Insular Toponymies

Place-naming on Norfolk Island, South Pacific and Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island

Author
Joshua Nash | University of Adelaide
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027202925 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027271877 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
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How do people name places on islands? Is toponymy in small island communities affected by degrees of connection to larger neighbours such as a mainland? Are island (contact) languages and mainland languages different in how they are used in naming places? How can we conceptualise the human-human interface in the fieldwork situation when collecting placenames on islands? This book offers answers relevant to toponymists, linguists, island studies scholars, and anthropologists. It focuses on two island environments within Australia – Norfolk Island, South Pacific and Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, South Australia – and puts forward a number of novel findings relevant to Australian linguistics and the linguistics and toponymy of islands anywhere.
[Culture and Language Use, 9] 2013.  xiv, 302 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“In his detailed ethnography on the use of place-names in two insular locales of the South Pacific, Joshua Nash well accomplishes two feats in linguistics. First, he establishes an (ethno)historical record of place-names, never systematically collected before, and thereby provides an interesting corpus of official and unofficial local names used by inhabitants or outsiders, academic or otherwise. [...] Second, Nash positions his uniquely comparative study of seemingly simple locational names on two islands into the wider arenas of ecolinguistics and linguistic theory. [...] ‘[Toponymy] shows how space becomes place through linguistic and cultural appropriation, and how humans invent and continually re-invent and re-create place through the process and practice of naming’. Nash’s ecology of language elaboration of the linguistic and cultural aspects of Norfolk and Dudley toponymy contributes significantly to (island) toponymy, ethnography, and ecolinguistics.”
Insular Toponymies is a book that should appeal to a wider range of readers than its subject matter might on first glance attract. It provides an intimate window into Norfolk Island society through the people/land connection that place names represent. Its reflective, personal style offers a model for linguists attempting to write for a broader audience. The maps, photographs, and appendices will be useful to other researchers interested in Norfolk Island or Dudley Peninsula in general. Linguists interested in narrower, more structural questions about the Norf’k language are unlikely to find their curiosity completely sated here, but there are a few gems to reward even these readers.”
“Much the same could be said for Nash’s work on Norfolk. In this book, Nash raises several interesting theoretical issues that push the boundaries of place-name studies, and in analyzing both the ecological implications of place names and their formal structure, Nash goes some way toward addressing the “distinct gap in linguistics of a method and theory in toponymy” (4), providing a model for future studies and forging a new field of insular toponymy. Nevertheless, the enduring value of this work can be found in the place-name inventory. Norf’k is a unique and highly endangered language, and toponyms form a specialized domain of knowledge that is rapidly eroding. Nash’s meticulous first-hand field work with some of the last remaining place-name experts on Norfolk Island will stand as an enduring record of Norf’k language and culture for generations to come.”
Cited by

Cited by 20 other publications

Bobbette, Adam
2019. Priests on the Shore: Climate Change and the Anglican Church of Melanesia. GeoHumanities 5:2  pp. 554 ff. DOI logo
George, Johnny
2023. Using the ANPS Typology to Unearth the Relationship Between Japanese Sign Language (JSL) Endonymic Toponym Distribution and Regional Identity. Names 71:3  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Gibbs, Martin, Brad Duncan & Robert Varman
2017. The free and unfree settlements of Norfolk Island: an overview of archaeological research. Australian Archaeology 83:3  pp. 82 ff. DOI logo
Levin, Noam & Salit Kark
2023. From Historical Maps to Remote Sensing: Reconstructing Land Use Changes on Norfolk Island over the Past 250 Years. The Cartographic Journal 60:3  pp. 194 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2015. On the Possibility of Pidgin English Toponyms in Pacific Missions. Historiographia Linguistica 42:1  pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2015. Island Placenaming and Insular Toponymies. Names 63:3  pp. 146 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2015. Is toponymy necessary?. Studies in Language 39:1  pp. 230 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2016. Language contact and ‘the Catch’: Norfolk Island fishing ground names. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography 70:1  pp. 62 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2016. Creole Spatiality and Pitcairn Island: A Comment on Feinberg and Mawyer's Ethos Special Issue “Senses of Space”. Ethos 44:1  pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2017. Linguistics, geography, and the potential of Australian island toponymies. Australian Geographer 48:4  pp. 519 ff. DOI logo
NASH, JOSHUA
2018. The influence of Edward Young's St Kitts Creole in Pitcairn Island and Norfolk Island toponyms. English Language and Linguistics 22:3  pp. 483 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2018. Drawing, toponymy, and linguistic pilgrimage. Journal of Cultural Geography 35:1  pp. 133 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua
2019. Minority Contact Languages, Small Islands, and Linguistic Ecology. In The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities,  pp. 531 ff. DOI logo
Nash, Joshua & Mitchell Low
2015. Language and Place-knowledge on Norfolk Island. Ethnos 80:3  pp. 385 ff. DOI logo
Poshtvan, Hamideh & Mahnaz Talebi-Dastenaei
2022. Coastal toponyms of Iran. Asian Languages and Linguistics 3:1  pp. 89 ff. DOI logo
Ratter, Beate M. W.
2018. Conclusion. In Geography of Small Islands,  pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Steffensen, Sune Vork & Alwin Fill
2014. Ecolinguistics: the state of the art and future horizons. Language Sciences 41  pp. 6 ff. DOI logo
WRIGHT, LAURA
2017. On the East India Company vocabulary of St Helena in the late 17th and early 18th century. World Englishes 36:4  pp. 522 ff. DOI logo
Zhou, Wenjuan
2022. Ecolinguistics: A half-century overview. Journal of World Languages 7:3  pp. 461 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]

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Subjects

Terminology & Lexicography

Lexicography

Main BIC Subject

CFB: Sociolinguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2013010418 | Marc record