“The making of Greenland” – Early European place names in Kalaallit Nunaat
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Susanne Schuster
Abstract
Place names play a crucial role in understanding how people relate to landscapes through language. By giving names to geographical features, colonizers claim authority not only over these places but also over indigenous cultures and people. For this reason, the evaluation of colonial toponyms is an important aspect of colonial and postcolonial linguistics. With its long-lasting colonial history, Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) is a suitable candidate for such a toponymic case study. The arctic island shows a multitude of toponyms from various European source languages. This paper intends to give an account of their structural and functional properties in order to reveal similarities which could support a prototypical practice of colonial name giving, as well as differences to show how specific naming patterns might be motivated by the intentions of the colonizers and by particular contact situations.
Abstract
Place names play a crucial role in understanding how people relate to landscapes through language. By giving names to geographical features, colonizers claim authority not only over these places but also over indigenous cultures and people. For this reason, the evaluation of colonial toponyms is an important aspect of colonial and postcolonial linguistics. With its long-lasting colonial history, Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) is a suitable candidate for such a toponymic case study. The arctic island shows a multitude of toponyms from various European source languages. This paper intends to give an account of their structural and functional properties in order to reveal similarities which could support a prototypical practice of colonial name giving, as well as differences to show how specific naming patterns might be motivated by the intentions of the colonizers and by particular contact situations.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Foreword V
- Acknowledgments VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- Saints, nobility, and other heroes. Colonial place-naming as part of the European linguistic heritage 13
- “The making of Greenland” – Early European place names in Kalaallit Nunaat 43
- Colonial place-names in Italian East Africa (AOI) (with additional data from Tripoli). The linguistic heritage of colonial practice 75
- Linguistic missionary heritage. Capuchin missionary Father Laurentius and his unpublished German-Chuukese dictionary 93
- Positioning by naming: Constructing group affiliation in a colonial setting 115
- Third-hand colonial linguistics: Adolphe Dietrich’s comparative study of Indian Ocean Creoles 139
- Spanish-Guarani diglossia in colonial Paraguay: A language undertaking 153
- Construction of (transcontinental) railways as a means of colonization. A corpus-based analysis on the German colonial discourse in postcolonial perspective 169
- The Raj English in historical lexicography 191
- Anglo-Norman: Language contact and obsolescence 219
- Index of Authors 245
- Index of Languages 249
- Index of Subjects 251
- Index of Toponyms 253
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Foreword V
- Acknowledgments VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- Saints, nobility, and other heroes. Colonial place-naming as part of the European linguistic heritage 13
- “The making of Greenland” – Early European place names in Kalaallit Nunaat 43
- Colonial place-names in Italian East Africa (AOI) (with additional data from Tripoli). The linguistic heritage of colonial practice 75
- Linguistic missionary heritage. Capuchin missionary Father Laurentius and his unpublished German-Chuukese dictionary 93
- Positioning by naming: Constructing group affiliation in a colonial setting 115
- Third-hand colonial linguistics: Adolphe Dietrich’s comparative study of Indian Ocean Creoles 139
- Spanish-Guarani diglossia in colonial Paraguay: A language undertaking 153
- Construction of (transcontinental) railways as a means of colonization. A corpus-based analysis on the German colonial discourse in postcolonial perspective 169
- The Raj English in historical lexicography 191
- Anglo-Norman: Language contact and obsolescence 219
- Index of Authors 245
- Index of Languages 249
- Index of Subjects 251
- Index of Toponyms 253
