This year marks the 350th anniversary of the publication of the map of Croatia by Stjepan Glavač from 1673, so this is the right moment when it is important not only to remind the public of the first ...map of Croatia that was created by a Croatian cartographer (and was of exceptional quality), but also to present what is currently known about it and make a new contribution to this body of knowledge. For a long time, the information known about Glavač’s map was derived from what is written in its title and exhaustive Dedication. One of the reasons for this could be the fact that it was not available to the public because only one copy of it has been preserved during these 350 years. Despite this, numerous works about it have been published over the last 30 years. This article covers the research achievements of various authors who dealt with Glavač’s map (priests, surveyors, geographers, historians), but the emphasis is on presenting a new layer of knowledge primarily related to toponyms, the map’s geographic content, and the historical-geographical context of its origin. A detailed analysis of toponyms was carried out through research of the map, in such way that toponyms were first classified according to category (oronyms, hydronyms, pedonyms, and oikonyms), and then their present-day meanings were added. In addition to toponymic diversity, the analysis of the meanings of toponyms and geographical features showed, depending on their categorisation, the distribution of geographical and social features in space, whose further analysis could then add meaning and context. A comparative study of the toponyms on Glavač’s map and Mercator’s map from 1630 (to which Glavač probably refers in the Dedication) showed how much of an advantage it is when a map is made by an author who is well-acquainted with the area he is depicting, because he shows it more accurately and with many more geographical features. The research also showed how the frequent Ottoman incursions affected the distribution of the population and migration flows at the time. In this area, Glavač’s depiction of Vlach settlements is important because, although often mentioned in historiographical sources, they were now being shown on a map for the first time. The research singled out these areas and explained their positions.
Unnaming buildings Shanken, Andrew M
Memory studies,
04/2024
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This is an essay that explores the phenomenon of stripping dedicatory names—commemorative toponyms—from buildings, particularly on university campuses, but with the wider lens of thinking through ...renaming more generally. It comes out of my experience as a faculty member at U.C. Berkeley, where a number of buildings have been—or are in the process of being—renamed. The essay uses a building named after the eminent Anthropologist Alfred Kroeber—and recently unnamed, but not yet renamed—as the point of departure for exploring the various arguments for unnaming, as well as preserving names on buildings. Along the way, it investigates issues of what constitutes history or institutional memory, whether toponyms can be understood as free speech, and how institutions use unnaming to perform cultural work that is only peripherally about memory.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, the author presents the historical background of the ongoing ...international cooperation on the unification of toponyms on a global scale. The 1967 conference in Geneva was extremely important in defining the objectives and tasks of the cooperation, setting out the main areas of action (national standardization, geographical terms, spelling systems, international exchange of information) and, through the resolutions adopted at the time, formulating detailed guidelines for standardization procedures. In the past half-century, the global organising of geographic nomenclature – although still incomplete – has gained a universally accepted institutional framework and has produced the expected results. The UNGEGN (United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names) plays a major role in organising the cyclical conferences, sessions, regional division and working group meetings, and toponymy courses, as well as inspiring the creation of unified databases and publications.
In ancient Egypt, kings were believed to have both cosmic and political roles. One of the tools they employed to announce such roles was their royal titularies. This paper conducted a thematic ...analysis of the titularies of all native ancient Egyptian kings over the seven dynastic periods (from 3150 B.C. to 332 B.C.). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to conduct this thematic analysis of 1,164 titularies embraced by 260 native Egyptian kings in the fields of Onomastics or Egyptology. We examined the linguistic repertoire used in these titularies employing two methods: manual and via Word Counter and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program. The analysis yielded three main themes: Relation to the divine, theme of war and conflict, and relation to the land. Findings revealed a marked consistency in the thematic distribution across periods and titulary categories. Findings also showed significant changes in the use of theonyms and toponyms in all periods.
Bynamnet Stavanger Særheim, Inge
Namn och bygd,
12/2022, Letnik:
110
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
There has been much discussion about the origin of the city name Stavanger, Old Norse Stafangr, in south-west Norway. There is consensus that the final element is from the Old Norse *angr m., meaning ...‘bay’, ‘fjord’ and that the first element is from the Old Norse stafr m. ‘stick’, ‘pole’, however, there are various suggestions regarding what lies behind these words. Some previous interpretations are discussed in this article. Does the first element refer to a special boundary mark, to a steep mountainside or to a bay with a straight formation? Exploring the development of discussions around the name Stavanger is also of interest. These two words appear in several place names in Scandinavia, making studying possible parallels relevant.
For the last century, archaeologists have surveyed and studied archaeological sites on the Swahili coast of East Africa, that represent the remains of past Swahili settlements and, in few cases, ...living historical towns. This paper is the first discussion of a collection of the names under which these past towns have been known, some of which may date back to the precolonial period. The present enquiry is concerned with the analysis of linguistic features, folk etymology and the conceptual content of these toponyms. It considers the recognised important themes in archaeology and history of the Swahili society, such as the political functioning of these towns as city states and the attested social and economic relevance of trade, the built environment and the ocean. Utilising this knowledge, it reflects on how the names contributed to place-making and defining the identity of these towns both as individual entities and as part of the Swahili cultural sphere. The interdisciplinary approach and perspectives (linguistic and archaeological) help to elucidate the connection between the socio-historical relevance of these sites with their cultural conceptualisations.
This article deals with the research of identity using toponyms in Albanian and Kosovar city centres, bringing a different perspective to the question via comparatively examining the urban toponyms. ...The research was undertaken in the centres of five Albanian and five Kosovar cities, and the names of streets, squares, and parks have been placed into categories: people, geography, events, organizations, and other. Urban toponyms have been categorized according to importance on the local, national, pan-Albanian, and international levels. We analyse the geopolitical background and current status of the problem of identity, which is reflected in urban toponyms, and conclude that there is significant evidence to point out that the two identities have diverged. Kosovo's national identity, as reflected in its urban toponyms, is formed by its struggle for independence and not an unequivocal adoption of a pan-Albanian identity.
Von Ahrensbök und seinesgleichen Menke, Hubertus
Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik,
08/2019, Letnik:
86, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Ausdrücke, die mit Grifftötern der Avifauna in Verbindung zu bringen sind, sind in der West- und Nordgermania als Erst- oder Zweitglieder von Flur-, Siedlungs- und Gewässernamen weit verbreitet. Vor ...allem die Bezeichnungen der größeren Vögel wie Adler, Geier, Habicht und Falke weisen oft sprechende Grundwörter auf, die auf eine naturräumliche Wirklichkeit hindeuten (wie Falkenburg, -stein, -hagen etc.). Allerdings ist das Bezeichnungs- und Bedeutungsspektrum dieser Namenwelt stark durch Polysemie, Heteronymie und Generalisierungen gekennzeichnet. Die Auswertung von Dialektwörterbüchern ergibt großräumige diatopische Wortfelder mit einem Nebeneinander von Eigen- und Ersatzwörtern von Greifvögeln, mit Mischzonen, Synonymenflucht, Leerstellen oder Überlexikalisierungen, die zu Missverständnissen Anlass geben. Der Beitrag macht deutlich, dass für die Einordnung der Grifftöter nicht nur die Unterscheidbarkeit nach auffälligen Merkmalen, sondern auch die kulturökologische Geltung eines Vogels von Bedeutung ist. – Fazit: Das den Greifennamen zugrunde liegende lexikalische Benennungsmotiv ist keineswegs immer eindeutig, das heißt ein Name wie Ahrensbök kann ursprünglich durchaus einen Habichtswald meinen.
Terms associated with birds of prey that kill with their feet („Grifftöter“) are widely used in the West and North Germanic languages as heads or modifiers in field names, place names and aquatic names. Above all, the names of the larger birds such as eagle, vulture, hawk and falcon often have descriptive heads that refer to structures in the natural environment (such as Falkenburg, -stein, -hagen etc.). However, the range of expressions and meanings of these names is strongly characterized by polysemy, heteronymy, and generalisations. The analysis of dialect dictionaries results in large-scale diatopic word fields with a juxtaposition of proper and substitute words of birds of prey, with mixed zones, avoidance of synonymy („Synonymenflucht“), gaps or hyperlexicalizations that give rise to misunderstandings. The article shows that not only the distinctiveness according to striking characteristics, but also the cultural-ecological validity is important for the classification of the birds of prey. – Conclusion: The lexical naming motive underlying the names of birds of prey is by no means always clear; a name like Ahrensbök may well mean a hawk wood.
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