Home Linguistics & Semiotics Colonial place-names in Italian East Africa (AOI) (with additional data from Tripoli). The linguistic heritage of colonial practice
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Colonial place-names in Italian East Africa (AOI) (with additional data from Tripoli). The linguistic heritage of colonial practice

  • Paolo Miccoli
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The Linguistic Heritage of Colonial Practice
This chapter is in the book The Linguistic Heritage of Colonial Practice

Abstract

This article deals with Italian colonial toponymy in the former African colonies of East Africa. The focus is on the naming practices of Italian colonizers as evidenced by the toponymical traces of the colonial period. Both pure exonymic macrotoponyms and microtoponyms (mostly urbanonyms or odonyms) are taken into account. The objective is to illustrate empirically that there were two different phases during the fascist regime of Mussolini: the first begins with his regime in 1922, and the second, shorter than the previous one, begins with the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and ends with the loss of colonies during the Second World War (1941-42). Both phases manifested themselves in the domain of colonial naming practices. The second phase specifically shows the emergence of the colonial toponyms which are formally and semantically distinguishable to some extent both from those of the 1882-1922 Liberal period and those of the first fascist phase. The general aim is to identify characteristic traits connected to Italian practices of naming places in the context of colonialism as compared to those of other European and non-European colonizers.

Abstract

This article deals with Italian colonial toponymy in the former African colonies of East Africa. The focus is on the naming practices of Italian colonizers as evidenced by the toponymical traces of the colonial period. Both pure exonymic macrotoponyms and microtoponyms (mostly urbanonyms or odonyms) are taken into account. The objective is to illustrate empirically that there were two different phases during the fascist regime of Mussolini: the first begins with his regime in 1922, and the second, shorter than the previous one, begins with the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and ends with the loss of colonies during the Second World War (1941-42). Both phases manifested themselves in the domain of colonial naming practices. The second phase specifically shows the emergence of the colonial toponyms which are formally and semantically distinguishable to some extent both from those of the 1882-1922 Liberal period and those of the first fascist phase. The general aim is to identify characteristic traits connected to Italian practices of naming places in the context of colonialism as compared to those of other European and non-European colonizers.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Foreword V
  3. Acknowledgments VII
  4. Contents IX
  5. Introduction 1
  6. Saints, nobility, and other heroes. Colonial place-naming as part of the European linguistic heritage 13
  7. “The making of Greenland” – Early European place names in Kalaallit Nunaat 43
  8. Colonial place-names in Italian East Africa (AOI) (with additional data from Tripoli). The linguistic heritage of colonial practice 75
  9. Linguistic missionary heritage. Capuchin missionary Father Laurentius and his unpublished German-Chuukese dictionary 93
  10. Positioning by naming: Constructing group affiliation in a colonial setting 115
  11. Third-hand colonial linguistics: Adolphe Dietrich’s comparative study of Indian Ocean Creoles 139
  12. Spanish-Guarani diglossia in colonial Paraguay: A language undertaking 153
  13. Construction of (transcontinental) railways as a means of colonization. A corpus-based analysis on the German colonial discourse in postcolonial perspective 169
  14. The Raj English in historical lexicography 191
  15. Anglo-Norman: Language contact and obsolescence 219
  16. Index of Authors 245
  17. Index of Languages 249
  18. Index of Subjects 251
  19. Index of Toponyms 253
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110623710-004

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Foreword V
  3. Acknowledgments VII
  4. Contents IX
  5. Introduction 1
  6. Saints, nobility, and other heroes. Colonial place-naming as part of the European linguistic heritage 13
  7. “The making of Greenland” – Early European place names in Kalaallit Nunaat 43
  8. Colonial place-names in Italian East Africa (AOI) (with additional data from Tripoli). The linguistic heritage of colonial practice 75
  9. Linguistic missionary heritage. Capuchin missionary Father Laurentius and his unpublished German-Chuukese dictionary 93
  10. Positioning by naming: Constructing group affiliation in a colonial setting 115
  11. Third-hand colonial linguistics: Adolphe Dietrich’s comparative study of Indian Ocean Creoles 139
  12. Spanish-Guarani diglossia in colonial Paraguay: A language undertaking 153
  13. Construction of (transcontinental) railways as a means of colonization. A corpus-based analysis on the German colonial discourse in postcolonial perspective 169
  14. The Raj English in historical lexicography 191
  15. Anglo-Norman: Language contact and obsolescence 219
  16. Index of Authors 245
  17. Index of Languages 249
  18. Index of Subjects 251
  19. Index of Toponyms 253
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