants and different versions produced over time is extremely interesting and shows still some unclear stages, both at the etymological level, in ...the linguistic explanation of the origins and original meanings of the numerous names the island had throughout the centuries, and at the historical level, in the attempt to connect the names of Singapore with local and external peoples who inhabited and occupied the island in the past. This paper aims at providing a synthetic, but punctual, survey on the names used for the Lion City over time, with the addition of some linguistic and historical details. The main issue in the diachronic reconstruction of the names of Singapore resides in the early stages of the history of the island, for which the historical sources are rare and, sometimes, controversial. The different names used for Singapore from the beginnings of its history witness changes in population and settlement dynamics that are not always very clear, due to the lack of reliable historical sources, but that give an outstanding image of the multicultural and multilingual nature of Singapore already from its origins. The paper reconstructs and documents the different stages of the naming process of Singapore from the origins to the present time.
Fra Mauro's world map was created in the middle of the 15th century and at that time it represented a great progress in relation to Ptolemy's geographical and cosmographic representations, which ...until then had been the starting point for every geographical discourse. This map is one of those epochal works from the era of Humanism and the Renaissance, which illuminated the world with new light and thus moved scientific thought forwards. Fra Mauro's map represented the affirmation of geography and cartography, which at that time had not yet been constituted as sciences, and directed at new geographical discoveries and research. The aim of this paper is to analyse the geographical representations of the Balkan Peninsula on Fra Mauro's map. This paper provides the toponym list of the Balkan Peninsula and some surrounding areas and countries, systematised in its original form and identified in its current meaning. Special attention is given to the identification of the map as a text document, as well as to the explanation of the context, symbolism and contemporary meaning of certain geographical names.
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