Vide-Poche, toponyme générique d&#39;Amérique française ?

Pierre GENDREAU-HÉTU

(English follows) Résumé : Une ancienne fonction générique semble avoir favorisé la propagation du nom de lieu «Vide-Poche» en Amérique du Nord. La distribution de ce toponyme montre neuf occurrences relevées du Québec aux États-Unis. Le mieux connu est un Vide-Poche du Missouri dont la résilience contraste avec l'effacement de ses homonymes dans la vallée laurentienne. L'invariant sémantique négatif du nom, substantif ou toponyme, ressort de l'importante documentation recueillie. La motivation de Vide-Poche et ses connotations péjoratives ont suscité nombre d'interrogations depuis deux siècles, auxquelles répond cet article par la découverte d'un surnom jadis donné au moulin. Le défi demeure néanmoins d'expliquer la diffusion de Vide-Poche en Amérique du Nord jusqu'à son développement le plus original dans la culture métissée de la région de Saint-Louis. Ce passé français de la Haute Louisiane conserve des traces qui éclairent la toponymie du Québec en retour. Les étymologies imaginaires de Vide-Poche, littéraires notamment avec Jacques Ferron, sont ainsi mises en perspective et s'inscrivent dans une ancienne quête de sens. Summary The distribution of Vide-Poche hints at its function as a former generic placename. Located in nine different places from Québec to the American Midwest, this toponym has shown resilience in Missouri, in stark contrast with its vanishing twins in the St. Lawrence Valley. Motivation for this placename has perplexed observers, yielding mostly unsatisfactory explanations for the pejorative meanings that have been rooted in several areas since the early 1800's at least. The study of abundant sources from the last centuries documents and questions the negative load steadily attached to 'vide-poche' as a noun as well as a name. A former nickname for the mill provides a possible solution. Yet Vide-Poche also penetrated the fur trade to the extent that this phrase ended up referring to the mixed-blood culture in the St. Louis area. This French-language era enclave in Upper Louisiana left clues that can be used in return to analyze the Laurentian Vide-Poche's. Far-fetched etymologies, such as the literary one imagined by Québec writer Jacques Ferron, are thus put in perspective and reveal a quest for motivation dating back centuries.

ONOMASTICA CANADIANA Journal of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names Revue de la Société canadienne d’onomastique Vol. 97, No. 1 June / juin 2018 Vol. 97, No. 2 December / décembre 2018 Editor / Rédactrice Carol G. Lombard, University of the Free State, South Africa Associate Editors / Rédacteurs adjoints Carol J. Léonard, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB Donna L. Lillian, Appalachian State University, NC, USA Editorial Board / Comité de rédaction Wolfgang Ahrens, York University, Toronto Edward Callary, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA Diane Dechief, McGill University, Montreal William Davey, Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia Sheila Embleton, York University, Toronto Myriam Hallé, Commission de toponymie du Québec, Québec André Lapierre, Université d’Ottawa, Ottawa Donna L. Lillian, Appalachian State University, NC, USA Marc Picard, Université Concordia, Montréal Indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index, the MLA International Bibliography, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, Linguistics Abstracts, Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, Linguistic Bibliography / Bibliographie Linguistique, Rivista Italiana di Onomastica, Nouvelle Revue d’Onomastique ISSN 0078 – 4656 Vide-Poche, toponyme générique d’Amérique française1? Pierre Gendreau-Hétu Chercheur indépendant Résumé : Une ancienne fonction générique semble avoir favorisé la propagation du nom de lieu « Vide-Poche » en Amérique du Nord. La distribution de ce toponyme montre neuf occurrences relevées du Québec aux États-Unis. Le mieux connu est un Vide-Poche du Missouri dont la résilience contraste avec l’effacement de ses homonymes dans la vallée laurentienne. L’invariant sémantique négatif du nom, substantif ou toponyme, ressort de l’importante documentation recueillie. La motivation de Vide-Poche et ses connotations péjoratives ont suscité nombre d’interrogations depuis deux siècles. Une réponse inédite se profile dans un surnom jadis donné au moulin. Le défi demeure néanmoins d’expliquer la diffusion de Vide-Poche en Amérique du Nord jusqu’à son développement le plus original dans la culture métissée de la région de Saint-Louis. Ce passé français de la Haute Louisiane conserve des traces qui éclairent la toponymie du Québec en retour. Les étymologies imaginaires de Vide-Poche (cf. Jacques Ferron) sont ainsi mises en perspective et s’inscrivent dans une ancienne quête de sens. Abstract : The distribution of Vide-Poche hints at its function as a former generic place name. Located in nine different places from Québec to the American Midwest, this toponym has shown resilience in Missouri, in stark contrast with its vanishing twins in the St. Lawrence Valley. Motivation for this place name has perplexed observers, yielding mostly unsatisfactory explanations for the pejorative meanings that have © ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018): 1-52 2 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) been rooted in several areas since the early 1800’s at least. The study of abundant sources from the last centuries documents and questions the negative load steadily attached to ‘vide-poche’ as a noun as well as a name. A former nickname for the mill provides a possible solution. Yet Vide-Poche also penetrated the fur trade to the extent that this phrase ended up referring to the mixed-blood culture in the St. Louis area. This French-language era enclave in Upper Louisiana left clues that can be used in return to analyze the Laurentian Vide-Poche’s. Far-fetched etymologies, such as the literary one imagined by Québec writer Jacques Ferron, are thus put in perspective and reveal a quest for motivation dating back centuries. « Frenchmen singing their songs of the Vide-Poche, of the northern rivers, of a half-forgotten France. » ROBERT LUTHER DUFFUS, The Santa Fe Trail Introduction Ce n’est que récemment que « Vide-Poche2 » a été identifié et confirmé comme phénomène toponymique d’intérêt particulier en Amérique du Nord. Ce continent abrite en effet neuf lieux attestés sous ce nom. Cinq d’entre eux nichent au Québec, dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent. Ils sont situés à Kamouraska (Bas-Saint-Laurent), Saint-Raphaël de Bellechasse (Chaudière-Appalaches), Charlesbourg (aujourd’hui Québec), Saint-Grégoire de Nicolet (aujour-d’hui Bécancour, dans les Bois-Francs) et Yamachiche (Mauricie). Quatre autres occurrences de Vide-Poche se trouvent dans le Midwest américain. St. Ignace au Michigan abrite un Vide-Poche discret au cœur des Grands Lacs. L’endroit forme avec l’ancien poste de traite Michilimackinac un détroit névralgique des Pays d’EnHaut, entre les lacs Huron et Michigan. Un second Vide-Poche américain bénéficie en revanche d’une visibilité historiographique sans égal parmi ses homonymes. Aujourd’hui quartier de St. Louis, au Missouri, on connaît surtout ce lieu sous son identité officielle de GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 3 Carondelet. Deux autres Vide-Poche à peine documentés sont enfin attestés dans la région de Kansas City3. Fait à noter, aucun de ces Vide-Poche américains n’a percé la toponymie officielle des ÉtatsUnis4 malgré le maintien local de deux de ces usages. Le toponyme Vide-Poche manifeste une distribution exceptionnelle qui s’étend de la vallée du Saint-Laurent à celle du Mississippi, ainsi qu’un peu en amont du fleuve Missouri. Cette diffusion toponymique impressionne d’autant plus que Vide-Poche trouve une ascendance plausible en France. Une rue de ce nom est en effet déjà documentée à Angoulême vers 1650, reflet vraisemblable d’un usage charentais enraciné de longue date. On ne peut exclure en outre l’existence possible d’autres Vide-Poche encore, lieux jamais reconnus par écrit et oubliés de la tradition orale. La découverte de cet archipel inédit d’origine française en Amérique du Nord jette une nouvelle lumière sur les commentaires ponctuels que suscite le toponyme Vide-Poche à travers les décennies. Vide-Poche a piqué la curiosité d’observateurs stimulés par ce nom de lieu aux accents rabelaisiens. Sa construction imagée et sa transparence équivoque ont intrigué et généré plusieurs interprétations. La compréhension qu’on a eue de ce toponyme polysémique s’avère mouvante, incertaine, approximative. La comparaison des analyses successives est instructive. Une nouvelle appréciation du patrimoine, toponymique notamment, a suivi l’urbanisation au XXe siècle. Bien que le nom de lieu Vide-Poche ait régulièrement été remarqué, aucune étude n’en a cependant exploré le phénomène avec satisfaction. Vide-Poche n’a profité que de façon anecdotique de cet intérêt savant pour la culture traditionnelle en régression. Cette visibilité intermittente n’a curieusement pas entraîné de réflexion approfondie sur ce toponyme pourtant souvent donné en exemple. De rebut à toponyme de vitrine Les Trente Glorieuses ont vu fleurir les sciences humaines et naître un nouveau rapport entre culture savante et terroir. La rédemption de l’ancien n’a pas profité qu’aux biens matériels, et le 4 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) patrimoine toponymique en a charmé plus d’un au passage. Plusieurs travaux effleurent le nom Vide-Poche, notamment ceux de géographes chevronnés qui n’y trouvent rien d’énigmatique. LouisEdmond Hamelin perçoit « […] des toponymes souvent choisis pour leurs référents anecdotiques, tel Vide-Poche5 […] » alors que la transparence du toponyme ne laisse aucun doute à Henri Dorion : « Certains autres toponymes, eux, peuvent […] en dire long sur les lieux qu’ils désignent. […] Même chose pour le rang Vide-Poche dont l’infertilité des terres ruinait les fermiers6 » La publication du Dictionnaire illustré des noms et lieux du Québec, qui enregistre plus de 6000 toponymes, constitue un jalon sans égal pour la toponymie québécoise. Or un compte-rendu de cet ouvrage en extrait précisément le nom de lieu « Vide-Poche » pour illustrer l’intérêt du Dictionnaire7. Ce toponyme trouve également son chemin parmi les Noms et lieux fascinants du Québec8. Ailleurs encore, les auteurs Jean Provencher et Johanne Blanchet ne manquent pas de compter Vide-Poche parmi les perles recueillies en toponymie laurentienne : Bien que le village acquière une plus grande importance au début du 19e siècle, le gros de la population habite toujours dans les rangs ou les «chemins de concessions» : celui des Envies ou des Belles-Amours, […] le Vide-Poche, le Pis-Sec, […]. Il suffisait d’un accident géographique, d’un fait social, d’une légende locale ou simplement de la beauté d’un vallon au soleil pour que le nom soit trouvé9. Provencher et Blanchet présentent le nom Vide-Poche comme création circonstancielle ou fruit de conditions idiosyncratiques. Ils ignorent ce faisant la distribution particulière de Vide-Poche, dont la répétition s’explique mal par l’inspiration individuelle ou un contexte particulier et isolé : il faut en réalité une expression vivante pour expliquer sa diffusion continentale. Aussi charmant soit Vide-Poche aux yeux des contemporains, le problème du sens qu’il soulève n’est pas réglé pour autant : « Voilà un vieux nom français dont les origines ont été longtemps méconnues chez nous10 ». Guy Desilets réagit ici à ce qu’il perçoit comme une GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 5 distorsion toponymique et tente de corriger, sans l’expliquer, la tradition orale perpétuée à Saint-Grégoire. Lui-même a reçu cette présumée altération de sa mère, « Antoinette Bourke qui est née dans le rang de Vide-Poche le premier juin 189711 ». La question étymologique s’avère cependant plus complexe qu’il n’y paraît. Nonobstant la motivation à l’origine de Vide-Poche, Guy Desilets souhaite fortement réinvestir ce toponyme d’un capital patrimonial qu’il juge légitime, notamment par la langue qu’elle symbolise : « […] vivant en société fermée et recevant une instruction naturelle – par la tradition orale surtout – presqu’à leur insu, ces gens avaient conservé une très belle langue12 […] ». Cet essai de restauration s’oppose à l’intuition des générations précédentes, chez qui la moquerie semble avoir accompagné VidePoche. La délinquance du toponyme Vide-Poche passe longtemps pour une évidence. L’oubli de ce toponyme dans le paysage est souhaité, voire nommément demandé par le clergé catholique13. La faible appréciation générale contribue à la sortie progressive de Vide-Poche dès le XIXe siècle et à sa relégation au purgatoire des noms de lieu québécois, malgré l’appel à la tradition14. Ainsi de rares usages littéraires passés perdent peu à peu leur pertinence. En 1924, Louis Francoeur et Philippe Panneton peuvent encore situer à Vide-Poche leur pastiche de Lionel Groulx15. L’allusion caricaturale s’effrite par la suite au fil des éditions, jusqu’à ne plus être comprise. Vide-Poche éclairé par les lettres Le nom « vide-poche » apparaît dans quelques vieux textes français. Les lettres d’Ancien Régime n’en comptent cependant que peu d’exemples et c’est comme synonyme de voleur que « videpoche » apparaît. Une œuvre théâtrale dépeint un usage particulièrement révélateur. La pièce s’intitule Les Deux filous et son auteur est Louis Carrogis (1717-1806), dit Carmontelle. Les Deux filous exploite la désignation « vide-poche » dans son contexte populaire, à la manière du genre qualifié de « proverbe dramatique ». « Vuide-Poche16 » désigne un des deux protagonistes auxquels le 6 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) titre de la pièce réfère. Un compte-rendu des Deux filous précise cependant ce à quoi renvoient ces noms : « L’Hameçon & VuidePoche, dont les noms caractérisent le métier17 […] ». Ce commentaire suggère que l’allusion mérite d’être explicitée, en raison du registre peut-être. Carmontelle ne craint pas d’utiliser ces marqueurs lexicaux de l’univers interlope, que la critique désapprouve par ailleurs : « [m]ais il en est qui présentoient des mœurs trop révoltantes pour être mise en scène. Ce sont les deus Filoux18 […] ». On trouve un exemple de même nature dans une autre pièce de Carmontelle où évolue un criminel dénommé « VideGousset19 », dont le rôle confirme l’évaluation lexicale faite par Littré20. Les humbles origines de Carrogis dit Carmontelle ne le prédisposent pas à réussir dans les lettres françaises d’Ancien Régime. Le succès de Carrogis, fils de cordonnier et créateur autodidacte, survient après sa participation à la guerre de Sept Ans. Ce parcours suggère que Carmontelle connaît intimement la langue qui a cours dans le peuple et chez les militaires. L’expérience personnelle de Carmontelle ne peut être étrangère à la langue mise en texte, notamment par l’emploi d’un Vide-Poche qui est significativement marqué comme « populaire » par le lexicographe François Raymond21. Le soldat français du XVIIIe siècle aurait manifesté un lexique et des expressions caractéristiques, du moins selon ce qu’indique Constantin-François Volney. Une remarque de ce savant linguiste met en relief la réalité de cette langue militaire. Le futur occupant de l’Académie française visite le Pays des Illinois en 1796 et l’impression que laisse sa population sur le voyageur angevin est que : [l]e langage de ces Français n’est pas un patois comme on me l’avait dit mais un français passable, mêlé de beaucoup de termes et de locutions de soldat. Cela devait être ainsi, tous ces postes ayant été primitivement fondés ou habités en majeure partie par des troupes22 [italiques ajoutées]. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 7 Cette évaluation de la langue du « Canadien de frontière » invite à lier la diffusion de « vide-poche » à la culture des armes. Or cette culture portée par les hommes trouve son prolongement dans la traite des fourrures. L’importance relative du peuplement militaire a sans aucun doute profondément influencé la Nouvelle-France et sa langue, notamment dans l’onomastique. Le maintien des noms de guerre français (p. ex. La Fleur, Joli Cœur, La Verdure, etc.) constitue un phénomène qui a marqué en propre l’anthroponymie française d’Amérique. Il est raisonnable de croire que les mêmes conditions sociales et réflexes linguistiques ont pu favoriser la diffusion d’une expression toponymique comme « Vide-Poche ». Le commentaire de Volney évoque une langue populaire présente à la naissance même de Vide-Poche au Pays des Illinois. L’appellation officielle qui s’est imposée comme nom du lieu, Carondelet, n’apparaît qu’en l’honneur de Francisco Luis Hector, baron de Carondelet, gouverneur de la Haute Louisiane de 1791 à 1797. Ce nom a sans doute semblé plus digne que le toponyme d’origine, qui déçoit par exemple le diplomate Auguste Levasseur, secrétaire du Marquis de Lafayette lors de sa tournée américaine de 1824 et 1825 : « […] un assez pauvre village que les Français fondèrent autrefois sous le triste nom de Vide-Poche23 ». Le témoignage de Levasseur reflète l’emprise de l’usage populaire. La langue française du Missouri fait l’impasse sur le nom de Carondelet, en dépit du malaise que suscite le toponyme VidePoche chez certains. Levasseur qualifie ce nom de « triste » et laisse percer une émotion qui tient de la commisération ou du mépris, d’une faible estime assurément. Un contemporain allemand rapporte d’autre part la mauvaise réputation qui précède le village dont il précise cependant les deux noms : « nous passâmes devant l’établissement français de Vide-Poche ou Carondelet, qui existe depuis environ un siècle, […] dont les habitants passent pour ne pas être très industrieux24 ». Près d’un demi siècle après Les Deux filous, le nom de VidePoche produit toujours son effet. Les réactions que suscite ce nom se rapprochent de celles visées par Carmontelle plusieurs décennies auparavant. Le terme évoque une réalité composée d’indolence, de 8 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) négligence, d’indigence ou de malhonnêteté. Le nom « vide-poche » montre rarement la tête dans les textes, mais quelques solides indices relevés mettent néanmoins sur la piste. En 1851, une œuvre théâtrale emploie « vide-poche » pour désigner un voleur de grand chemin25. Un romancier contemporain associe plutôt le terme à l’activité plus subtile du pickpocket26 : « N'était-ce pas plutôt quelque mauvais sujet cherchant à s'approprier la bourse d'autrui, un filou rompu au métier de vide-poche27 […] ». Cette désignation d’un « métier » interlope sombre ensuite dans l’oubli sans que la lexicographie n’en prenne note. Le terme jadis populaire passe hors d’usage, à l’instar du similaire « vide-gousset » que Littré marquait déjà comme ancien deux décennies auparavant. Tout comme les constructions voisines du français dont découlent les proches toponymes « Vide-Gousset » ou « Cure-Bourse », « Vide-Poche » en France en est venu à évoquer le filou28. Il est possible en revanche que ce sens découle d’une réanalyse puisqu’un un nouvel éclairage provient d’une ancienne réalité qu’on avait omis de considérer jusqu’ici. De « vide-poche » à Vide-Poche Un lien historique entre le toponyme Vide-Poche et le moulin a refait surface à la faveur de cette recherche. Le moulin a longtemps gouverné la vie agricole et on apprend de France que « [l]e noms des moulins évoquent parfois leur mauvaise réputation : Tranchesac, Esbrechesac, Coupesac, Grattesac, Tirepoche. » Il faut savoir que « Le meunier, agent du seigneur, est souvent méprisé par la population. On ne lui fait pas seulement le grief de percevoir des taxes injustes, on l’accuse aussi d’être un fraudeur29. » Le sac de grains n’aurait pas toujours reçu son juste retour en farine. Le moulin procure une hypothèse raisonnable pour expliquer la distribution et la fonction générique du nom Vide-Poche. La mauvaise réputation du moulin rencontre celle du voleur et un croisement morphologique se produit entre deux motivations compatibles : « vide-poche » est l’endroit où on vide les poches de grains ainsi que celui où l’on nous vole. La caractérisation GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 9 traditionnelle du moulin banal par la langue populaire tombe sous le sens au vu de son ubiquité au Québec ancien : Pendant une certaine période, soit à la fin du XVIIIe et au tournant du XIXe siècles, ils auraient été nombreux ; il y en avait un par paroisse, jusqu’à six parfois, pratiquement un par rang. On peut présumer alors que chacun de ces moulins desservait une population de deux à trois cents personnes30. Cette fréquence géographique des moulins, ainsi que les déménagements motivés par la recherche de conditions hydrauliques ou éoliennes optimales31, peut éclairer l’étonnante distribution du toponyme Vide-Poche et sa dimension apparemment générique. L’inertie toponymique est un phénomène connu, même si une dissociation entre le moulin et le nom du lieu a pu finir par se produire. Un précieux exemple de ce phénomène provient des origines du Moulin du Petit Canton, bâtiment patrimonial de SaintVallier : […] le lac et le ruisseau qui font tourner les moulins banaux de la seigneurie au lieu appelé Vide Poches ayant considérablement diminué leurs eaux depuis plusieurs années […] les susdits seigneurs se sont décidés à bâtir et ont effectivement bâti un autre moulin banal sur la Rivière du Sud32. Cet extrait d’un rapport de 1797 fait la lumière sur le toponyme « Vide Poches » dans Bellechasse en rapprochant le nom de la présence antérieure d’un moulin sur le site en question. Maintenu par la tradition orale, ce toponyme en serait la trace. Cet indice lumineux atteste d’un lien ancien entre le nom « Vide Poches » et le moulin, et autorise par conséquent l’hypothèse pour l’ensemble de l’habitat laurentien. Dans le cas précis de Saint-Raphaël, il reste à déterminer si un lien existe entre le rang Vide-Poche actuel, officiellement identifié comme le 5e Rang, et le lieu auquel réfère le document de 1797. De Saint-Raphaël émerge ainsi l’unique indice documenté d’un rapport explicite entre un lieu Vide-Poche et l’exploitation d’un 10 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) moulin. L’hypothèse inédite de la meunerie comme source du toponyme Vide-Poche place sa cartographie d’Amérique sous un nouveau jour. Cette avancée invite à une étude approfondie qui dépasse cependant le cadre de cet article. Le rôle pivot du moulin dans l’économie agraire des temps anciens motive sans peine l’importance culturelle et lexicale que sa distribution suppose. « La Friponne » et autres filouteries Bien que motivé par sa morphologie, le surnom de « vide-poche » attribué au moulin exploite également son potentiel parallèle comme mot d’esprit : l’association entre le moulin et l’appropriation malhonnête reste pertinente. Les conditions sont propices à une convergence lexicale, non seulement en France, comme illustré précédemment par plusieurs exemples de surnoms, mais également au Québec : Le moulin à Péan a eu la triste réputation de servir à exploiter la population locale en achetant son blé à vil prix pour le revendre, sous forme de farine, à gros profits […] Aussi les paysans ont eu vite fait de surnommer cette entreprise « La Friponne33 ». Le surnom de « friponne » accolé à la meunerie recoupe de façon éloquente les associations de sens déjà explorées. « Vide-Poche » habite un champ sémantique flou où s’invite en outre le glissement du référent filou à celui de profiteur. Voilà des concepts que la pensée ne peine pas à juxtaposer. Carrogis dit Carmontelle investit son filou Vuide-Poche d’éléments trompeurs que le crime organisé combine allègrement afin d’abuser de la naïveté des gens : « […] un pauvre fermier qui a été brûlé, & qui sollicite la charité des passans34 ». La crédulité abusée par une bande de filous, surtout si la bonne société en est la victime, alimente un thème qui n’a pas d’âge35. La relation entre Vide-Poche et les « quêteux » est relevée par quelques chercheurs à propos de Saint-Raphaël de Bellechasse36. Une tradition orale explique également le nom du rang Vide-Poche par la pauvreté de ses habitants, si l’on en croit un patriarche de la région37. La misère est de la même façon invoquée pour expliquer le GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 11 Vide-Poche de Yamachiche : « D'autres y voient une allusion au peu d'argent que possédaient les habitants de cet endroit, lesquels ayant commencé à s'établir quand les terres étaient très avancées partout ailleurs, se sont trouvés dans une pauvreté relative38 ». Le Vide-Poche de Charlesbourg rappelle également cette réalité : « Le curé faisait sa visite paroissiale dans ce chemin où les habitants étaient plutôt pauvres. Il les prenait en pitié et leur donnait les sous qu'il avait sur lui, d'où "vide-poche39" ». C’est l’explication donnée de son vivant par M. Moïse Verret (1915-2002), ancien maire de Notre-Dame-des-Laurentides. Cette version avait déjà été formulée par J.-B.-A. Allaire : « Tous les jeudis entr’autres, [le curé] allait cultiver laborieusement sa terre de Vide-poche au bénéfice des pauvres auxquels cependant il ne distribuait rien sans y joindre une petite leçon40 ». On préfère parfois justifier le nom de Vide-Poche par la mauvaise qualité du chemin, et ce autant à Saint-Raphaël41 qu’à Charlesbourg42 ou Yamachiche43 : la nature peu carrossable de la route aurait fait tomber les grains des poches (ouvertes?) véhiculées. Cette explication ressemble à une étymologie populaire née d’une réanalyse tardive et suppose naturellement la proximité d’un moulin où transporter le grain à moudre. L’hypothèse qui explique le nom de Vide-Poche par la mauvaise route laisse dubitatif un membre de la Société d’histoire de Charlesbourg, qui y voit plutôt une tentative de révision étymologique, consciente ou non : N'oublions pas qu'à l'époque, c'est une route isolée au fin fond de la seigneurie. C'est souvent dans cette sorte de lieu que se réfugient ceux qui n'ont pas la conscience trop nette, loin des regards de tous. […] Par ailleurs les descendants des habitants du coin n'ont pas avantage à rappeler la mauvaise réputation d'un grand-père ou arrière-grand-père peu recommandable. On peut donc détourner le sens de l'histoire du nom afin de redorer le blason de la famille. En effet les trous de la route qui vident les poches des passants n'impliquent aucune responsabilité criminelle44. 12 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) La combinaison des morphèmes « vide » et « poche » permet la production de sens autonomes, bien que voisins, et leur rencontre à double-sens dans la réalité culturelle du moulin. Il est plausible que cette convergence sémantique ait nourri la popularité du toponyme Vide-Poche et sa productivité. Le moulin comme lieu « videpoche », littéralement, a pu profiter de la coexistence du terme populaire « vide-poche » signifiant le métier du filou. Un lien historique avec la meunerie s’impose comme hypothèse légitime, à la lumière de l’exemple documenté du moulin de Saint-Raphaël et des surnoms de moulins attestés en France. Paradoxe géolinguistique La toponymie québécoise a bénéficié d’importants travaux de géographie qui ont au moins reconnu l’existence de Vide-Poche comme nom de lieu. La conservation au Québec d’un réflexe onomastique aussi ancien reste cependant fragile. À cette heure, le Vide-Poche de Yamachiche est le seul lieu45 de ce nom officiellement admis par les autorités toponymiques du Québec. La curiosité velléitaire des chercheurs québécois à l’égard de Vide-Poche n’a pas été en mesure d’établir avec confiance la motivation originale de ce toponyme. Aucune hypothèse esquissée n’a encore fait consensus. L’intérêt spécialisé et ponctuel de ces chercheurs n’a pas su exploiter toutes les données pertinentes mises au jour par la toponymie comparée. Chacune des occurrences de Vide-Poche doit d’autant plus retenir l’attention que l’expression échappe au sens commun de la langue depuis plus d’un siècle. Un paradoxe émerge de la mise en relation continentale des neuf Vide-Poche relevés : l’usage du toponyme se maintient dans les Michigan et Missouri anglophones, alors que le Québec est à risque de perdre les siens. L’effacement de Vide-Poche dans sa matrice laurentienne s’est possiblement nourri d’une inertie péjorative. L’immersion anglophone a semblé au contraire favoriser une dynamique lexicale où l’origine française des Vide-Poche procure au toponyme américain une plus-value historique, pittoresque et distinctive. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 13 Le Vide-Poche de St. Ignace au Michigan n’est attesté que tard au XIXe siècle : « The former presence of an Indian population on the bluff above that part of St. Ignace popularly called “Vide Poche46,” […] ». Les contemporains perpétuent l’usage47 de ce nom imagé et le patrimoine local s’en enorgueillit48. L’ancienneté du toponyme remonte forcément à un rayonnement très antérieur de la langue française. Bien que non documentées, les origines de ce VidePoche michiganais pourraient ultimement dater de l’établissement de Saint-Ignace au XVIIe siècle. Rien n’indique que ce secteur de St. Ignace ait jamais accueilli un moulin, mais la question mérite réflexion et recherche. Alexis de Tocqueville témoigne de ce qu’il rencontre à SaultSainte-Marie le 15 août 1831, peu avant de s’arrêter brièvement à l’île Michilimackinac, devant Saint-Ignace : « Toute la population de Sainte-Marie est française […]. Nous avons retrouvé ici le français d'il y a un siècle, conservé comme une momie pour l'instruction de la génération actuelle49 [italiques ajoutées] ». Il est possible que VidePoche soit justement une telle « momie ». Sault-Sainte-Marie entretient un rapport géographique étroit et significatif avec Saint-Ignace. Respectivement situés des côtés nord et sud d’une péninsule névralgique qui s’avance entre les lacs Michigan, Supérieur et Huron, Sault-Sainte-Marie et Saint-Ignace ouvrent l’accès au reste du continent, l’un vers l’ouest et l’autre vers le sud. Une même culture habite cette plaque tournante de la fourrure au cœur des Grands Lacs. Tocqueville reconnaît à ce peuplement un vieux français dont l’attestation toponymique de Vide-Poche paraît une probable manifestation. Le poste de Saint-Ignace50 a été fondé comme pivot du commerce de la fourrure et de la mission jésuite en Amérique du Nord. Le prêtre Jacques Gravier se trouve à Saint-Ignace dès 1686. Il se déplace l’année suivante au Pays des Illinois, par la rivière de ce nom qui lie le lac Michigan au Mississippi. Le travail lexicographique de Gravier sur la langue illinoise établit sa réputation scientifique. En 1696, l’archevêque Saint-Vallier de Québec nomme Gravier vicaire général de Saint-Ignace puis le jésuite quitte de nouveau pour les Illinois quelques années plus tard. 14 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) L’itinéraire de Jacques Gravier illustre la grande mobilité humaine et culturelle caractéristique de cette Nouvelle-France d’ « En-Haut ». La distribution des Vide-Poche ressort comme une trace possible de cette ancienne diffusion. La culture de la traite qui se développe se nourrit abondamment des rapports humains entre les voyageurs et leurs compagnes amérindiennes. Plusieurs associations auxquelles s’est prêté Vide-Poche semblent en outre découler de ce contexte particulier. Cet aspect est développé plus loin dans l’article. Vide-Poche, près de Saint-Louis La rencontre d’un Vide-Poche au Missouri, là où le Pays des Illinois se fond dans la Haute-Louisiane, ne surprend pas outre mesure. Son existence témoigne d’une époque d’expansion extrême pour la culture laurentienne. Ce Vide-Poche, aujourd’hui quartier de St. Louis, en était autrefois éloigné de quelques kilomètres. Une mission jésuite s’y installe dès 1700, juste à l’embouchure de la rivière des Pères. L’histoire de ce Vide-Poche reste à peine documentée jusqu’à ce que sa voisine de Saint-Louis prenne un essor spectaculaire. Le développement important de St. Louis au XIXe siècle et son rôle historique comme porte de l’Ouest multiplient les témoignages qui mentionnent le proche village de Vide-Poche au passage, en alternance avec le nom officiel dont on l’a ensuite rhabillée, Carondelet. La petite histoire répète que l’appellation « Vide-Poche » serait née du sarcasme des habitants de Saint-Louis, qui auraient en retour de moquerie reçu celui de « Pain-Court ». L’historiographie de VidePoche est traversée par cette anecdote et ses variations. L’historien Alcée Fortier la place même sous la caution d’une communication privée51 avec Pierre Chouteau, de la fameuse dynastie fondatrice de Saint-Louis. L’autorité patricienne d’un Chouteau impressionne mais ne cautionne pas. Plusieurs travaux présentent la même histoire, avec plus ou moins de précisions. L’historien Louis Houck52 constitue à ce propos la source de choix53. Consacrée par la recherche savante, GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 15 cette anecdote sur la genèse de Vide-Poche circule abondamment et n’a cessé de s’incruster. D’autres avant Houck ou Fortier admettaient pourtant déjà cette raillerie supposée : It was during this period that St. Louis received the nickname of ‘Pain Court.’ In the early times but few of the French Settlers [à Vide-Poche] devoted themselves to farming. Hunting and trading with Indians were more attractive pursuits. […] The sobriquet probably owes its origin to a spirit of good-natured raillery. St. Louis, with its jocular reference to the poverty of its inhabitants, had called Carondelet ‘VidePoche.’ The frequent scarcity of bread in St. Louis afforded an opportunity for retaliation54 […] Aucune source n’est fournie et on pourrait croire que l’historien John Thomas Scharff avance ce scénario de genèse étymologique avec confiance. Une seconde hypothèse apparaît toutefois sous la propre plume de Scharff, avec indication de la source cette fois. L’auteur omet curieusement de lier et comparer ces deux explications qu’il propose en des lieux différents de son ouvrage. Cette seconde explication analyse le nom « Vide-Poche » comme désignation d’un refuge pour jeux et plaisirs divers : « “Vide-Poche,” it has been suggested by Hon. Wilson Primm55, referred to the skill of the Carodeletians at games of chance, and the fact that they were usually able to send their St. Louis visitors home with empty pockets56 ». C’est le point de vue que relaie aussi l’historien Élysée Reclus57. Plus qu’un jeu de mots La question du patrimoine toponymique occupe John Thomas Scharff, qui plaide du même souffle pour la préservation institutionnelle de l’héritage de langue française : Even the nicknames won by the towns, such as “Pain Court,” “Vide-poche,” “Misère,” etc., have much of by no means 16 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) unpleasant significance. In this view of the case the Missouri Historical Society is doing an excellent work in its efforts to preserve the orthography and keep on record the meaning of its geographical names58. Malgré toute la bonne volonté exprimée, l’énigme étymologique de Vide-Poche semble confondre les historiens du Missouri. On note cependant la mission de préservation toponymique que se donne de façon précoce la Missouri Historical Society, un effort qui ne trouve aucun équivalent au Canada français à la même époque, a fortiori dans un cas comme celui de Vide-Poche. À la décharge de la mission patrimoniale québécoise, il faut reconnaître que le nom de lieu Vide-Poche suscite au Missouri une réaction aux antipodes de celle exprimée par l’élite cléricale du Québec : le francophile Scharff perçoit un nom chargé de « by no means unpleasant significance », alors qu’à la même époque à Yamachiche l’abbé Napoléon Caron s’en désole : « Voilà un nom qui ne sonne pas mélodieusement aux oreilles59 ». L’origine du nom intéresse également le public, comme le montre un court article de 187260 qui porte précisément sur la moquerie de clocher dont proviendrait le toponyme local Vide-Poche. On découvre sans trop de peine que cet article anonyme du Missouri Republican consiste en une paraphrase d’un écrit du cartographe français Joseph Nicollet. De 1836 à 1840, ce scientifique étudie le territoire en amont du Mississippi et du Missouri. Nicollet note l’anecdote dans une esquisse de l’ancien Saint-Louis qu’on a intégrée à son rapport publié en 1845 : […] but, as they were not overburdened with wealth, they used to pay frequent visits to their kinfolk in St. Louis, who, on seeing them approach, would exclaim “here come the empty pockets,” — “voilà les poches vides qui viennent.” But, on some occasion, a wag remarked, “You had better call them emptiers of pockets,” – les vide-poches; a compliment which was retaliated by these upon the place of St. Louis, which was subject to frequent seasons of want, by styling it Pain-Court – short of bread61. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 17 Le Français Joseph Nicollet ne peut être insensible au bon mot et à l’humour caustique qui joue sur le contraste entre « poche vide » et « vide-poche ». Il s’amuse sans doute de la façon dont l’inversion ludique des termes enrichit l’anecdote. L’opposition morphosyntaxique qui oppose les séquences « verbe + objet » et « substantif + adjectif » échappe en revanche à ceux trop nombreux qui ont cru pouvoir traduire le toponyme Vide-Poche par le calque fautif « empty pocket62 ». Ces gloses étonnent, surtout les plus récentes qui émanent de source savante. À notre connaissance, aucune recherche toponymique n’a retenu le jeu de mots mis en relief par Joseph Nicollet. La recherche de langue anglaise reste à peu près sourde au contraste linguistique qui oppose « vide-poche » et « poche vide ». Les éditeurs des écrits de Zebulon M. Pike sont l’exception, dans une note passée inaperçue. Seul un mémoire d’onomastique de 193963 s’inquiète au passage du sens de Vide-Poche en fonction de l’ordre de ses morphèmes. L’auteur ne tire toutefois pas les conclusions qui s’imposent. D’autres hypothèses encore L’origine de cet ancien Vide-Poche missourien suscite une autre hypothèse dont deux sources distinctes font foi. La première incarnation provient d’un document anonyme conservé par le clergé saint-louisien depuis les années 182064. Cette note mérite d’être citée dans son entier : Carondelet, Mo., établi 1767 par Mr. Deterchet Delor; cet endroit portoit d'abord le nom de la Prairie à Catalan, nom d'un chasseur, qui s'y étoit placé avec une petite cabanne pour la chasse ; ensuite quelqu'un, en passant par cet endroit, avoit demandé quelque chose à manger, et n'ayant rien trouvé, I'appella du nom de Vuide poche, quel nom lui a resté, en depit du nom de Carondelet […]. Quoique légèrement embellie, cette analyse de Vide-Poche est relayée et précisée par Washington Irving dans ces mêmes années65. L’écrivain présente un toponyme déterminé par la rencontre d’un voyageur de la Nouvelle-Orléans et de pauvres habitants de la place. 18 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Cette étymologie ancedotique paraît peu crédible à sa face même et ne justifie pas qu’on s’y attarde, hormis pour noter une énième allusion à la misère. Sans grande valeur historiographique, la proposition reprise par l’écrivain Irving suggère néanmoins qu’à son époque une dynamique d’étymologie populaire recherche déjà une explication pour ce nom de « Vide-Poche ». Ne s’est apparemment pas encore imposée l’analyse du toponyme par la querelle des surnoms avec « PainCourt ». À l’opposé, la perception de Vide-Poche comme lieu de jeux, de dépenses et de plaisirs sombre étrangement dans l’oubli, en dépit de la datation biographique ancienne qu’autorise le témoignage d’un Wilson Primm né à St. Louis en 1810. La même main anonyme qui a fourni l’étymologie de Vide-Poche citée un peu plus haut s’est également intéressée à l’origine du peuplement : « 1740. II y a eu un établ. des Pr. Jes. [pères jésuites] tout prêt de Vuide poche, à la Rivière des Pères66. [sic] ». Cette datation fait de Vide-Poche le plus ancien lieu habité par les Français dans la région, et procure au nom même une base sur laquelle spéculer quant à son ancienneté. L’année 1740 rejoint en effet les plus vieilles attestations de ce toponyme dans la vallée laurentienne. La rivière des Pères suggère la possibilité d’un moulin hydraulique à cet endroit, aux premiers temps du poste, dont pourrait dériver le nom « Vide-Poche » conservé par inertie. L’hypothèse du moulin comme source du toponyme a été légitimée plus haut par un exemple laurentien et cette orientation de recherche se renforce avec l’ancien Vide-Poche du Missouri. On apprend en effet qu’un moulin y a autrefois constitué le principal moteur économique : Initially called Delor’s Village, the predominantly French agricultural outpost was successiveley known as Louisbourg, Vide Poche (Empty Pocket), and finally Carondelet. As its nickname, Vide Poche, suggested, the settlement was never particularly thriving. […] The settlement’s sole industry was a crude horse-driven mill used for grinding flour67 [italiques ajoutées]. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 19 L’identification du moulin comme pilier économique du vieux VidePoche missourien consolide l’association établie à Saint-Raphaël entre ce toponyme et la meunerie. Cette activité fondamentale de la vie agraire devient ainsi le principal candidat comme vecteur de la remarquable diffusion toponymique de Vide-Poche, en dépit des trésors d’imagination étymologique déployés par la suite. Ce nom de lieu trouve dans la meunerie un dénominateur commun que la toponymie comparée vient éclairer de belle façon. Diffusion en amont du Missouri La grande époque du commerce des fourrures (1780-1840) témoigne d’une période où le caractère générique de Vide-Poche manifeste sa productivité. Le territoire qu’occupe aujourd’hui l’agglomération de Kansas City atteste deux lieux brièvement connus sous ce nom au cours des années 1820 et 1830. La détection de ces Vide-Poche jette un précieux éclairage sur le mécanisme toponymique à l’œuvre au Missouri de langue française, en lien avec les autres lieux homonymes du nord-est américain. Le traiteur François Guesseau68 Chouteau s’établit à l’embouchure de la rivière Kansas peu après 1820. En 1833, le père Benoît (ou Benedict) Roux loge chez lui lors de son séjour en pays de frontière. Une lettre de ce missionnaire, adressée à un collègue jésuite de St. Louis nommé Borgna, confirme la coexistence de VidePoche distincts au Missouri. Roux met en relation le dénuement qui les unit, par désespoir plutôt que par dérision : Je vais ce matin à Liberty à 25 milles; je vais y rendre un cheval que j’ai emprunté depuis 15 jours, mediante pecunia [moyennant un prix]. Je ne puis le garder davantage, car ma bourse ne s’en porterait pas mieux; Mr Guesseau m’en prête un à meilleur marché, gratis pro deo; Je dois chercher à économiser car le nouveau Ville Poche n’est pas plus à son aise que l’ancien69. L’invariant sémantique repose ici encore sur le manque de ressources et la pauvreté caractéristiques de ces lieux homonymes. On aura toutefois remarqué que le père Roux écrit « Ville Poche70 » : 20 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) le 24 novembre 1833, deux lettres provenant « De l’embouchure de la Rivière des Kans » écrites en français révèlent que l’oreille du père Roux lui joue des tours71. Ces lettres trahissent une intéressante corruption du nom. Une plaque historique bilingue de la Société Chouteau72 attribue à l’humour clérical la cause de la diffusion du nom « Vide Poche » dans le haut Missouri : « Les Français vivaient confortablement, mais leurs ressources financières étaient limitées; c’est pourquoi l’un des premiers prêtres français avait, en plaisantant, qualifié la communauté de « Nouveau Vide Poche » […] [italiques ajoutées] ». Il ne peut être question ici que des lettres du père Roux, qui – on l’a vu plus haut – désignent plutôt l’endroit comme « nouveau Ville Poche ». Cette méprise de « Ville » pour « Vide » rend peu vraisemblable l’analyse donnée par la Société Chouteau. Pour que la propagation et l’implantation du toponyme « VidePoche » à Kansas City soient le fruit de l’humour jésuite, il faut présumer qu’aient été connus du père Roux le nom réel du village au sud de St. Louis ainsi qu’un sens évident. Or la forme erronée qu’il emploie à plusieurs reprises révèle une ignorance toponymique qui devrait écarter ce jésuite comme vecteur de diffusion du nom « Vide-Poche ». Le développement spontané du nom paraît être une hypothèse de loin préférable. L’anecdote présentée par la Société Chouteau pour expliquer l’existence de « Vide-Poche » à Kansas City s’ajoute ainsi aux nombreuses étymologies douteuses déjà associées à ce nom de lieu. Le noyau historique de l’établissement devenu Kansas City porte concurremment plusieurs noms tels que « (nouveau) Vide Poche », « Chez les Canses », « Chouteauville » ou « Chouteau’s (Trading) Post ». Il est significatif que soit également attesté sous le nom « Vide-Poche73 » le tout premier établissement de François Guesseau Chouteau, tenté dans la région en 1819 à Randolph Bluffs, là où se trouve Liberty, Clay County, ville intégrée aujourd’hui à la banlieue de Kansas City. La productivité du toponyme trouve dans l’émergence de cette agglomération missourienne son illustration la plus étoffée. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 21 Vide-Poche passe à l’anglais Le nom de Vide-Poche, dont l’opacité relative ressort de la désignation fautive commise par le père Roux, intrigue d’autant plus les observateurs que le passage à l’anglais s’amorce et s’accélère dans cette première moitié du XIXe siècle. Un conte moral publié en 1831, intitulé A Legend of Carondelet, met en scène « Vuide-Poche » et joue sur le franglais de façon humoristique74. Une perspective anglo-américaine du contact culturel s’y déploie et le toponyme reçoit la remarque attendue : « […] their pockets, as the name of their town implies, were not lined with gold […] ». Le conte est grossièrement anachronique. Son action prend place un demi-siècle en amont, sous le régime espagnol. Or l’anglais n’a généralement pas été parlé dans la région avant l’américanisation qui a suivi l’achat de l’ancienne Louisiane en 180375. Le contact linguistique est une réalité du XIXe siècle et les conditions imaginées pour le conte sont en fait contemporaines de sa rédaction. L’impression que laisse ce Vide-Poche au conquérant américain varie étrangement : « This is a handsome French village76 » estime un observateur en 1818. Le géologue anglais Featherstonhaugh, sous contrat avec le gouvernement américain, ne partage pas tout à fait cette opinion. Il aperçoit un Vide-Poche sans doute similaire au village que visite Nicollet peu après. Featherstonhaugh reconnaît d’emblée que ce village est « […] beautifully located on the limestone beds […] » mais est surtout frappé par le dénuement et l’inertie qui le distinguent toujours en 1834 ou 1835 : The road passed through the French village of Carondelet […]; it is a poor, poverty-stricken place, […] whose inhabitants were exactly what they were one hundred years ago […]. They still use a small badly made cart with a meagre horse, or “marche donc,” as everybody calls them in ridicule […]. In old times this place and the village of St. Louis were rivals […] Whether it was that the bakers of St. Louis sold shorter leaves than usual, or would not give credit to their neighbors for what they wanted to buy, the people of 22 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Carondelet nicknamed the place “Pain-Court”. In return the people of St. Louis nicknamed Carondelet “Vuide Poche77.” Featherstonhaugh procure ici la première publication de l’histoire des deux surnoms que se seraient échangés jadis les villages de VidePoche et de Saint-Louis. Seulement un an ou deux séparent le passage de Featherstonhaugh dans la région de celui de Nicollet et chacun recueille la même bon mot au sujet des supposés sobriquets « Vide-Poche » et « Pain-Court ». La coïncidence est curieuse et pourrait s’expliquer par une rencontre entre les auteurs en 1836 ou 1837. Nicollet décède en 1843 mais une rencontre est peut-être survenue avant que Featherstonhaugh ne quitte les États-Unis en 1838. Il apparaît peu probable que ce futur consul britannique en France ait pu profiter des notes manuscrites de Nicollet avant les publications respectives de 1844 et 1845. Tous deux travaillent toutefois sous la direction du colonel John J. Albert et leurs recherches se succèdent de si près qu’elles se chevauchent possiblement à l’emploi du gouvernement américain. Nicollet est bien au fait des travaux de Featherstonhaugh puisque son rapport posthume réfère au Report of a Geological Reconnaissance78 du géologue. Quoi qu’il en soit de la source ultime de cette anecdote, l’intéressant témoignage de Featherstonhaugh se poursuit et atteste l’intimité de son expérience : What was a joke then is not one now, for the two places are called Pain Court and Vuide Poche by the lower classes upon all occasions. You never hear of “un habitant de Carondelet,” the term employed is “un Vuide Pocheur.”79 […] I got into conversation with a French boy about twelve years old, and asked him purposely the name of his village, when he answered, « En Anglais [sic] on l’appelle Carondelet, mais en Français [sic] on l’appelle Vuide Poche. »80 Cette expérience de Featherstonhaugh illustre un cas très particulier de bilinguisme toponymique. La suite des choses favorisera GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 23 l’explication anecdotique des surnoms par une ancienne rivalité avec Saint-Louis. Ce n’est pourtant pas l’analyse qu’on sert à Irving en 1826. La petite histoire d’une joute oratoire entre villages pourrait donc avoir émergé au cours de la décennie suivant son passage. Le développement accéléré de St. Louis laisse loin derrière son voisin Carondelet dit Vide-Poche. En 1842, le passage de Dickens lui fait décrire ainsi le petit cousin de la métropole missourienne : « The place consisted of a few poor cottages, and two or three public houses; the state of whose larders certainly seemed to justify the second designation of the village, for there was nothing to eat in any of them81 ». De cette époque subsiste une lithographie pittoresque de Vide-Poche qui en rend bien la physionomie82. Le déclassement progressif de la langue française dans cette région prête régulièrement à la réanalyse phonétique et sémantique de Vide-Poche. Le « Ville Poche » du père Roux en est peut-être le reflet. En outre, l’influence de l’anglais a tôt fait de transformer le toponyme en plusieurs variations : Vitepush83, White Bush84, Wheat Bush85, Weed Bush86. La réanalyse à laquelle les Américains soumettent le toponyme accentue celle déjà en cours chez les francophones. La glose la plus ancienne qui nous soit parvenue du vieux VidePoche au Missouri date de 1803 et provient d’un des chefs de la fameuse expédition américaine de Lewis et Clark. William Clark traduit pour son frère ce nom de la langue française parlée autour de St. Louis : « […] a Small town of 40 famlys called vietpuche. In our language is enpty belly87 [sic] ». C’est une énième variation sur l’étymologie du nom, qui rappelle celle notée par Irving, mais qui ouvre une nouvelle voie en traduisant « poche » par belly (« ventre »). Il faut que l’information lui soit parvenue de bonne source, puisque Clark ne parle pas le français. L’anecdote des deux villages rivaux d’un Missouri archaïque a tous les traits d’une étymologie populaire refaite à la façon d’un mot d’esprit. Son succès historiographique ne doit cependant pas aveugler l’observateur. L’anecdote se combine difficilement avec la réalité de la vallée laurentienne où sont documentés non seulement 24 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) plusieurs « Vide-Poche », mais aussi de nombreux « Pincourt88 ». Il n’est nul besoin de recourir à un mythe toponymique propre au Missouri. Dans cette veine suggestive d’une ancienne toponymie générique, il est révélateur que l’ancien village de Vide-Poche ait également été connu sous le nom de « Pain de sucre89 ». La toponymie historique révèle que ces deux noms de lieu se voisinent déjà au Québec, dans la région de Kamouraska par exemple90. Il faut sans doute voir dans ces phénomènes toponymiques les manifestations récurrentes d’une même culture laurentienne et en déduire avec assez d’assurance qu’à l’origine un genre de lexique générique aurait caractérisé tous ces noms de lieu. Un référent ethnique Le voyageur français François Perrin du Lac est connu pour s’être approprié, par un plagiat éhonté, le journal du traiteur canadien JeanBaptiste Trudeau91. On doit néanmoins à ce plagiaire français plusieurs pages authentiques sur le Missouri, dont une jette un éclairage sans ambages sur Vide-Poche au tout début du XIXe siècle : J’allais finir ce chapitre […] sans parler de Videpoche ; mais ce silence eût été en quelque sorte excusable. Quoique bâti dans une situation agréable et propre au commerce, les habitans n’ont rien qui puisse les rendre intéressans aux yeux d’un voyageur : ils n’ont ni industrie ni activité; et s’ils travaillent, ce n’est que pour ne pas mourir de faim ou ne pas marcher nus. Rien ne les distingue des Sauvages que leurs couvertures qu’ils portent en forme de capote92 […] [italiques ajoutées]. La condition humaine de Vide-Poche choque Perrin du Lac et le mépris porte sa réaction. Il n’apprécie pas l’indigence mâtinée d’indolence qui y caractérise le métissage, qu’il assimile plutôt à de l’ensauvagement : la dominance perçue du trait indien dérange l’Européen. Le témoignage de Perrin du Lac illustre l’amalgame qui s’élabore progressivement entre Vide-Poche et métissage. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 25 Le profil ethnique caractéristique de Vide-Poche semble s’accentuer avec le temps. Un témoignage de 1835 le suggère : A deux lieues au sud de Saint-Louis, se trouve le petit village de Vide-Poche ou Carondelet, composé de Français et de Bois-Brûlés (métis). Ces derniers sont ceux qui se vendaient autrefois aux compagnies […]. On les reconnaît facilement dans les rues de Saint-Louis à leur physionomie vive, colorée et ouverte, à leurs traits durs et sauvages […], et à une ample capote en laine93 […]. Une génération sépare les deux regards français, mais plusieurs similitudes se manifestent néanmoins, à la différence importante du dégoût qui émane du témoignage le plus ancien. Les deux commentaires reconnaissent dans les « Bois-Brûlés » ceux qui donnent à Vide-Poche son caractère distinct. L’observation continue de « Vide-Poche » révèle un glissement lexical. Ce terme en vient subtilement à se confondre avec la culture métisse générée par la traite des fourrures. La littérature de l’Ouest procure des exemples de ce phénomène sémantique. Un exemple provient du journaliste et romancier américain Robert Luther Duffus, dont l’emploi ethnonymique de Vide-Poche renvoie au Métis du Missouri, qu’il contraste du même souffle avec le Créole de l’endroit : « […] in honor of some brunette Vide-Poche or St. Louis Creole beauty94 […] ». L’épopée de l’Ouest américain a inspiré de nombreux récits historiques, un genre auquel appartient résolument Give your Heart to the Hawks. Cet ouvrage de Winfred Blevins s’accompagne d’un lexique d’une quarantaine de termes caractéristiques des Mountain Men95. Une dizaine des termes retenus provient du français et « videpoche » est du nombre. Sa définition vient appuyer l’usage illustré précédemment par Duffus. Blevins présente un « vide-poche » enrichi d’une dimension ethnique révélatrice d’une péjoration supplémentaire : « […] Usually said of French-Canadians, French speakers of Indian-white descent, etc. Figuratively, the equivalent of worthless no-good96 ». Le sens 26 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) traditionnel de vaurien, hérité de France, se resserre ici dans son ethnicisation. Le voyageur de la traite des fourrures est visé, son métissage plus encore. Le « vide-poche » de l’Ouest américain prolonge de façon significative la charge négative qui lui a traditionnellement été accolée dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent. Métissage « à la façon du pays » L’emprunt de « vide-poche » par l’anglais résulte vraisemblablement d’un usage intensif chez les voyageurs (à la manière de voyageur même, ou de cache). Ce phénomène rappelle l’influence de l’espagnol sur l’anglo-américain (p. ex. desperado). On pressent dans ce vide-poche un terme négatif récurrent, équivalant de près à « vaurien ». L’expression aurait ainsi développé de nouvelles connotations ou spécialisé son usage en cours de migration. À la lumière de la glose que donne Blevins, l’emprunt vide-poche renvoie au côté plus sombre du monde des voyageurs. La traite des fourrures a généré un important métissage trop souvent marqué par la pauvreté et le mépris. L’emprunt du français semble en porter le stigmate. Importé du pays laurentien, l’emploi de « vide-poche » est au départ clairement défavorable. Il s’adapte par la suite à la réalité métissée des Pays d’En-Haut, qu’elle soit celle d’un « Bois-Brûlé » ou d’un « Indien blanc ». Ce monde métis se fond dans celui des premières nations et l’anglais vide-poche / Vide-Poche émerge ainsi comme attribut racial, voire raciste. L’empreinte culturelle de l’appellation, qui marque jusqu’à l’anglais de la frontière, trahit la force du dénigrement. Conquérant et dominateur, le regard atlantique cultive généralement une médiocre appréciation de l’important métissage qui se produit au cœur du continent. Il est connu que les voyageurs s’en donnaient à cœur joie dans les relations charnelles, au déplaisir des hommes d’église qui tentaient désespérément de préserver l’ordre moral européen. La communauté métisse en est la conséquence naturelle. L’expression « some brunette Vide-Poche » utilisée par Duffus se prête à différentes GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 27 analyses, dont une suggère fortement la femme de compagnie, « à la façon du pays ». L’interprétation de « vide-poche » en rapport avec l’activité sexuelle cadre avec tout le reste du champ sémantique. Interrogé à froid au sujet du toponyme Vide-Poche, un spécialiste de la lexicographie française nord-américaine a aussitôt perçu ce sens : « en outre, "vide-poche" peut aussi avoir un sens obscène (quand "poche" signifie "scrotum et testicules", le mot peut signifier "femme facile"), mais cela ne nous permet guère d'élucider la motivation sémantique première de ces toponymes97 ». Quoiqu’il en soit de son évolution précise par le concubinage entre voyageurs et Amérindiennes, il faut reconnaître le rapprochement dans l’usage entre Vide-Poche et la mixité hétérogène, à la fois sociale, biologique et linguistique. L’ethnogénèse métisse dérange l’ordre établi. Sa caractérisation par « vide-poche » reflète le mépris extérieur au contact fertile entre Canadiens (-français) et Amérindiens. Cette culture ambiguë choque le regard puriste et défie le sentiment euro-américain de supériorité. Alexis de Tocqueville exprime parfaitement la surprise qui saisit l’Européen de 1831 face à la frontière brouillée des identités : Mon cheval m'aurait adressé la parole que je n'aurais pas, je crois, été plus surpris. J'envisageai celui qui m'avait parlé et dont la figure frappée des premiers rayons de la lune reluisait alors comme une boule de cuivre: « Qui êtes-vous donc, lui dis-je, le français semble être votre langue et vous avez l'air d'un Indien? » Il me répondit qu'il était un bois-brûlé, c'est-àdire le fils d'un Canadien et d'une Indienne98. Ce témoignage de Tocqueville emploie le terme voyageur connu de « bois brûlé » pour désigner le métis. L’expression « brunette VidePoche » employée par Duffus évoque un développement similaire en référence à l’Amérindienne métissée courtisée par les hommes de l’Ouest. 28 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Aucune source indépendante ne corrobore la définition de VidePoche fournie par Blevins99. Mais sa seule attestation constitue un élément fort et un indice révélateur sur la place de « vide-poche » dans la langue des voyageurs. Ce terme se double dans l’Ouest nordaméricain d’une dimension ethnique en plus d’une synonymie générale avec vaurien. Vide-Poche chez Jacques Ferron Après les surprenants prolongements nord-américains qu’on lui a découverts jusqu’à Kansas City – de nouvelles recherches peuvent réserver d’autres surprises –, le phénomène toponymique de VidePoche ramène en bout de course au bercail laurentien. Maintenant que l’envergure continentale du toponyme est connue, un regard renouvelé doit se poser sur les attestations laurentiennes de VidePoche, en premier lieu celle de 1746 à Saint-Raphaël de Bellechasse100. Philippe Panneton et Louis Francoeur se sont brièvement amusés de Vide-Poche. D’autres plumes québécoises réputées ont également effleuré le toponyme et la manifestation la plus intéressante provient sans doute de Jacques Ferron. L’écrivain est natif de Louiseville en Mauricie et les lieux de Yamachiche habitent son imaginaire linguistique. Jacques Ferron s’attarde au Vide-Poche local et lui procure une visibilité particulière, par sa réflexion sur un nom de lieu qui a marqué son identité, voire son intimité. Le biographe de Jacques Ferron, Marcel Olscamp, note que « l’écrivain se fait parfois l’exégète de la toponymie locale, qu’il connaît de façon presque innée pour avoir été bercé par elle101 ». Ferron s’amuse du nom « Vide-Poche » et le décompose : « Après le Vide-Poche, la vie de poche les attendait. Les deux se tiennent de si près, signifiant à peu près la même chose, la déception, la pénurie, la petite misère, qu’on peut écrire l’un ou l’autre102 ». Olscamp poursuit du même souffle : Pour le nom « Vide-Poche », Ferron donne deux graphies possibles et complémentaires qui font référence à la misère du GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 29 prolétariat rural de la région : la première renvoie aux cultivateurs de Yamachiche qui, « descendus au village avec de gros sacs de grains pour les faire moudre au moulin [seigneurial], se rendaient compte qu’ils en ramenaient peu de farine » ; la seconde, « Vie-de-Poche », évoque « une vie peu agréable, de poche, non de velours ». Le biographe s’intéresse brièvement à cette question toponymique et oppose aux analyses de Ferron une troisième explication103, « nettement plus bucolique104 ». Olscamp ne prend parti pour aucune des étymologies concurrentes, réalisant sans doute son impuissance devant l’imbroglio qui plombe le toponyme. La segmentation « viede-poche » marie l’analyse à la facétie105 et semble ne trouver grâce aux yeux du biographe que pour cette raison. D’autres spécialistes de Ferron s’attardent en revanche sur ce jeu de mots et trouvent matière à symbole littéraire dans la réflexion sur Vide-Poche qui anime l’écrivain. L’un d’eux croit la question de Vide-Poche incontournable et extrapole sa portée psychologique : Comment éviter l’allusion à un signifiant qui constitua l’une des toutes premières énigmes linguistiques à s’offrir au jeune Ferron? Vie-de-Poche, Vide-Poche : Ferron évoque le nom de ce chemin, menant au rang du même nom dont étaient originaires Florence et Marie-Jeanne Bellemare, mères substituts de la sienne lors de ses nombreuses absences106. Un autre chercheur attribue à « Vide-Poche » le mérite dramatique de placer Jacques Ferron devant « l’ambiguïté du langage107 ». Sous cet angle, le toponyme se transforme en marqueur ferronien, voire en pèlerinage littéraire : « le rang Vie-de-Poche, qui aura une histoire différente si on l’épelle Vide-Poche, en deux mots plutôt qu’en trois108 […] ». L’œuvre littéraire n’a pas de prétention scientifique. L’écrivain analyse le toponyme à sa façon, sans référent précis, mais en perçoit une forte connotation. Les hypothèses qu’avance Ferron à propos du Vide-Poche yamachichois confirment une fois de plus le sens désespérément péjoratif généré par ce nom de lieu. Le Vide-Poche 30 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) de Ferron s’ancre solidement dans un champ sémantique où la misère domine, qu’elle soit matérielle ou morale. Il est ironique que la segmentation facétieuse de l’auteur s’inscrive précisément dans cet univers. La conduite de cette étude sur « vide-poche » / « Vide-Poche » a montré que sa trajectoire présente une difficulté linguistique autrement complexe que celle posée par la segmentation ludique de Ferron, que la recherche littéraire n’a pas dépassée. La réflexion toponymique de Jacques Ferron couronne une longue tradition dont aucune collecte ni recul critique n’avait encore opéré la description. Le fils de Louiseville serait sans doute le premier surpris du voyage au fil de l’eau et des siècles effectué par ce petit toponyme. La lumière littéraire qu’un écrivain concède bien involontairement à son toponyme mauricien peut en retour servir à le protéger : au vu de la disparition de ses homonymes québécois, le statut officiel de lieudit n’assure en rien le maintien de cet ultime Vide-Poche laurentien. L’étude de Vide-Poche a invoqué d’importantes plumes québécoises du XXe siècle. Aux noms de Louis Francoeur, Philippe Panneton et Jacques Ferron, s’ajoute en outre celui de Jean-Paul Desbiens – le fameux Frère Untel –, dont l’intérêt étymologique aura été à son tour été piqué par ce toponyme : Passé Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, nous roulons une couple d'heures sur les routes secondaires de la campagne, y compris le rang Vide-Poche ainsi dénommé parce que des mendiants avaient l'habitude de passer tous les automnes afin de recueillir les dons en nature que les agriculteurs leur donnaient109. Vide-Poche est un toponyme qui a régulièrement stimulé la curiosité linguistique d’observateurs sensibles aux mots. Le phénomène VidePoche en Amérique du Nord semble constituer l’écho d’un usage qui plonge ses racines dans des temps très anciens. Peut-être le videpoche a-t-il été un type vivant dans la tradition orale, dans la France médiévale jusqu’à l’Ancien Régime vacillant. La plume de Carmontelle pourrait le suggérer. D’Angoulême au Missouri, une GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 31 trajectoire toponymique révèle un usage qu’on soupçonne depuis longtemps plus qu’on ne le comprend. Conclusion Cette enquête sur Vide-Poche a fait parcourir de grandes distances et réuni un grand nombre d’éléments dont la subtile relation n’avait jamais attiré l’attention. La langue populaire qui a jadis porté le terme « vide-poche » s’est évanouie et le moteur de cette distribution risque fort d’avoir échappé pour de bon à l’observation. Dans ces circonstances, mal, peu ou pas documentées, il restait à reconnaître le problème toponymique et à le circonscrire. Ce tour d’horizon en a posé les jalons. Le toponyme étudié et son étymologie sont grevés d’un flou sémantique qui s’arrime bien avec la possibilité d’une convergence lexicale. Différentes souches de « vide-poche » ont pu coexister, se rapprocher et se croiser au cours des siècles. Le voisinage de VideGousset et de Cure-Bourse en toponymie illustre à eux seuls la productivité de ce type de composé morphologique110. On perçoit une fonction générique sous-jacente, bien qu’il paraisse difficile de la préciser. Assez peu d’espoirs de réponse claire découle du potentiel mono- ou polyphylétique des Vide-Poche répertoriés. Une conclusion définitive semble hors d’atteinte. Un indice significatif provient par contre de l’association de « vide-poche » avec la meunerie. Une motivation naturelle découle du rapprochement de Vide-Poche dans Bellechasse avec l’emplacement d’un ancien moulin aujourd’hui disparu. En raison de ses contraintes naturelles associées à l’eau ou au vent, le moulin exigeait des conditions particulières qui souvent fluctuaient et ne se retrouvaient qu’en périphérie de villages établis. Au surnom objectif « vide-poche » pour désigner le moulin a ainsi pu se greffer des connotations développées pour d’autres souches tout aussi logiques. La poche comme la bourse, le gousset ou le sac ont traditionnellement symbolisé le capital. La spoliation comme réalité humaine récurrente a pu susciter la création répétée de l’expression. On comprend aisément comment la métaphore du 32 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) voleur a par exemple pu se transposer sur la terre improductive tout autant que sur le mendiant, le meunier malhonnête ou les lieux de plaisirs. L’expression étudiée a voyagé et nommé en cours de route des réalités qui ont marqué la culture. Le terme « vide-poche » laboure, à travers les usages attestés, un champ sémantique où les recoupements sont faciles et plusieurs glissements plausibles. Il est néanmoins frappant que les « vauriens » mis en scène par Carmontelle dans la France de Louis XVI trouvent un écho chez les Canadiens des lointaines rives nord-américaines. Le Nouveau Monde a généré ses propres « vide-poche » que sont les miséreux de Ferron, les quêteux de rang, les métis indolents ou les Européens « ensauvagés » du Missouri. Une étrange parenté se dégage de tous ces types qu’on avait longtemps crus orphelins. Cet article a montré que Vide-Poche constitue plutôt une remarquable famille toponymique. NOTES 1. Un premier article introduit le sujet dans Onomastica Canadiana, volume 96 (1). On y trouvera plus de précisions sur plusieurs aspects du problème abordé. Des lecteurs anonymes ont amélioré le présent article par leurs judicieuses suggestions ; qu’ils soient remerciés pour leur lecture attentive et bienveillante. Il s’impose enfin de souligner la précieuse collaboration de plusieurs individus sollicités pour leur connaissance d’un Vide-Poche ou d’un autre 2. 2. Cet usage des guillemets pour désigner la fonction métalinguistique d’un toponyme aux multiples graphies ne sera pas maintenu à travers le texte afin de ne pas en obstruer exagérément la lecture. 3. Gilbert J. Garraghan, « Selected Letters from the Roux Correspondence (1833-34) », The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 4, n° 1 (avril 1918), p. 90 (n. 8). GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 33 4. Un lecteur doit être remercié pour cette observation. Voir : U. S. Geographical Survey. Geographic Names Information System. https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=138:2:0::NO:RP. Site consulté le 7 septembre 2017. 5. Louis-Edmond Hamelin, Le Rang d’habitat. Le Réel et l’imaginaire, Montréal, Éditions Hurtubise, 1993, p. 169. 6. Henri Dorion est l’invité de l’émission « Dessine-moi un dimanche », à la radio de Radio-Canada (3 août 2014). Le thème est « La toponymie insolite ». L’explication de Dorion ne convainc pas quand on sait que le nom désigne plusieurs des meilleures terres de leur région. Site web consulté le 15 mai 2017 : http://ici.radiocanada.ca/emissions/dessine_moi_un_dimanche/20122013/archives.asp?date=2014-08-03. 7. Gilles Boileau, « Nouvelles parutions : Le Dictionnaire illustré des noms et lieux du Québec », Histoire Québec, vol. 1, n° 1 (juin 1995), p. 32. 8. Concertation des organismes populaires d'alphabétisation en Montérégie, Noms et lieux fascinants du Québec, Châteauguay, chez l’auteur, 1998, p. 29. 9. Jean Provencher et Jeanne Blanchet, C’était le printemps. La vie rurale traditionnelle dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent, Montréal, Boréal Express, 1980, p. 37. Coll. « Histoire populaire du Québec, 5 ». Extrait tiré du Fichier Lexical du TLFQ, accessible en ligne. 10. Guy Desilets, Souvenirs d’un Grégorien, Trois-Rivières, Éditions du Bien Public, 1997, p. 31. 11. Denis Desilets, correspondance privée, 2013. M. Desilets, professeur retraité de l’Université Laval, est frère de l’auteur Guy Desilets, cité plus haut. 12. Guy Desilets, Souvenirs d’un Grégorien, p. 32. 34 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 13. Voir p. ex. Henri Simard, « Les Noms géographiques de la Province de Québec », Le Parler français. Bulletin de la Société du Parler français au Canada, vol. 14 (septembre 1915 - septembre 1916), Québec, L’Action sociale, 1916, p. 348 ; Napoléon Caron, Histoire de la paroisse d'Yamachiche. Précis historique, TroisRivières, P.V. Ayotte, 1892, p. 125. 14. S., P. « Les Noms géographiques », Le Parler français. Bulletin de la Société du Parler français au Canada, vol. 15 (septembre 1916 - septembre 1917), Québec, L’Action sociale, p. 6770. 15. Louis Francoeur et Philippe Panneton, « Rabâchages », Littératures à la manière de... Lionel Groulx…, Montréal, Les Éditions variétés, 1940, p. 68. 16. Cette orthographe est ancienne. Nous la retrouvons également au Canada, notamment dans : Joseph Bouchette, This topographical map of the Province of Lower Canada, shewing is division into districts, counties, seigniories and townships…, Londres, William Faden, 1815. 17. L’Esprit des journaux, françois et étrangers, tome 12 (décembre 1781), Société de gens de lettres, p. 76-77. Il s’agit d’un compte-rendu non signé des Proverbes dramatiques de Carmontelle. 18. L’Esprit des journaux…, p. 97. 19. Louis Carrogis dit Carmontelle, « Conversations des soirées des jardins du Palais-Royal, en 1787, Seizième journée », Proverbes et comédies posthumes de Carmontel [sic], vol. 3, Paris, Ladvocat, 1825, p. 234, 304-309. 20. Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, Paris, Hachette, 1863-1872. 21. François Raymond, Dictionnaire des termes appropriés aux arts et aux sciences, et des mots nouveaux que l’usage a consacrés ; pouvant servir de supplément au dictionnaire de l’Académie, ainsi GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 35 qu’à la plupart des autres lexiques français : suivi d’un traité raisonné de ponctuation, Paris, Masson, 1824, p. 549. 22. Constantin-François Volney, Tableau du climat et du sol : des Etats–Unis d’Amérique, Suivi d'éclaircissemens sur la Floride, sur la colonie Française au Scioto, sur quelques colonies canadiennes et sur les Sauvages, vol. 1, Paris, Bossange, 1822, p. 364. 23. Auguste Levasseur, Lafayette en Amérique en 1824 et 1825, ou journal d’un voyage aux États-Unis, ornés de douze gravures et d’une carte, vol. 2, Paris, Baudoin, 1829, p. 271. 24. Maximilien de Wied-Neuwied, Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique du Nord exécuté pendant les années 1832, 1833, 1834, 1840, vol. 1, Paris, Arthus Bertrand, 1840, p. 237. 25. Émile Souvestre, Un Mystère en 5 actes et 13 tableaux. Tiré de la légende de St-Guillaume, joué au XVI siècle, en Breton, et arrangé pour la scène par M. Émile SOUVESTRE, représenté, pour la première fois, à Paris, sur le théâtre de l'Ambigu-comique, le 9 janvier 1851, Paris, Doudey-Dupré, s.d. 26. Des linguistes avancent que le français « vide-poche » pourrait expliquer cet équivalent anglais : « English pick-pocket may have been infuenced (…) by French vide-poche "pick-pocket" (literally "empty(V)-pocket"); (…) its V-O structure is unusual in English. » (Alice C. Harris et Lyle. Campbell, Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 209.) 27. Charles Valois, Le Docteur André, Paris, E. Dentu, 1885, p. 17. Écrivain presque oublié aujourd’hui, Charles Valois (1820-1899) fut président de la Société des gens de lettres de France. 28. Histoire Passion. La passion de l’histoire en Saintonge, Aunis et Agoumois. Le Forum Aux Questions. Réponse de Christian, le 18 novembre 2013. http://www.histoirepassion.eu/?FAQ-R-LeForum-Aux-Questions-aux-Reponses. Site consulté le 17 septembre 36 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 2017; Angoulême. Tour de ville 2013. http://www. yumpu.com/fr/document/view/16648593/cap-340-louest-par-lessentiers-de-la-ville-braconne-rando-club-vtt-. Page consultée le 17 septembre 2017. 29. Ateliers pédagogiques du Musée de l’Auditoire, « ArtMoulin [PDF] », Sainte-Suzanne (Mayenne), chez l’auteur, 2002, p. 8. 30. Francine Adam-Villeneuve et Cyrille Felteau, Les Moulins à eau de la vallée du Saint-Laurent, Montréal, Les Éditions de l’homme, 1978, p. 61. 31. Francine Adam-Villeneuve et Cyrille Felteau, Les Moulins à eau…, p. 44. 32. Rapport de Gabriel-Elézar Taschereau, Grand voyer du district de Québec, le 26 août 1797. Cité de façon fortuite dans : Francine Adam-Villeneuve et Cyrille Felteau, Les Moulins à eau…, p. 205. 33. Francine Adam-Villeneuve et Cyrille Felteau, Les Moulins à eau…, p. 177. 34. L’Esprit des journaux... p. 76. 35. On peut penser ici aux Bougon de la série télévisée canadienne du même nom, qui met en scène des « Vuide-Poche » des temps modernes. Diffusée de 2004 à 2006 et relancée en 2017, la production a été créée par François Avard pour la télévision de Radio–Canada. 36. Georges Émile Marquis, « Le vieux grenier », Aux sources canadiennes, Québec, chez l’auteur, 1918, p. 9 ; Marcel Bellavance, La Grande mouvance, Sillery [Québec], Septentrion, 1990, p. 182 ; Alain Laberge, dir., Histoire de la Côte-du-Sud, Québec, Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1993, p. 323. Coll. « Les régions du Québec, n° 4 ». 37. Sonia Pouliot, correspondance privée, 2013. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 37 38. Napoléon Caron, Histoire de la paroisse d'Yamachiche. Précis historique, Trois-Rivières, P.V. Ayotte, 1892, p. 125. Cette explication est paraphrasée avec renvoi à la source dans : PierreGeorges Roy, « Les Rangs ou concessions de Yamachiche », Recherches historiques. Bulletin d’archéologie, d'histoire, de biographie de bibliographie, de numismatique, vol. 31, n°2 (février 1925), p. 50. 39. Jacques Carl Morin, de la Société d’histoire Charlesbourg. Correspondance privée, 2013. de 40. Charles Trudelle, Paroisse de Charlesbourg, Québec, Imprimerie A. Coté, 1887, p. 208. 41. Sylvie Bonneau, réd., Saint-Raphaël. De mémoire, de sable et de rivière, Corporation des fêtes du 150e de Saint-Raphaël, 2001, p. 143. 42. Service de toponymie de la Ville de Québec. L’anecdote est inscrite à l’entrée « côte Bédard » : https://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/ culture_patrimoine/patrimoine/toponymie/repertoire/fiche.aspx?idF iche=9484. Site web consulté le 6 avril 2017. 43. « Le nom Vide-Poche », Bulletin de recherches historiques, vol. 48, n° 11 (novembre 1942), p. 351. 44. Correspondance privée, 2013. Anonymat requis. 45. La banque de données de la Commission de toponymie du Québec signale qu’un ruisseau existe sous ce nom dans la MRC de Bellechasse. L’article n’établit toutefois pas de lien avec le lieu-dit homonyme qui se trouve à proximité : « L'origine de ce nom et, le cas échéant, sa signification n’ont pu être déterminées jusqu’à maintenant » (http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/ct/ToposWeb/ Fiche.aspx?no_seq=65843. Page consultée le 7 septembre 2017.) Le présent article devrait conduite à la mise à jour de l’information. 46. Dwight H. Kelton, Annals of Fort Mackinac, Detroit, Detroit Free Press, 1884, p. 16. 38 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 47. Une consultation tenue les 8 et 9 décembre 2016 auprès du groupe Facebook « Great Lakes French-Canadians & Métis » a permis à l’auteur de tâter l’état du toponyme Vide-Poche à St. Ignace. On y a appris qu’il se maintient et désigne le quartier de cet endroit qu’on connaît autrement sous le nom de « Third Ward ». 48. « The area is still known today by local residents as Vide Poche » dans : « Rendezvous & Tourtière ». http://frenchcanadian atoz.tumblr.com/post/112775275603/vide-poche. Page consultée le 4 mars 2017. 49. Alexis de Tocqueville, Tocqueville au Bas-Canada. Écrits datant de 1831 à 1859 datant de son voyage en Amérique et après son retour en Europe, Montréal, Les Éditions du Jour, 1973, p. 53. Coll. « Bibliothèque québécoise ». 50. Saint-Ignace de Loyola (1491-1556) est le fondateur de l’ordre des jésuites. 51. Alcée Fortier, A History of Louisiana, vol. 1, New York, Goupil, 1903, p. 342. 52. Louis Houck, A History of Missouri, vol. 2, Chicago, R.R. Donnelley, 1908, p. 63-64. 53. Voir p. ex. l’édition classique des journaux de l’expédition de Lewis et Clark réalisée en 1803-1804. Le toponyme « Viele Pauchr [sic] » (il faut ici présumer des erreurs de saisie et lire « VidePouche/Pauche ») apparaît sous la plume de William Clark le 7 décembre 1803, dans : Gary E. Moulton, réd., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online. Houck est cependant invoqué dès : Milo M. Quaife, « Introduction and Notes », The Journals of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway kept on the Expedition of Western Exploration, 1803-1806, Madison, Wisconsin Historical Society, 1916, p. 73-74. 54. John Thomas Scharff, History of St. Louis City and County. From the Earliest Periods, vol. 1, Philadelphia, Louis H. Everts, 1883, p. 77. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 39 55. Le francophile Wilson Primm (1810-1878) descend d’une vieille famille de St. Louis et a contribué à fonder la Missouri Historical Society. 56. John Thomas Scharff, History of St. Louis City…, p. 165. 57. Élisée Reclus, « Le Mississippi. Études et souvenirs », Revue des deux mondes, vol. 22 (1859), Paris, Revue des Deux mondes, p. 265. 58. John Thomas Scharff, History of St. Louis City…, p. 165. 59. Napoléon Caron, Histoire de la paroisse d'Yamachiche. Précis historique, Trois-Rivières, P. V. Ayotte, 1892, p. 125. 60. « Vide Pouche [sic] », Missouri Republican, 17 février 1872. 61. Joseph N. Nicollet, Report intended to illustrate a Map of the Hydrographic Basin of the Upper Mississippi River, Washington, Blair and Rives, 1845, p. 83. Doc. n° 52. L’anecdote est reprise dans : Zebulon Montgomery Pike, The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike. The Headwaters of the Mississippi River, Through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, During the Years 1805-6-7, Elliott Coues, réd., vol. 1, New York, Francis P. Harper, 1895, p. 214-215. 62. En plus des sources telles que Houck, Quaife ou Molton déjà citées, on peut aussi mentionner : Jennifer Louise Turner, From Savagery to Slavery : Upper Louisiana and the American Nation, Madison, University of Wisconsin, Thèse de doctorat, 2008, p. 51, 130 ; Clare D’Artois Leeper, Louisiana Place Names. Popular, Unusual, and Forgotten Stories of Towns, Cities, Plantations, Bayous, and Even Some Cemeteries, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2012, p. 258 ; Jay Gitlin, The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders, and American ExpansionI, New Haven, Yale Uninivesrity Press, 2009, p. 17. 63. Ruth Welty, Place Names of St. Louis And Jefferson County, Columbia, University of Missouri, Mémoire de maîtrise, 1939, 648 p. 40 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 64. « Notes », St. Louis Catholic Historical Review, vol. 2, n° 1 (janvier 1920), p. 30-31. 65. Washington Irving, The Journals of Washington Irving, vol. 3, William P. Trent et George S. Hellman. réd., Boston, The Bibliophile Society, 1919, p. 155. Le récit date de 1826. 66. « Notes »… 67. William E. Foley, The Genesis of Missouri : From Wilderness Outpost to Statehood, Columbia, The University of Missouri Press, 1989, p. 85. 68. On rencontre également la forme « Gesseau ». 69. The Office of Archives and Records, Archdiocese of St. Louis, Lettre du père Roux au père Borgna. De l’embouchure de la Rivière des Kans. 24 9bre 1833. Une copie numérique de cette lettre a été gracieusement obtenue de l’archidiocèse par l’entremise de Sarah Coffey. 70. La publication de cette lettre en anglais dit : « ‘’ I have to economize, […] the new Vide Poche is not any better off than the old one ‘’ » (Gilbert J. Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings in Kansas City, Missouri. A Historical Sketch, Chicago, Loyola University Press, 1920, p. 54.) On constate que Garraghan corrige par « Vide Poche » ce que le père Roux a plutôt écrit (par erreur) « Ville Poche », restauration dont le traducteur s’abstient par ailleurs dans une autre lettre, citée plus loin (note 70). 71. La seconde lettre, adressée à Monseigneur Rosati, peut être trouvée en français dans : Gilbert J. Garraghan, « Selected Letters from the Roux Correspondence (1833-1834) ». The Catholic Historical Review, vol 4, n° 1 (avril 1918), p. 87, 90 (n. 8). Notons au passage que Garraghan attribue au toponyme une origine créole sans égard au passé canadien du Missouri : « Vide Poche (Empty Pocket) was the Creole nickname for Carondelet Village […].» GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 41 72. Voir la plaque « Chez les Canses – Kansas City, Mo » érigée par The Chouteau Society. Missouri Historical Markers. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM76WQ_Chez_les_Can ses_Kansas_City_Mo. Page consultée le 8 septembre 2017. 73. The Metropolitan Catholic Calendar and Laity’s Directory for the Year of our Lord 1834, Baltimore, Fielding Lucas Jr., 1834, p. 96. Source mentionnée dans : Gilbert J. Garraghan, « Selected Letters […] »… 74. Joseph Hurlbut, réd., « Popular Tales. A Legend of Carondelet; Or Fifty Years Ago », The Bouquet. Flowers of Polite Literature; Consisting of Original and Selected Tales, Legends, Essays, Traveling and Historical Sketches, American Biography, General Miscellany, and Poetry, vol. 1, Hartford, Joseph Hurlbut, 1831, p. 33-35. Il est intéressant de noter que dans ce texte les fricatives dentales de l’anglais dans la bouche des habitants sont rendues par les graphies « t » et « d » plutôt que par « s » et « z », c.à-d. « à la canadienne » plutôt qu’« à la française ». 75. Voir : Amos Stoddard, Sketches, historical and descriptive, of Louisiana, Philadelphia, Mathew Carey, 1812, p. 219. 76. Zadok Cramer, The Navigator, Pittsburgh, Carmer, Spear and Eichbaum, 1818, p. 153. 77. George William Featherstonhaugh, Excursion through the Slave States: from Washington on the Potomac, to the Frontier of Mexico, New York, Harper, 1844, p. 65. 78. George William Featherstonhaugh, Report of a Geological Reconnaissance made in 1835 from the Seat of Government by the way of Green Bay and the Wisconsin Territory to the Coteau du Prairie, an Elevated Ridge Dividing the Missouri from the Saint Peters River, Washington, Gales and Seaton, 1836, 188 p. 79. L’équivalent anglais « Vide-Pocher » se trouve également. Voir : John Thomas Scharff, History of St. Louis City…, p. 525. 42 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 80. George William Featherstonhaugh, Excursion through the Slave States … 81. Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation, vol. 2, London, Chapman and Hall, 1842, p. 143-144. 82. "The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "Carondelet or Vide-Poche, Missouri" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1854 - 1857. http://digitalcollections. nypl.org/items/510d47d9-7f49-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. 83. Zadok Cramer, The Navigator…. 84. Élisée Reclus, « Le Mississippi. Études et souvenirs »… 85. Robert Lee Ramsey, Allan Walker Read, Esther Gladys Leach, « Introduction to a Survey of Missouri Place-names », The University of Missouri Studies, A Quartely of Research, vol. 9, n° 1 (1934), p. 45. 86. J. T. Pickettt, « Etymological blunders », Potter's American Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine of History, Literature, Science and Art, vol. 3, Philadelphia, J. E. Potter, 1874, p. 470 ; Robert Luther Duffus, The Santa Fe Trail, Alberquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1972, p. 226. 87. William Clark, Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 61. 88. Voir : Commission de toponymie du Québec… « Paincourt » et ses variations sont des graphies documentées qui ne doivent pas faire illusion quant à l’interprétation de ce surnom historique. 89. Louis Houck, A History of Missouri… 90. Commission de toponymie du Québec… GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 43 91. Fernand Grenier, « Un plagiaire illustre : François Perrin du Lac », Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, vol. 7, n° 2 (septembre 1953), p. 210. Une ironie ressort du fait que Jean-Baptiste Trudeau a habité Vide-Poche et y a terminé sa vie. Son inhumation a lieu à « Carondelet » le 30 janvier 1827. Voir à cet égard : JeanBaptiste Trudeau, Voyage sur le Haut-Missouri 1794-1796, Fernand Grenier et Nilma Saint-Gelais, réd., Québec, Septentrion, 2006, p. 29. 92. François Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux Louisianes, et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri, par les États-Unis, l’Ohio, et les provinces qui le bordent, en 1801, 1802, 1803, Paris, Capelle et Renand, 1805, p. 194. 93. H. Laurent, « Voyage aux Etats-Unis », Nouvelles annales des voyages et des sciences géographiques, tome 1er, Paris, Gide, 1838, p. 278-279. 94. Robert Luther Duffus, The Santa Fe Trail… 95. Winfred Blevins, Give your Heart to the Hawks. A Tribute to Mountain Men, Los Angeles, Nash Publishing, 1973. 96. Winfred Blevins, Give your Heart… 97. André Thibault, correspondance privée, 2013. 98. Alexis de Tocqueville, Quinze jours au désert and Voyage en Sicile, Jean Edmond Mansion, réd., Oxford, Clarendon, 1904, p. 43-44. 99. Correspondance privée, 2016. Cette définition provient de sources que Blevins n’a pas pu retrouver. 100. BAnQ, Cote E2, P305. Fonds Grands voyers. Procès-verbal de Jean-Eustache Lanouillier de Boiscler qui trace et marque un chemin de descente aux habitants des rangs de Vide-Poche et de StAugustin, dans la profondeur de la seigneurie de St-Vallier 44 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) appartenant aux Dames de l'Hôpital général de Québec. 18 octobre 1746 - 21 octobre 1746. 101. Marcel Olscamp, Le jeune Ferron. Genèse d’un écrivain québécois (1921-1949), Montréal, Université McGill, Thèse de doctorat, 1994, p. 43-45. L’auteur en a tiré un livre : Le Fils du notaire. Jacques Ferron 1921-1949. Genèse intellectuelle d’un écrivain, Montréal, Fidès, 1997. 102. Jacques Ferron, « Le Chichemayais », La Conférence inachevée, Pierre Cantin, Matie Ferron et Paul Lewis, réd., Montréal, VLB éditeur, 1987, p. 103. 103. Olscamp reprend l’explication donnée dans : H. Lapalice, « L'origine du nom Vide-Poche », Bulletin des recherches historiques, vol. 14, n° 4 (avril 1908), p. 124-125. 104. Marcel Olscamp, Le jeune Ferron… 105. Ces deux graphies se prononcent différemment en français québécois, avec [i] dans « vie » et [I] dans « vide ». C’est peut-être ce que Ferron entend par « de si près ». Olscamp néglige cette distinction phonétique. 106. Ginette Michaud, « Jacques Ferron au regard des autres. Famille, nation, folie : une double version », Voix et images, vol. 18, n° 3 (printemps 1993), p. 507-536. 107. Geneviève Lafrance, « Au seuil de la mémoire : le récit de naissance dans La Créance de Jacques Ferron », Voix et Images, vol. 24, n°1 (1998), p. 163. 108. Stéphane Inkel, « La voix du fils : le catholicisme au service d’une historicité de la langue dans Le Saint-Élias de Jacques Ferron », Globe : revue internationale d’études québécoises, vol. 10, n°1 (2007), p. 169. GENDREAU-HÉTU, Vide-Poche 45 109. Jean-Paul Desbiens, Je te cherche dès l’aube. Journal 20012202, Montréal, Les Éditions internationales Alain Stanké, 2002, p. 260. 110. À Québec en juin 2017, l’auteur a par exemple entendu quelqu’un dire: « Un char, c’t’un vide-poche ». Ce à quoi l’interlocuteur a répondu : « C’est sûr que ça occasionne toujours des dépenses ». BIBLIOGRAPHIE Adam-Villeneuve, Francine et Cyrille Felteau. Les Moulins à eau de la vallée du Saint-Laurent, Montréal, Les Éditions de l’homme, 1978, 476 p. Angoulême. Tour de ville 2013 : http://www.yumpu.com/fr/document/view/16648593/cap-340-louest-par-les-sentiers-dela-ville-braconne-rando-club-vtt-. [Page consultée le 17 septembre 2017.] Ateliers pédagogiques du Musée de l’Auditoire, « ArtMoulin [PDF] », Sainte-Suzanne (Mayenne), chez l’auteur, 2002, 12 p. BAnQ, Cote E2, P305. Fonds Grands voyers. Procès-verbal de JeanEustache Lanouillier de Boiscler qui trace et marque un chemin de descente aux habitants des rangs de Vide-Poche et de StAugustin, dans la profondeur de la seigneurie de St-Vallier appartenant aux Dames de l'Hôpital général de Québec. 18 octobre 1746 - 21 octobre 1746. Bellavance, Marcel, dir. La Grande mouvance. Sillery [Québec], Septentrion, 1990, 223 p. Blevins, Winfred. Give your Heart to the Hawks. A Tribute to Mountain Men, Los Angeles, Nash Publishing, 1973, 349 p. Boileau, Gilles. « Nouvelles parutions : Le Dictionnaire illustré des noms et lieux du Québec », Histoire Québec, vol. 1, n° 1 (juin 1995), p. 32. Bonneau, Sylvie, réd. Saint-Raphaël. De mémoire, de sable et de rivière, Corporation des fêtes du 150e de Saint-Raphaël, 2001. Bouchette, Joseph. 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The Navigator, Pittsburgh, Carmer, Spear and Eichbaum, 1818, 317 p. Desbiens, Jean-Paul. Je te cherche dès l’aube. Journal 2001-2002, Montréal, Les Éditions internationales Alain Stanké. 2002, 358 p. Desilets, Guy. Souvenirs d’un Grégorien, Trois-Rivières, Éditions du Bien Public, 1997, 290 p. Dessine-moi un dimanche (Invité Henri Dorion) : http://ici.radiocanada.ca/emissions/dessine_moi_un_dimanche/20122013/archives.asp?date=2014-08-03. [Site consulté le 15 mai 2017.] Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation, vol. 2, London, Chapman and Hall, 1842, 826 p. Duffus, Robert Luther. The Santa Fe Trail, s.l., Longman Green, 1930, 283 p.; Alberquerque. University of New Mexico Press, 1972, 295 p. Featherstonhaugh, George William. 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Place Names of St. Louis And Jefferson County. Columbia, University of Missouri, Mémoire de maîtrise, 1939, 648 p. Wied-Zuwied, Maximilien de. Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique du Nord exécuté pendant les années 1832, 1833, 1834, 1840, vol. 1, Paris, Arthus Bertrand, 1840, 383 p. Social Functions of Tonga Nicknames in Zambia Khama Hang’ombe Charton Siantumbu University of Zimbabwe ABSTRACT: Nicknames in many African societies serve important social roles. The coinage of these names is informed by immediate societal needs. Using Speech Act Theory, this study argues that Tonga nicknames perform various illocutionary acts, such as to warn, praise, criticise, encourage, inform and reprimand. These acts foster and promote the sense of togetherness which is the cornerstone of most African societies. The study concludes that through these names, the behaviour of people is shaped and regulated according to society’s expectations. Ultimately, many social problems such as conflict between societal members, poverty, hunger, witchcraft and prostitution are minimised. At the same time, sharing, diligence, decorum, hard work, moral uprightness and a general sense of societal responsibility are encouraged. RÉSUMÉ : Les surnoms dans les sociétés africaines jouent un rôle important en raison de de leur sens qui peut être manipulé de façon à avoir des répercussions sur la société. Les rôles de ces surnoms comprennent, sans toutefois s’y limiter, les aspects sociaux, politiques, culturels et religieux relativement à la société. Parmi les personnes appartenant au groupe ethnique des Tonga, les fonctions sociales des surnoms n’ont pas fait l’objet d’études suffisantes. Ces noms jouent des rôles sociaux de façon si judicieuse que la société des Tonga, grâce à ces noms, est informée et avertie au sujet de phénomènes sociétaux de © ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018): 53-69 54 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) grande ampleur. Le présent article dévoile ces fonctions et avance que les surnoms des Tonga sont des actes de langage dont les actes illocutoires forgent cette société. Les données ont été recueillies grâce à des entrevues en profondeur partiellement structurées réalisées auprès de 22 informateurs clés d’un district rural d’une province dans le sud de la Zambie, et qui comprenaient des adultes et des jeunes. La raison derrière le choix d’une population rurale est que l’on obtient ainsi une véritable représentation de surnoms dans un contexte naturel par opposition à un milieu urbain. Grâce à la théorie des actes de langage, nous montrons dans le présent article que les surnoms des Tonga jouent divers actes illocutoires comme ceux notamment d’avertir, de louanger, de critiquer, d’encourager, d’informer et de réprimander. En guise de conclusion, les surnoms sont utiles à cet égard, car ils ne sont pas immunisés contre la manipulation en situation de création ou d’usage. 1. Introduction The Tonga speaking people are found in Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Zambia, they are found in nearly all the districts in Southern Province and in some districts in Central Province. In Zimbabwe, they are found along the Zambezi Valley. This study concentrates on the Tonga people found in Choma District in Southern Province in Zambia. A survey of the available literature on nicknames used in African societies shows that nicknames perform significant social roles. Mashiri (2004:31), for example, argues that nicknames are tools for social solidarity among the Shona people. Mashiri notes that street children use nicknames to protect their areas from other groups of street children in Harare, Zimbabwe. Literature on nicknames also shows that these names can be used to express endearment and social cohesion (Mashiri 1999:102; Hang’ombe 2015:104). This suggests that nicknames strengthen social ties in society. Nicknames are often used to express one’s dislike towards another person’s attitude or behaviour, or they may simply be used to provide a form of ridicule and repressed antagonism (Turner HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 55 1992). Since these names can be used to express dislike towards another person, it means that most of them have negative connotations. In addition to negative nicknames, Mashiri (2004) and Hang’ombe (2015) identify positive nicknames. These are nicknames with a positive connotation. Other studies that argue for a symbiotic relationship between nicknames and the day-to-day life of a society include de Klerk and Bosch (1996), Koopman (2002), and Molefe (1999). All these studies point out that the meaning of nicknames in a particular society reflects the various socio-cultural, socio-economic and sociopolitical norms of that society. With reference to the Tonga people in Zambia, a study which systematically unravels the social roles of nicknames is yet to be found. Hang’ombe (2015) focuses on the morphology and semantics of the nicknames and does not directly address the social functions of these names. The present study contributes to the subject of African nicknames by addressing the social roles of Tonga nicknames. This paper shows the contexts and situations which trigger the need for a nickname alongside the prevailing first name of an individual. This study also examines the use of the nicknames, when they are used, who uses them, and how they are used. The paper does not provide an exhaustive list of Tonga nicknames, but it does provide a comprehensive examination of the key social functions of the nicknames. 1.1. Definitions In this section we provide basic definitions of the following concepts pertaining to this study: nickname, positive nicknames, and negative nicknames. 1.1.1. Nickname The English word nickname is from the Middle English “an eke name” which means “another name” (McDowell 1981:1). What this implies is that there are forms of names other than nicknames. Among the Tonga people, as is the case with many ethnic communities throughout the world, an individual carries a first name, 56 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) surname, and other forms of names (Hang’ombe 2015:30). According to Koopman (2002), African nicknames are used to express humour or ridicule and to show familiarity in any society in which they exist. The present paper is committed to unveiling some of these roles using the case of Tonga nicknames. 1.1.2. Positive Nickname Positive nicknames are those nicknames with laudatory connotations. Such names may perform one or more of the following examples of illocutionary acts: praise, encourage, recognise and endorse (Mashiri 2004). Due to their positive connotation, positive nicknames can be used within ear-shot of the bearer, generally without any ill-feelings by the bearer. Since these nicknames can be used in the presence of the bearer, they qualify to be regarded as public nicknames (see Holland 1990:263). 1.1.3. Negative Nicknames Negative nicknames have derogatory connotations and are meant to criticise, reprimand, discourage and warn, among many other illocutionary acts. Unlike positive nicknames, these nicknames are not usually used within ear-shot of the bearer because they tend to be highly derogatory and disapproving. In this study we use the concept of negative nicknames synonymously with private nicknames because they are rarely used in the presence of the bearer. 2. Methodology The study employed qualitative research methods in both data collection and analysis. Qualitative research methods are useful in collecting and analysing cultural-specific information relating to values, opinions and social contexts of a specific society (Mack et al 2005:1). The study was carried out in Mbabala, a rural place north of Choma town in southern Zambia. Data were collected over a period of three months using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation. There were twenty-two key informants who included two village headmen, ten adults aged between forty and fifty years, and ten youths aged between twenty HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 57 and thirty years. The reason for interviewing traditional leaders, ordinary elderly women and men, and youths is because these names are used across different generations and social strata amongst the Tonga people. Involving older and younger participants and people in leadership or influential positions as well as ordinary people allowed the study to extract and unravel the social functions of the nicknames across these various generations and social strata. During interviews and discussions, the researchers sought to know the nicknames used in this society, the kind of character which attracts the nicknames and the way they are given as well as how they are used. Two focus group discussions were held, one with adults and the other with the youths. The interviews and discussions were recorded. Recording was done with consent from participants. 3. Theoretical perspective 3.1. Speech Act Theory Speech Act Theory was propounded by Searle (1969) and further developed by Austin (1975). This theory holds that language is a kind of action rather than just a means of expression. According to this theory, people not only use language to state things but also to do things (Searle 1969). Speech Act Theory can be analysed at three levels: a locutionary act, an illocutionary act and a perlocutionary act. In this study we use the second level to demonstrate that Tonga nicknames are not ordinary names; rather, they are an illocutionary act. We use Searle and Vanderveken’s definition of an illocutionary act (1985:1) as a minimal speech act of human communication such as statements, praise, criticism, warnings, and commands among others. Within this framework, it is posited that when someone uses a nickname in a given context, he or she performs one or more such acts. The present study uses this theory to illustrate the social roles that nicknames perform among the Tonga people. The study notes that each nickname is a response to the bearer’s behaviour in society among the Tonga people. The response itself is an illocutionary act directed to the bearer, society or both. 58 4. ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Data presentation and discussion The focus of this section is on the two types of nicknames (positive and negative nicknames) used by the Tonga people. The functions of these names are presented and discussed with an understanding that the names themselves are illocutionary acts. 4.1. Nicknames used by the Tonga people in Zambia The study found that there are two types of nicknames among the Tonga people: positive nicknames (consistent with Mashiri 2004:27) and negative nicknames. In line with Mashiri (2004:27-37), positive nicknames among the Tonga people can either be self-given, as selfpraise, or be given by other community members. On the other hand, negative ones are imposed on the bearer by community members. Data also showed that negative nicknames are usually critical of a certain attribute of the bearer. The study also noted that Tonga nicknames are a narrative of the bearer. This finding is in line with Kahari’s view that nicknames sum up the bearer’s character (1990:283). The nicknames reflect the way of life of the bearer. From these nicknames, users can tell whether the bearer is a hard-worker or lazy, a prostitute/sex worker, a witch or wizard, stingy, brave or rich, and so on. Some of these traits, especially negative ones, can be ephemeral. Correspondingly, the nicknames that address such traits tend to be ephemeral. This finding supports Phillips’s (1990:281) and de Klerk’s (2002:148) observation that nicknames are transitory in nature. On the other hand, the study noted that positive nicknames in Tonga society have a longer life-span, with most of them evolving into surnames. This is more pronounced in nicknames which express fondness as found in the examples under (4.1.2.2). 4.1.1. Negative nicknames We now present examples of negative nicknames according to the trait which evokes them. The study noted that nicknames in this category are short-lived, hence they never evolve into surnames. HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 59 4.1.1.1. Nicknames for wizards and witches These are nicknames given to people who are believed to be wizards and witches. Through these nicknames the community is made aware of the danger that the bearer poses to society; for instance, a nickname may indicate a person’s ability to kill or cause harm through witchcraft. The Tonga people believe that witches and wizards are of various kinds: there are those who are known or believed to kill, while others are known to inflict emotional and/or physical pain such as barrenness, taking away someone’s luck, and having sex with someone who is asleep, using magical powers. Others are believed to do both. Some of the nicknames given to wizards and witches are discussed below: i. Cekwecekwe This is a name of fish species found in the streams and dams in Mbabala area. This fish is dreaded by fishermen because it is capable of erecting its fins and injecting them into the human body when the fish is in contact with a person. Some people believe that the fish has some measure of venom. Due to the belief that the fish is venomous, most people do not eat it. The fish is, however, believed to be sought after by people who practice witchcraft for use in their charms to harm others. Participants, both the adults and the youths, indicated that the nickname was common among old people, especially old men. According to participants, there were not less than ten people who had or have earned this name over a period of ten years. Nearly all these people are old men. ii. Kajubamazuba This nickname is a compound name. It is made up the verb juba “cut” and mazuba “days” to which the nominalizer ka “one who” is prefixed. Literally, the name means “one who cuts days.” The name is used to refer to a person who is believed to use charm to kill others. Once someone knows that a particular individual is addressed by this nickname, they tend to avoid any possible confrontation with that 60 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) individual. Even if the name is private, the bearer gets to know about it in one way or the other. Participants in the study indicated that once the bearer gets to know about the nickname, he or she either stops the act of witchcraft or minimises it. iii. Minyengwe Minyengwe is the Tonga name for a snake known as Mamba. A Mamba is a black or green poisonous snake found in many parts of Africa. The Tonga people in the research area believe that if one is bitten by this snake, one should be treated in the bush and should not go home because if he or she sees the roof of a house, he or she will die. People who are given this nickname are those who are believed to use charm to harm and/or kill others. The nickname is also given to people who cause mayhem to society through gossip or spreading false information about others. When near or dealing with issues involving the bearer of this nickname, community members are extremely cautious and avoid any form of conflict with him or her. According to some participants, some members of this society totally avoid meeting or dealing with such a person in any way as a safety measure. On the other hand, knowledge of this name by the bearer quickly forces him or her to check his or her life and change for the better in line with the expectations of society. iv. Nyeleti Nyeleti is the Tonga name for any form of needle. By bestowing this name, the bestower aims to make known the fact that the bearer, just like the needle, is dangerous if not well handled. According to participants people who are given this name are those who, for example, want to be treated in a nice way even when it is not necessary. For example, they want to be given unnecessary recognition during meetings or communal gatherings. Generally, such people get away with it; they receive favours from community members who fear that if they do not give special attention to the bearer, they risk being bewitched. HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames v. 61 Kaumuzya The nickname Kaumuzya is derived from the verb umuzya “make silent.” It is given to people who can use witchcraft powers to ‘silence’ or kill their opponents. Community members avoid conflict with bearers of such names for fear of being bewitched. 4.1.1.2. Nicknames for prostitutes/sex workers Names in this category have derogatory overtones. They describe the bearers in such negative ways that finding a marriage partner for them may be extremely difficult. It was observed that nicknames in this category are predominantly given to females. vi. Mutobelanjanji This nickname is made up of the verb tobele “follow” and the noun njanji “rail line” to which a nomilizer mu “one who” is prefixed. It literally means “one who follows the rail line.” Among the Tonga people, the word njanji connotes town or urban areas; for example, one often hears old men and women saying bali munjanji... meaning “those that live in town...” The nickname Mutobelanjanji is given to women who move from town-to-town with the aim of making money through prostitution. The nickname is enough warning to men who may have intentions to marry such a woman. vii. Cisombabeendeenda The name Cisombabeendeenda is made up of the verb somba “serve (food)” and the noun beendeenda “those that are in transit.” The verb somba is used in relation to food; thus, to “somba” is to give food. The nickname Cisombabeendeenda is used to refer to those women who are considered sexually loose. It is meant to describe the sexual looseness of the bearer for all community members to know. The referent of this name, just like all other nicknames in this category, is not respected in this community. Other names similar to Cisombabeendeenda are Mukabolombe “one married to many men,” Najempa “one who moves from place to place,” Malala-lala “one who sleeps anyhow/anywhere,” and 62 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Nkukwe/Ndala “left-over food.” All these names connote or are used to refer to women who are considered sexually immoral. Participants made it clear that any woman addressed by any such name rarely gets married. The study also observed that of all negative nicknames, names in this category are more damaging because the tag of prostitution keeps haunting the bearer even when she stops prostitution. It therefore seems prostitution or sexual looseness is an unforgivable, unforgettable, and more serious offence among the people in the research area in comparison to, for instance, witchcraft, which is capable of claiming lives of people. 4.1.1.3. Nicknames for stingy people Tonga society advocates for communality, togetherness and sharing. For example, the Tonga people, like many other Southern African groups, practice Ubuntu (you are because I am, I am because you are). Ubuntu is an African social philosophy which encourages reciprocal connectedness, assistance, caring, sharing and responsibility in society (Mandova & Chingombe 2013:100; Muwati 2015:33). The Tonga term expressing societal connectedness, communality, togetherness, and sharing is Buntu. Buntu is the cornerstone for the Tonga society; its presence entails success in any endeavour whereas the lack of it in community life spells out failure and doom on the community members individually and severally. As such any community member who does not live up to precepts of Buntu is criticised using names in this category, which are very derogatory and disapproving. Most of the nicknames in this category are given to men, reflecting that men are more expected to share, provide and to have a sense of communality than women. Examples of nicknames in this category are as follows. viii. Kumamanya The Tonga word Kumamanya means “to be stingy.” People in the research area conceive of kumamanya as unwillingness to give out food, money, and clothes to the needy community members. The nickname is meant to criticise the bearer for not living-up to the HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 63 expectations of the community. ix. Mucelemba Mucelemba literally means the person who plucks/collects (fruits) for the belly. The nickname is used to describe a person who does not share with his family and/or community members as expected. The name is critical of the selfishness the bearer exhibits against the norms of society, including Buntu. x. Hamalijikila The nickname Hamalijikila is derived from the verb jika “cook.” It is given to a man who likes cooking for himself. The man can either be married or single. For single men, the name is also meant to taunt them, thereby ‘forcing’ them to marry. In the research area, men are not expected to cook for themselves. If a married man is fond of checking the cooking pots, he can be considered greedy hence can be given this name as an (illocutionary) act of telling him to desist from doing so. So, bearers of this name may not actually cook for themselves; merely frequenting the kitchen to inspect the cooking pots can attract the name. The understanding among the participants in the study is that men should never meddle in cooking affairs; hence as a ward-off mechanism, men who disobey this norm are given this nickname. The role of a man is simply to provide food which he hands over to women for cooking (so the role of a man in food affairs ceases once he has handed over the food to women who then handle it up until the food is put on the table ready for a meal). The general understanding is that men who inspect cooking pots and those who cook for themselves are greedy. The other versions of this name are Sikapika “one fond of pots,” Hamagabba “one fond of cooking utensils,” and Hampoto “one fond of pots.” xi. Haacivwulemwangu This nickname literally means one who wants his/her share to be big. It criticises the selfishness and the inability to share with other community members. In this name there is the verb vwula “be more” and the demonstrative pronoun mwangu “mine.” 64 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 4.1.1.4. Nicknames for thieves Nicknames in this category are given to bearers to warn community members of the danger the bearer poses to property. Participants indicated that such names are meant to make community members aware that the bearer is a thief. In the community where the study was carried out, participants were only aware of one person with a nickname fitting in this category. They indicated that thieves are usually few because they are arrested and taken to jail once caught. As a result, there were very few names in this category; in fact, only three names were identified. xii. Kanyamuna The nickname means one who takes derived from the verb nyamuna “take/lift.” It is given to thieves. Other names in this category include Habweza-bweza “one who takes/picks,” Simaanzamalamfwu “one with long arms.” 4.1.2. Positive nicknames As noted earlier, positive nicknames may be self-given or be given by community members to celebrate, acknowledge, or praise a certain attribute that the bearer possesses. 4.1.2.1. Nicknames that praise bravery and hard work While there are many hard-working, brave, and courageous people in the community under study, there are few of them that are extra-ordinarily hard-working, brave, and courageous. Correspondingly, nicknames in this category are few. xiii. Mulalapondo This nickname is given to a brave person. It is made up of the verb lala “sleep” and the noun pondo “a shrub.” Mainly, shrubs are a habitat of dangerous and vicious animals and snakes. As such, many people fear to patronise shrubs. It takes very rare courage for HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 65 someone to draw near a shrub, more so to sleep in it. The name is meant to praise the bearer for courage and bravery. It is given to members of society who have done or do certain high-risk undertakings. Participants gave an example of a man who was nicknamed Mulalapondo after he rescued a woman from the jaws of a crocodile. This woman, his young sister, was caught by a crocodile as she was drawing water from Mbabala River. As soon as Mulalapondo, who was working in his garden, saw that the creature had swept his sister into the water, he ran with a spear and dived into the water. Fortunately, the first time the crocodile hit the woman with its tail, she did not fall into the water but lay by the edge of the river clutching onto the reeds. The crocodile hit her with the tail and managed to get her in the water and clamped her into its jaws. By the time the crocodile started swimming away for its meal, Mulalapondo was already close to the scene and in time to dive into the water. While swimming in chase of the crocodile, he managed to thrust the spear into its tail several times. It eventually let go of the woman. The woman was helpless by then but Mulalapondo was already near enough to swim her to safety to the shore. From that time onward, according to participants, this man has been known as Mulalapondo. xiv. Shimbi-lombe The name is derived from two nouns shimbi “huge girl/woman” and dombe “huge boy/man.” The nickname is given to strong and hardworking women as praise, endorsement, and recognition of their superior strength. Women who are given this name have the ability to do things or to work like men. In fact, participants indicated that such women are more productive and hard-workers than some men. Unfortunately, due to their ability to compete with men in various aspects of life and out-performing some of the men, these women are considered not ideal women for marriage; hence they rarely get married. If they get married, participants suggested their chances of divorce would be higher than others. An ideal woman for marriage in this society is one who does not have the ability to compete with a man in all aspects of life, one who will wait for the husband to provide for her and to protect her. Shimbi-lombe is the direct opposite of such a woman. 66 xv. ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Mweelanyika The nickname, Mweelanyika, means one who fits wherever he or she goes in the world. It is common among traditional healers and extraordinarily strong people. Traditional healers are given this name because they are feared by most people because of their perceived magical powers. 4.1.2.2. Nicknames that denote possession and/or fondness It appears that a vast majority of positive nicknames fall into this category. Participants indicated that most of the nicknames in this category have evolved into surnames. It was also noted that a vast majority, if not all, of the names in this category are male nicknames. We recommend a further study which accounts for the evolution of such nicknames into surnames. xvi. Hampongo The name Hampongo is given to someone who owns lots of goats. It is derived from the noun mpongo “goat.” Other names of this nature include Hang’ombe “one found of cattle,” derived from the noun ng’ombe “cattle,” Hamukoka “one fond of the Mukoka tree,” Halumamba/Hankondo “one who fights/works hard in life,” Machila “one fond of tails (of animals),” given to someone who keeps or looks after cattle, and Hangoma “one who is good at beating the drums.” Others include Mutoloki “one who likes interpreting (an interpreter),” Simasyiko “one who loves fishing using fishing baskets,” Hacimbwali “one fond of or one who grows lots of sweet potatoes,” Cilima “one who cultivates many fields,” and Hamasuku “one fond of masuku fruits.” Among these names are also names like Haazibulo “one who owns several cars or a metal worker” from the noun zibulo “metal,” Hamusonda “one who loves to consult witch doctors,” Haamilandu “one who always has cases/problems,” and Hamalo “one fond of beds/one who makes beds.” Names in this category are endless, since all nicknames that a person can be given due to possession or fondness of specific things fall in this category. HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 4.2. 67 Constraint in nickname use The study noted that the Tonga people do not use nicknames haphazardly; there are unconventional but rigid rules that govern the use of these names. This is more so with negative nicknames. Users know when and why to use a nickname. This is because these names are actually speech acts meant to perform certain illocutionary acts as the social situation may demand. It should be noted that these are additional names, not alternative ones, for individuals. As such, it is crucial to know when and when not to use a nickname in addressing or referring to an individual. It was found that negative nicknames are used in the absence of the bearer, except in cases where the user has a joking relationship licence (such as cousinship) or where the user has the advantage of being a peer. Failure to do so can bring serious conflict. This is because these names are highly derogatory. On the other hand, positive nickname use carries (or exhibits) no serious constraints. People younger than the bearer of the nickname may be constrained from using the nickname. However, in many cases this limitation is negotiable. The constrained user simply prefixes the honorific prefix ba- to the nicknames just like one would do for the formal names. For example, a young person addressing an adult nicknamed Mulalapondo would say ba Mulalapondo. However, it is important to indicate that names of children (for example bausyi ... or bina .... “father of ... or mother of....”) are usually used when people address each other in this community. A nickname is only employed when and if the user wants to communicate some social message or intends some illocutionary act such as to rebuke, warn, praise, reprimand, criticise, and endorse. Without such intentions, “father of...” and “mother of...” forms of address are used for adults who have children. 5. Conclusions Among the Tonga people, nicknames are preferred as problemsolving tools because they are soft problem solvers. Using nicknames in solving social problems does not bring about conflict in society as solving the problems using formal dialogue (or direct confrontation) would do. As such, nicknames maintain healthy relationships in society even amidst problems. Such a relationship is 68 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) invaluable to the Tonga society which believes in and depends on social cohesion to over-come hurdles in life. Armah (2006:234) emphasises this cohesion in African societies: “Everything going on in the world today tells us there is life in unity, death in division and disunity.” This study reveals that without such unity, Tonga society can fall apart. Basing the argument on the nicknames discussed in the study, it can be concluded that African nicknames have the capability to keep society united because they stop or minimise perceived societal problems such as witchcraft, prostitution, and laziness, among others. REFERENCES Armah, Ayi K. 2006. The Eloquence of the Scribes: A Memoir on the Sources and Resources of African Literature. Popenguine: Ankh. Austin, John L. 1975. How to Do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Klerk, Vivian. 2002. “Xhosa Nicknames for Whites: A Doubleedged Sword.” Nomina Africana 16 (1&2):146-179. de Klerk, Vivian and B. Bosch. 1996. “Nicknames as sex-role stereotypes.” Sex Roles 35(9-10):525-541. Hang’ombe, Khama. 2015. Morphology and Semantics of Tonga Anthroponyms: A Case of Tonga Given Names and Nicknames. MA Dissertation. UNZA Library (Unpublished). Holland, J. Theodore. 1990. “The many faces of nicknames.” Names 38:255-272. Kahari George. P. 1990. The Rise of the Shona Novel. A Study in Development, 1890-1984. Gweru: Mambo Press. Koopman, Adrian. 2002. Zulu Names. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press: South Africa. Mack, Natasha, Cynthia Woodsong, Kathleen Macqueen, Greg M. Guest and Emily Namey. 2005. Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector’s Field Guide. USA: Family Health International. Mandova, Evans and Agrippa Chingombe. 2013. “The Shona Proverb as an Expression of Unhu/Ubuntu.” International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development 2(1):100-108. HANG’OMBE & SIANTUMBU, Tonga Nicknames 69 Mashiri, Pedzisai. 1999. “Terms of Address in Shona: A Sociolinguistic Approach.” Zambezia XXVI(i):93-110. ---. 2004. “More than Mere Linguistic Tricks: The Sociopragmatic Functions of Some Nicknames Used by Shona-speaking People in Harare.” Zambezia XXXI (i/ii):22-45. McDowell, John H. 1981. “Toward a Semiotics of Nicknaming the Kamsá Example.” Journal of American Folklore 94(371):1-18. Molefe, Lawrence. 1999. Onomastic Aspects of Zulu Nicknames with Special Reference to Source and Functionality. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Pretoria: University of South Africa. Muwati, Itai. 2015. “Negotiating space, voice and recognition: An analysis of the ‘District Song’ of the Tonga people of Binga, Zimbabwe.” Muziki 12(2):22- 36. Phillips, Betty S. 1990. “Nicknames and Sex Role Stereotypes.” Sex Roles 23 (5/6):281-289. Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John and Daniel Vanderveken. 1985. Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. London: Cambridge University Press. Turner, Noleen S. 1992. “Zulu Names as Echoes of Censure, Discontent and Disapproval within the Domestic Environment.” Nomina African, 6 (2):42-56. Nazareth Chornyak: An Unlikely Messiah Donna L. Lillian Appalachian State University ABSTRACT: Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue (1984) is the first book in a dystopian science fiction trilogy set in a future in which the government has rescinded the rights of women. Personal names are typically gendered, but the protagonist, Nazareth Chornyak, stands out as having a name that is arguably both androgynous and prophetic and that has its origins as a place name. Furthermore, while there are several possible etymologies of this biblical place name, each carrying its own set of meanings, the strongest association the name has is with Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Christianity. This paper explores the range of meanings associated with the name Nazareth and demonstrates how Nazareth Chornyak embodies each of them, but most importantly that of being a messiah. The character Nazareth, despite her off-putting personal attributes, fills a messianic role within the novels, thereby living up to her auspicious name. RÉSUMÉ: Native Tongue (1984) de Suzette Haden Elgin est le premier livre d’une trilogie dystopique et futuriste dans laquelle le gouvernement a révoqué les droits des femmes. Les prénoms sont pour la plupart genrés, mais la protagoniste, Nazareth Chornyak, se différencie par un prénom androgène, prophsétique, et qui est à l’origine un nom de lieu. De plus, bien que ce nom de lieu biblique ait plusieurs étymologies possibles, chacune avec ses propres significations, le nom est le plus étroitement lié à Jésus de Nazareth, le Messie du christianisme. Cet © ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018): 71-95 72 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) article explore l’éventail de significations liées au nom de Nazareth et démontre comment Nazareth Chornyak incarne chacune d’elles, notamment celle du messie. Le personnage de Nazareth, malgré son tempérament peu amène, joue le rôle d’un messie dans les trois romans et est ainsi à la hauteur de son prénom de bon augure. Introduction Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue (1984) is the first book in a dystopian science fiction trilogy set in a future in which the government of the United States of Earth has rescinded the rights of women. Personal names are typically gendered, but the protagonist, Nazareth Chornyak, stands out as having a name that is arguably both androgynous and prophetic and that has its origins as a place name. Furthermore, while there are several possible etymologies of this biblical place name, each carrying its own set of meanings, the strongest association the name has is with Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Christianity. This paper explores the range of meanings associated with the name Nazareth and demonstrates how Nazareth Chornyak embodies each of them, but most importantly that of being a messiah. The character Nazareth, despite her off-putting personal attributes, fills a messianic role within the novels, thereby living up to her auspicious name. Literary Onomastics Often overlooked by literary scholars, onomastic analysis can provide insights that deepen and enhance our understanding and appreciation of imaginative literature. As Frank Nuessel points out, “[a]n artist’s naming of his or her characters frequently involves calculated and conscious choices in order to deliver a message through the onomastic medium. Creative writers give names to their characters to send messages to prospective readers” (1992: 39). The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (2016) includes five essays under the heading of literary onomastics, illustrating both the theoretical foundations of the field and its breadth. In his essay on language-based approaches to names in literature, Paul Cavill LILLIAN, Nazareth 73 characterizes literary onomastics as being a relatively recent discipline (2016: 355); however, there is, in fact, a substantial body of work in the field dating back well into the mid 20th century (cf. Childers 1955, Gerus-Tarnawecky 1968, Harder 1955, Hollis 1957, Kellogg 1955, Krueger 1966, Malone 1957, Maurer 1963, Starnes 1955, among others). Grant W. Smith’s essay in the collection seeks to deepen the theoretical foundation of literary onomastics and calls for thorough and systematic analyses of literary naming (309). Bertie Neethling’s essay exemplifies the breadth of subject-matter appropriate for literary onomastics through his analysis of names in two popular songs, one by Billy Joel and one by Christopher Torr, noting that since song lyrics are poetry, they fall within the scope of literary onomastics (325). Karina Van Dalen-Oskam explores the emerging field of corpus-based approaches to names in literature, positing that it will be in combining corpus-based research with close reading that researchers will have the greatest impact (354). Finally, Birgit Falck-Kjällquist lists the following in her genre-based overview of work in literary onomastics: the English novel of the nineteenth century, contemporary detective fiction, derivative literature (fan fiction), comics, fantasy literature, drama, cinema films, poetry, and parodies. Science fiction is not included in Falck-Kjällquist’s list, perhaps because that genre is sometimes conflated with fantasy, but there is a body of onomastic scholarship that encompasses both fantasy and science fiction. In an early paper on names in science fiction, John R. Krueger writes: “The allied genre labelled ‘fantasy,’ and by many editors and writers set check-by-jowl with s-f [science fiction], is often hardly to be distinguished from it” (1966: 204). John Algeo characterizes science fiction as “usually set in a high-tech, futuristic version of the world we know, but modified in some significant way,” and fantasy as typically having “a low-tech, medieval setting that is clearly no simple variation on the earth we know; it is a secondary creation (to use J. R. R. Tolkien’s useful term) which is inhabited by legendary creatures like dragons and in which magic works about as well as computer-programming does among us” (1982: 60). Algeo cites Ursula K. Le Guin as an accomplished contemporary writer of both genres (1982: 60) and explores her use of magic names. Walter E. Meyers (1977) and Christopher L. Robinson 74 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) (2011) likewise explore Le Guin’s onomastic prowess, and Robinson delves also into the names in Tolkien’s Middle-earth (2013). Not surprisingly, given the popularity of the Harry Potter novels, J. K. Rowling’s name craft has been studied in depth by Alleen Pace Nilsen and Don L. F. Nilsen (2005 & 2009). My own recent work has investigated naming in Suzette Haden Elgin’s Ozark trilogy, which arguably crosses over Algeo’s distinction between science fiction and fantasy, combining futuristic space travel with a heavy dose of magic (see Lillian 2015 & 2016). While not exhaustive, this summary establishes that onomastic studies of fantasy and science fiction are as mainstream, if not yet as numerous, as studies of more traditional literary genres. Nevertheless, in spite of there being a considerable body of scholarship on other aspects of Elgin’s Native Tongue trilogy, there has never been an investigation of naming in that series, a void which the present paper begins to address. Scholarship on Elgin Scholarship on Native Tongue has tended to focus either on the novel as a feminist dystopia or conversely, on the utopian possibilities of Láadan, the language Elgin created both for the novel and as a real-world experiment. Focusing on Native Tongue as dystopia, Sema Kormali (1996) explores the genre of feminist science fiction through an examination of three feminist dystopias: Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, and Elgin’s Native Tongue (1984). While Kormali notes the centrality of language in the construction of these fictional worlds, her concern is more with illustrating a trend within the genre than with analyzing any of the novels in detail. In contrast, Patricia Gillikin (2008) focusses not on the dystopian aspects of Native Tongue, but on its utopian aspirations, derived from the women’s language, Láadan. Specifically, Gillikin compares the utopian aspirations of Helene Cixous’s “écriture feminine,” as outlined in her “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1980), Mary Daly’s feminist word creation in Gyn/Ecology (1990), and Elgin’s Láadan, created for and featured in Native Tongue, finding them all to be wildly impractical (Gillikin 2008: 42). Furthermore, Gillikin finds Láadan to be inadequate, noting that the language essentializes women, associates women too strongly with emotions and relationships, and contains an imbalance LILLIAN, Nazareth 75 of words with negative associations (45). While she is skeptical of the utopian aspirations of these three authors, Gillikin nevertheless acknowledges that they serve a role in highlighting the kinds of patriarchal assumptions embedded in the English language (46). Also utilizing the comparative method of analysis, Ildney Cavalcanti (2000) includes Lisa Tuttle’s short story “The Cure” (1987) and Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale (1985) alongside Elgin’s Native Tongue and The Judas Rose in what she characterizes as “utopias of and off language” (153). Cavalcanti argues, in contrast with David Sisk, who believes that language is a necessary element of literary dystopias (Sisk 1997: 174), that “language often, rather than always, surfaces in the literary dystopias as a key element in the construction of narrative conflict (Cavalcanti 2000: 173-174, italics in the original). Like Kormali and Gillikin, Cavalcanti is more concerned with the utopian/dystopian genres in which Native Tongue is situated than with its characters or the specifics of the Láadan language itself. A second set of articles pays closer attention to the linguistics of the novel, citing the theory of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, in their analysis of the utopian possibilities posited by Elgin in Native Tongue and its sequels. As one of the first scholars to write about Native Tongue, Mary Kay Bray points out that, “[t]he notion that language has the power to alter culture and society is called to the reader’s attention again and again, each time emphasizing the idea that language shapes perception and that perception is the basis of reality” (1986: 58). Bray emphasizes the inescapability of the metalinguistic aspects of the text. Indeed, Elgin herself is candid about her purpose in communicating her version of linguistic relativity through science fiction rather through another medium, positing, on the one hand, that even if she had the professional clout to have an academic paper published on the subject, it would be read only by a very small number of professional linguists and, on the other hand, that she lacked the skill to disseminate the ideas through popular magazines that might reach the general public. “So I decided to do it as a science fiction novel and the novel would take up the hypothesis that the Sapir-Whorf 76 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) hypothesis is true in its weak form, which means that language does become a mechanism for social change” (Elgin 1987b: 178). Writing five years after Bray, Kristine Anderson (1991) builds on Bray’s analysis of the metalinguistic character of Native Tongue and its reliance on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, discussing its ideological role in Native Tongue and The Judas Rose. Unlike Bray, who sees Láadan as an effort to create a utopia for the women in the novels, Anderson describes Láadan as “more of an escape route from dystopia than a tool for utopia-building” (98). Karen Bruce (2008) explores Láadan and its role as a potentially subversive language in greater detail than her predecessors, utilizing both the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Gödel’s First Theorem of Incompleteness, the latter having also been cited by Elgin as influencing her own thinking when she conceived the story world of Native Tongue (Elgin 1987b: 177). Bruce concludes that even if Láadan did not succeed, either in its fictional world or in the ‘real’ world, it nevertheless furnished us with a lens though which we might perceive some of the inadequacies of the English language (67). Analyses of Native Tongue, as I have illustrated, have tended to focus either on how the novels function within the genre of (feminist) dystopia or on the relationship between the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the Native Tongue novels, and the created language, Láadan. Despite the acknowledgement by all these authors of the centrality of language in the novels, no one has yet written about Elgin’s use of names in these novels. While the analysis that follows considers only one name in Native Tongue, it at least begins to address the void in onomastic scholarship on that trilogy. Elgin’s Native Tongue Suzette Haden Elgin (November 18, 1936 – January 27, 2015) was an accomplished linguist, poet, and author of both fiction and non-fiction. She is, perhaps, best known to the wider public through her Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series, the first book of which came out in 1980. Wikipedia lists 23 titles in that series, including the 2009 revised edition of the original Gentle Art of Verbal SelfDefense. In addition to numerous poems, songs, and short stories, LILLIAN, Nazareth 77 Elgin wrote three fiction series: the Coyote Jones series, the Ozark trilogy, and the Native Tongue trilogy, the latter consisting of Native Tongue (1984), The Judas Rose (1987a), and Earth Song (1993)1. Elgin’s feminism as well as her profound knowledge of linguistics is reflected in her stories, and Native Tongue and its sequels are usually classified as feminist science fiction. Native Tongue never achieved best-seller status, but from its first publication, the book and its sequels garnered a loyal following among both feminist linguists and science fiction readers. Native Tongue is set in the United States of Earth in the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries2. In this fictional universe, humans have achieved interstellar travel, and earth’s economy has become completely dependent upon trade with aliens from other planets. In order to learn the aliens’ languages, linguists have established a system of interfacing human infants with aliens of different species to immerse the human infants in the alien communications systems from such an early age that they acquire native-like fluency. The children are then raised to work as translators in trade negotiations. Because their monopoly on the alien languages accords them considerable power, linguists are despised by the general public and they must live in secure compounds for their safety and protection. The Chornyak household is the most powerful of the linguist families, and Thomas Blair Chornyak, the father of our protagonist, Nazareth, is the head not only of Chornyak household but also of all the Lines, as the linguist households are called. This effectively makes him the most powerful man on Earth. In this fictional world, society is organized around a strict dichotomization of males and females. Women are deemed to be legally minors, and they do not have the right to vote or own property. They are not allowed to hold any elected or appointed office, nor are they permitted to participate in scholarly or scientific professions. Women may be employed outside the home but only with the permission of their husband or male guardian. The linguist women are, however, required to work as translators, because there is too much translation work for the men to handle on their own, but this work requirement affords the women no material benefits, as their salaries go directly into the household coffers controlled by the men. 78 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) The gender binary around which their society is built is reflected in and reinforced by the names of the characters in the novels. Surnames are patrilineal and women assume the surname of their husband when they marry. In the novels, some characters are identified only by their first name, some by first and middle name, and some by first, middle, and surname3. Table 1 lists the given names of all the male characters in Native Tongue4, including middle name when it is provided. Among the male names, Brooks, Jordon, and Taylor are potentially unisex names, but the other male character names are unlikely to be used for females, either in the world of the 1980s in which Elgin was writing or in the fictional world of the novel. Table 1. Given names of male characters in Native Tongue Male Linguists Aaron William Adam Andrew Dano David Donald Jonathan Emmanuel James Nathan Jason Jordon Nigel Paul Edward Paul Hadley Paul John Ross Stephan Rue Thomas Blair Male Non-Linguists Arnold Bard Beau Brooks Everest Donald Elderwild Hampton Kenneth Krat Lanky Ned Quentun Taylor All the named female characters in Native Tongue, with the exception of Michaela Landry, are linguists. The full list of female character names is given in Table 2. LILLIAN, Nazareth 79 Table 2. Given names of female characters in Native Tongue. Anna Aquina Belle-Anne Berry Caroline Cecily Clara Deborah Emily Faye Fiona Gillian Grace Jennifer Judith Julia Dorothy Leonora Marian Maryanna Elizabeth Mary Sarah Michaela Nathalie Nazareth Joanna Nile Perpetua Philippa Rachel Sharon Sophie Ann Susannah Thyrsis Few names in this list stand out as being unusual names for females, though Nile and Nazareth are uncommon as personal names and may be seen as atypical in that they are both derived from place names. With the possible exception of Thyrsis and Nazareth, none of the names in Table 2 is likely to be used for males, and there is no overlap between the lists of male and female character names in the novel. The name Thyrsis was used by Theocritus for a character in Idyll I and has subsequently been used of other male literary characters, but Thyrsis is a minor character in Elgin’s novel, one of the elderly women in the Barren House5, and we gain little insight into either the name or the character who bears it. Nazareth, on the other hand, is the protagonist of the novel, and as her character is developed, the appropriateness of her name becomes increasingly apparent. Origin and meaning of the name Nazareth Nazareth is extremely unusual as a personal name in English, 80 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) although versions of the name are attested in other languages. Hanks and Hodges’ A Dictionary of First Names, for example, has no listing for Nazareth, but it has the following entries for the related forms, Nazaret and Nazario: Nazaret (f.) Spanish: religious name, referring to Christ’s native village, Nazareth. The place name seems to have been derived from a word meaning ‘branch’ in Hebrew. Nazario (m.) Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese: from the Late Latin name Nazarius, a derivative of Nazareth (cf. NAZARET). The name was a relatively common one among early Christians and was borne by several saints, most notably one martyred with Celus at Milan in the 1st century. Cognate: French: Nazaire. (1990: 247) That the name is derived from the name of a village in Galilee is not in dispute, but there are competing theories about the origin of the place name Nazareth. According to the Abarim Publications website, The name Nazareth is only known in Greek, and it's difficult to establish which Hebrew or Aramaic word or name was transliterated to form it. The chances are excellent that it came from either the plural form or else a feminine version of a noun from either the verb ‫( נזר‬nazar), or any of the two verbs ‫נצר‬ (nazar). The same website proposes four theories about the origin and meanings of the name (bolding added): • Theory #1: The root-verb ‫( נזר‬nazar) means to consecrate or separate oneself, although it does not seem to indicate a physical removal from society. • Theory #2: The root verb ‫( נצר‬nasar I) means o to watch, guard or keep: e.g. a vineyard or a fig tree or men…also used in an ethical sense: guard one's mouth, one’s tongue, one's way, and one's LILLIAN, Nazareth o o o 81 heart. to preserve or guard from dangers. to keep (guard) secrets. to keep closed; blockaded or besieged. • Theory #3: The root verb ‫( נצר‬nasar II) isn't used in the Bible but in Arabic it means to be fresh or bright or grow green. In the Bible only the masculine noun ‫נצ‬ (neser) occurs (four times), and that noun means branch or shoot. Isaiah uses it in Isaiah 11:1, where it denotes the Messiah. • Theory #4: The name could be etymologically related to a participle of the verb ‫( זרה‬zara), meaning to scatter or winnow, or ‫( זרע‬zara'), meaning to scatter or sow. Thus, taken together, the above definitions provide the following interpretations of the possible original meaning of the name Nazareth: Branch Be fresh or bright or grow green Consecrate or separate oneself Watch, guard, keep / Be closed, blockaded, besieged, despised • Messiah • Scatter, sow, or winnow • • • • Biblical scholar William Smith points out that the Judean town of Nazareth is fraught with negative connotations, connotations which, I argue, are carried over to the protagonist of Native Tongue. The origin of the disrepute in which Nazareth stood (John i. 47) is not certainly known. All the inhabitants of Galilee were looked upon with contempt by the people of Judaea because they spoke a ruder dialect, were less cultivated, and were more exposed by their position to contact with the heathen. But Nazareth labored under a special opprobrium, for it was a Galilean and not a southern Jew who asked the reproachful 82 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) question, whether ‘any good thing’ could come from that source. (1863: 469-470) While Nazareth Chornyak does seem to embody many of the more negative connotations associated with her name, she equally embodies its positive ones. In Native Tongue and its sequels, Nazareth exhibits characteristics associated with each of the possible etymologies of her name, and her role as messiah, in particular, transcends the first novel and spans the entire trilogy. Nazareth: green, branch As the daughter of a great and powerful household, Nazareth comprises an important branch in the family tree. Given that her parents are linguists accustomed to the highest degree of precision in every nuance of language use, one can reasonably hypothesize that they are fully cognizant of all the possible meanings and connotations associated with the name they bestow on her. Nazareth’s childhood may be seen as a period in which she is ostensibly fresh or bright or green, as her name suggests, but her childhood ends abruptly when she is forced into marriage on her fifteenth birthday with a man she despises. Her husband, Aaron, is a gifted linguist, though not as gifted as Nazareth herself. Nazareth’s father sees the marriage as an opportunity to combine the genes of two exceptional linguists and hoard these two talented linguists and their offspring within his own household. The marriage is productive, and over the subsequent dozen years, Nazareth gives birth to nine babies, including a set of twins. Thus, Nazareth is arguably the green branch which produces sprouts which expand and extend the family tree, thereby living up to those connotations of her name. Nazareth: closed, blockaded, besieged, despised In spite of or, or perhaps because of, her exceptional intelligence and aptitude for languages, Nazareth is despised by both her father and her husband, who believe in the inherent inferiority of women. Men in her society routinely denigrate women, but these two men are particularly mean-spirited toward Nazareth. Thomas regards his daughter simultaneously as a brood mare and a work horse, and LILLIAN, Nazareth 83 Aaron mercilessly pillories his wife. “[I]n public, [Aaron] kept everyone weak with laughter at his jokes about her faults and her weight and her one front tooth that was crooked and any miscalculations that she might have made in the course of the day…or the night” (Elgin 2000: 174). When Nazareth is nineteen, married for four years, the mother of a three-year-old son and one-year-old twin daughters, she encounters a charming and handsome linguist at one of her translation assignments and he becomes her back-up translator during a series of difficult negotiations. No man has ever treated Nazareth with even minimal kindness, so when Jordon Shannontry flirts with her and flatters her and even presents her with her a yellow rose, she falls passionately in love with him, and on their last day working together, she whispers in his ear that she loves him very much. Jordon betrays her to her father who then repeats the story to her husband, and the two men vilify and humiliate her to her face: “‘No sophistication, her hair any old way…no grace, no elegance, no conversation, and as much erotic appeal as your average rice pudding…’ [Aaron] was laughing openly now, the hearty laughter of the grown-up who watched the tiny baby do one of those ‘cute’ things suitable only for tiny babies” (Elgin 2000: 199). Nazareth was forced to sit silently as the two men mocked her, until “she was nothing but a bruise twisted around a core of shame” (Elgin 2000: 200). As a result of this episode, “Nazareth was never again to feel even the smallest stirring of affection, or even of liking, for any male past toddling age. Not even her own sons” (Elgin 2000: 202). Furthermore, as much as Nazareth is besieged by the men’s treatment of her, the women of her household are, in their own way, complicit in hardening the younger woman’s spirit and closing her off from her own feelings. For example, when the women of the Barren House are discussing with Rachel, Nazareth’s mother, how she will break the news to Nazareth of her forced marriage to a man she hates, Caroline admonishes Rachel: “The worst thing you could possibly do for her is sympathize with her. The quicker she toughens to what’s ahead of her, the less power it will have to hurt her” (Elgin 2000: 154). Thus, it is from all her relationships, not just those with 84 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) the men in her life, that Nazareth learns to erect walls around her psyche. Eventually, after more than two decades in an abusive marriage, Nazareth, at thirty-seven years old, is diagnosed with gynecological cancer. This becomes yet another opportunity for the men of her family to torment her. Together, the men of Chornyak household decide that she is to have a hysterectomy and a complete double mastectomy, and they deny her the breast regeneration process that is both medically available and financially affordable, deeming it an unnecessary and frivolous procedure. What use, they reason, will Nazareth have for breasts once she is no longer fertile? Aunt Clara is ordered to give Nazareth the news of the men’s decision, and in spite of loving her dearly, Clara nevertheless perceives Nazareth in a negative and unflattering way: But there was something repulsive about her. Something about the gaunt body, the graying hair drawn viciously back and skewered to the head with cruel pins, something about the rigid posture that was the reaction of a dogged pride to intolerable exhaustion and strain. She did not look anything like a noble wreck of a woman, or even a tortured animal…could you, Clara wondered, torment any machine into a state like Nazareth’s? (Elgin 2000: 18) The woman already besieged now faces painful and disfiguring surgery, after which her husband intends to divorce her, reinforcing the associations of her name with being closed, besieged, blockaded, and despised. Nazareth: watch, guard, keep In response to the callous treatment she receives from childhood on through adulthood, Nazareth learns to guard herself and her secrets. Like many young girls, Nazareth keeps a journal, but her journal is not an account of dreams and hopes and romanticized encounters. Rather, Nazareth’s notebook contains linguistic musings. One of the plotlines running through the Native Tongue series is the secret language that the women are constructing. In order LILLIAN, Nazareth 85 to keep the secret language, Láadan, hidden, the women have invented a decoy language they call Langlish. The existence of Langlish is common knowledge throughout the linguist households and the men permit the women to work on the language, even as they deride them for it. Nazareth is aware of Langlish and aware that one of the goals of the language is to create words for meanings not lexicalized in any other language. These new word-concepts are called Encodings, and in her notebook, Nazareth records Encodings that she herself has invented. One of the older women, Aquina, glimpses the notebook one day and then tells the women at the Barren House about it. Eventually, on the day that Nazareth is told that she must marry Aaron, the women reveal to her that they have seen her Encodings, using her fury at them over this violation of her privacy as a deliberate strategy for distracting her from the suicidal thoughts that had resulted from the marriage announcement. Shortly after she first reads Nazareth’s notebook, Aquina decides that the women need Nazareth to be available to work on the women’s language full-time, so she poisons her in an effort to render her sterile, reasoning that Nazareth could then by-pass marriage and move directly into the Barren House. Aquina’s attempt merely makes Nazareth sick and does not render her sterile, but the idea that this valuable linguistic asset might be vulnerable leads Thomas to assign a detail of two men to accompany Nazareth everywhere and guard her at all times. Thus, per her name, Nazareth is literally watched as well as watching out for herself, guarded as well as guarding her secrets, and kept secure as well as keeping her own counsel. Nazareth: consecrated and separate As a child, Nazareth’s giftedness, even in the midst of a community of gifted linguists, sets her apart. In her youth, the guards that accompany her everywhere further emphasize and enforce her separateness. In adulthood, Nazareth is a failure in the eyes of both her father and her husband, in spite of having borne nine healthy children and having excelled at her translation duties. Then, at age 37 when she is told that she is to have a hysterectomy and double mastectomy, Nazareth sways and stumbles, yet Aunt Clara makes no move to help her. “Nazareth allowed no one to help her, and she had 86 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) good reason” (19). Apparently, even those who loved her most knew that her separateness was, ironically, the only thing she could employ to keep herself together. Nazareth does not die as a result of the surgery, but her womanhood is effectively killed. The hysterectomy removes forever her ability to bear children, and the mastectomy removes the outward markers of her womanliness. Aaron divorces her even before she returns from the hospital, terminating her role as wife, however fraught that role may have been. Finally free of the obligations of wifehood, Nazareth moves to the Barren House and consecrates herself to the work of spreading Láadan and thereby saving not just women, but eventually all of humanity. Nazareth: Messiah The Oxford English Dictionary provides as the primary meaning of Messiah (capitalized) a definition pertaining to Jesus Christ as the messiah in Christian theology, and then provides the following second definition: “In extended use (now usually in form messiah): an actual or expected liberator or saviour of an oppressed people, country, etc.; a zealous leader of any cause or enterprise” (“Messiah, n.”). While it is the second definition that is most pertinent to the analysis of Nazareth Chornyak, it is impossible to ignore the connection between her name and Jesus Christ, also called Jesus of Nazareth. The Chornyak household is Protestant Christian, at least in its outward practice, and Thomas and Rachel Chornyak, as linguists, could not have been unaware of the messianic connotations of the name Nazareth when they bestowed it on their daughter. The novels provide no explanation of why Nazareth received that name, from the point of view of the characters, but for the reader, the associations are transparent by the end of the first novel in the trilogy and are reinforced in the second and third novels. The need for a messiah arises in the context of a people who are oppressed, and Elgin provides ample evidence in the novel that women of all classes are oppressed as women. Women are legally minors, they are not allowed to vote, to participate in public life, to hold positions of authority over men, to choose whom or whether LILLIAN, Nazareth 87 they marry, or even, as we see in the case of Nazareth, to make their own choices about medical treatment. This oppression applies to both linguist and non-linguist women. The only non-linguist woman character in Native Tongue, Michaela Landry, is sent to nursing school and then to a marital academy before being forced to marry a tedious and egotistical man, Ned Landry. When Ned becomes jealous of their infant child, he sells the baby, without warning and without Michaela’s consent, to a government research lab in which the baby ultimately dies a gruesome death. Michaela has no legal rights to the child, as no mother in her society has, and no legal mechanism by which she can seek justice after her baby is taken from her. Thus, the case is laid out clearly throughout Native Tongue that women, non-linguists as well as linguists, are an oppressed group in need of liberation. The earliest indication, apart from simply her name, that Nazareth Chornyak may have a messianic function within her community comes in the episode in which Aquina discovers the Encodings contained in young Nazareth’s notebook (Chapter 2). Outwardly, the linguist women conform to the rules and constraints of the society they live in, but secretly, they resist the oppression they live under by inventing a language for women, designed to empower women by foregrounding their perceptions and their understandings, including and especially those contained within the Encodings. That Nazareth, at age eleven, before she has even been properly taught about Encodings and before she knows of the existence of the women’s secret language, Láadan, should already have invented several Encodings, leaves the women of the Barren House in awe of her. As Nile shares with the other women, “…Nazareth’s mother told me that child’s language facility scores are the highest ever seen since we have been keeping records” (Elgin 2000: 31). Nazareth’s exceptionality is a cornerstone of who she is, yet it is many years before the messianic role that Aquina and the other women come to expect of Nazareth is fully realized. When, after her surgery, Nazareth moves into the Barren House, she finally learns the truth about the secret women’s language. Prior to that, she only knows about Langlish, the decoy language that the women make a show of working on to conceal from the men their 88 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) secret language, Láadan. In keeping with her socially awkward and blunt nature, Nazareth’s response to finding out about Láadan is to scold the women angrily, certainly not the reaction they are expecting. Her anger is not at the nature or quality of the language, but at the fact that after so many years of having the language, the women have failed to start using it and teaching it to the little girls of the linguist households. “If it takes five generations, or ten, before Láadan goes beyond being a barbarous auxiliary language and becomes our native tongue, that is all the more compelling reason to begin at once!” Nazareth admonishes them (Elgin 2000: 249). Yet, as Aquina finally admits, it is not, as they have been claiming, the incompleteness of the language that has deterred them from using it, it is their fear of what might come to pass and how their reality might change once the language is in use and the men have become aware of it. It takes Nazareth to jolt them out of their complacency and to force them into a course of action they have both longed for and dreaded. Nazareth draws on the brute courage she has needed merely to survive up until that point and uses it to empower the women whose courage has failed them. She assumes responsibility for making the decision that the women will begin using Láadan, and in this way, she becomes the hero, the messiah, the one who leads the women out of their fear toward empowerment. Nazareth: Scatter and sow Nazareth’s story does not end, however, when she embraces her onomastic destiny and becomes the de facto messiah of the linguist women. She has one more set of meanings to satisfy before she has fully lived up to her name. At the end of book one, under Nazareth’s direction, the linguist women begin speaking Láadan amongst themselves and teaching it to the young girls of their households, but with this step, Nazareth’s messianic role is just beginning. The goal of the linguist women had always been to eventually share Láadan with all women, not just linguists, but it takes Nazareth’s genius to mastermind the sowing and scattering of the language beyond the linguist households. The details of Nazareth’s plan are beyond the scope of this paper, but by the end of book two, Láadan has strategically been spread from the LILLIAN, Nazareth 89 linguist households to nurses and to carefully recruited Roman Catholic nuns, each group spreading it in turn via their own networks, primarily under the cover of Langlish. The following excerpt, ostensibly from Nazareth’s diary, shows something of the complexity of Nazareth’s strategy: I knew that a single plan, standing all alone, was sure to be noticed and interfered with eventually by those who had the power to interfere, no matter how carefully it was camouflaged. But suppose you took the plan that really mattered, and you embedded it inside a plan that was embedded inside a plan that was itself embedded inside a plan? And suppose you made each of the other plans as you worked your way out toward the edges less and less worth interfering with? … It took a certain amount of ingenuity to keep it all going, and a tremendous amount of help from other women. (Elgin 2002a: 176) In book 3, even after she is dead, Nazareth is contacted by her great-granddaughter, Delina, through a vision quest and is chided for her absence: “‘All my life,’” Delina said bitterly, ‘I heard just one line … “Nazareth will not leave us till we can spare her.” And then, on the very day when we need you more than any other day, on the very day when the whole world turns upside down, you die on us!’” (Elgin 2002b: 37). In response to this rebuke, Nazareth guides Delina in devising a solution for saving the planet from the impending famine. Unfortunately, by this final book of the trilogy, the initial success of Láadan has diminished and only linguist women still use it, but it is the same concept of layering plans within plans within other plans that Delina employs in her effort to find a solution to world hunger. Thus, even from beyond the grave, Nazareth is sowing and scattering wisdom and life, through Delina’s strategy of devising sustenance for a starving human race, thereby fulfilling the final meaning of her name. Conclusion: An Unlikely Messiah Nazareth Chornyak possesses none of the stereotypical 90 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) characteristics of a hero or messiah. She lacks physical beauty and has no particular physical or sexual appeal at all. Recall her husband’s description of her: “No sophistication, her hair any old way…no grace, no elegance, no conversation, and as much erotic appeal as your average rice pudding…” (Elgin 2000: 199). Even Aunt Clara, who loves Nazareth dearly, describes her appearance as being repulsive (Elgin 2000: 18). Furthermore, Nazareth lacks personal charisma and, by her own admission, she is abrasive in her speech patterns: “I have never been able to get along with anybody. I know that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I do know that I’m scarcely able to get through a paragraph without offending two people and hurting three others. And I am sorry . . . I have always been sorry. I have always wished someone would tell me how to be better” (Elgin 2000: 247). As a woman in her society, Nazareth lacks legal agency and as a linguist woman, she lacks even the small degree of freedom accorded her non-linguist counterparts. How then, can this ugly, socially awkward, guarded (literally and figuratively) woman serve as a messiah in her world and in Elgin’s novel? It is her name, rather than her person, that alerts the reader early on to the messianic role that Nazareth is destined to play in the story. Grant Smith notes that, “[o]ur thematic understanding of literature arises largely from the symbolic nature of language, including the many associations possibly evoked by names” (2016: 296). As this paper has argued, Nazareth’s name evokes many possible associations, specifically hinting that she is a sower, a winnower, a guard and protector, a person who has learned to keep herself apart, someone despised by men and feared and revered by women, and most of all, a messiah. Nuessel speaks of the significance of biblical naming: “Another device used by authors to give their characters’ names special conative significance is biblical names to link a protagonist’s behavior to that of a recognizable figure from the Bible. Often this literary mechanism is employed in works that take place in another place or time” (Nuessel 1992: 39). Elgin has exploited the association of the place name Nazareth with the biblical Jesus and has used that association to signal the messianic role of her protagonist, Nazareth Chornyak. The name Nazareth is unlikely as a woman’s name, and the woman who bears the name is unlikely as a LILLIAN, Nazareth 91 hero or messiah, yet in the novel, Elgin’s protagonist borrows power from the name and ultimately becomes the saviour of her people. NOTES 1. Native Tongue was reprinted in 2000, and The Judas Rose and Earthsong in 2002, each with an Afterword by Susan M. Squier and Julie Vedder. It is these new editions by The Feminist Press at The City University of New York that I cite throughout the text. 2. The setting is, in fact, somewhat more complicated than this. Native Tongue opens with a preface which is actually part of the novel, not a preface to the novel. The preface characterizes the story that follows it as being a recently discovered novel written by the linguist women of Chornyak Barren House during the first quarter of the 23rd century. Thus, the story I refer to in this paper as Native Tongue actually takes the form of a novel embedded within a novel. There is no date provided for when the fictional preface was purportedly written, but it is sometime in the far future, beyond the span of the nearly two centuries covered in the Native Tongue trilogy. The Judas Rose, the second book of the trilogy, opens with a similar fictional preface, introducing what follows as being another recentlydiscovered work of the women of Chornyak household. In a twist that must have amused the author, the prefaces in books one and two are both signed “Patricia Ann Wilkins, Executive Editor.” Patricia Ann Wilkins is actually the birth name of Suzette Haden Elgin, the real-world author of the series. Book three, Earthsong, differs from the first two books in that it has a foreword but no preface, and the foreword, along with the rest of the book, is purportedly composed posthumously by Nazareth Chornyak and transmitted via mediums with whom the spirit of the late Nazareth is in contact. 3. Surnames are omitted from Tables 1 and 2 since a discussion of those are beyond the scope of the present analysis. 4. I am limiting the lists in Tables 1 and 2 to given names in just Native Tongue, not in all three books of the trilogy, because the trilogy spans two centuries and several generations, and what is most 92 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) relevant here are the naming patterns that show Nazareth’s name in the context of the names of her contemporaries. 5. Each of the twelve linguist compounds includes a Barren House, which is a separate structure from the main communal house in the compound. 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Sisk, David. 1997. Transformations of Language in Modern Dystopias. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Smith, Grant W. 2016. “Theoretical Foundations of Literary Onomastics.” The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. Carole Hough, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 295-309. Smith, William, ed. 1863. A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 2. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. Starnes, D. T. 1955. “Acteon’s Dogs.” Names 3 (1), 19-25. Tuttle, Lisa. 1987. “The Cure.” In A Spaceship Built of Stone and Other Stories. London: The Women’s Press, pp. 123-134. Van Dalen-Oskam, Karina. 2016. “Corpus-based Approaches to Names in Literature.” The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. Carole Hough, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 344-354. The Structure of New Zealand Geonames: A Preliminary Study Based on an Enhanced Version of UNGEGN’s Geographical Names Model Philip W. Matthews Independent researcher Abstract: A four-level model for the structure of geonames can be inferred from the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names’ Glossary of terms for the standardization of geographical names. In this glossary, geonames are viewed as having a structure made up of specific elements and generic elements, the latter being drawn from generic terms. These elements combine into simplex names, which usually consist of a specific element only, and composite names, some of which have both a specific element and a generic element, while others consist of several words without a generic element. The present study uses this inferred model to analyze the structure of some 35,502 New Zealand geonames drawn from the New Zealand Geographical Board’s Gazetteer. The study then enhances the model through (a) identifying two types of simplex geonames, (b) indicating whether the generic and specific elements in a duplex (previously composite) geoname are joined or separated or doubled, (c) delineating the relative position of a generic element and a specific element to each other, (d) showing that more than one language can be found in many geonames, and (e) clarifying the matter of elliptical geonames. The enhanced model is applied to the same New Zealand geonames. The results of the study are twofold: (i) an increase in the understanding of the structures of New © ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018): 97-140 98 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Zealand geonames and (ii) a finer-grained understanding of the structures of all geonames. Résumé : Un modèle à quatre niveaux pour la structure des toponymes peut être déduit du Glossaire des termes utilisés pour la normalisation des noms géographiques du Groupe d'experts des Nations Unies pour les noms géographiques. Dans ce glossaire, les toponymes sont considérés comme ayant une structure composée d’éléments spécifiques et d’éléments génériques, ces derniers provenant de termes génériques. Ces éléments se combinent en noms simples qui consistent généralement en un seul élément spécifique et en noms composés, dont certains comportent à la fois un élément spécifique et un élément générique, tandis que d’autres sont composés de plusieurs mots sans élément générique. La présente étude utilise ce modèle inféré pour analyser la structure de quelque 35502 toponymes néo-zélandais extraits du Répertoire géographique de la Commission de toponymie de la Nouvelle-Zélande. L’étude améliore ensuite le modèle (a) en identifiant deux types de toponymes simples, (b) en indiquant si les éléments génériques et spécifiques d’un toponyme double (précédemment composé) sont joints ou séparés ou doublés, (c) en définissant la position relative d'un élément générique à un élément spécifique, (d) en montrant qu'on peut trouver plus d'une langue dans plusieurs toponymes, et (e) en clarifiant la question des toponymes elliptiques. Le modèle amélioré est appliqué aux mêmes toponymes néo-zélandais. Les résultats de l’étude comportent deux volets: (i) une meilleure compréhension des structures des toponymes néo-zélandais et (ii) une compréhension plus nuancée des structures de tous les toponymes. 1. Introduction Geonames are everywhere, with Orth (1987:i) estimating that there about one billion of them. But where do such geonames come from? A feature in a landscape is perceived and a geoname is bestowed upon it. It comes from within the language of those doing the bestowing as an internally developed geoname and becomes part of the lexicon of the bestowers. Alternatively, if the geoname is appropriated from another language, i.e. taken from another language or imposed without permission, right or authority, and enters the appropriators’ language as an externally sourced geoname, MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 99 over time it too becomes part of the lexicon of those appropriating it. All geonames, irrespective of source, carry their own histories, which can be well known or confined to specific groups of people or, in meaning, either obvious, problematic or hidden. According to recent figures, there are about 7,000 languages that have individuals who use the languages as their mother tongues (Ethnologue 2017). Each one of these languages, which may have dialects, forms a linguistic community. Many linguistic communities are indigenous minorities with a territory which is their linguistic place, their homeland. These indigenous linguistic minorities have a historical, collective right to the territory. Māori of New Zealand are one such indigenous territorial minority linguistic community. In contrast are those linguistic communities resulting from individual, sponsored and chain emigration. Many of these linguistic communities occupied, by various means, all or most of the territories of the indigenous linguistic communities and established polities that they and their descendants control to varying extents. New Zealand has a history since the late eighteenth, and more particularly from the nineteenth, century of immigration from various countries, though mostly from Great Britain, and most of the immigrants were and remain English-speaking (though they may also speak other languages). Overall, those from Great Britain shaped New Zealand institutions in their own image. Almost every polity formed as a consequence of modern immigration is bilingual or multilingual and by this is meant that there are two or more languages in a contact situation. However, even though the polities are bilingual or multilingual, it is often the case that most members of the immigrant linguistic communities in such polities are monolingual. Within a bilingual or multilingual polity, the interplay of the two or more languages adds an additional dimension to the geonames’ situation, as individuals can have access to two or more geoname sets. In most cases, an indigenous linguistic minority retains and continues to use its own geoname set as well as that of the linguistic majority, though the use of its own geonames is often curtailed in various ways. The members of an immigrant-originated linguistic 100 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) community usually transfer some geonames from the polity from which they emigrated and apply them to some of the geographical features in the new environment. In addition, they often use or supplant the geonames of the indigenous communities. The relationship between linguistic majorities and indigenous linguistic minorities and their geonames has been an ever-increasing concern of the United Nations Conferences on the Standardization of Geographical Names (UNCSGN). Its various meetings have considered this matter since their first meeting in 1967, at which the situation in multilingual polities was briefly considered, while at their second meeting in 1972, the situation in two countries was considered in greater detail. At their subsequent conferences in 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2012, this matter was further discussed, with, for example, the need to include linguistic minority geonames in material for map makers and editors (1982), research in multilingual areas and a call for countries to collect the geonames of aboriginal groups (1987), the development of a geonames policy that would include indigenous geonames (1992), the preservation of the cultures and languages of minorities and their geonames as part of the polity’s and its peoples’ cultural heritage (1998), the linkage between geonames, cultural heritages and indigenous linguistic minorities (2002 and 2007), the restoration of indigenous geonames (2007) and further consideration for linguistic minorities and cultural heritages (see Natural Resources Canada 2008). UNCSGN receives its advice from the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), which consists of topic-specific working groups and regionally-based divisions. The function of UNGEGN is to consider technical, economic, social, linguistic and cultural issues about geonames and to submit recommendations, including those on the geonames of linguistic minorities, for consideration by UNCSGN. As part of UNGEGN the Working Group on the Promotion of Indigenous and Minority Group Names was established in 2004, with its name changed to Working Group on Geographical Names as Cultural Heritage in 2012. An important consideration arising from the points immediately above is the value of an indigenous linguistic minority’s geonames. MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 101 Ormeling (1983:238) writes that “[t]he rendering of [linguistic minority] geographical names on maps... [is] often the first and only manifestation by which the minority can reveal itself to outsiders.” Helleland (2006:127) writes that several resolutions by UNCSGN “have supported the collection and use of minority group and indigenous geographical names,” while Wolnicz-Pawłowska and Zych (2012:262) state that “the use of geographical names in minority languages in public communication is seen as an element of human rights.” More explicitly, Helander (2016:229) is clear that the continuation of indigenous linguistic minorities geonames deals “with a decolonization process in indigenous societies.” In the context of this, the present study has the following eight aims: 1. to infer or construct a model of the structures of geonames from the entries in the UNGEGN Glossary; 2. to apply the inferred UNGEGN model to New Zealand geonames; 3. to identify the problems in the inferred UNGEGN model’s definitions of simplex and composite geonames and other matters and to enhance the understanding of geoname structures by offering new definitions and replacing those terms considered to be no longer appropriate; 4. to include in the enhanced model “doubling” which has been regarded by some as tautologous and hence dangerous; 5. to include in this model the language or languages in which the geonames occur and, consequently, to consider hybrid geonames; 6. to consider the relative position of specific elements and generic elements vis-à-vis each other in the one geoname and hence add embedded, preposed and postposed to the model; 7. to consider ellipsis and offer definitions for elliptical geonames; and 8. to apply the enhanced model to New Zealand geonames. 102 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 2. The Inferred UNGEGN Model Under its convener Naftali Kadmon (2000), the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names Working Group on Terminology (2000, 2002 and 2007) has published its Glossary of terms for the standardization of geographical names (hereafter referred to as the Glossary). This study uses several of the 375 definitions in the Glossary, together with the five that have been amended and the seventeen that have been added. The Glossary definitions are referred to hereafter in the form Gnnn, e.g. G148. Kadmon writes that a “typological model... is based on a comparison of similarities in the structural properties of languages” (2000:53), and that a “well-defined uniform terminology is an important requirement in all professional and scientific work, including the standardization of geographical names” (2000:13). The Glossary was designed to help in the standardization of geonames and included material about the structure of those geonames. Developing a model involves the study of selected items, activities and the like, e.g. cars, animals, philosophies, pharmaceuticals, books and personalities, with a view to grouping those that have common characteristics together and hence differentiating them from those with different characteristics. The consequence is that a model has two or more levels with the top level having one cell that is all inclusive, i.e. it contains everything to be included in the lower levels of the model, while the cells in each lower level identify further characteristics of the subject matter and separate it into finer divisions. At the lowest level there might only be one entry in each cell. Models are inclusive, i.e. they include every relevant item in the level below the top level, and exhaustive, i.e. classifying continues until all items that can be subsumed under the top level are included in however many levels are needed, and they must have clear criteria for each level. All models should not be set in stone but should be subject, for example, to scrutiny, review, correction and refinement. MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 103 What is the UNGEGN model and what are its various components? The answers to these questions are not explicitly stated but a model can be inferred from the entries in the Glossary. This model has four levels (see Figure 1). The term toponym (G339) [or topographic name (Kadmon 2000:13)] is a “proper noun applied to a ̶> topographic feature” and is the “comprehensive term for ̶> geographical names and extraterrestrial names.” It occupies the only cell in the top level of the model. In the second level are geographical names (G216) and extraterrestrial names (G215), while in the third level are geographical names, separated into two, with one cell containing simplex names (G227) and the other composite names (G212). At the composite fourth level there are two cells; the first is for composite names with both a generic element and a specific element, while the second is for those with a specific element consisting of more than one word. Figure 1: The inferred UNGEGN toponymic model Note 1: Extraterrestrial names are not considered in this paper. Note 2: The UNGEGN definitions of the diagram's terms (other than extraterrestrial name) are discussed in detail in Section 5. 104 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) The present study uses this inferred UNGEGN model as its starting point for an analysis of the structure of geonames in New Zealand, a country with a population of an indigenous Māori minority and an immigrant-originated majority. 3. New Zealand Language and Geoname History There are many languages used daily in New Zealand, but this study focuses on the Māori and New Zealand English (NZE) languages. When Māori settled in New Zealand from about the 13th century onwards, they found an uninhabited land and gradually explored and settled the whole of it. They transferred many geonames from their ancestral lands, e.g. Awaroa, Hikurangi, Motutapu, Pukapuka, Rangitoto and Whangarei (Best 1917, New Zealand Geographical Board 1990 and Reed 2010). As they travelled around the country, Māori were “prodigal in their bestowal of local names” (Williams 1912:358) and thousands of new geonames came into existence, e.g. Hiwiopapakai, Komataoneone, Motuokura, Te Arawi and Waihaorangatahi. Walker (1969:405) points out that “place names were of functional significance in pre-literate Māori society as the fixed points of reference for orally transmitted traditions… [they] were a reminder of the past and constituted guides to future action.” They became parts of the cultural heritages of the different Māori iwi (tribes). In spite of some dialect differences, it can be said that New Zealand formed a linguistic region (G075) or a linguistic area (G173) for Māori. Non-Māori came to New Zealand several centuries later. The first were the Dutch, in 1642, under the leadership of Abel Janszoon Tasman, who gave Dutch names to several places. Tasman was followed by the Englishman, James Cook, who made three coastal exploratory voyages between 1769 and 1777 and named many places. He was followed by shore-based sealers (1792 to about the 1820s) and whalers (1829 to about the 1850s), coming mostly, it seems, from the United States of America and Australia. They gave geonames to many coastal features. In contrast, timber and flax traders, respectively from about 1790 to 1840 and the 1810s to 1830s, MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 105 operated in the main from and settled in existing Māori settlements and hence used Māori geonames. Missionaries came from about 1815 onwards, establishing themselves in existing Māori settlements. In 1840, the British government decided to take possession of New Zealand and from February of that year and over the next few years signed the Treaty of Waitangi with some 500 Māori chiefs. Article 2 of the Treaty states, “the Queen confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand…the full exercise and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possessions” (Kawharu 1989). The Treaty was ignored by successive governments from about 1850 until the 1970s. Planned immigration from Britain by the New Zealand Company began in the late 1830s with the first immigrants arriving from England in the 1840s and establishing seven towns. French immigrants also arrived in New Zealand in 1840, establishing themselves at Akaroa in the South Island. Over the next forty years many British ex-soldiers came as “fensibles,” or military settlers, and immigration from Britain continued, while others came under much smaller immigration schemes from Bohemia, Norway, Denmark, Germany and elsewhere. The consequence of these population movements was the transfer of many geonames from other polities. Examples of such geonames from the British Isles are Addington, Brynderwyn, Caversham, Milton, Raglan and Shannon, and from elsewhere are Dannevirke, Duvauchelle, Golgotha, Haast, Khandallah, La Perouse, Maimai, Malaspina, Parnassus, Ranzau and Rappahannock. For this study the geonames in the latter group have been appropriated by NZE (New Zealand English) speakers (in the same way that English and NZE have appropriated words such as bungalow, bard, jungle, caribou, chav and shampoo from other languages). They are part of NZE and hence are treated here as NZE geonames. A further development is that, subsequent to Māori settlement and non-Māori immigration, 106 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) many locally-originated English and Māori geonames have been bestowed on New Zealand’s geographical features. Since the immigration of the various non-Māori people and English speakers and others, what has happened to Māori, the indigenous language (G148)? Until the mid 1850s Māori were the majority population and Māori was the majority language. The latter became progressively standardized (G157) from the 1820s onwards through the work of Māori, missionaries and others. However, specifically with the large-scale confiscation of Māori land in the 1850s and onwards, the nullification, in effect, of the Treaty of Waitangi, the introduction of assimilationist policies, and the prohibition of the use of the Māori language in education, the Māori speech community (G309) declined in numbers and NZE became the principal (G154) and dominant language while the Māori language became a linguistic minority language (G150). Since the 1970s, there has been a Māori renaissance, and since then Treaty matters have become more prominent in national affairs. One major consequence of these developments is that Māori has become an official language. The Glossary definition of official language is: G153 language, official A ̶> language which has a legal status in a particular legally constituted political entity such as state or part of a state and which serves as a language of administration. Examples Spanish in Chile, Italian and German in Alto Adige (Italy). Unfortunately, this definition is misleading. It correctly states that an official language “has a legal status.” However, a language of administration can be any language, not just an official language. The situation in New Zealand is that the Māori Language Act 1987 (replaced by the Maori Language Act Te Matawai 2016) gives Māori the status of a de jure official language. NZE does not have such enabling legislation and hence is not an official language; it remains a de facto official or unofficial language (G152) and is the language of almost all administration. MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 107 New Zealand is a bilingual society, and NZE is used by almost one hundred percent of the population. The Māori population is bilingual and about a quarter of the people can speak Māori very well, well or fairly well. However, there is a marked increase in the number of Māori students and adults learning and using Māori. Additionally, there are a few non-Māori who are fluent in Māori and many who are learning it. What has happened to Māori geonames contrasts with what has happened to the language. Each Māori geoname is an indigenous name (G218) or a minority name (G159). The first legislation about these geonames was the Counties Act of 1856 that gave the provinces the authority to name counties and their subdivisions. This was followed in 1858 by the Definition of Districts Act and, after the abolition of the provinces, by the Land Act of 1885. In 1894 the Designation of Districts Act was passed. This act included the clause that in applying “future names [to features] preference shall be given to the original Māori names” (Griffiths 2002:20). A second important clause was that for “any name professing to be a Māori name, but is not the true spelling of the said Māori name, or is a corruption thereof…the Government…may alter the name…in consonance with the correct Māori orthography” (Griffiths 2002:20). The various government departments and others then took the stance that “if no original name as envisaged by the legislation was available or usable, the net could be spread to take in other names legitimized by rough proximity” (Griffiths 2002:87). By the 1920s there was a lessening of the number of Māori names for new places and, in some instances, the dropping of the Māori names in favour of earlier non-Māori names. Today, in giving Māori names to places, the work of the New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB), established in 1946 as the central authority for geonames, is based on the principle that “original Māori place-name means any Māori place name that is recognized by the tāngata whenua (the indigenous people of the specific area) as one historically associated with a place within their tribal boundary” (New Zealand Geographic Board 2005). More recently, under the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008, the Board is in Section 11 (1) to do the following: “(d) collect original Māori names for recording on 108 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) official charts and official maps; and (e) encourage the use of original Māori names on official charts and official maps.” In regard to the orthography of Māori geonames, the following needs to be noted. First, there are some dialect differences. For example, the standard Māori phoneme /ŋ/, written ng, occurs as /k/, written as k, in some dialects. Thus, Motukārara has the same meaning as Motungārara. Second, Standard Māori uses macrons to mark long vowels. However, most Māori geonames were formed before the general use of macrons and so many geonames that should have macrons do not have them. For example, the letter sequence p+a+p+a has three forms – pāpā, papā and papa. Without macrons there are at least three different meanings and consequently this absence interferes with the understanding of the meaning and structure of geonames in which they are found. Third, errors have been made in the spelling of hundreds of Māori geonames, though many corrections have been made, e.g. Arawata has been changed from Arawhata and Hātea from Hatea. Such differences can obscure the structure of geonames. Fourth, many Māori geonames are mispronounced (Matthews 2014). Fifth, often only a part of a geoname is found in common use. For example, Taupo is in full Tauponui-a-Tia and Pirongia is Te Pirongia o Te Aroaro o Kahu. In regard to NZE geonames there is no difference in their spelling throughout New Zealand, though there is some difference in pronunciation. The current situation is that in general all New Zealand geonames are used by all New Zealanders, i.e. Māori use their own geonames and NZE geonames, while non-Māori use both NZE and Māori geonames. Currently most Māori geonames do not have an NZE counterpart while many NZE geonames have a Māori counterpart, though only a few of these are in common use. 4. The Data The New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) published the New Zealand Gazetteer of place names (2015) from the NZMS 260 series of maps, which were produced from 1977 to 2009. The Gazetteer lists the geonames within the jurisdiction of the NZGB: the NZ mainland (North, South and Stewart Islands and their peripheral MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 109 islands), more distant islands that are part of New Zealand, i.e. Kermadec, Chatham, Bounty, Antipodes, Auckland and Campbell Islands and The Snares and, in cooperation with others jurisdictions, Antarctica. In all, there are 50,547 entries in the Gazetteer. For this study the following groups of geonames in the Gazetteer have been excluded (see Table 1): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Antarctic geonames; Dual and alternate geonames; Discontinued geonames; Replaced geonames; Duplicated geonames, i.e. the second, third and so on of those entries with identical structures are only counted as one geoname; 6. Hyphenated geonames where there is a corresponding unhyphenated form; and 7. Nonmacronized geonames where there is a corresponding macronized entry. Table 1: The number of New Zealand geonames excluded from and included in the study Number of geonames excluded from the study; those that • are in Antarctica • have a dual or alternative name (official or unofficial) • have been discontinued • have been replaced • have been duplicated (including some hyphenated and unmacronized geonames) Total geonames excluded from the study Total geonames included in the study Total geonames in the Gazetteer 4094 648 175 484 9644 15045 35502 50547 The following types of geonames have been included: a. geonames with the same specific elements but with different generic elements, i.e. both Slipper Creek and Slipper Lake, and both Otatara Marae and Otatara Pa; 110 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) b. geonames that are in etymology derived from neither Māori nor English, e.g. Aigrette, Ranzau and Spion Kop, are included here as NZE geonames as they have been thoroughly appropriated by NZE speakers. They are also used regularly in Māori speech and writing; c. geonames that have the one word that is separated by a space and then repeated, e.g. Aka Aka, Toka Toka and Peka Peka; and d. geonames that occur sometimes as one word and sometimes as two, e.g. Sugarloaf and Sugar Loaf, are counted as two geonames. 5. UNGEGN’s Definitions Generic elements and specific elements are components of geonames. Concerning the part that a generic element plays in geonames, Aurousseau (1957:8) states, “A compound name may have a generic part, i.e. a part which tells us what class of things a geographical feature is…The generic part is usually a common noun (Cape).” The editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (1998) state that “Habitation and feature names are either generic or specific, or a combination of the two. A generic name refers to a class of names such as river, mountain, or town,” while Drummond (2016:118) states that “generics [are the] the element[s] indicating that it is a hill, mountain, etc.” In the Glossary the word generic is included in three definitions relevant to this study. 5.1 The first use of the word generic is in G112 generic term: “G112 generic term: A common noun which describes a ̶>topographic feature in terms of its characteristics and not by its proper name. Examples: mountain, sierra, san, shan, dagh, jabal, har, river, wādī, gang. It may form part of a ̶> toponym.” 5.2 The second use of the word generic is in G110 generic element: “G110 generic element That part of a ̶> toponym which consists of a ̶> generic term. Example: Port-au-Prince; Sierra MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 111 Nevada; Newport. The generic element does not necessarily indicate the type or class of feature of the item named... Complementary term: ̶> specific element.” A generic term (G112) becomes a generic element (G110) when included in a geoname in the generic element slot. 5.3 The third use of the word generic is in the definition of specific element. According to Aurousseau, “A compound name may have a…specific part, that is, a part which tells which thing, of the indicated class [of generic terms] is meant” (1957:8). He also identifies some of the word classes of the specific part: “It may be a proper noun, an adjective, or even a phrase (of Good Hope).” Kadmon (2000:40) repeats Aurousseau’s criteria but adds that the specific element could be a common noun, a proper noun (such as a personal name), or an indicator of compass direction (such as north). However, apart from mention in G307 of an “article and/or undefined other linguistic elements,” the Glossary definition does not indicate which if any other word classes can be used as specific elements. The definition is: “G307 specific element. That part of a > ̶ toponym which does not constitute a > ̶ generic term and which distinguishes it from others of the same ̶> feature class. It may include an ̶> article and/or other linguistic elements. Examples: Port Elizabeth; Rio Negro; Cape of Good Hope.” [Note: “G029 a feature class is the grouping of topographic features with similar characteristics... Example: river, creek... all classed under stream.”] 5.4 The two terms simplex and composite indicate the structure of a geoname. Aurousseau (1957:8) writes that a “geographical name may be simple (York) or compound (Isle of Wight).” Ainiala et al (2012:67) refer to “single part and two-part names” and a compound name. The terms simple, compound and single part and two-part names are subsumed in the Glossary within the two terms simplex and composite. 5.5 The Glossary definition of simplex is: 112 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) “G227 name, simplex Single word ̶> toponym, usually consisting of a specific component only. Examples: Kyiv; Temuko [?]; Malaŵi. Al-Qāhirah (Cairo) is also a simplex name, since in the original Arabic the article al- constitutes a bound > ̶ morpheme, i.e. an integral unhyphenated prefix. Complementary term: ̶> name, composite.” 5.6 The Glossary has compound (G213) and composite (G212) with the same meaning. The definition of composite is as follows: “G212 name, composite ̶> Toponym consisting of a > ̶ generic element and a ̶> specific element, or of a specific element consisting of more than one word. Examples: Mount Cook; Newport; Newfoundland; Kemijoki; Rostov na Donu; Sierra Nevada Oriental; Stoke on Trent. Complementary term: > ̶ name, simplex.” 5.7 The New Zealand geonames were coded according to the two third level categories of the UNGEGN model, i.e. as either simplexes or composites (see Figure 1). The results are shown in Table 2, which shows 12.5% of the geonames are simplexes and 87.5% are composites. Table 2: The numbers and percentages of the New Zealand geonames according to the UNGEGN model Category Simplex Composite Totals Number 4591 30911 35502 Percentage of 33502 12.9 87.1 100.0 6. Concerns with the Inferred UNGEGN Model Integrating the above two sets of Glossary terms results in a model in which there are simplex geonames and composite geonames (see Figure 1). In this section, several concerns with the UNGEGN model and associated matters are raised. MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 113 6.1 There is a lack of clarity in the definitions. The definition of simplex (G227) states that it is a single word “usually consisting of a specific component only.” This is a loose definition, as it seems to rule out the possibility of (1) simplexes with two or more words or even a phrase, and (2) generic element simplexes, and, furthermore, (3) the word ‘only’ is exclusive while ‘usually’ allows for exceptions to “only.” The definition of composite (G212) limits composites to two types (a) those geonames with both a generic element and a specific element and (b) a specific element of more than one word. However, it excludes the possibility of the generic element itself containing more than one word. And where does ellipsis fit into the definitions of simplex and composite? This matter is taken up in Subsection 6.9. 6.2 The structure of geonames is further taken up in the Glossary in a limited way in the entry G201 morphemes, which contains the words free and bound. However, to understand the structure of a geoname three terms, morpheme, word and phrase, are needed. The Glossary defines morpheme as follows: “G201 morpheme The minimal distinctive unit in > ̶ grammar; the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words. Example: 'names' consists of the free morpheme 'name' and the bound morpheme ‘s.’” Kadmon (2000:35) gives King and Lynn in the geoname King’s Lynn and König and Bronn in the geoname Königsbronn as examples of free morphemes, while ’s and s are examples of bound morphemes. Some morphemes are always or almost always, bound, e.g. the English morphemes de-, re-, -s, -ed, -ness and -ing, and the Māori morphemes -hanga, whaka-, tua-, -whina and -tia. In contrast, other morphemes such as port and manga, are free, though they can be joined to bound morphemes or to other free morphemes. 6.3 At a wider level than the morpheme is another important component of the structure of geonames, that is, a word. Kadmon (2000) does not discuss word as a subject in its own right. The Glossary includes ‘word’ in definitions about geonames, for 114 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) example, in G062 descriptive term, G212 composite name and G227 simplex name. It is also used incidentally in definitions about language, for example, in G145 language, G201 morpheme, G235 common noun, G328 syntax and G367 vocabulary. But there is no entry about words as parts of geonames. It should be noted that free morphemes are words but many words are larger than a single free morpheme. That is, when a free morpheme combines with either a bound morpheme, or one or more other free morphemes, or one or more other free morphemes and a bound morpheme the result is a larger word. There are several types of word structures that form geonames. Chief amongst them are the following: i. ii. iii. A compound, by which Crystal (2008:226) means that "two or more words are combined to function as a single item.” There are three compounding forms: • Two or more free morphemes retain their original forms and are adjacent to each other but joined with nothing interposed between them, e.g. the two free morphemes Devon and port form Devonport and the two free morphemes puke and miro form Pukemiro. • Two or more free morphemes retain their original form and, adjacent to each other, are joined as one word by hyphens, e.g. The Ant-hill and Te Hoe-O-Tainui; • Two or more free morphemes retain their original forms and are adjacent to each other as separate words, e.g. south and king in South King and motu and rima in Motu Rima; A blend occurs when the parts of two or more morphemes or words come together to form a new word, e.g. Tauranga Rimu Company ̶> Taurico ̶> Tauriko. A bound morpheme is attached to a free morpheme, e.g. s and Callaghan are joined as Callaghans, and whaka- and rae are joined as Whakarae. 6.4 Words combine to form phrases and many geonames contain phrases. The Glossary makes no reference to phrase, though Kadmon MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 115 makes passing reference: “the specific element can be... even a phrase, usually adjectival (Cape of Good Hope)” (2000:40). 6.5 Articles are morphemes and are found in many geonames. The Glossary entry for articles is G018: “G018 article A > ̶ morpheme that makes explicit the (usually) definite nature of a noun, and sometimes its gender, number and case. Examples: English the; Spanish el, los, las; French le, la, les; Arabic al-; Hebrew ha-; Romanian -ul.” In G227 articles are examined in more detail. Hence, “Al-Qāhirah (Cairo) is also a simplex name, since in the original Arabic the article al- constitutes a bound > ̶ morpheme, i.e. an integral unhyphenated prefix” (see G201). Articles occur in geonames in three ways. First are the bound morphemes that are referred to in G227, e.g. Al-Qāhirah. An example in the Gazetteer is Alhambra. A bound article morpheme is always part of the generic element or specific element to which it is bound. Second are those that occur as free morphemes and can be part of either specific or generic elements. They can (with examples from the Gazetteer) 1. be joined to other morphemes, e.g. La (LaBelle Valley) and Nga (Ngahape); 2. stand by themselves, e.g. The (The Amphitheatre), La (La Fontaine Falls), Te (Te Kahikatoa) and Le (Le Bons Bay); and 3. be embedded in a specific element, e.g. Hole in the Wall and Ahu-o-te-Atua. 6.6 Morphemes that are often part of a geoname are those concerned with the relation of a feature to another feature. Kadmon (2000:40) writes that “an indicator of compass direction (North Island)” can be a specific element. Three additional indicators not commented on by Kadmon nor included in the Glossary concern relative age, e.g. old, 116 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) new and hou; relative position, e.g. upper, middle and waenga; and relative size, e.g. big, little, nui and roa. Each of the four indicators can be a specific element, part of a specific element or part of a generic element. 6.7 In the Glossary a topographic feature (G094) is “[a] portion of the Earth…that has a recognizable identity.” Two types are identified: (1) G092 a natural topographic feature is not made or significantly modified by humans, e.g. river (but not canal) and forest (but not plantation), and (2) G087 a cultural (or G091 a man-made) topographic feature, is either made, or significantly modified by human, e.g. canal, road and populated place. In the Glossary entries there are a few natural feature generic element words, e.g. sierra, see, cape, kaap, river, creek, wādī and mount, and the situation is the same for cultural features, e.g. -ton and -burg (G005), casa (G006), main road (G030), port (G110) and via, road, traffic route and motorway (G247). In Kadmon’s list (2000:137-144) of about three hundred and fifty generic element words, about ninety per cent are for natural features, while only about ten percent are cultural feature terms, e.g. abād, bad, burg, burj, polder, puerto, qirya and vliet. There are many natural feature generic element words in the Gazetteer, e.g. awa, arete, bourne, cascada, karanga, knob, manga, rill, wetland and whanga. Similarly there are many cultural feature generic element words, e.g. cutting, dorf, field, house, huanui, kainga, maioro, paddock, pa, rua, urupa, wharf, wick and ton. (See Appendix A for NZE and Appendix B for Māori words and morphemes that are treated as generic elements.) It should be noted that in the Gazetteer some generic element morphemes and words can be used both for natural features and for cultural feature, e.g. arch, awa, awamate, bridge, forest, hiku, kawa and terrace. 6.8 An issue taken up neither in the Glossary nor in Kadmon (2000) is the question of what morphemes and words can count as generic terms and then be used as generic elements. Those which can be considered as generic elements have definitions in standard dictionaries, e.g. Deverson and Kennedy (2005), Ngata (1993), MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 117 Orsman (1997), Robinson (1999), Williams (1992) and Webster’s (1989), or in specialist dictionaries and other reference material, e.g. Whittow (2000), Macalister (2005), Land Information New Zealand (2014), Field (1990), Mills (2003), Ahnert (1996) and New Zealand Geographic Board (2005). However, many that occupy the generic element slot in the Gazetteer entries use morphemes and words that are not usually associated with a geographical feature. Typical of such terms in NZE are backbone, bosom, breast, castle, cone, eye, loop, nook, pillar, rotunda, staircase, table, teeth, wart and unicorn. These can probably be regarded as metaphors, given at the namer’s whim. Metaphors are open to divergent interpretations and are too unreliable a way to decide, without prior knowledge, what geographical features are referred to. Additionally, in many NZ geonames there are several morphemes or words, e.g. land, o, wai, tai, country, moana and sea, which are vague in their reference and may or may not refer to a geographical feature; these too are not regarded in this study as generic elements. (See Appendix III for the morphemes and words not considered as generic elements in this study.) 6.9 A further matter that needs to be considered is that of ellipsis. On this point Aurousseau (1957:11) writes that “It is noteworthy that the proper names of mountain-systems and mountain-ranges often appear in the plural in European languages. This happens in English when we drop the term mountains from the name (the Rocky Mountains are now called The Rockies, and the Pyrenean Mountains are now The Pyrenees).” Kadmon (2000:56) makes the same point and refers to this process of dropping the generic as ellipsis, i.e. the generic part of the structure of the toponym has been omitted for some reason, such as Skye instead of Isle of Skye (Kadmon 2000:200), though the omission may be understood. Similarly, Strandberg (2016:105) writes that "Ellipsis is the intentional reduction of an entire element (often the generic) in a toponym.” In Glossary G212, three geonames are given as examples of composite names, namely Rostov na Donu, Sierra Nevada Oriental and Stoke on Trent. Sierra Nevada Oriental is a composite with Sierra as the generic element, but where are the generic elements in Rostov na Donu and Stoke on Trent? Rostov and Stoke are not common nouns and nor are Donu and Trent. Which generic element 118 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) follows the two phrases: channel, canal, river, hill, cape, polder, plateau, etc? In these two there is no generic element. If one is not in the know, then one is left puzzled as to what feature the geoname refers to. The Glossary does not include ellipsis nor its verb elide or its adjective elliptical. Definitions of ellipsis vary and the following are from Robinson (1999): • • • “ellipsis noun 1 grammar a figure of speech in which a word or words needed for the sense or grammar are omitted or understood” (1999:427); “elide verb 1 grammar to omit (a vowel or syllable) at the beginning or end of a word. 2. to omit (a part of anything)” (1999: 426); and “elliptical adj 2 said of speech or writing… containing an ELLIPSIS” (1999:427). Elliptical is an appropriate adjective and two types of elliptical geonames can be identified. These are: • • A true elliptical geoname does not have a generic element as part of its name, e.g. Stoke on Trent and Rostow na Donu. A false elliptical geoname has a generic element but it is missing when the geoname is used. Examples of false elliptical geonames are the forms the Rockies and the Atlantic instead of the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. 6.10 A final issue, not discussed in the Glossary or by Kadmon, though he mentions, amongst others, -ton, -heim and -dorf, is to what extent need one delve into the past to identify generic terms in use today and hence today’s generic elements. Should, aber, bece, berg, broc, bryn, buhr, by, cumb, hām and so on, and their modern forms be included? For example, should Brynderwyn be coded as a specific simplex or should there be a generic element bryn and a specific element derwyn? The approach taken here is to identify as many generic terms as possible whatever form they at present take. For MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 119 example, Anglo-Saxon burh occurs today as berry, burg, burgh, borough, burrough, burrow, bur and other forms. 7. The Languages Used in Geonames Kadmon (2000:7) writes that “in many a country around the world one finds people speaking different languages, and geographical names originating in these languages.” The Glossary gives definitions for a variety of languages in various situations. For example, G154 a principal language, G148 an indigenous language, G198 a minority language, G241 a non-official language, G153 an official language and G172 a lingua franca. Only two definitions, G021 bilingualism and 070 diglossia, recognize that in a polity two languages can be in use. Kadmon (2000:7-13 and 79-85) discusses the bi- and multilingual situations in many polities. He writes (2000:11) of names in minority languages that “if no other name was officially recorded for a feature, the minority name is usually either phonetically adapted into the official language or translated into it or replaced by a new name.” He comments (2000:11) that “generalizing, one may assert that most [linguistic] minority languages... are not recognized administratively, and certainly not legally” within the polities in which they are now found. In contrast, he also notes that “in many countries the national awareness of the cultural heritage of minorities is on the increase… and minority toponyms are given increasing recognition by the authorities” and he refers to the comprehensive study on this matter by Ormeling (1983). However, the Glossary and Kadmon seem to ignore the various subtle and not so subtle ways the languages of the speakers interact in a contact situation. For example, there can be lexical borrowing from one language to another. Such is the case with the Māori and English languages in New Zealand, though, as pointed out above, Māori geonames have been particularly successful in maintaining their integrity, even though they are mostly mispronounced. So the questions is: what can be the consequences for geonames of the interaction of two (or more) languages in a specific polity? 120 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 8. Hybrid Geonames There are several consequences to having two or more languages in use in a polity, the commonest response being simply to add something from one language to something in a different language. Examples in the USA are New Mexico (NM), Denali National Park (AK), Simi Valley (CA), Lake Wawasee (IN), Bayou Nezpique (LA), Catoctin Furnace (MD), Mendota Heights (MI) (Bilingual), Tumwater (WA) (Crooks 2003), and in Canada, Medicine Lodge Coulee, L’anse-aux-Meadows, Fourth Chute and Deux Rivières Creek (Rayburn 1971: passim). Jenkins (2012:36) gives examples of geonames that are a mix of English and Afrikaans, e.g. Colesberg, Buck Kraal and Howisons Poort, while Vidberg (2017:156) gives examples of those that mix Finnish and Swedish, e.g. Pengergatan. A second consequence of having two or more languages in one polity was noted by Kadmon, who states that “doubling…is dangerous because it may lead to tautology” (2000:129), i.e. it is inadvisable for two generic elements with the same meaning but in different languages to be included in the geoname for the one feature, e.g. “Mount Nam San” in which mount and san are synonyms but in different languages. Similarly, New Zealand (2017), prepared by NZGB, views doubling as dangerous. For example, in the New Zealand geonames Mount Maunganui and Lake Rotoiti the English words mountain and lake have as their Māori counterparts maunga and roto. NZGB’s belief is that action should be taken to gradually eliminate such doubled geonames. What should these geonames with parts from two languages be called? Appel and Muysken (1987:165), in another context, refer to loan-blends or hybrids, i.e. words or phrases in a language that are derived from two (or more) languages. Jačeva-Ulčar (2009:170) writes, “we would like to emphasize…that most geographical names with inbuilt non-Slavonic components are hybrid toponymic formations, in contrast with the significant number of singlecomponent geographical names formed with linguistic elements of Slavonic origin.” A suggested term is hybrid geoname: MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 121 A hybrid geoname has one or more parts of its structure in one language and the remaining part or parts in another language. (See Tables 4 and 5 for New Zealand examples.) 9. Simplex Geonames Reconsidered The Glossary definition of simplex is loose with the contrast between “usually” and “only,” the focus on a single word (with or without an article) and Kadmon’s comment (2000:41) that “in a not inconsiderable number of cases a generic term itself constitutes a toponym, often – though not always – of a simplex form.” The definition leaves these and other questions answered in the negative. 9.1 A simplex is viewed here as “adj 1. simple; consisting of or characterized by a single element, action, or the like” (Webster’s 1989:1329) or “composed of, consisting of or characterized by a single part or structure” (Oxford 2001, Vol XV, p.499). Other morphemes and words can be part of the specific element. A new simplex definition at the third level of the enhanced model that can partially resolve the above problems is: a simplex geoname consists of one or more morphemes with either a generic element or a specific element but not both. (See Table 4 for New Zealand examples.) 9.2 Separating the specific element from the generic element so that each part contains only a one type of element leads to definitions for two types of simplex that also contribute further to the resolution of the issues. The definition for the first type is: a specific element simplex consists of one or more morphemes that form only a specific element. (See Table 4 for New Zealand examples.) It should be noted that as there is no generic element, all specific element simplex geonames are examples of true elliptical geonames (see subsection 6.9). 122 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 9.3 Kadmon’s statement (see the opening part of Section 9) that there can be simplex geonames that consist only of a generic term leads to the conclusion that in such geonames the generic terms are generic elements. The definition for the second type is: a generic element simplex consists of one or more morphemes that form only a generic element. (See Table 4 for New Zealand examples.) 10. Composite Reconsidered and Replaced by Duplex In contrast to a simplex in the inferred UNGEGN model is a composite (G212) or compound (G213) geoname. Composite has various standard definitions, such as “something that is made of various different parts” (Cambridge Dictionary) and “made up of distinct parts or elements” (Webster’s 1989:302). 10.1 It would be preferable to have a term which is more focused than the present definition of composite and which complements the structure of the term simplex. Such a term is duplex, with the meaning “1. Having two parts; doubled; twofold” (Webster’s 1989:443), “in British English 3. having two parts” (Collins Dictionary) and “composed of two parts or elements; twofold” (OED 2001, Vol IV, p.1129). The two parts are the specific element and the generic element, both being found in the one geoname. 10.2 A new general definition of those geonames with both a specific and a generic element is: a duplex geoname consists of two or more morphemes with both an explicit specific element and an explicit generic element. This definition removes the split in the Glossary definition between the two varieties given in G212 and shown in Level 4 in Figure 1 and allows for the development in the enhanced model of different types of duplex geonames at this lower, fourth level. 10.3 Kadmon (2000:38) writes that in “names of populated places in western languages the two components [the generic and specific MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 123 elements] merge into a single word.” A definition for this type of duplex is: a joined duplex geoname contains a specific element and a generic element which are joined together as one word. (See Table 5 for New Zealand examples.) 10.4 In the Glossary definition a different structure is also included. It consists of the generic element separate from the specific element, for example Sierra Nevada Oriental. A definition for this type of structure is: a separated duplex geoname contains one generic term as the generic element which is separated from the specific element. (See Table 5 for New Zealand examples.) 10.5 There are many geonames that contain two or more generic terms only one of which is the generic element, e.g. Lake Dale and Lake Marymere. (See Section 8 for a discussion of this matter.) Using Kadmon’s 2000 terminology, a definition for this type of geoname is: a doubled duplex geoname contains two or more generic terms, one of which serves as the generic element, and a specific element, that includes the other generic term(s). (See Tables 5 and 6 for New Zealand examples.) 10.6 It is to be noted that in some doubled duplexes the two generic elements are joined together. (See Table 6 for New Zealand examples.) 11. The Position of the Generic Element Kadmon (2000) refers frequently to prefixed and suffixed bound definite articles, such as al-, ha- and -ul, and some post positioned bound morphemes which signify the type of feature referred to by the geonym, such as -ton, -don, -town, -heim and -dorf. However, neither the Glossary nor Kadmon refer to the position of entire generic elements in relation to entire specific elements. 124 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) In contrast McDavid (1958:70) touches on this issue when he states that in the English-influenced part of the USA river nearly always follows the specific, e.g. Santee River, but in those parts of the country influenced by the French, river precedes the specific, e.g. River Rouge. Tent (2016) analyzes selected generic elements in New Zealand and Australian geonames to find out whether generic elements come before specific elements or specific elements come before generic elements. Hough (2016:88) is more emphatic, writing that the order in which the two elements occur “is determined by the characteristic structures of noun phrases in the different languages.” More generally, in duplex geonames the generic elements can be found in three positions in relationship to the specific elements. The three definitions that follow are from the generic element perspective. The first sees the generic element between the parts of the geoname’s specific element. Thus, an embedded generic element in a duplex geoname is placed between the parts of a specific element. (See Table 5 for New Zealand examples.) In such geonames what are the split part of the geonames to be called? Are they split specific elements or are there two specific elements in the one geoname? The second position sees the generic element at the beginning of the geoname. Thus, a preposed generic element in a duplex geoname is placed before the specific element. (See Tables 5 and 6 for New Zealand examples.) The third position sees the generic element after the specific element of the geoname. Thus, a postposed generic element in a duplex geoname is placed after the specific element. (See Table 5 for New Zealand examples.) MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 125 12. An Enhanced Geonames Model Thus far, the different components of a geoname have been considered in isolation. Putting together the components – specific (including true elliptical geonames) and generic elements, the language(s) used in the geographical name, the position of the generic element in relation to the specific element and the number of generic elements in the geoname – leads to an enhanced geonames model. This model, shown in Figure 2, has built on the inferred four level UNGEGN model (see Figure 1). Thus, it shares the basic structure of that model but now has five levels. The following points show what has been retained and what has been added. a. b. c. d. e. f. Level 1 is unchanged. In Level 2, language has been introduced as a component of the model. In a polity in which all geonames are in only one language the model will be applied to that one language. In polities which have geonames in two or more languages, the model needs to be applied separately to each of the languages. Additionally, there may well be geonames that are a mix of languages, i.e. hybrid geonames. Where there are hybrid names a separate model will be needed for each specific combination, i.e. for hybrids in languages 1 and 2, languages 1 and 3, languages 2 and 3 and so on. Level 3 is changed, retaining the term simplex but replacing the term composite with duplex. In Level 4, the Glossary definition of simplex geoname has been modified by splitting the category into two: specific element simplexes and generic element simplexes. This overcomes the difficulty with the contrast between usually and only in the Glossary definition. However, it also catches true elliptical geonames which, more formally, can be referred to as true elliptical simplex geonames. In Level 4, the new term duplex geoname has been split into three. The first two are joined duplex and separated duplex, while the third part, doubled duplex, catches the many geonames that contain two generic terms, one of which is part of the specific element. In Level 5, the position of the generic element is relation to 126 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) the specific element is given: the generic element can be embedded between the parts of the specific element i.e. a split specific element or, in relation to the specific element, preposed or postposed. 13. Generic Element Structures in New Zealand Geonames The New Zealand geonames that were coded for the UNGEGN geoname model are recoded for the enhanced model. Additional codes are for (a) the languages used, (b) the relative position of the generic elements, (c) whether the generic element is joined to or separate from the specific element and (d) the number of generic terms in a geoname. 13.1 Table 3 gives numbers and percentages for each of the fourteen subcategories by the three language groups applied to New Zealand geonames. Of the geonames NZE constitute just over half, Māori just under one seventh and hybrid just over one third of the total. 13.2 Table 4 gives examples of New Zealand geonames in the specific element and generic element simplex categories. 13.3 Table 5 gives examples of New Zealand geonames in the joined, separated and doubled duplex categories. 13.4 Combining joined duplexes and doubled duplexes gives doubled joined duplexes. There are no doubled joined embedded duplexes amongst the New Zealand geonames but there are double joined preposed duplexes among the Māori geonames and postposed geonames duplexes in the NZE geonames (see Table 6). MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames Figure 2: An enhanced model of the structure of geonames Note: true elliptical geonames are not included in the diagram because they are specific element simplexes. 127 128 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Table 3: Structures, numbers and percentages of New Zealand geonames extracted from the Gazetteer in the enhanced five level model. CATEGORIES and SUBCATEGORIES A. SIMPLEXES Specific element Generic element Simplex subtotals B. DUPLEXES Joined embedded Joined preposed Joined postposed Separated embedded Separated preposed Separated postposed Doubled embedded Doubled preposed Doubled postposed Doubled joined embedded Doubled joined preposed Doubled joined postposed Duplex subtotals Language totals A+B TOTAL NZ ENGLISH No. % LANGUAGES MĀORI No. % HYBRID No. % 1208 127 1335 3.4 * 3.7 3102 103 3205 8.7 * 9.0 51 0 51 * 0 * 2 91 648 34 1318 11433 3 171 3205 0 * * 1.8 * 3.7 32.2 * * 9.0 0 15 896 46 0 34 320 0 0 104 0 * 2.5 * 0 * * 0 0 * 0 0 5 0 3 322 8745 0 88 3380 0 0 * 0 * * 24.6 0 * 9.5 0 0 * 15 * 0 0 33 0 0 * 0 0 16938 18273 47.7 51.5 1430 4635 4.0 13.0 12543 12594 34.1 35.5 35502 Note 1: % = percentage of 35502. Note 2: * = less than 1.0%. Table 4: New Zealand examples by language for each simplex category New Zealand English Specific Element Simplexes • Alexandra • La Grippe • Lauras Leg • Frau Junge Generic Element Simplexes • Arete • The Plateau Māori Hybrid • • • Aniwaniwa Ngatieke O te Ukuuku Tuku • • • Apiti Te Waipuna - Little Huia • Putauhina Nuggets MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 129 Table 5: Examples of New Zealand geonames in the joined, separated and doubled duplex categories. NEW ZEALAND MĀORI ENGLISH JOINED EMBEDDED DUPLEXES • Redcliffe Nook • Oruanui • Martinborough • Paraawanui West JOINED PREPOSED DUPLEXES • Lynmore • Arapuni • Invercargill • Mangatainoka • Te Awamutu JOINED POSTPOSED DUPLEXES • Abbotsford • Eketahuna • The Silverpeaks • Karakamatamata • South New Brighton SEPARATED EMBEDDED DUPLEXES • Acacia Bay North • Cooks Landing Place 1769 SEPARATED PREPOSED DUPLEXES • Pic d’Argent • Motu Rima • Mount Rowland • Puke Kuri • Lake C • Ngapuke • Isle de Jeanette Whakatara Marie • Te Pari o Te Mataahua SEPARATED POSTPOSED DUPLEXES • Barking Dog Hill • Kaikai Pā • Casa Nova Park • Te Aroha Marae • • Hine Rere Dog Island Lighthouse GPR • Te Rite-aKawharu Pā • Avenue of Disappearing Mountain • A J Stream EMBEDDED DOUBLED DUPLEXES • Saddle Creek • Te Motu-oWest Marae-Ariki HYBRID - • • Glentui Benhopai. - • • Little Puketapu High Maunganui • Lake Morehurehu Kopuawhara Disaster 1938 • • • • • • - Kahura Landing Paritū Trough Ngamoko Stream Te Arowhenua Scenic Reserve Rip and Tear Pakihi 130 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) PREPOSED DOUBLED DUPLEXES • Glendene • Ngutukoko • Cape Horn • Horomanga • Lake Grassmere • Mount Elie de Beaumont POSTPOSED DOUBLED DUPLEXES • Arete Forks • Nga Pukepango • Beuzenberg Peak Pa • Ashley Gorge • Mangaroa Drain Hauora Marae • Point Chevalier Beach • Sawmill Wildlife Management Area • • • • • • • • Port Awanui Mount Apiti North Branch Kakanui River Lake Ngakoro Reporoa Bog Anakawau Bay Fort Takapuna Historic Reserve Blackburn Pakihi Note: GPR = Government Purpose Reserve Table 6: Examples of double joined preposed and postposed New Zealand duplex geonames. DOUBLED JOINED PREPOSED DUPLEXES Maungapohatu Horomanga Ngutukoko DOUBLED JOINED POSTPOSED DUPLEXES Avondale Springbrook Glentunnel 14. Conclusion This study has eight aims, all directed at testing the utility of two models aimed at ascertaining the geoname structures formed by their generic and specific elements. The models were applied to New Zealand geonames. New Zealand is a bilingual country with two languages; New Zealand English (NZE) is the majority and dominant, but not an official, language and Māori is a linguistic minority and official language. The country’s geonames were MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 131 extracted from the New Zealand Gazetteer and, after excluding several categories of geonames, the study includes 35,502 geonames. These geonames were coded and then analyzed according to the first model which was inferred from the model inferred from the UNGEGN Glossary. It was shown that 12.9% of the geonames are simplexes and 87.1% are composites. In this paper, several aspects of the inferred UNGEGN model, the relevant definitions in the Glossary and the work by Kadmon (2000) were examined with a view to identifying ways that the model could be improved. Thus, several aspects were considered and added to the model resulting in an enhanced model with several new features. First, the Level 3 category simplex was split into two at Level 4, giving generic element simplexes and specific element simplexes, thereby removing the uncertainty about the words usually and only in the UNGEGN definition of simplex. Second, the Level 3 term composite was replaced with the more appropriate term duplex, and the definition makes it clear that a duplex geoname must have both a specific element and a generic element. Third, at duplex Level 4, it was shown that the generic and specific elements in a geoname could be joined to or separated from each other. Fourth, the term doubled (from Kadmon’s doubling) was introduced into Level 4 as a third type of duplex, one in which there are two generic terms, one of which is the generic element while the other is part of the specific element. Fifth, the relative position of generic elements and specific elements vis-a-vis each other in duplexes was considered and it was shown that a generic element is either before (preposed) or after (postposed) the specific element or embedded between separated parts of the specific element. Sixth, the term split specific element was introduced. Seventh, a distinction between true and false elliptical geonames was proposed, with all specific element simplexes being true elliptical geonames. Eighth, it was shown that in bi- or multilingual polities the languages can interact with other in various ways, one of which is the formation of hybrid geonames. Ninth, it was shown that an analysis needs to be made for each language and for each of the hybrid geonames. Further, in the Appendixes, all the English and Māori generic terms that were accepted or rejected as generic elements in the study are listed. The items in these lists could be challenged with the result that recoding 132 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) would be necessary, thus changing the distribution of the geonames in each category and subcategory. The enhanced five level model was used to recode the structure of the 35,502 geonames extracted from the New Zealand Gazetteer. The numbers and percentages in the UNGEGN and the enhanced model level three categories are the same. However, the enhanced model presents a more detailed view of the structures with the revised levels three and four levels and a new fifth level solving many of the problems of the inferred model. Finally, the test showed that the enhanced model was viable as it yielded a fuller appreciation of the structures of the New Zealand geonames. 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APPENDIX A: New Zealand English Morphemes And Words That Are Used As Generic Elements In New Zealand Geonames anchorage, arch, arete, astronomical historic reserve, avon, bankhouse, bar, basin, bath, battery, bay, bayou, beach, bel, bend, berg, bight, bivouac, block, blockhouse / block house, blowhole, bluff, bog, bone mill, bos, botanical gardens, bourne, brae, branch, branch railway, branch railway line, brickfield, bridge, brook, bryn, burn, burg, bury, bush, butte, buttress, by, cableway, cairn, camp, campsite, canal, canyon, cap, cape, car, cascada, cascade, caster, cataract, causeway, cave, cavern, cemetery, central branch, centre, MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 137 cham, champ, channel, chasm, chester, chimney, Chinese settlement, church, church memorial reserve, cirque, city, clearing, cleft, cleuch, cleugh, cliff, coalmine, coalpit, col, community, conservation park, combe, coombe, copper mine, cors, cot, cott, cottage, couloir, courthouse / court house, cove, crag, craige, crater, creek, crevice, crossing, cut, cutting, dale, dam, dean, defile, delta, den, dene, dent, depression, deviation, diggings, dip, dish, district, diversion, divide, domain, dome, don, dorf, downs, drain, drive, dro, drum, dum, dun, dyke, earth dam, east branch, ecological area, entrance, enys, escarpment, esk, estuary, experimental basin, ey, fall, fan, farm, farm park reserve, fel, feld, field, fill, fiord, firth, flat, flax mill / flaxmill, floodway, flour mill, fontaine, ford, foreshore reserve, forest, forest park, forest sanctuary, fork, fort, fountain, fowlhouse, fracture zone, gap, garden, gate, general government building, gill, glacier, glade, glen, glowworm caves, goldfields, golf course, gorge, government purpose reserve , government purpose reserve railway conservation, government purpose wild life refuge reserve, grange, grave, grave site reserve, graveyard, green belt, grotto, grove, growth and preservation of timber reserve, gulch, gully, gut, gutter, hall, harbour, haugh, head, heads, heim, herst, highway, hill, hillcrest, hilltop, hirst, historic courthouse reserve, historic reserve, historic site, hole, hollow, horn, hot spring, house, hummock, hurst, hut, ice plateau, ice stream, icefall, inch, incline, industrial railway, inlet, inver, island, isle, islet, isthmus, junction, kaik, kauri scenic reserve, kilns, kin, kiwi sanctuary, knob, knoll, knowe, kop, lagoon, lake, landing, landing place, landing site, landslip, lane, law, lay, lea, leading lights reserve, leigh, ley, lighthouse, lime kiln, lin, line, lis, lyn, loch, lookout, low, lower branch, ---ly, lynn, main trunk, mansion house, Māori block, Māori settlement, mar, marine reserve, meadow, meeting house, memorial, memorial scenic reserve, mere, middle branch, military camp, mill, mill arm, mine, mining centre, moat, monastery, monument, morass, mound, mount, mountain, mouth, mudflat, narrows, national park, native forest, nature reserve, neck, neve, north branch, notch, observatory, orchard, outfall, overflow, paddock, parish, park, pass, passage, peak, peatland, pem, pen, peninsula, pic, pighouse, pike, pinnacle, pioneer cottage, pit, plain, plaque, plateau, point, pond, pool, post office, port, power station , powerhouse, promontory, province, punchbowl, quarantine reserve, quarry, racecourse / race course, raceway, rail trail, railway, railway 138 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) siding, railway station, range, rapid, ravine, reach, recreation reserve, redoubt, reef, re-entrant, region, reserve, reservoir, ridge, rift, rill, rise, river, rivulet, road, roadstead, rock, ruin, rural sections, saddle, salt spring, sanctuary, sanctuary area, sandhill, sands, sandspit, sawmill, sawpit, scenic reserve, school, school reserve, school site, schoolhouse / school house, scientific reserve, seamount, seamount complex, seavalley, settlement, shallow, shaw, shiel, shoal, showgrounds, siding, sierra, slaughterhouse / slaughter house, slip, smeltinghouse, smoke house, snowfield, soda spring, sound, south branch, spit, sports ground, spring, spur, square, stack, staf, state forest, state forest park, station, statue, stead, stock, stockade, stockyard, store, strait, street, sugar loaf / sugarloaf, summit, survey district, swamp, taillings, tarn, terminal, terrace, thermal area, thorpe, tomb, ton, tophouse, tor, torrent, toun, town, town, town belt, track, tramway, tre, trench, trickle, trig, trig station, trough, tunnel, upper branch, vale, valley, veld, village, -ville, volcano, war memorial reserve, ward, water race, waterfall, way, well, west branch, wetland reserve, wetland, whaling station, wharf, wharf reserve, wick, wilderness, wildlife habitat reserve, wildlife management area, wildlife management reserve, wildlife refuge, wildlife refuge reserve, wildlife sanctuary, wind farm, wood, woodlands, woolhouse, woolshed, worth, yard, zoo. APPENDIX B: Māori Words That Are Used as Generic Elements ahu, aka, ana, āpiti, ara, ararua, au, au, awa, awaawa, awakeri, awamate, awapuni, awarua, haka, hamaruru, hapua / hāpua, hāroto, hārotoroto, haupapa, hawai, hawai, hawe, heke, hiku, hikuwai, hīrere, hirinaki, hiwi, hongere, hōpua, horo, horohoro, hū, huahua, huanui, huarahi, huka, hukere, ikawhenua / ika whenua, ipu, kaha, kahaka, kahiwi, kainga, kakari, kāpiti, karanga, kari, kauanga, kawa, kawakawa, kawarau, kōhanga, kohatu / kōhatu, koi, koko, komutu, kopi, kopia, kōpiha, kopua, koro, kororipo, koutu / koutū, kowhatu, kumete, ma, maioro, maka, mania, manga, marae, marua / mārua, mata / mātā, matamata, mātārae, matata / mātātā, matiri, mauka, maunga, mitimiti, moka, motu, motuiti, mou, moutere, muriwai, MATTHEWS, New Zealand Geonames 139 ngae, ngahere, ngamata, ngaruru, ngatau, ngāwhā, ngutu / ngutuawa, nonoti, one, onepū, oro, pa / pā, pae, pae, paeroa, paeroa, pahiki / pākihi, pakihiwi, pakohu, papa, paparahi, papawai, pāraharaha, pararahi, pari, paripari, pāti, peka, piko, pīnakitanga, pīpīwai, poko, pūaha, pūau, puia, pūkaki, pukawa / pūkawa, puke, puna, pupuke, pūroto, puta, putanga, rae, raetihi, ranga, rangaranga, raorao, rapaki, rarawa, rehutai, rei, repo, reporepo, rere, ripo, riu, rohe / rohē, roma, roto, rua, taha, tahataha, tahatika, tahawai, taheke / tāheke, tahora, tahuna / tāhuna, taiari / taieri, taipu / taipū, tairua, taiwhanga, taiwhenua, takaripahuka, takau, take, takutai, tāpere, tapoko, tapuke, tara, tarahaka, tarahanga, tarakai, tarake / tārake, tarawa / tārawa, tārua, tātahi, tau, taukaka, taumata, taumutu, taunga, tauranga, tautara, tawa / tawā, tāwhiti, teitei, tihi, toi, toitoi, toka, tokatoka, tomo, tōpito, tuahiwi, tuku, uru, urupa, uta, utu, waeranga, waha, wahapū, waiariki, waikari, waikeri, waipuna, wairere, wanga, wao, wapu, whāiti, whakarua, whanga, whārua, whāwharua, whirinaki. APPENDIX C: English and Māori Words That Are Not Used as Generic Elements aiguilles, alley, archway, armchair, avenue, avie, backbone, backs, bank(s), bankside, base, bastion, battlement, beacon, blackwater / black water, bosom, boulder, boulevard, breast, broad, brow, bump, camelback(s), castle, cathedral(s), cauldron, central, clearwater / clear water, coast, column, cone, corner, cottage loaf, country, crack, cross, deepwater / deep water, desert, disaster 1938, dress circle, east, eastern, end, eye, face, fault, folly, footstool, foreland, fork, freshwater / fresh water, gable, gable end, gate, grange, grounds, group, haven, headwater / head water, heights, high, hillend, hogback, hump, hut(s), inner, ladder, land(s), leap, ledge, loop, lower, mar-, mark, middle, minarets, mire, mitre, moana, moraine, needle, nest, nook, nose, nugget(s), nut, o, ocean, outer, outlet, overhang, palisade(s), parade, patch, path, peg, pillar(s), pimple, pole, portage, post, precipice, promenade, pyramid, rampart, razorback, revenge, rock and pillars, rotunda, run, saltwater / salt water, scarp, scrub, sea, seat, selection, sentinel, serac, shore, 140 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) shoulder, shrund, shute, side, slack water, slope(s), slot, smooth, smooth water, south, spike, spire, springwater / spring water, square, staircase, steeple, stillwater / still water, street, submergence, sweetwater / sweet water, table, tai, teats, teeth, temple, throne, thumb, tits, tooth, top(s), tower, trestles, turret, tusk, unicorn, upper, view, wai, wall(s), wart, water, wedge, whitehead, whitewater / white water, windfarm, woolwash, -worth. Langues des toponymes des archipels créoles de l’océan Indien (les Mascareignes, les Seychelles et les Chagos) Jean-Cyrille Notter Université de La Réunion RÉSUMÉ: Territoires français à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, les archipels des Mascareignes (La Réunion, Maurice), Seychelles et Chagos (Diégo Garcia) ont connu un destin politique différent. L’ensemble de ces îles excepté La Réunion est devenu anglais. Pourtant, elles ont toujours aujourd’hui une toponymie majoritairement française. Le présent article se propose donc de quantifier et qualifier les langues utilisées pour nommer ces territoires en s’appuyant sur une base de données toponymique. ABSTRACT: French territories in the late eighteenth century, the archipelagos of Mascarene (Reunion Island, Mauritius), Seychelles and Chagos (Diego Garcia) experienced a different political destiny. All of these islands except Reunion Island became English. Yet today, the toponymy is still mostly in French. This article proposes to quantify and qualify the languages used to name these territories relying on a placenames database. © ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018): 141-163 142 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Introduction Les archipels créoles de l’océan Indien constituent une aire maritime jeune du point de vue de sa connaissance par les Européens. Le terme créole, en référence à une langue, une histoire et une population métissée, définit et circonscrit ces espaces insulaires qui partagent des éléments d’une histoire commune. La colonisation récente de ces îles permet d’appréhender quand, comment et dans quelle langue ont été nommés ces territoires, acte symbolique fort qui marque l’appropriation d’un lieu en un mot: le toponyme. Dans le présent article, nous nous intéresserons à la langue dans laquelle ces toponymes sont transcrits et transmis en se fondant sur un corpus toponymique homogène et nous nous interrogerons sur le choix de cette langue. Genèse des Mascareignes, des Seychelles et des Chagos La date à laquelle ces archipels furent aperçus pour la première fois n’est pas connue. On peut émettre l’hypothèse qu’elle se fit au IXe siècle par des navigateurs arabes selon des indices, des noms translittérés, Dina Arobi, Dina Margabim et Dina Mozare, écrits sur des portulans tels que le célèbre planisphère de Cantino dès 1502 pour les Mascareignes ou Zarin1 pour les Seychelles dans des documents arabes du XIVe et du XVe siècles2. À partir du XVIe siècle les Portugais sillonnent l’océan Indien grâce aux connaissances arabes (soit par des cartes ou par l’intermédiaire de pilotes); apparaissent alors les noms As Sete Irmas [les Sept Sœurs – Seychelles], Ilhas do Almirante [Amirantes], Salha de Malha [banc de Saya de Malha], Chagas [Chagos], Peros Banhos, IIhas do Comoro [Comores], Glorioso [les Glorieuses], Santa Apollonia [La Réunion], Cirné [Maurice], Rodrigues… L’Île Maurice Elle est nommée sur les portulans jusqu’à sa colonisation par les Hollandais en 1598, Dina Arobi. Puis Cirne, nom du bateau commandé par le capitaine portugais Diogo Fernandes Pereira, qui l’aurait aperçue en 1511. Dès leur prise de possession, les navigateurs néerlandais la rebaptisent Mauritius en l’honneur de NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 143 Maurice de Nassau (Maurits August Filips van Nassau). En un siècle, ils investissent peu l’île préférant la quitter en 1710 au profit de leur nouvelle colonie installée au Cap de Bonne-Espérance. Les Français en prennent possession au nom du roi de France en 1715 et la nomment Isle de France. La Réunion À l’arrivée des Français en 1638, l’île a déjà connu plusieurs noms tels Dina Margabim3, Santa Apolonia4, Ilhas Mascarenhas5 sur les Portulans aux XVIe et début XVIIe siècles et des noms éphémères attribués par des capitaines de bateaux de passage, tel England Forest6 et Pearle island. En 1649, elle est baptisée île Bourbon en l’honneur du Roi de France (Louis XIII). C’est à partir de 1663 que l’île va connaître une occupation permanente. Rodrigues La plus petite île des Mascareignes attira peu les conquérants. Elle est nommée Dina Mozare, puis Don Galopes ou encore Diogo Fernandes; à partir de 1528 elle prend le nom du navigateur portugais D. Diogo Rodrigues, transcrit Diogo Rodriguez (selon des cartes espagnoles), Diego Roiz, Diego Ruys (selon des cartes néerlandaises), Isle de Diego Ruys ou Diogo Rodrigo (carte de Leguat 1693). Les premiers à y séjourner, durant deux ans (de 1691à 1693), sont huit Huguenots (François Leguat et sept compagnons) fuyant la France. Les lieux cités le sont alors de manière fonctionnelle: le Vallon, l’Ancrage, la Pointe de Nord; finalement il ne subsistera qu’un toponyme de manière indirecte: l’Enfoncement de F. Leguat donné à posteriori. Après leur départ, les Français attendent 1726 pour en prendre possession au nom du roi de France et stabiliser le nom: Rodrigue ou Rodrigues. Les Seychelles et les Chagos Comme ils le firent pour les Mascareignes, les navigateurs portugais ne tentèrent pas de s’établir dans ces archipels, mais les cartographièrent sous le nom d’As Sete Irmas [les Sept Sœurs], ou Os Irmaos [les Frères] pour les Seychelles et Bassas de Chagas ou Cinco Chagas7 pour les Chagos. 144 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Figure 1. Colonisation française des Mascareignes, Seychelles et Chagos à partir de Bourbon puis de l’Isle de France En 1742, le Gouverneur général des Mascareignes, Mahé de Labourdonnais envoie Lazare Picault à la tête de deux bateaux de reconnaissance afin d’améliorer la connaissance de la route des Indes. Celui-ci prend possession de Mahé et ses îlots satellites et les nomme îles Mahé et l’île principale8 Île d’Abondance en raison de l’exubérance de sa végétation. Lors d’une deuxième expédition, en 1744, celui-ci part plus à l’est afin de passer par Rodrigues puis remonter vers le nord-est. Il se trouve au milieu d’îles qu’il croit être Peros Banhos (archipel des Chagos). Il continue ensuite sa route vers l’ouest afin de retourner aux îles Mahé. C’est au cours de cette expédition qu’il en prend possession au nom du Roi de France Louis XV. Il renomme alors l’archipel îles Labourdonnais et la plus grande île Mahé. En 1756, Nicolas Morphey9 les nomme Séchelles, en hommage à Jean Moreau de Séchelles, contrôleur général des finances de Louis XV. NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 145 Finalement, ce n’est qu’à partir de 1784 que l'archipel désigné Chagos sur les cartes marines, commence à être colonisé pour l’exploitation de la noix de coco et de son huile10. Figure 2. Souverainetés sur les Mascareignes, Seychelles et Chagos du XVIIe au XIXe siècles Des îles francophones Bourbon (La Réunion) est la première des petites îles du sudouest de l’océan Indien colonisée par la France; elle sert d’ancrage dans la région. Après le départ des Hollandais, les Français s’installent à l’Isle de France; Mahé de Labourdonnais établit alors le siège administratif des Mascareignes à Port-Louis. La position stratégique sur la route des Indes constituée des archipels des Mascareignes et Seychelles et la valorisation de l’Isle de France intéressent les Anglais. À la suite d’accrochages puis de batailles, ceux-ci finissent par occuper l’espace dès 1810. Ils rendent à la France subséquemment au traité de Paris de 1814, l’Île Bourbon, peu intéressante, ne possédant pas de bon port naturel11. 146 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Langues en usage au XXIe sciècle La situation de ces quatre entités politiques est aujourd’hui relativement différente; La Réunion, DROM12, est française à part entière, Mauritius13 et les Seychelles sont des républiques indépendantes, enfin cas particulier, les Chagos forment actuellement le BIOT14, territoire vidé de sa population native15. La langue officielle ou les langues officielles sont différentes selon ces territoires; le français pour La Réunion, l’anglais de facto et le français dans une moindre mesure pour Mauritius, l’anglais, le français et le créole pour les Seychelles et enfin, l’anglais pour l’administration16 des Chagos. Grâce à des enquêtes statistiques nationales nous pouvons tracer un profil d’utilisation des langues principales au quotidien (excepté, bien sûr, pour les Chagos), c’est-à-dire, la langue la plus souvent parlée à la maison (%) (cf. Tableau 1). Aujourd’hui, le créole qu’il soit mauricien, rodriguais, seychellois ou réunionnais, est non seulement une nouvelle langue, avec ses spécificités, mais surtout la lingua franca21 des habitants. Toponymes et langues en contact Dans ces archipels dont l’histoire est jeune, de l’ordre de 250 à 350 ans, la toponymie s’est construite dans une société coloniale ayant pour lien une langue, plus ou moins reconnue, le créole. Mais qu’en est-il de la toponymie et de son héritage actuel? Les parties spécifiques et génériques22 des toponymes sont des indicateurs. Ainsi, à partir d’un corpus23 assez homogène sur l’ensemble de ces îles de 6600 noms, nous constatons que 80 %24 environ des spécifiques est d’origine française ou créole (cf. Tableau 2). Pour les spécifiques et génériques, le terme créole désigne ici les noms en créole et en français régional25, dont la nuance est parfois difficilement discernable; par exemple, piton, nom donné, d'abord dans les Antilles, puis ailleurs, aux pointes les plus élevées d'une montagne26, est un terme français apparu dans les colonies françaises et que l’on trouve dans les îles des Caraïbes, de l’océan Indien et de NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 147 l’océan Pacifique (Nouvelle-Calédonie et Polynésie). Son usage en particulier à La Réunion est entré dans le langage courant, tout autant en français régional qu’en créole. Les génériques utilisés aujourd’hui ont une origine datant du début de la colonisation des archipels étudiés, ils sont issus de la langue régionale comme le créole (cf. Tableau 3). Tableau 1. Île Maurice (2011)17 Créole mauricien 87 % Bhojpuri (et langues indiennes) 6% Français 4% Anglais 1% Autre 2% Rodrigues (2011)18 Créole rodriguais 99 % Autre 1% République des Seychelles (moyenne 2002/2010)19 Créole Seychellois 90 % Anglais 5% Français 1% Autre 4% La Réunion (2007, dispatché)20 Créole réunionnais 53 % Créole réunionnais & français 38 % Français 9% 148 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Tableau 2. (NB: « sans » signifie que le toponyme n’a pas de générique) Chagos Langue nb générique nb spécifique anglais 40 25,2 % 42 26,4 % créole 15 9,4 % 9 5,7 % français 79 49,7 % 102 64,2 % 6 3,8 % x x autre sans 25 Total 159 15,7 % 159 La Réunion créole 1578 47,6 % 287 8,6 % français 900 27,1 % 2791 84,1 % 240 7,2 % x x autre sans 840 Total 3318 25,3 % 3318 Mauritius anglais 341 17,5 % 167 8,6 % créole 392 20,1 % 54 2,8 % français 506 25,9 % 1594 81,7 % 137 7,0 % x x autre sans 713 Total 1952 36,5 % 1952 Seychelles anglais 117 9,9 % 103 8,7 % créole 311 26,4 % 115 9,7 % français 505 42,8 % 905 76,7 % 57 4,8 % x x autre sans 247 Total 1180 20,9 % 1180 NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 149 Tableau 3. Répartition du spécifique par langue sur l’aire étudiée Langue du spécifique Nombre % français 5423 81,5 % créole (et vieux français) 474 7,1 % anglais 320 4,8 % malgache 263 4,0 % inde 50 0,8 % portugais 22 0,3 % hollandais 16 0,2 % autre ou inconnu 84 1,3 % Total 6652 Des toponymes écrits en français À l’exception de La Réunion restée française, les autres territoires appartiennent à l’Empire britannique puis au Royaume-Uni jusqu’en 1968 pour l’île Maurice et ses dépendances (Rodrigues, Agaléga, St-Brandon) et en 1976 pour les Seychelles. Enfin, les Chagos constituent depuis 1965 le BIOT. Cependant, les Britanniques en plus de 150 ans de colonisation ont toujours toléré la langue et la culture de ces îles, sauf pour quelques toponymes symboliques tels que l’Isle de France qui est redevenue Mauritius ou bien les Établissements du Roy renommés Port-Victoria. Sur le plan administratif, nous pouvons distinguer trois cas; le premier avec La Réunion et Rodrigues, où les toponymes sont en français académique ou régional, voire créole, essentiellement pour les termes génériques; le deuxième avec les Seychelles pour lesquels le français est reconnu officiellement27 et les termes spécifiques sont d’origine française; et enfin l’île Maurice où l’anglais est la langue administrative de facto, les termes génériques y sont donc majoritairement transcrits dans cet idiome dans les documents officiels28. 150 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Rodrigues représente un cas particulier. Longtemps isolée, l’île est restée à l’écart des Mascareignes29. Sa population est très homogène et est créolophone à 99 %. Les toponymes d’origine française y ont été peu modifiés et leur nombre a augmenté au cours du temps. D’autre part, la prégnance du français est aussi liée au fait que c’est la langue de transcription du créole jusqu’aux années 1980 où des normes d’écriture ont commencé à apparaître à La Réunion30, aux Seychelles31 et à Maurice32 et c’est aussi la langue en usage pour le catholicisme beaucoup mieux représenté que l’anglicanisme prêché en anglais. On a constaté un total de 92 % de catholiques pour moins de 1 % d’anglicans à Rodrigues (2011)33, 76 % de catholiques pour 6 % d’anglicans aux Seychelles (2010)34 et 24 % de catholiques pour moins de 1 % d’anglicans à l’île Maurice (2011)35. De ce fait, tous les documents rédigés sur les baptêmes, mariages, décès et enterrements pérennisent l’usage du français dans l’écriture des toponymes. Des toponymes administratifs anglais L’anglais est la langue administrative et juridique de la République de Maurice de fait et ainsi, comme nous l’avons vu cidessus, les actes officiels utilisent des génériques anglais sans pour autant traduire les parties spécifiques. Pour les Seychelles une procédure analogue peut être constatée, avec dans les deux cas un générique toujours placé devant le spécifique quand celui-ci n’est pas anglais, tel River des Remparts, mais Deep River (tout en anglais). Nous pouvons noter aussi quelques adaptations tels que Gros Ruisseau en Rivulet Gros Ruisseau ou Ruisseau Marron en River Ruisseau Marron où l’anglicisation s’est faite par l’ajout d’un générique36. L’anglais, dans l’usage, est devenu une langue internationale pour les échanges. Son emploi dans le domaine maritime pour les noms de récifs, chenaux, passes, détroits, îles, hauts-fonds est donc fréquent et ceci est particulièrement le cas aux Seychelles où l’on NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 151 note de plus en plus de génériques français à l’origine traduits. D’ailleurs, la proximité du français et de l’anglais sur les termes techniques facilitent ce changement et leur pérennisation: Cap → cape, pointe → point, baie → bay, banc → bank, barre → bar et même rocher → rock. D’autre part, certains spécifiques sont aussi traduits lorsque c’est possible, ainsi l’Île du Nord (au nord de Silhouette) est devenue North Island, Île aux Cousins: Cousin Island, l’île Frégate: Frigate. Ces modifications récentes sont en lien avec l’évolution de l’utilisation de la langue française aux Seychelles éclipsée par l’anglais, langue internationale pour les échanges et le créole, langue officielle depuis 1981. Cette anglicisation se trouve aussi à l’île Maurice dans les sites touristiques essentiellement maritimes. C’est le cas de Baie Bleue appelée Blue Bay ou même l’Île au Cerf re-nommée parfois Deer Island. La proximité entre français et anglais donne aussi une image plaisante voire valorisante pour le tourisme, avec des termes proches un peu désuets tels que Providence, Hermitage, que ce soit à l’île Maurice ou aux Seychelles. Des toponymes métis et créolisés Le créole est parlé, dans des déclinaisons propres à chaque île37, par environ 90 % de la population. C’est la langue la plus utilisée au niveau des génériques sur l’ensemble de ces archipels38 et la troisième derrière le français et l’anglais au niveau des spécifiques (sauf pour La Réunion où l’anglais, du fait de son histoire est quasiment absent). Son statut non officiel (sauf aux Seychelles, depuis 1981) peut expliquer le faible nombre de spécifiques en créole et d’ailleurs, son utilisation est plus importante au niveau de la microtoponymie informelle et à l’oral. La plupart des génériques ont une signification ayant pour origine le français issu de la période de colonisation, aux environs du XVIIIe siècle, et dont le sens a été approprié localement. C’est le cas pour piton39, mais aussi rivière40, anse41… D’autres plus récents ont une signification distincte du français moderne, par exemple carreau, 152 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) générique présent à La Réunion et à Maurice ayant pour définition […] on appelle carreau, un morceau de terre cultivée (champs, verger) ou non cultivée: in karo cane (un champ de canne à sucre); […] in karo zépine (un espace en friche envahi par les plantes épineuses)42; fond, […] en bas zot y habite dann fon la rivièr (ils habitent au creux de la vallée)43, présent aux Mascareignes et Seychelles; trou, dépression terrestre ou marine, présent à La Réunion et Maurice; camp, Au XIXe siècle, les engagés étaient logés dans des camps, groupe d’habitations situés à proximité des usines de canne à sucre. […] Ce terme désigne aussi des quartiers populaires installés à l’emplacement d’anciennes habitations d’engagés […]44, utilisé dans les régions de culture cannière… Ce dernier terme est fort intéressant car trilingue (français, anglais et créole); il en est de même dans une moindre mesure pour d’autres mots tels que canal qui existe en français et en anglais, mais dont la signification vernaculaire diffère, il s’agit généralement à La Réunion et Maurice de cours d’eau artificiels ou parfois naturels, non navigables, utilisés pour l’alimentation en eau, potable à La Réunion ou d’irrigation à Maurice, et dans cette île le terme est traduit administrativement par feeder et pour rivière river abrégé sous la forme riv. renvoyant à rivyer ou larivyer créole. Cette ambiguïté du générique est accentuée par le fait que celui-ci reste placé devant, comme en français et non après comme généralement en anglais; elle se retrouve également dans l’abréviation Mt pour Mount/Mont tel que Mt Chat, Mt Couve. Autre mot intéressant, dans (dann), en usage à Rodrigues ou aux Seychelles, cette préposition peut être assimilée à un générique du fait qu’elle identifie un lieu-dit comme Dans Limon, Dans Gravier ou Dans Bégué, le spécifique est alors un nom commun descriptif ou un nom propre désignant soit un habitant, soit faisant référence à un lieu. Enfin, le terme barachois présent à Maurice et à Diego Garcia en générique et à La Réunion en spécifique est apparu au début de la colonisation; l’abbé Pingré45 à la fin du XVIIIe siècle en donnait cette définition: enfoncement ou canal qui s’avance vers les terres. Aujourd’hui, il n’est utilisé qu’à l’île Maurice et sa signification a un peu évolué, il s’agit de digues construites afin de créer des zones artificiellement protégées, des viviers portant eux aussi le nom de barachois. Ce mot est également présent au Québec et en Acadie. NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 153 Au niveau des spécifiques, la créolisation est moindre du fait de l’écriture tardive du créole, le français ou l’anglais lui étant préférés dans les transcriptions administratives. En revanche, les noms vernaculaires des plantes ou des animaux constituent un des thèmes les mieux représenté dans la toponymie créole, ceci étant en partie lié au fait que nous sommes dans un monde insulaire tropical avec des espèces sans équivalent en Europe. Ainsi le nom fouquet désignant de manière générique les puffins et pétrels (des oiseaux) se trouve dans les trois archipels. De même, l’expression bois de … pour les arbres, tels que Bois de Gaulette, Bois de Mangue, Bois de Natte, Bois de Nèfle… est très présent à La Réunion. Sur les îles coralliennes, le nom cipaye ou cipaille présent dans des toponymes des Seychelles et des Chagos, désignant un gros crabe, n’a pas une orthographe arrêtée. Les expressions sont un autre thème où le créole, langue imagée, est utilisé, telles que Roche Gratte Fesse46, Pointe Aspère Moi47… ou des descriptions comme Glacis Rouillé48, Piton de Moustabismen49, Eau Bouillie Spring50 … Enfin, au niveau des spécifiques, la créolisation se fait à l’écrit, souvent officieusement et aussi dans de nouveaux lieux-dits, par une simplification de l’orthographe. C’est le cas à Mahé (aux Seychelles) avec Dans Lenn, c’est-à-dire Dans l’Inde, ou à La Réunion, Ti Bazar pour Petit Bazar51. Des toponymes malgaches issus de noms de plantes ou liés à l’esclavage Les noms en malgache issus de plantes se trouvent dans les trois archipels; ce sont, par ordre d’occurrence, Takamaka, Vacoa, Affouche, Songe, Maccabée, Moufia, Maduran ou Batatrand, Natte, Longoze ou Longouze, Ravenal, Raphia, Quivi, Foutaque et Embrevades. Le Takamaka est présent d’Aladabra aux Chagos en passant par Agaléga; excepté pour La Réunion et l’île Maurice où il s’agit du Calophyllum tacamahaca à l’intérieur des terres, pour les autres îles nous sommes en présence du Calophyllum inophyllum appelé takamaka bord de mer utilisé pour son bois, mais aussi pour ses fruits, sa résine et ses feuilles. Vient ensuite le vacoa avec 154 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) plusieurs orthographes: vacoa, vaqua et vaquoa. Il en existe plusieurs espèces dans les Mascareignes, mais pour le littoral et les petites îles, il s’agit du Pandanus utilis utilisé pour ses feuilles en tressage et ses fruits. La majorité de ces noms d’origine malgache font partie aujourd’hui du vocabulaire créole. Le thème de l’esclavage et fortement lié au marronnage52 avec plusieurs noms de marrons célèbres tels que Dimitile, Pitsa, Anchain, Cimandal, mais aussi des éléments issus de la description du territoire afin de repérer comme Bénare (du malgache be nara où il fait très froid) ou Tapcal (du malgache tapakala partie de forêt coupée ou tampokala sommet de forêt). Ce thème est essentiellement représenté à La Réunion. Des toponymes d’origine indienne issus de l’engagisme Avec plus de 60 % de la population d’origine indienne, l’île Maurice ne compte que très peu de toponymes dans les différentes langues du sous-continent asiatique, de l’ordre de 0,2 %53; en effet, engagés à partir de 1835 pour la culture de la canne à sucre, les immigrés indiens arrivent dans des territoires nommés ne bénéficient que de peu de peu de reconnaissance dans cette société coloniale. Il faut attendre l’indépendance en 1968 pour voir apparaître officiellement plus de toponymes (et micro-toponymes tels que des noms de rue) indiens dans le paysage mauricien; ce sont pour la plupart de toponymes commémoratifs: des noms de personnes ou de lieux saints de l’Inde comme Bénarès, Bramsthan ou des patronymes. Sottise a été renommée, en 1994, Shrinagar, mais continue à porter son premier nom; de même Kewal Nagar54 est la nouvelle appellation de Belle Rive. Des toponymes hollandais oubliés et portugais structurants D’autre part, la question du faible nombre de toponymes en langue hollandaise (c’est-à-dire en langue néerlandaise) sur l’île NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 155 Maurice pourrait se poser. Nous ne sommes pas dans les mêmes conditions: les Français sont arrivés sur une terre vidée de ses habitants, et donc l’appropriation de l’espace s’est faite à partir de nouveaux noms exceptés certains présents sur des cartes et déjà connus tels que Flic en Flac ou Flacq. Enfin, comme nous l’avons dans la partie historique, les premiers découvreurs-nommeurs occidentaux sont les Portugais; nous retrouvons donc leurs traces dans le nom des îles. Un témoin fragile de la toponymie des archipels créoles: Les Chagos Les Chagos sont pour leur part un cas particulier, vidés de leurs habitants natifs et interdits d’accès (sauf pour une escale limitée de quelques plaisanciers), ces îles perdent leur toponymie, car elle n’est plus utilisée et par conséquence leur histoire et leur identité créoles. Aujourd’hui, l’anglais est la seule langue en usage et il apparaît sur les cartes de Diego Garcia des noms tels que Camp Justice et Downtown, lieux pour lesquels l’abbé Dussercle notait en 193455 Camp N.O. et Camp de la Pointe Marianne. Si un jour une population civile revient peupler ces terres, s’appropriera-t-elle ces noms, peut-être désuets tels que Minni Minni, Barrage Bourrique, Bois Blanc, Aux Pluies, Clairci Nordest56, Carcasse… chargés d’anecdotes? Conclusion Le Français pourrait sembler globalement sur-représenté au niveau de la toponymie des archipels créoles de l’océan Indien, territoires majoritairement issus de l’Empire britannique. A contrario, il apparaît comme une composante culturelle et identitaire. Ainsi à l’île Maurice, les noms à connotation positive tels que Bon Accueil, Bon Espoir, Beau Séjour, Beaux Songes, Beau Climat, Mon Trésor, L’Agrément, L’Avenir, La Clémence, Plaisance… sont mis en valeur aujourd’hui à des fins touristiques pour montrer une île où le bien-être est reconnu, ou bien aux Seychelles l’Anse Forban, l’Anse Royale… rappellent une époque aventureuse et stimule l’imagination du touriste. Finalement, ces termes en français sont 156 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) bien ancrés dans le paysage, créolisés à l’oral et appropriés par les habitants, ils font partie de la culture et du charme de ces îles. Pourtant, nous pouvons noter une évolution à l’oral des toponymes qui pourrait être résumée (voire caricaturée) ainsi, à l’île Maurice, l’usage est franco-créole avec une langue administrative anglaise, aux Seychelles, anglo-créole avec le français comme référence historique, à Rodrigues et à La Réunion, un usage francocréole unanime. Enfin, aux Chagos, du fait de l’isolement militaire, les toponymes sont devenus des témoins figés du passé, oubliés car inutilisés. La question de la pérennité du français aurait été sûrement différente dans les îles devenues anglaises si l’autorité locale n’avait pas toléré la société coloniale en place reposant sur des grandes familles francophones et catholiques toujours appelées aujourd’hui à l’île Maurice les Franco-Mauriciens ou aux Seychelles les FrancoSeychellois d’une part et surtout la langue créole véhiculaire d’autre part. Son écriture récente va-t-elle maintenant lui permettre de s’afficher de plus en plus dans la toponymie? NOTES 1. Zarin signifie sœurs. 2. Dans les travaux de Majio-Al-Nadji - Filliot J-M. Histoire des Seychelles. Paris: Ministère des relations extérieures, coopération et développement; 1983. 225 p. Page 29. 3. Planisphère de Cantino, 1502. 4. Carte attribuée à Pedro Reinel, 1517. 5. Carte attribuée à Jorge Reinel, pour un ensemble de deux îles à la place de Santa Apolonia, 1517. Par la suite, l’île dédoublée apparaît sur les cartes jusqu’à la fin du XVIIe siècle, sous les noms de: (Ilha) Santa Apolonia et I. (Ilha) Mascarenhas. Ce dernier nom s’impose et l’île de Santa Apolonia, fantôme, disparaît des cartes. NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 157 6. Le 27 mars 1613, le navire anglais Pearl du Capitaine Castelton, jette l’ancre devant la côte Est. Les Anglais baptisent alors l’île England's Forest ou Pearl island du nom de leur bateau: « The Ile is like a Forrest, and therefore I called it Englands Forrest; but others call it Pearle Iland, by the name of our ship. » Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, vol. III, p. 351-352. 7. En référence aux plaies du Christ; Bassas se rapporterait aux bas-fonds, dangereux pour la navigation. 8. Mahé aujourd’hui. 9. Le capitaine Corneille Nicolas Morphey était le commandant de la frégate Le Cerf (éponyme de l’île au Cerf proche de Mahé). Le 1er novembre 1756, il prit possession des Seychelles, au nom du roi de France et de la Compagnie française des Indes orientales. 10. D’où l’appellation coloniale d’Oil Islands. 11. Ou peut-être par erreur selon Lady Baker (Barker MA. Colonial memories [Internet]. London : Smith, Elder; 1904 348 p. http://archive.org/details/colonialmemories00barkuoft Page consultée le 17 octobre 2017. « Then, as to Bourbon, the story goes that it was given back to the French by that same Treaty of Paris owing to a mistaken idea at our own Colonial Office thiat it was a West Indian island, instead of lying only a hundred miles south of Mauritius. » 12. Département et région d’outre-mer. 13. Île Maurice, île Rodrigues, Agaléga, Saint Brandon – terme utilisé afin de différentier l’île Maurice de l’État mauricien ou République de Maurice. 14. British Indian Ocean Territory. 15. Terme préféré à autochtone, cette population n’était présente que depuis quelques générations. Le Royaume-Uni loue 158 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) actuellement ce territoire aux États-Unis pour y maintenir une base militaire. 16. Il ne reste qu’un bureau symbolique du BIOT à Diego Garcia au milieu de la base américaine. 17. Pages 81-84 - Republic of Mauritius - Ministry of Finance and Economic Development - Statistics Mauritius 2011 - Housing and Population Census - Republic of Mauritius - Volume II: Demographie and fertility characteristics. http://statsmauritius.govmu.org/ English/Documents/publications/Housing/economics%20and%20so cial%20indicators/reports/2011VolIIPC.pdf. Page consultée le 2 septembre 2017. 18. Pages 85-86 ibidem. 19. Page 67 – Population and Housing Census 2010 Report – Republic of Seychelles http://catalog.ihsn.org/index.php/catalog/ 4079/download/55081. Page consultée le 2 septembre 2017. 20. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/fichier/1292364/revue 137-creole.pdf. Page consultée le 2 septembre 2017. 21. Ou langue véhiculaire. 22. Le terme générique est l’élément du toponyme qui identifie de façon générale la nature de l’entité géographique dénommée; il peut être français, mais la plupart des termes génériques appartiennent aux langues régionales. […] L’élément spécifique complète le terme générique et identifie de façon particulière l’entité géographique dénommée; il peut comporter un article ou un autre élément linguistique, ou bien les deux. […] Ces deux parties composant les toponymes s’articulent à l’aide d’articles et de mots de liaison, locutions adverbiales et prépositions notamment. Note IGN/SBV n° 03.0155 de février 2003 – CHARTE DE TOPONYMIE – Toponymie du territoire français. 23. Le corpus toponymique utilisé dans cette étude a été produit à partir de cartes topographiques d’échelles variables, du 1: 25 000 NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 159 au 1: 100 000, réalisées par l’IGN (La Réunion, Maurice et Rodrigues), et l'Ordnance Survey (Seychelles et Maurice), mais aussi à l’aide de cartes touristiques de différentes sources. Une base de données thématique et géoréférencée a ainsi été constituée: celle-ci contient 6600 enregistrements et 16 attributs. La difficulté est de tendre vers des densités homogènes étant donné que la configuration de ces espaces est hétérogène avec des tailles d’île, des morphologies et des reliefs très différents. Ainsi, les petites îles peuvent avoir une densité de toponymes plus grande en partie dû au fait que ceux-ci désignent aussi la partie marine, comme les baies, les criques, les passes. La structuration de cette base de données, les attributs, leurs valeurs, a pour point de départ la thèse «Une toponymie voilée: problématique des noms de lieux particulière à une minorité canadienne, la Fransaskoisie», Carol Jean Léonard. 2006. Université Laval. http://theses.ulaval.ca/archimede/fichiers/23979/23979.pdf. 24. Un total de 82 % des spécifiques du corpus total est en français. 25. Nous appellerons ici français régional, les formes de français et le vocabulaire dont la signification diffère de la métropole, soit par adaptation et évolution locale soit par utilisation formes anciennes du français. 26. https://www.littre.org/definition/piton, consulté le 2 septembre 2017. 27. Ainsi, les noms des îles spécifiés en annexe 1 de la Constitution sont bien écrits îles, seule l’Île aux Vaches – Bird Island a un double nom. 28. C’est le cas dans le « Forests and reserves act de 1983 », l’ensemble des cours d’eau réglementés de l’annexe 4 y est structuré en rivers, rivulets and feeders selon leur ordre d’embranchement (1er ordre: river, 2ᵉ ordre: rivulet et ordres suivants: feeder) avec ces termes génériques, et à l’instar des autres îles les spécifiques sont principalement français. 160 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 29. Simon T. Rodrigues « par les textes » : Paysage(s) écrits et perçus. Les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer Revue de géographie de Bordeaux. Janv 2009; 62 (245): 95–109. Pages 95-96. 30. Plusieurs « écritures » se sont succédé mais aucune n’est encore consensuelle. 31. À partir de 1981 « Le créole sera non seulement la première langue enseignée, mais aussi le support de l'enseignement au début de la scolarité primaire » - Poth J. L’introduction du créole comme langue d’enseignement. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0005/ 000535/053585fo.pdf. Consulté le 2 septembre 2017. Page 18. 32. Il a fallu attendre 2011 pour l’officialisation d’une orthographe fixe. 33. Statistics Mauritius 2011, ibidem. Page 70. 34. Population and Housing Census 2010 Report, Republic of Seychelles, ibidem. Page 29. 35. Statistics Mauritius 2011, ibidem. Page 69. 36. Ce processus d’ajout d’un générique à un autre générique existe également à La Réunion, au niveau des cartes topographique, où pour certains bras, c’est-à-dire des bras de rivière, le terme ravine a été ajouté, comme Ravine Petit Bras Piton, Ravine Bras Mouton, mais dans ce cas le cartographe l’a fait par méconnaissance de la toponymie réunionnaise et de ses génériques. 37. Les créoles français de l’océan Indien auraient une origine commune qui est au départ un parler régional, le « bourbonnais ». En sont issus avec des apports d’autres langues: le créole réunionnais, le créole mauricien, le créole rodriguais, le créole seychellois, le créole chagossien. Cf. Robert Chaudenson. La genèse des créoles de l’océan Indien. Paris: l’Harmattan, 2010. 38. En considérant l’ensemble français régional et créole. NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 161 39. Cf. ci-dessus nom donné, d’abord dans les Antilles, puis ailleurs, aux pointes les plus élevées d’une montagne. 40. La signification usuelle n’en est pas le sens moderne où la rivière est un affluent d’un fleuve, mais celle transcrite dans le Dictionnaire illustré de La Réunion (René Robert, Dictionnaire illustré de la Réunion. Paris: Diffusion culturelle de France, 1992): ce terme désigne les plus grands cours d’eau de l’île, et, en général, ceux qui sont pérennes, vol. 6 p. 110. 41. Ce terme apparaît à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, il ne se trouve qu’au sud-est de La Réunion, dernier espace côtier habité et est très présent aux Seychelles dont la colonisation débute à cette même période. Le Littré en donne la définition au début du XIXe siècle: En termes de marine, petite baie peu profonde. Les navires se réfugièrent dans une anse. 42. René Robert et al, ibidem. Vol. 2 page 44. 43. René Robert et al, ibidem. Vol. 3 page. 121. 44. René Robert et al, ibidem. Vol. 2 pages.19-20. 45. Alexandre-Gui Pingré. Voyage à Rodrigue: le transit de Vénus de 1761 la mission astronomique de l’abbé Pingré dans l’océan Indien. Édition critique. Bibliothèque universitaire & Francophone. Paris La Réunion: Sedes Université de la Réunion, 2004. 46. Accès difficile – Mahé – Seychelles. 47. Attends-moi: lieu de rendez-vous des pêcheurs – Praslin – Seychelles. 48. Rocher de couleur rouille – Silhouette – Seychelles. 49. Abeilles (ruches) de l’établissement (domaine sucrier) – La Réunion. 162 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) 50. Source bouillonnante – Maurice. 51. Petit Bazar est un quartier de Saint-André. Bazar signifie ici un marché, sens moins exotique qu’en français où il qualifie un marché oriental. 52. Nom donné à l’évasion d’un esclave et de son statut de fuyard. 53. Soit un rapport de 28 toponymes sur 1595 mis en base de données pour l’île Maurice; de surcroît, il s’agit essentiellement de patronymes. 54. Soit le village natal de l’ancien Premier ministre de Maurice, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam considéré comme le père de la nation mauricienne. 55. Dussercle, Roger. Archipel de Chagos: En mission. 16 novembre 1933-11 janvier 1934 : En mission. Septembre-novembre 1934. 2 vol. Port-Louis, France: Esclapon, 1934. 56. Clairci: éclaircie, lieu-dit situé à proximité de Aux Pluies. BIBLIOGRAPHIE Chaudenson, Robert. 2010. La genèse des créoles de l’océan indien. Paris: L’Harmattan. De St. Jorre, Danielle, et Lionnet, Guy. 1998. Esquisse D’un Dictionnaire Toponymique Des Seychelles. Printec Press Holding. Lapierre, André. 2006. « Identité linguistique et toponymie : le vécu de la communauté francophone de l’Ontario (Canada) », Identitätsbewahrung und Identitätsbegründung durch Sprache, 183-191. Lionnet, Guy. 2001. Par les chemins de la mer: périples aux Séchelles au temps des voyages aux longs cours. Université de la Réunion, Département de langues, cultures et sociétés de l’océan Indien. NOTTER, Langues des toponymes 163 Nagapen, Amédée. 1996. Histoire de la Colonie: Isle de France-Ile Maurice 1721-1968. Port-Louis (Maurice): Diocèse de PortLouis. Notter, Jean-Cyrille. 2015. « Nommer les lieux ou comment créer les territoires des Mascareignes et des Seychelles ». In: Dire l’Océan Indien, 1:92-114. Université de La Réunion, Épica. Université de La Réunion OSOI. Robert, René, Barat, Christian, et Cadet, Janine. Dictionnaire illustré de La Réunion. 7 Volumes. Paris: Diffusion culturelle de France. Société de l’histoire de l’île Maurice. 1997. Dictionnaire toponymique de l’île Maurice: origine des noms de lieux. 4 volumes. Vacoas, Île Maurice: Pour La Société de l’histoire de l’île Maurice. Toussaint, Auguste, 1972. Histoire des îles Mascareignes. Mondes d’outre-mer Série Histoire. Paris: Berger-Levrault. Rescuing Colonized Names of the Wyandot John Steckley Humber College, Retired ABSTRACT: This article deals with names of the Wyandot, an Iroquoian-speaking, Indigenous people of the period surrounding the War of 1812. The people have a naming tradition that includes clan possession and the passage of important names over generations. This tradition was “colonized” by a combination of English settler names, nicknames that “sound Indian,” and inaccurate recordings of the names in their original Wyandot, so that the names are difficult to translate and difficult to relate to holders of the names in other times. In this article seven such names are analyzed. RÉSUMÉ: Cet article traite des noms des Wyandot, un peuple autochtone de langue iroquoienne datant de la période entourant la guerre de 1812. Ce peuple a une tradition de dénomination qui inclut l'appartenance à un clan et la transmission de noms importants au fil des générations. Cette tradition a été « colonisée » par une combinaison de noms de colons anglais, de surnoms «à semblance autochtone» et une graphie inexacte des noms dans le Wyandot d'origine, de sorte que les noms sont difficiles à traduire et à associer aux détenteurs d'antan des noms en question. Dans cet article, sept de ces noms sont analysés. © ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018): 165-187 166 1. ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Introduction In a recent visit to the War of 1812 battleground site of the River Raisin on the outskirts of Monroe, Michigan, I became aware of the extent of the colonization of names of the Wyandot from that time. I repeatedly heard and read names, such as Leatherlips, Roundhead, and Cherokee-Boy, that were not authentic, traditional Wyandot names. They did not belong to clans and had not been handed down over many generations. Also, when names in the Wyandot language were written down, as in treaties, they were generally recorded in ways that do not represent well what the words sounded like. This made it difficult to translate them or connect them with name-holders of the past and future. Being “colonized” as unimportant in that way, the significance of the names to the people could not be learned by the descendants and people interested in Wyandot history. Thus began a kind of onomastic treasure hunt to discover the identifiable history of the names, rescuing them from colonial oblivion. 2.0 Who Are the Wyandot? The earliest recorded homeland for the Wyandot people was near the southern shores of Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron. The core group of founders were called Petun, “tobacco,” by the French, as they were successful tobacco traders, although they did not grow the crop themselves. Their neighbours to the east, who spoke a related dialect and who contributed members to the group that later became known as the Wyandot, were called “Huron” by the French, an insult based on their “Mohawk haircuts,” thought to resemble the bristles of pigs. They called themselves “Wendat,” the meaning of which is unknown. The Wendat called the “Petun” Etionnontateronnon, “people of where there is a mountain or hill.” That mountain is known today as Blue Mountain, which hosts a popular ski resort in the area. By the early 1650s, the Wyandot (a name that is based on the word Wendat) had been chased out of Ontario by the Haudenosaunee (the then five nations of the Iroquois) to the upper Great Lakes area, even as far as Wisconsin. In the early 1700s, they moved south to the STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 167 Detroit area, with some of their number forming a community in Ohio by the southern shores of Lake Erie later that century. By the early 1800s, the Wyandot comprised two villages, one in Michigan, which sided with the British/Canadian/Native Alliance side in the War of 1812, and one in Ohio, which took the American side, both choices relating to the local situation. In 1843, the Ohio and some Michigan Wyandot were driven west to Kansas by the Indian Removal Act. In 1867, some went farther to what was then Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. There are communities today in Michigan, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Their former Wendat neighbours live in Wendake, a little outside of the city of Quebec. 3.0 The Naming Traditions of the Wyandot The Wyandot were at the time in question a matrilineallyoriented, clan-based society. Among the prized possessions of each clan were their names, especially names considered great, as they were passed down to male and female leaders when the earlier holders died. The following entry on the verb -as-, “to name,” taken from Jesuit Father Pierre Potier’s dictionary of the 1740s, gives a sense of how the people regarded names. The words here take the form of the verb that has the repetitive prefix -s- and the middle voice or semi-reflexive prefix -at- added: onsa-atiatsi…relever le nom de q[uelqu’un] (to pick or lift up the name of someone) hachiendase sonatiatsi v onsahatias (Hachiendase, one receives his name or he picks up his name) on a relevé le nom d’hachiendase (One picks up the name of Hachiendase) hechon eshonatias (Hechon will receive his name) 168 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) On relevera le nom d’hechon (One will pick up the name of Hechon) (Potier 1920:209) The names mentioned in this entry were given to Jesuits, showing that their naming by the people had been incorporated into Wendat/Wyandot practice. The name Hachiendase, which means “he has a new name,” was from the time of Father Jerome Lalemant in 1639, given to whomever was the Father Superior (Steckley 2007:238). The name “Hechon” was first held by Father Jean de Brébeuf. When he died in 1649, the Wendat gave the name to Father Pierre Chaumonot, and when he died in 1693, the Wendat passed the name on to Father Daniel Richer. The next part of the entry includes what appears to be a line taken from the renaming ceremony. In this text the -8- represents a -w-, and the -,- represents a -y-. setsa,on, saθarat, hachiend8annen, ehen shechiatsi v onsahechiatias (Have courage. Do good. His was a great name. You are taking his name, or you took his name, he who had a great name) Prens courage, comporte toi bien, tu as relevé le nom d’un considerable (Have courage. Comport yourself well. You have taken up the name of an important person) (Potier 1920:209) The entry pertaining to the verb root -ohare-, “to wash,” provides a metaphor for the naming ceremony. Atatechiendohare (to wash one’s name) Laver son nom, prendre un nouveau nom (metap) faire festin en prennant un nouveau nom (to wash one’s name, to take a new name, metaphorically, to have a ceremony in taking a new name) (Potier 1920:406) Undoubtedly the best description of the clan connection of the traditional names of the Wyandot comes from the historian William STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 169 E. Connelley, who worked with and for the people in the late 19th century. Because of its significance, it is quoted at length: The customs and usages governing the formation of clan proper names demanded that they be derived from some part, habit, action, or peculiarity of the animal from which the clan was supposed to be descended. Or they might be derived from some property, law, or peculiarity of the element in which such animal lived. Thus, a proper name was always a distinctive badge of the clan bestowing it. When death left unused any original clan proper name, the next child born into the clan, if of the sex to which the vacant name belonged, had such vacated name bestowed upon it. If no child was born, and a stranger was adopted, this name was given to such adopted person. This was the unchangeable law, and there was but one proviso or exception to it. When a child was born under some extraordinary circumstance, or peculiarity, or with some distinguishing mark, or a stranger adopted with these, the council-women of the clan informed themselves of all the facts and devised a name in which all these facts were imbedded. This name was made to conform to the ancient law governing clan proper names if possible, but often this could not be done. These special names died with their owners, and were never perpetuated…. The parents were not permitted to name the child; the clan bestowed the name. Names were given but once a year, and always at the ancient anniversary of the Green Corn Feast. Anciently, formal adoptions could be made at no other time. The name was bestowed by the clan chief. He was a civil officer of both his clan and the tribe. At an appointed time in the ceremonies of the Green Corn Feast each clan chief took an assigned position, which in ancient times was the Order of Precedence and Encampment, and parents having children to be named filed before him in the order of the ages of the children to be named. The council-women stood by the clan chief, and announced to him the name of each child presented, for all clan proper names were made by the council-women. 170 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) The chief then bestowed the name upon the child. This he could do by simply announcing the name to the parents, or by taking the child in his arms and addressing it by the name selected for it. A man (and perhaps a woman) might have two names, sometimes more. He was not prohibited from assuming an additional name. The tribal council might order a special name bestowed upon him for distinguished services to the nation. But these were only incidental names, and he might be called by them or not as his fellows chose. His clan name was his true name, and while he might have others, he could not repudiate it nor lay it aside. Whatever he was to his tribe, or to others, he was to his clan only what his clan name indicated, and he was almost always so called. Any additional names he might possess died with him; they were never perpetuated. This manner of naming was advantageous. A man disclosed his clan in telling his name. The clan was his mother; he was the child of the clan; his name was his badge and always a sure means of identification. (Connelley 1900b:33-35) What follows in sections 3.1 through 3.7 are the stories of seven such Wyandot names. 3.1 It Is the Same Size as the Sky (As Big as the Sky) – Porcupine Clan The name that got me started on this project was Leatherlips (1732-1810). It was clearly not a Wyandot name. It would take two words to express, and such is almost non-existent in the language and naming traditions of the people. The only name that violates this rule that I know of is Amęnye ire, “on water he walks,” usually recorded as Walk-In-The-Water. It was recorded (spelled variously) in treaties of 1805, 1807, 1808, and 1815. Yet the English nickname Leatherlips is usually given in the historical record and in contemporary remembrance. He was a Porcupine clan leader who was closer to the Americans than the STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 171 British in the upcoming conflict. He was in favour of selling Wyandot land, which was one reason given for his people executing him in 1810. He is memorialized where he lived and died, near Columbus, Ohio. There is a Chief Leatherlips Monument in Dublin, Ohio, where stands a 12-foot-tall image of his head, constructed out of limestone slabs, commissioned by the Dublin Arts Council in 1990. There is an outdoor play performed each year by high school students since 2010, Leatherlips: Twin Clouds (Roadsideamerica.com). Stories abound about Leatherlips, even a so-called “curse” of rain pouring down at the nearby Muirfield Village Golf Club, site of the annual Memorial Tournament on the PGA tour. Considerably less often recorded, and less well known in the Wyandot language and not known in translation, is his Wyandot name, which has been written in the following varying ways: Name Shateyyaronyah Thateyyanayoh Sha-te-yah-ron-ya Shah-tah-hooh-rohn-the Reference Treaty of 1795 (Wyandotte Nation) Treaty of 1805 (Wyandotte Nation) (Buser 1989) (Connelley 1900b:11) The name was not difficult to decipher as it contained the noun root -rony-, “sky.” Wyandot names often refer to the sky. I know of 11 such names, including one that will be discussed later in the paper. Shateyaronyah It is of the same size as the sky. shacoincident -tedualic (combining with the coincident prefix to mean “the same as”) -yafeminine zoic agent (FZA) “she or it” -ronynoun root “sky” -ah verb root “to be a size” + stative aspect An attempt at translation has been made, “same size as blue” (Roadsideamerica.com). This is inaccurate but interesting, as the noun for sky is part of the word for blue in Wyandot. 172 3.2 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) He Often Carries Bark (Bark-Carrier) – Porcupine Clan One Wyandot name with an especially long written history is “He often or repeatedly carries bark. He is a bark carrier.” Individuals bearing this name are recorded from the 1650s until the death (c1860) of the man who was perhaps the last Bark-Carrier. Although he possessed an important Porcupine clan name, he was generally known to the settler world as Roundhead, not a name recorded by anyone else Wyandot. Here is what we have about the name from the written record. A 17th Century Petun Chief This name first appears in the written record in the Jesuit Relations, written in 1654 in the account of Father Simon Le Moine when he was travelling to the country of the Onondaga in July to September 1653. He was writing about the refugees from Wendat and Wyandot country: I have the consolation of confessing there at my leisure our former host of the tobacco [Petun] Nation, Hostagehtak. His feelings and his devotion bring tears to my eyes. He is a fruit of the labors of Father Charles Garnier. (Thwaites 1959, v. 41:97) The connection to Garnier is important. Father Charles Garnier spent his last years in the Petun village of Etharita (a little south of Georgian Bay and west of Lake Simcoe), which was the principal village of the Wolf grouping (possibly tribe) of the Petun. The fact that Bark Carrier had hosted this Jesuit when he was in Wyandot country tells us that he was a man of some significance among his people at that time. Franciscus-Xavier The next reference to the name appears in the baptismal records of the 18th century. On June 11, 1730, a two-year-old girl was baptized, and a godparent was named, osta,eta (Toupin 1996:827 STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 173 B107). Jesuit Father Robert Toupin, who published an important collection of the writings/recordings of Father Pierre Potier, believed that it was the name of the godmother, perhaps as this was the only godparent mentioned. However, a close examination of the baptismal records demonstrates that there was no guarantee that, if there were one godparent, it was of the same gender as the one being baptized. On October 3, 1734, a 12-year-old boy with the name of Franciscus Xavier Hosta,etat was baptized. No names of parents or godparents were mentioned (Toupin 1996:837 B311). Roundhead - Hustayehtak (c1760-1813) Perhaps the best-known individual to bear this name was an individual of the Porcupine clan who played a significant role in the War of 1812 as Shawnee leader Tecumseh’s right-hand man. They both died in the Battle of the Thames in southwestern Ontario in 1813. His name is usually written as Roundhead (c1760-1813), with no evidence pointing to its coming from the Wyandot language. This suggests that Roundhead was just an English nickname. A township and an unincorporated community in Ohio bear this name. This is the main name by which he is known to historians and others interested in Wyandot history. On the Greenville Treaty of 1795 signed in Ohio, his name was written as Stayetayh, one of a good number of partial and mistaken writings of his name, a list of which includes Stayeghtha, Stiahta, Tey-yagh-taw, and Ustaiechta (Horsman 2003). In the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, his name was presented as STAYEGHTHA (Horsman 2003). An analysis of the name runs as follows: Hustayehtak hu-st-a-yeht-ak He often or frequently carries bark. “he” noun root “bark” noun suffix verb root “to carry” (usually referring to being on the back or shoulder) habitual aspect 174 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) In 1900, historian William Connelley, who long worked with and wrote about the Wyandot, interpreted the name in the following way: “As the porcupine carries it in his pocket-like jaws from the top of the hemlock, where it has been feeding” (Connelley 1900a:110). Captain Bullhead (1785-c1860) The person who was undoubtedly the next and may have been the last person to bear this name is referred to in the written record as Captain Bullhead. Like his predecessor, he fought on the British side of the War of 1812. Connelley referred to this Bark-Carrier as “the last pagan Wyandot” (1900b:8), living in the part of the Wyandot community separate from the “the more progressive portion of the tribe” (Connelley 1900b:58). He respected him as a source of traditional songs, stories, and practices. “He was a man of great intelligence and well informed in the history and traditions of his people (Connelley footnote in Walker n.d.:302). In the chapter on “Superstitions” in Wyandot Folklore, Connelley wrote about a time when a large dog was killing livestock and terrorizing the Wyandot community in Kansas. People came to BarkCarrier to rid them of a being that he believed was really an old woman who shape-shifted into this dog. One night he took out his “old British blunderbuss which he had carried in the ranks of [Procter’s] army in the war of 1812” and shot the creature so it never appeared again except as the old woman who was said to have an injured foot the next morning (Connelley 1990b:100-101). 3.3 He Is Sky in Water – Wolf Clan In the historical documents of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, we read about a Wyandot leader with the unlikely name of “Cherokee Boy” (c1750-1834). He was a Cherokee, who as a boy was adopted by the Wolf clan of the Wyandot sometime early in the second half of the 18th century. He appears to have been living with the Detroit Wyandot. His Wyandot name first appears for someone else in the record of a baptism of an eight-year-old boy named Matthias on STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 175 September 8, 1734. His father was called horoni8 (Toupin 1996:829 B155). Cherokee Boy had this Wyandot name when he was one of the Wyandot leaders who signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. He was involved in signing six more treaties. Each time his Wyandot name seemed to be more and more distorted, as can be seen in the following: Haroenyou Harrowenyou Harroneyoush Harrouyeou Arunuc Horonu Aronne 1795 1805 1814 1815 1817 1818 1818 (Wyandotte Nation) The name can be analysed as follows: Harony ha-rony-u He is the sky in water masculine “he” noun root “sky” verb root “to be in water” + stative aspect He died in 1834. A son of his was named Robert Cherokee. His Wyandot name would have been borne by someone else. Hiram Star Young (c1847-1935) Cherokee Boy’s Wyandot name returned with Hiram Star Young, a member of the Wolf clan. While his Wyandot nickname was written as Tichoo, meaning “star,” his middle name, his defining Wolf clan name was Haroʿnu, which Jeremy Turner (n.d.) gives as meaning “where the sky meets the water.” The story that he told to Canadian anthropologist Marius Barbeau in 1911 was “The Young Hunter and the Wolf,” which involved a wolf giving a charm to the young hunter (Barbeau 1915:103-105 and 1960:14-15, 112-116). 176 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) When Connelley wrote of the name in 1900, he wrote it as “Hahrohn-yooh,” with the ultimate meaning of “A prowler, or one who goes about in the dark” (1900a:113). Wyandot names are often metaphors. 3.4 He Is Not Out of Corn – Deer Clan Adam Brown (c1742-1817) was a 12-13-year-old settler boy when he was captured and adopted by the Deer clan of the Wyandot in 1755-6 and given a Wyandot name. We know that he was the not the first to have his eventual Wyandot name. On September 23, 1759, a man named Ta8ennenha8eʿti was listed as the godfather of a boy baptized as Antonio (in Latin) (Toupin 1996:879 B1109). Adam Brown would have been too young to be this man. Reference to Adam Brown through his Wyandot name is first found in the baptismal record on May 27, 1776, as Ta8ennenha8iti (Toupin 1996:879 B1109). The study of Adam Brown’s Wyandot name also lends insight into his wife’s Wyandot name. In a biography of his, she is merely referred to as “a Wyandot woman” (“Adam Brown” in Wyandotte Nation). In the baptismal entry that includes her husband, however, she is listed as being called ekionnenta (actually the Wendat form etionnenta with Potier using a superscript -k- to show the Wyandot form). In a later baptismal record, August 16, 1783, her name is presented as Kia8ennentat (Toupin 1996:933 B1434). Judging from the two references given above, I suggest that his wife’s name could be represented and analysed as follows, using how the word would be written in the form I use with the contemporary Wyandot. ekyǫnętat eky-ǫ-nęt-a-t “where an evergreen stands” cislocative “where” “it” noun root “evergreen” noun suffix verb root “to stand” + stative aspect STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 177 Adam’s name in that particular baptismal record was presented as ta8enne 8eti (Toupin 1996:933 B1434). Other representations of the name are as follows: Name Tahunehawettee Ta-Hou-Ne-Ha-Wie-Tie Ta-Haw-Na-Haw-Wie-Te Tohunehowetu Source 1805 Treaty (Wyandotte Nation) (Buser 1989) (“Adam Brown,” Wyandotte Nation) (“Adam Brown,” Wyandotte Nation) His name can be analysed as follows: Tehǫnęhawehtih te-hǫ-nęh-a-we-ht-ih 3.5 He is not out of corn negative prefix “he” noun root “corn” noun suffix verb root “to be together” causative root suffix (with this verb root having the meaning of “all”) stative aspect He Has a River in his Mouth – Deer Clan This name has two forms, one Wendat and the other Wyandot: Hondawannhont and Hondawatont. They are analyzed as follows: Ho-ndaw-a-nnhont-/-tont masculine patient “he” noun root “river” noun suffix verb root “to have in the mouth” + stative aspect Marguerite Vincent, a Wendat or Huron of Wendake, Quebec, gives two possibilities for the deeper or metaphorical meaning for the name in Wendat. The Wendat and Wyandot share a good number of names. Vincent gave the symbolic meanings of “le bon nageur,” 178 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) the good swimmer, or “Le bon harangueur,” the good political speaker (Vincent 1984:165). Below are brief biographies of three holders of the name. Regis The earliest written recording of this name was with respect to the adult baptism of a Wyandot man with the Christian name of François-Regis in May or June of 1738. His name was written as “Regis haatsi [he is called] anda8annhont” (Toupin 1996:844). His name was spelled in both the Wendat and Wyandot forms in the two versions of the 1747 census (Toupin 1996:223 and 253). He was highly regarded in the Wyandot community as he was listed by Father Pierre Potier in the 1747 census as being one of the “Considerés” or clan leaders below the rank of the chiefs of the three phratries of Deer, Turtle, and Wolf (Toupin 1996:173 and 260). Phratries are clusters of clans. He was recorded three times from 1740 to 1742 as a godfather to boys who would bear the name of Regis (Toupin 1996:848-50 B529, B537, and B559). In each case, his name was spelled onda8annhont. For his funeral, held on October 2, 1747, his name was written as “Regis handa8annhont (Toupin 1996:922 E34). Matthias The name was later given to a man with the Christian name of Matthias. His name was recorded in the Wyandot dialect form of the word, first appearing in 1759 and later in the 1760s. He was recorded as being the father at the baptism of three children in 1759, 1767, and 1769 (Toupin 1996:880 B1021, B1057; 890 B1169; and 892 B1206). His name was presented as nda8atont, onda8aʿtonʿt and nda8aʿtonʿt respectively. In 1767 he was recorded as being the godfather of a Matthias (Toupin 1996:890 B1169). The mother and, therefore, the son were Deer clan as was he. In a baptism of a child of his in 1762 (Toupin 1996:884 B1086), his name was written as onda8annhont. Matthias would later take on the most prestigious name in his clan. In Charles Aubrey Buser’s “Our Great Chiefs” (1989), he STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 179 writes in 1778 that the Sastaretsi, that is the grand chief (who was Deer clan), was “Probably Da-Wat- Tong,” an inaccurate rendering for the name. On September 20, 1780, when the Wyandot ceded some land to Father Pierre Potier for all he had done for the people, we have “Dawaton (the Sastaretsi)” signing. In 1782, when a similar gift of land was presented to Father Hubert, Potier’s successor, we have the name recorded as “Dewatonte or Dawatong (the Sastaretsi).” In the list of burials kept by Father Jean-François Hubert, the Jesuit wrote: J’ai enterré dans le Cimetiere des hurons le corps de Da8atont Roy des hurons agé d’environ 60 ans décédé dhier (I buried in the cemetery of the Hurons [Wyandot] the body of Da8atont, king of the Hurons [Wyandot], aged about 60 years, dead since the winter). (Toupin 1996:931 E163) It seems to me that these writers did not realize that he was highly unlikely to have had both names at once, as that would have been against the traditional naming practices of the Wyandot. John Hicks (c1773-1853) John Hicks was the son of a captive German man from Maryland and a Wyandot woman. We see his name in treaties signed between the American government and the Wyandot and neighbouring tribes in 1814, 1817, 1818, 1836, and on the fateful treaty of 1842, when the Wyandot were forced to sign away all of their land in Ohio and Michigan. His Wyandot name was written in the middle three as D. Wottondt, Dauatout, and Danwawtout (Wyandotte Nation, www.wyandotte-nation.org/culture/history/treaties). He was said to be about 80 when he died in 1853, which made his year of birth c1773 (Buser 1989). 3.6 He Is Going to Have a Skull of Such a Size (?) – Porcupine Clan It is difficult to translate the name Skutache. I suspect that it might 180 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) be translated something like the following. It is not unusual for nonspeakers to drop the initial sounds before an -s- in Wendat and Wyandot, and so the most probable spelling is used here. Haskutache ha-skut-a-ch-e He is going to have a skull of such a size MA “he” noun root “skull” verb root “to be a size” dislocative root suffix purposive aspect The First Skutache in the Written Record The first Skutache in the written record appeared late in the 17th century. From what was written, we can say that the individual bearing the name was someone whom the French authorities thought of as something of a troublemaker, but I think of him as a person pursuing possible options that might benefit his people. He was referred to as Scoutache and the misprinted Scoubache in the references that follow. In a summary of Governor Denonville’s letters in 1685 to M. de Seignelay, we read, “A man named Scoutache, who is among the Outawas, has told them that he, Denonville, was preparing to attack them, which has alarmed them” (Brodhead 1855:274). In a letter of the next year, June 12, 1686, Denonville wrote the following: I have had again the honor of advising you this fall that a man named Scoubache, a native Huron, has been to the Iroquois to induce them to make war upon us. It has since been discovered that his principal design was to betray all the Hurons at Michilimakinac, and that Traitor did, in fact, conjointly with others like himself, deliver up to the Iroquois seventy Huron who were dispersed a-hunting between Lake Erie and Lake Huron, in the country called Saquinaw. (Brodhead 1855:293) According to Denonville then, Skutache was attempting to get the Iroquois on his side by offering up 70 Wyandot prisoners to them. It STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 181 is unlikely that Skutache would betray his people. That he was in some way trying to lessen the pressure of the Iroquois on his people through some independent strategy that was unknown to the French, but not necessarily anti-French, and certainly not anti-Wyandot, is more believable. He might even have been attempting to trap the Iroquois by promising them non-existent prisoners. Lacking Skutache’s written voice in the matter, it is hard to know what his intent was. Sacrificing his people to obtain a stronger relationship for himself with the Iroquois does not seem a likely goal. The Second Skutache (c1691 – c1763) We do not know when the first recorded Skutache died and another took his place, reviving the name Skutache, but we do know that the next recorded Skutache had the first name Louis. The second Skutache first appears in the baptismal record in 1729, with the baptism of a 10-year-old daughter, Angelica, of whom Large Turtle clan member Ndechonngiaha was the mother (Toupin 1996:824 B44). In a baptism held on July 23, 1733, he was the godfather of a 15-year-old boy called Louis (written in the Latin form Ludovicus) (Toupin 1996:833 B233). In 1735 he and what appears to be his new wife, Striped Turtle clan member Marie Tsondehe, had newborn twins, baptized Catharina and Francisca (Toupin 199:939 B321 and B322). I mention this because in 1739 he is referred to as the father of a son with Catherine tek8ennon,oti, who was Striped Turtle (Toupin 1996:845 B478). They had three more children baptized in 1742, 1744, and 1747 (Toupin 1996:850 B567; 852 B628; and 857 B693 and B693 respectively). The two women were possibly the same woman with a name change. In the census of 1747, it was claimed that he was 56 (Toupin 1996:2014 and 2041). The house he lived in was a large one in which the Porcupine clan and the Striped Turtle clan shared influence. His daughter Françoise was married to Tio8endata, who was a man of influence in the Porcupine clan, as was Nicholas Orontondi, who also lived in that house. 182 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) While he was not then an elder of the Porcupine clan, this Skutache’s influence at that time can be seen in the fact that he was involved in a Wyandot peace initiative after Nicholas Orontondi's abortive attack on Detroit in 1747. The Chevalier de Bertel or Berthet, French commandant among the Algonquian-speaking Illinois people at that time, wrote a letter that contained the following information concerning his peacemaking activities, partnered with Quarante Sols of the Bear clan. At the end of January, 14 Hurons of Sandosket, with Scotache and Quarante Sols at their head, come to Detroit to ask for the release of the three prisoners confined in irons, the remainder of the five who had been taken at Bois blanc Island, where they had been attacked by the French when Nicolas sued for peace. The deputation made such fair promises that Chevalier de Longueuil, though feeling great repugnance to the release of these three prisoners [consented to their discharge, on] the advice of the prin-cipal Frenchmen and Indians in the fort. (Brodhead 1858:156-7) He seems, then, to be continuing the independent style of the political policy of his predecessor, speaking on behalf of his clan brother, Orontondi. Louis must have died before 1763, as a testament and anniversary was held to honour his death that year (Toupin 1996:957 TA25). The Third Skutache The name was resuscitated by 1780, as by that time he (with his name written as Sachetotache) was one of six chiefs who ceded land on behalf of the tribe to Father Pierre Potier (Buser 1989). He seems to have been a relatively young chief, as on August 14, 1791, two girls were baptized each one being a “fille des CoutaChe.” One was named Agnés and was two years old; the other was named Marguerite, and was four months of age (Toupin 1996:939 B1539 and B1540). The capital letters are in the original text, which was written by Father François-Xavier Dufaux, who did not have the language experience and capacity of Father Potier. STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 183 In 1816, “Scotash” took a trip to Washington to make a deal for his people (Buser 1989). In 1818, he signed two treaties, one having his name written as “Scoutous,” and another with it presented as “Scoutash.” The Fourth Skutache The fourth Skutache, and probably the last one, was Allen Johnson, Sr. (1848-1906). His name was written as Skuˀtac (Barbeau 1915:ix). Strangely, he was Big Turtle clan, not Porcupine like the others. There is no readily apparent reason for that. Perhaps it was part of the falling apart of the Wyandot clan system, which took place during the 20th century. 3.7 It Is a Valuable or Difficult Group – Striped Turtle Clan The name is first found in the Jesuit Relations of 1642 and 16431644, applied to a man who belonged to the Deer tribe of the Wendat and was baptized Jean-Baptiste Okhuk8andoron (Thwaites 1959:22 135 and 139). The name was also written as Aotiokwandoron (Thwaites 1959:26 293-295 and 299). There was also a Michel with the same name, Aotiokwendoron (Thwaites 1959:26 37), probably of a different Wendat tribe, with a slight chance of being Wyandot. The name written as Okhukwandoron, or in most dialects of Wendat Otiokwandoron, is translated as follows: Otiokwandoron o-tio-kw-a-ndoron- It is a valuable or difficult clan or group FZP “it” VR “to be a clan” instrumental noun suffix VR “to be valuable or difficult” + stative aspect I speculated in an earlier work (Steckley 1999:198) that it might refer to deer, which can be difficult to kill and are valuable as a source of meat. Written as Aotiokwandoron, more accurately 184 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) Ayotiokwandoron, it would have a different pronominal prefix, meaning “they (indefinite) are a valuable or difficult clan or group.” As a Wyandot Name Jean-Baptiste Otiokwandoron (1692-1782) was the name of a leader of the Striped Turtle clan. In 1747 he was referred to as an elder and leader or chief of the clan. It appears first in June of 1729 (when he was roughly 38) as Tiok8oindoron, the father of a baptized child (Toupin 1996:824 B46), the first year of recorded baptisms among the people. He was also the godfather of two baptized children, both the sons of Sastaretsi, the Deer clan leader and chief of the tribe, who were given the Christian name of Jean-Baptiste, something I cannot explain (Toupin 1996:825 B74 and B75). His name was usually written as Otiok8andoron in the Jesuit records, with variations, such as Otiok8endoron or Otiok8oindoron, for 1733 to 1771 (Toupin 1996:205, 209, 229, 833, 860, 876, 893, 950, 955, 961, 963, 966, 973, 974, and 975). It was also recorded as Hok8oindoron (Toupin 1996:260). The French name Babi or Baby Jean-Baptiste Otiokwandoron was also known by the French family name Babi(e), Bawbee, or Baby. It was a distinguished military/trading family in New France, beginning with Jacques Babie de Ranville (c1633-1688), whose son Raymond married well in trading terms and whose son, Jaques Dupéron Baby (1731-1789), became an important figure in the Detroit area throughout much of the 18th century. English Speakers Recording His Name When non-Jesuit, English speakers started recording his name, the quality of the transcription dropped greatly. On the Treaty of Fort Niagara, July 18, 1764, signed with the British, his name was written as Odinghquanooron (Curnoe 1996:87-88). In Our Great Chiefs, Buser has Adyughkannorwn as the chief at Sandusky, Ohio, in 1768. In a council of 1778, his name was written as Cuquandarong (Buser 1989). STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 185 In 1780, in the Wyandot expression of their wish to donate land to Jesuit Father Pierre Potier, their long-term missionary, the name was recorded as the greatly distorted Teguaguiratin (Lajeunesse 1960:281). On July 29, 1781, when his name appears to have been written as Tiockouanohoron and Tiockouanorhon, he passionately requested a replacement for the recently dead Father Potier (Lajeunesse 1960:285-286). The notice of his burial on September 2, 1782, was written by Jesuit Father Jean-François Hubert, Potier’s replacement, as: . . . a été inhumé dans le cimetiere de cette paroisse Le Corps de otiok8endoron dit babi huron agé de 90 ans (buried in the cemetery of this parish, the body of otiokwendoron called Babi a Huron [Wyandot] of 90 years). (Toupin 1996:931 E162) Quoqua or Kyukwe There is reason to believe that the war leader (fighting on the British side) (Steckley 1999:231), known as Quoqua or Kyukwe, may have been the one who revived this name. Before a vowel, the Wyandot dialect tends to have a -ky- where the Wendat language has -ty-. The 1778 rendering of the name demonstrates that. This dialect feature also shows up in Okhuk8andoron, mentioned at the beginning of this discussion. This name appears in the Detroit community after the death of the original Wyandot individual. It later came to be the family name, going to the man’s daughter Katie. On a treaty signed in 1818, the name was rendered as Quoqua. 4.0 Summary What I have tried to present is a demonstration through seven examples of how the Wyandot names of culturally and historically important names have been “colonized,” that is, treated in a less representative and respectful way than the English names that they were given. In each discussion, I have given a reasonably accurate representation of these important names, as well as a translation. This has been combined with linking as many individuals as possible who have borne the names both before and after Wyandot leaders who 186 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) lived around the time of the War of 1812. A major reason that I have engaged in such a study is that I see it as part of my duties as the Tribal Linguist of the Wyandotte of Oklahoma so that citizens of that tribe can be in closer touch with their culture and their history. The names of other individuals, from that time, and from other periods, will eventually also be analyzed in this way. REFERENCES Barbeau, Marius. 1915. Huron and Wyandot Mythology, Memoir 80, No. 11, Anthropological Series. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau. ---. 1960. Huron-Wyandot Traditional Narratives in Translation and Native Texts, Bulletin 105, Ottawa: The National Museum of Canada. Brodhead, John R. 1855. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, (E. B. O’Callaghan trans.), New York Colonial Documents volume 9. Albany, NY: Weed Parsons and Co. ---. 1858. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, New York Colonial Documents, volume 10. Albany, NY: Weed Parsons and Co. Buser, C. A. “Leatherlips.” Wyandotte Nation. https://www.wyandotte-nation.org/culture/history/biographies/leatherlips/ Buser, Charles Aubrey, 1989. “Our Great Chiefs,” as reproduced on Wyandotte Nation https://www.wyandotte-nation.org/culture /history/general-history/our-great-chiefs/ Connelley, William Elsey. 1900a. The Wyandots. Archeological Report of the Minister of Education Annual Reports (1899): 92-123. ---. 1900b. Wyandot Folklore. Topeka: Crane and Company Publishers. Curnoe, Greg. 1996. Deeds/Nations. London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, Occasional Publications, no.4. Horsman, Reginald. “STAYEGHTHA.” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003, STECKLEY, Rescuing Colonized Names 187 accessed July 30, 2018. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/stayegh tha_5E.html Lajeunesse, E. 1960. The Windsor Border Region. Toronto: The Champlain Society. Potier, Pierre, S.J. 1920. Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario. Toronto: C. W. James. Roadside America.com, www.roadsideamerica.com/story/9791. Steckley, John L. 1999. Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women’s Stories. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. ---. 2007. Words of the Huron. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ---. 2014. The Eighteenth-Century Wyandot: A Clan-Based Study. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Thwaites. Reuben G. 1959. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. New York: Pageant Books. Toupin, Robert, S.J. 1996. Les Ḗcrits de Pierre Potier. Ottawa: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa. Turner, Jerome. “Hiram Star Young.” Wyandotte Nation, https://www.wyandotte-nation.org/traditions/biographical- panels/hiram-star-young Vincent, Marguerite Tehariolina, 1984. La Nation Huronne. Quebec: Editions du Pelican. Walker, William. n.d. “Walker Journal, Book 2.” Wyandotte Nation, https://www.wyandottenation.org/culture/history/published /provisional-government/journal2/ Wyandotte Nation, https://www.wyandotte-nation.org REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS Mavis Himes. 2016. The Power of Names: Uncovering the Mystery of What We Are Called. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield: 2016. 225 pgs. ISBN: 9781442259782. Reviewed by DONNA L. LILLIAN Appalachian State University, North Carolina, USA The Power of Names: Uncovering the Mystery of What We Are Called, by Mavis Himes, is a wide-ranging discussion of the role of personal names, particularly their own, in people’s lives. The book consists of a preface, a prologue, fourteen chapters, an appendix, notes, a bibliography, and an index. The fourteen chapters are divided into two sections. Part I: Call into Existence, includes the following chapters: 1. An Invitation into Being, 2. Names with Power, 3. Go Out and Name, 4. Names and Nomads, 5. Choosing Names, and 6. Celebrating Names. Part II: Burden or Blessing, includes the remaining eight chapters: 7. The Strange Fate of Names, 8. Transmission and Inheritance, 9. Who We Are Is Always There, 10. The Family Tree of Life, 11. In the Name of the Father, 12. Voluntary Name-Changing, 13. Involuntary Name-Changing, and 14. A House Is Not a Home. Like a braid, this book comprises four strands that weave in and out of one another throughout each chapter. One strand comprises Himes’s own personal journal, the second incorporates Lacanian interpretations of the role of names in psychological development, the third presents a treasury of anecdotal data from dozens of individuals who have shared their stories with the author, and the fourth incorporates snippets of history, anthropology, and mythology. Out of these strands, Himes weaves the narrative of her book. Himes opens the preface with the admission, “I wrote this book to interact with my own name through an exploration of names and naming more generally” (p. ix). Thus, the reader knows not to expect 190 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) an academic treatise, and this is reinforced with her assertion that, “[t]his book is a journey into the power and significance of [the] proper name, a name proper to each individual” (p. x). Himes is also aware of the limitations of some of her data. While I have included some mention of First Nations and African cultures, these are certainly outnumbered in these pages by names, naming rituals, and etymological citations related to Western culture. However, I hope readers’ imaginations will carry them to other associations and places with which they may be familiar. (p. x) The preface, in effect, introduces us to the first two strands of the braid that comprises the book: Himes’s own story and the stories of other people she has encountered. The prologue introduces us to the third strand, Lacanian interpretation. Himes is a Lacanian psychoanalyst, so the intertwining of Lacanian thought with her understanding of names is organic and perhaps inevitable. The fourth strand emerges as the book unfolds. A voyage of self-discovery seldom involves a linear progression or a predetermined itinerary. Rather, such a voyage is more likely to be abstract than geometrical and progressive rather than focussed on any ultimate destination. As a voyage of self-discovery and an invitation to others to explore their own relationships with their names, this book moves with some fluidity between the four strands I have identified, but in the final analysis, it is a reflection of the author’s personal relationship with her names, her culture, and her family’s history. The name on the author’s birth certificate, her secular name, is Mavis Carole Himes, but as a Jew, she also has a Hebrew name. “My Hebrew name is Malkah, or Malkah bat Lieb v’Miriam in full, as Jews are still defined in relation to their parents’ given Hebrew names” (p. 14). Her surname is a shortened version of her grandfather’s surname, Heimovitch, which has variants Haimovitch, Haimowitz, Hajmowicz, Chaimovitch, Haimevici, and Chajmovicz, depending on the geographical location and the languages influencing the pronunciation and spelling of the name (p. 14). During the 1940s, living and working in Anglophone Montreal, Himes’s father and his six brothers shortened Heimovitch to Himes. REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 191 Himes can only speculate on their reasons for doing so, since none of them are still alive for her to ask. She hypothesizes that the name change may have been done to avoid announcing the family’s ethnicity in a context in which anti-Semitism was still prevalent, or simply to provide them a name that was more convenient for doing business in an Anglophone context and that allowed them to blend more easily into the Montreal community in which they lived. Himes ponders her identity in the context of her family’s history: So my full name is Mavis Carole Himes. English on the outside, Jewish on the inside. Or is my name Malkah Heimovitch? A foreign name, an unfamiliar name, a name that announces its strangeness and ethnicity. My Anglicized name, an amputation from the original, is a name in exile, a name that has been lifted, removed from the soil, and transplanted to live or die. (p. 16) What makes this book something other than an individual life story are the many stories Himes includes from individuals who have shared them with her, along with enough background to put their stories into the contexts that help make sense of them. She also draws examples from the history of the Jews from biblical times, through the centuries of diaspora, to present-day Israel. Names and changes of names are a compelling vehicle for telling this story and the stories of other ethnic groups, particularly as they have moved or been compelled to move and have resettled in linguistically and culturally alien contexts. Instead of attempting a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the book, I will focus in depth on just one chapter to demonstrate how Himes weaves together the different strands of her narrative. Chapter 11, “In the Name of the Father,” explores the tradition of patriarchal surnames. Here is a rough topical outline of the chapter: § § Her father had hoped for a boy. There is often a premium on boys, especially in strongly patriarchal societies: e.g. baby girls in China killed or ‘exported’; infanticide of girls in Pakistan & India. 192 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) § § § § § § § § § § In ancient religions, the female element is considered the primal and divine source of nature; in Judaism, the female presence of God is referred to as the Shekinah. Today women challenge the remnants of male overvaluation. At a retreat, Himes mentioned her writing project, and that led to stories from other women about their dilemmas and struggles with respect to traditional naming practices, some pertaining to patriarchy and some to other cultural practices and traditions. Explanation about patriarchal naming: it can be difficult for a father to know that he is the biological father, so the act of bestowing his surname allows him to assert his legal status as father; anecdote about a new father who needed reassurance that the newborn looked like him and was his; many fathers now more involved in child-rearing and couples discuss sharing the duties. Story about Haida totem poles and Himes’s encounter with Haida man who talked about the potlatch tradition. Later she learned that the potlatch had been outlawed by the Canadian government in 1894. The ban was repealed in the mid 20th century, but by then, much of the communal knowledge was fading and missionaries and residential schools were convincing or forcing people to give up their traditional knowledge and their language. Brief reflection about origin myths in Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions. Nineteenth century anthropologists and totemism; link between totemism and nomenclature. Himes’s perspective, as an alternative to anthropological theories. Freud and his theory of the Primal Horde. Himes’s rendition of the myth. Return to the present: the helpless infant becomes aware of his [sic] mother, of the father coming between ‘him’ and ‘his’ mother. Lacan’s rewriting of Freud’s Oedipus complex. Linkage of patriarchal surnaming practice with idea of the father as upholder of the primordial law against incest; parallel with monotheism, which confers a particular status on the law of the father. REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS § 193 Conclusion, including quotes from prayers that utilize ‘Father’ as an address form, apparently intended to cement Himes’s justification of patriarchal naming as rooted in both historical and theological tradition. This outline illustrates how Himes moves from one strand of her narrative to another, rather fluidly. Sections are separated by a line containing three small circles. There are no section headings, and Himes sometimes provides a verbal transition from one section to the next, but not always, thereby leaving it to the reader to infer the connections among the different strands of the narrative. Some sections address patriarchal practices directly, while others, such as the section on Haida potlach traditions and the section on totemism, present Himes’s version of traditional societies, without specifically addressing patriarchy within those societies. While it is difficult to discern Himes’s argument while one is reading the chapter, by the end it becomes clear that in this chapter Himes is presenting her defense of patriarchal surnaming practices. Since she does not engage with the considerable academic literature about surname practices, including feminist critiques of the practice, her argument remains in the realm of the personal, rather than the academic, which fits with the overall ethos of the book. Like Chapter 11, each chapter contains a blend of the four main strands of Himes’s narrative as she explores the different aspects of personal names identified by the chapter titles. I would be remiss if I did not mention one very prominent stylistic problem with this book. Throughout the book, Himes uses the false generic man, together with its related pronouns, he, him, his, himself. For example, on page 117 alone, there are eight occurrences of the false generic man: “It is the rich history of early man…”; “what is the early relationship between man and his name?”; “Before the God of Abraham […] fashioned man from the dust…”; “Before the birth of Athens […] the heroes cajoled man into a cosmos beyond their reach…”; “Before all of that, primitive man…”; “Man, the social animal, discovered…”; “…the brotherhood of man…”; “…the lifestyle of early man…” The first occurrence of the false generic is on page 6, where Himes writes (emphasis added), “Tumbling out of the birth canal and tossed into this world, the newborn lands into the 194 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) hands of those who have preceded him. In time, he will be molded and shaped by those adults, themselves imperfect, insecure, anxious.” It has been decades since most style guides have considered the masculine generic to be an acceptable choice, so it is baffling that Himes has utilized what, in the 21st century, can only be considered a reactionary stylistic choice. She is an intelligent, educated, well-read woman, so it defies credulity to think that she is unaware that her decision to use the masculine generic throughout her book will be seen as both a personal and a political choice. Certainly, it is her right to do so, but her rejection of what is now a widespread norm of using gender-inclusive or non-gendered language when referring either to the human race as a whole or to a hypothetical individual human will alienate, or at best puzzle, a large swath of her potential readership. If one can read past the obvious patriarchal bias of the text, one can discover little gems within its pages. In particular, the personal stories of people and their names are compelling and often moving. However, it would be difficult to categorize this book. As a life history, it is convoluted and fractured. As a cultural or historical analysis, it picks and chooses and does not adhere to the rigour of an academic text. As an apology for Lacanian analysis, it is incomplete. Thus, one is compelled to return to the preface and to Himes’s own statement of what her book is meant to be: “I wrote this book to interact with my own name through an exploration of names and naming more generally” (p. ix). The book is a record of a personal exploration, and as long as one expects no more or no less than that, one can enjoy being a voyeur/voyeuse on the author’s journey of discovery. REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 195 Carol Hough, ed. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 771 pgs. ISBN: 9780198815532. Reviewed by DONNA L. LILLIAN Appalachian State University, North Carolina, USA The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, edited by Carol Hough with assistance from Daria Izdebska, comprises a major contribution to the field of onomastics that should be purchased by all research libraries and editors of onomastic journals. The volume contains forty-seven chapters, including an introduction by Carole Hough, organized into seven thematic groupings, plus a bibliography, a subject index, and an index of languages. The index of languages lists 145 languages, dialects, and language families, and even if one were to combine entries for varieties of the same language (e.g. American English, Early Modern English, English, Indian English, Middle English, and Old English) the number of languages referenced in the volume is still impressive. The bibliography combines the references from all forty-seven chapters, and while this may be slightly less convenient than having the relevant references listed at the end of each chapter, the inconvenience is offset by the value of having a comprehensive 95page bibliography that one may consult. Part I of the volume contains three chapters that take varying perspectives on onomastic theory. The fact that this is the shortest section reflects the reality that relatively little work has been done on developing a comprehensive theory of onomastics. This may be in part because onomasticians work within so many disciplines that developing a unified theory has seldom been a priority, and in part because the discipline of linguistics has sometimes tended to dismiss names as being simply a subset of nouns not worthy of intensive study. In “Names and Grammar,” Willy Van Langendonck and Mark Van de Velde explore the grammatical properties of names, seeking to develop an approach that has cross-linguistic validity and that accounts for all types of proper names. Their preliminary typology includes personal names, place-names, names of months, trade and brand names, numbers, names of diseases and biological species, and 196 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) autonyms. Steffan Nyström’s chapter, “Names and Meaning,” explores the semantics of names, while Elwys de Stefani’s chapter, “Names and Discourse,” presents an overview of approaches to onomastics in anthropology, pragmatics, discourse analysis, socioonomastics, the sociology of names, and interactional onomastics. Together, the three chapters in Part I demonstrate where onomastics intersects with other sorts of linguistic theories and methods, underscoring, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the difficulty of arriving at a unified single theory of onomastics. Part II comprises seven chapters focusing on different aspects of toponomastics: “Methodologies in Place-name Research” by Simon Taylor, “Settlement Names” by Carol Hough, “River Names” by Svante Strandberg, “Hill and Mountain Names” by Peter Drummond, “Island Names” by Peder Gammeltoft, “Rural Names” by Julia Kuhn, “Street Names” by Bertie Neethling, and “Transferred Names and Analogy in Name-formation” by Stefan Brink. While each chapter has its own specific focus, common themes emerge within them. Toponyms of all kinds offer clues about the history and prehistory of groups of people and their languages over different periods of settlement, migration, conquest, and political and social change. The chapters in this section offer detailed studies of specific topics, and in doing so, they demonstrate the kind of systematic study that can be applied to any geographical territory or region. Part III contains seven chapters exploring the broad subfield of anthroponomastics. In researching his chapter, “Personal Naming Systems,” Edwin D. Lawson asked the following fifteen experts to describe the naming systems in the specified languages: Ellen S. Bramwell, United Kingdom; Mario Cassar, Maltese; Aaron Demsky, Bible, Jewish; Cleveland K. Evans, United States; Tamás Farkas, Hungarian; Rosa and Volker Kohlheim, German; Adrian Koopman, Zulu; Li Zhonghua, Chinese; Philip W. Mathews, Māori; Anastasia Parianou, Greek; Mariusz Rutkowski, Polish; Maria Trigoso, Portuguese; Willy Van Langendonck, Dutch; and Julie Sullivan Winn, French. (p. 170) REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 197 Lawson provides short prose descriptions of each contributor’s data and then summarizes the results in four pages of tables, allowing the reader to easily see similarities and differences among the naming patterns of these fifteen languages. He then provides an additional table that cross-references all of the languages with one another, providing an index of similarity between each pair of languages. While fifteen languages form only a sample of world languages, these data nevertheless provide valuable comparisons that begin to answer the question of how much similarity exists across languages in their naming systems. Katharina Leibring’s “Given Names in European Naming Systems” provides a historical overview of given-name patterns in Europe from before the spread of Christianity through to the present day, broken down by major historical period. Complementing Leibring’s chapter on given names is Patrick Hanks and Harry Parkin’s chapter, “Family Names,” which provides a historical overview of surname developments in Britain and Ireland and then provides sources that can be used by scholars seeking to research family names in a variety of other countries. Eva Brylla, in “Bynames and Nicknames,” uses byname as a term that encompasses nicknames as well as other informal types of names, focusing her study on bynames used as given names. For anyone embarking on a study of bynames or nicknames, this chapter provides a solid grounding in the topic. Adrian Koopman tackles an often-controversial topic in “Ethnonyms,” problematizing the use of terms race and ethnicity and the term ethnonym itself, and then exploring its scope and application. “Personal Names and Anthropology” by Ellen S. Bramwell, outlines the relationships between onomastics and anthropology. Part III ends with “Personal Names and Genealogy,” in which George Redmonds argues for the importance of genealogical research on both given names and surnames in the study of the origins and meanings of surnames. Part IV, Literary Onomastics, opens with “Theoretical Foundations of Literary Onomastics,” a survey by Grant W. Smith of descriptivist theories of meaning, causal theories of name meaning, a semiotic view of names and reference, names as signs, and iconic, indexical and symbolic associations of names in 198 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) literature. Smith concludes that “literary onomastics is simply a type of analysis that is firmly based on language theory and yet is both specific and systematic” (p. 309). Bertie Neethling provides an example of literary onomastics in “Names in Songs: A comparative Analysis of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire and Christopher Torr’s Hot Gates.” The final three chapters of Part IV explore different approaches to literary onomastics: Birgit Falck-Kjällquist, “Genre-based Approaches to Names in Literature”; Karina van Dalen-Oskam, “Corpus-based Approaches to Names in Literature”; and Paul Cavill, “Language-based Approaches to Names in Literature.” Together, the chapters in this section provide both a theoretical and a methodological primer for scholars wishing to engage in literary onomastics. Terhi Ainiala opens Part V, Socio-Onomastics, with a chapter “Names in Society” which serves as a de facto introduction to the section and which provides a working definition of the field: “Socioonomastics can be defined, put briefly, as a sociolinguistic study of names” (p. 371). In “Names and Identity,” Emilia Aldrin first presents a theoretical basis for the study of identity and then links names, in turn, with various aspects of identity: personal identity, social identity, cultural identity, change of name and identity, identity in digital environments, perceived identity, identity in interaction, and identity and non-anthroponomical name categories. Each of the aforementioned sections provides a short overview, along with key sources for anyone wishing to explore the topic further. Finally, Aldrin briefly outlines methodologies for conducting research on names and identity, including interviews, written surveys, experimental tests and observations, and analysis of webbased chat-fora. “Linguistic Landscapes” by Guy Puzey problematizes the term linguistic landscapes, outlines that emerging field of study, and then explores its applications to onomastic research, including its application to language policy. By investigating the ways in which different languages are rendered visible (or invisible), it is possible to explore the symbolic construction of space and the use of language to mediate social and political relations. With its extensive empirical evidence of the role of names in society, the LL REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 199 [linguistic landscape] can be an especially compelling object of study in the domain of socio-onomastics. (p. 395) The section on socio-onomastics continues with Laura Kostanski’s “Toponymic Attachment,” that term being defined as “a positive or negative association individuals and groups make with real or imagined toponyms” (p. 412); Irma Taavitsainen and Andreas H. Jucker’s “Forms of Address,” which concentrates on nominal terms of address in English, with comparisons to other European languages (p. 427); Katarzyna Aleksiejuk’s “Pseudonyms,” which provides historical and typological analyses of pseudonyms, as well as uses of pseudonyms and the similarities and differences between pseudonyms and usernames; and Paula Sjöblom’s “Commercial Names,” “names whose function is to steer the choices of consumers and investors and whose use has economic objectives” (p. 453). What all the chapters in this section share is a focus on names and naming practices in their social contexts, while the variety of theoretical and methodological approaches they introduce demonstrates the enormous scope of socio-onomastic research. Part VI, Onomastics and Other Disciplines, does precisely what its title suggests, introducing readers to ten disciples or subdisciplines not elsewhere covered in the volume. While each chapter is worthy of a detailed discussion, within the constraints of reviewing a handbook of this size, a listing of the chapters in this section will have to suffice: “Names and Archaeology” by Richard Jones, “Names and Cognitive Psychology” by Serge Brédart, “Names and Dialectology” by Margaret Scott, “Names and Geography” by Peder Gammeltoft, “Names and History” by Gillian Fellows-Jensen, “Names and Historical Linguistics” by Richard Coates, “Names and Language Contact” by Berit Sanders, “Names and Law” by Andreas Teutsch, “Names and Lexicography” by Alison Grant, and “Placenames and Religion: A Study in Early Christian Ireland” by Kay Muhr. The final section of the volume, Part VII, Other Types of Names, includes six chapters that presumably were deemed not to fit elsewhere. Three concern names of methods of human transportation: “Aircraft Names” by Guy Puzey, “Railway Loco- 200 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) motive Names and Train Names” by Richard Coates, and “Ship Names” by Malcolm Jones. Adrian Koopman’s “Names and Dwellings” addresses a fourth type of entity constructed by humans, and so may be seen to tie in with means of transportation constructed by humans. Katharina Leibring’s chapter, “Animal Names,” arguably could have been included in the section on socioonomastics, because naming of non-human animals by humans is an integral part of human social organization. Marc Alexander’s “Astronomical names” summarizes both historical and contemporary naming of celestial bodies, and Alexander’s final reflection provides an apt conclusion to the entire volume: In a pointed demonstration of the importance of names and naming to our sense of place and identity in the world, the ever-growing number of such features – from a handful of constellations in the distant past, to the number of stars of those constellations, to the planets either orbiting those stars or acting as companions to our own earth, to the individual valleys an craters and mountains on each moon and satellite and planet we discover – continue to be linked now as they were in the past to our culture and history by those naming practices which bind our mythologies, stories, researchers, and heroes to the bright lights of the stars and planets which surround us. (p. 635) For over a quarter of a century, Frank Nuessel’s The Study of Names: A Guide to the Principles and Topics (Greenwood Press, 1992) has been an essential reference on the range of fields and subfields of onomastic research. Nuessel’s volume will continue to be a must-have reference, but it now has a companion in The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. First published in 2016, The Oxford Handbook has already become a widely cited volume, and I predict that it will become a staple of onomastic researchers in the decade to come and beyond. REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 201 Lucie A. Möller. 2017. Of the Same Breath: Indigenous Animal and Place Names. Bloemfontein: Sun Press. 365 pages. ISBN (print): 978-1-928424-02-4. ISBN (electronic): 978-1-928424-03-1. Reviewed by PETER E. RAPER Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa The publication under review focuses on the Bushmen of Southern Africa, their keen and detailed knowledge of the mammals, birds, reptiles and insects in their environment, and their prowess at using the vocalizations and other characteristics of these animals as naming motives. A strong but subtle bond is revealed between the indigenous people and the animals which not only provided them with food and clothing, but with which they shared the natural habitat and the very air they breathed. The work is enriched by the inclusion of comparable animal names from Khoikhoi, Bantu, and European languages that reveal adoption, adaptation, hybridization, and translation of the original names, as well as their inclusion as elements of place names. The unique contribution made by this book is the recognition, recovery and preservation of ancient fossilized Bushman words and names for animals, birds, reptiles and insects, the innovative determination of their origins and meanings (using comparisons between Bantu and European equivalents where necessary), and the recognition of their use as evolutionary onymic formatives. As is to be expected from an academic and scientific work of this nature, the subject matter is complex and involves the use of onomastic, linguistic, geographical, and zoological terminology. To make the book accessible to a wide readership, Möller writes in an explanatory style and provides a glossary, indexes of animal names, place-names, and languages from which the names are derived. The text is enhanced and elucidated by the inclusion of tables of ancient and modern Bushman groups and languages, a guide to Bushman clicks, phonemes, vowels and consonants, and maps illustrating the distribution of Bushman and Khoisan languages. The book is attractive, user-friendly, and it is richly illustrated with the works of Daniel Otte, Albert Viereck, and other artists. 202 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) The Introduction provides the background to the book, explaining the complexity and challenges relating to the main topic of the work, and touching on theoretical aspects of naming within the diversity of languages. Part One is devoted to issues surrounding the theory and practice of names and naming. The author indicates that common names for animals in Southern Africa were based on several factors, including, for instance, the sounds emitted by these creatures, descriptions of their appearance or behavioral traits, and metaphorical associations related to the animals. Sometimes names of animals were used as elements of place-names bestowed by the Bushmen. Many of these original indigenous names were adopted by Khoikhoi, Bantu, and European peoples who subsequently entered the region. The names were frequently adapted to the language systems of these later inhabitants, translated or otherwise altered, and subsequently recorded in writing. Möller explains the methods employed in retracing Bushman influence, with reference to the sources consulted, and gives a survey of the various ancient and modern languages and cultures in the region, including their identification and classification. She touches on the question of the relatedness (or otherwise) of these languages and whether comparable words in different languages are cognates or loan-words, and she mentions the difficulties and challenges that have led to unresolved debates on these issues. In Parts Two, Three, and Four, the names of mammals, birds, and reptiles and invertebrates are discussed respectively. In each of these sections, names from Bushman, Khoikhoi, Bantu, and European languages are compared to one other to determine phonological and semantic correspondence or similarities. Different characteristics of the relevant animals are discussed, including their common names, scientific names, behavior, past and present distribution, and so forth. Since the chief focus of this study is the determination of original Bushman root words, the author identifies several factors which led to the coining of animal names. Such elements include imitation or mimicking of an animal’s vocalizations or other sounds, descriptions of an animal’s appearance or some other distinctive characteristic, and metaphoric or symbolic reference to a particular animal. The REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 203 author also examines how some of these animal names occur as elements of place names. Möller provides the following examples of onomatopoeic names: the /Xam Bushman name /hu/hu for the baboon; the /Xam word !nu: and the Seroa Bushman word gnu for the black wildebeest, the Bushman name /gai, ‘to yowl, to sing together’ for the yowling of the jackals, including the Korana words /giri and /gi:ri:mi for the sounds made by the black-backed jackal. The lion’s roar is recognizable in the Bushman words xam and houm, preserved in the river names Gamka ‘lion river’ and Houms River respectively. Numerous birds and other creatures were also named for their vocalizations or other sounds made by them, for example the Kung Bushman name !kwara for the black crow, and !hũ!hũ for the owl. The call of the blue crane is emulated in the //Kxau Bushman name _xu_ru ¯xu¯ru; the sound made by the flapping of its wings gave the quail its Bushman name of !gáwarib. Onomatopoeic insect names include the /Xam word ≠kwiri-ti-tiken, ‘cricket’, the !O!kung word ‾zo, ‾dzo, ‘bee’, the Auen words zwazwa and dzwadzwa, ‘fly’, and the Kung words !gwã!gwã and !gãũ!gãũa for ‘wasp’, adapted in the Herero place name Omangongua, ‘place of wasps’. As Möller points out, Bushman names sometimes have equivalents in other languages, either as loan words or as independent coinages. Thus words for ‘goat’ include the /Xam words peri and beri, the //Ɲ !ke word biri, the Hie words pidi and pudi, the Khoikhoi word berib, and the Tswana word poli. Words for ‘hippotamus’ include the !O !kung Bushman words nguvu and kubu, mimicking “the honking of the hippopotamus in the pool”, the Northern Sotho, Tswana and Lozi word kubu, the Ndebele word imvubu, the Venda word mvuvu, and the Tsonga and Shangaan word mpfubu. Descriptive names include the /Xam word !guka, the Old Cape Khoikhoi word nuka and the Xhosa word ngcuka, ‘the smelly one’ for the hyena, the Nama and Damara word gara ≠hiras for the spotted hyena, and the Korana word for the cheetah, xoasao, which means ‘the painted runner’, ‘the etched runner’, referring to the legendary speed of this creature and to the ‘tear-ducts’ running down 204 ONOMASTICA CANADIANA, 97 (2018) its face. The Khoikhoi name for the baboon is nerab, ‘the one who measures his strides’, descriptive of its gait, and the Korana word mogoe koep, with its Tswana counterpart mogohu, ‘the near-sighted one’ refer to the white rhinoceros. In this name the Bushman words mũ, ‘sight, eyesight, visible’ and /ku, ‘nearby, close by’, have been preserved in adapted form. Another name for the rhinoceros is the Khoikhoi word !nawas, with its Bushman equivalent !nabba, ‘the one that stamps on the ground’. Metaphoric references to animals include the /Xam Bushman name !gukən for the puff-adder, namely ‘the rain’s thing; water’s waves’, referring both to the fact that puff-adders are known to be active in the rainy season, and to the similarity that was observed of the rippling effect of the ribs when in motion, to the ripples of water. The Khoikhoi name for the bat, guritsi-//gubes, is creatively described as a ‘kaross-wearing mouse’, said to be derived from original Bushman root words. Many indigenous place-names survive as translations and frequently provide clues to the meanings of the indigenous names. For instance, the river name Houms, discussed earlier, is preserved in its German translation Löwenfluss, and Gamka is known in Afrikaans as Leeurivier ‘lion river’. The Quassadi River, from the word xoasao, ‘cheetah’, was formerly known as the Tijgerrivier, ‘tiger river’; the term ‘tijger’ was colloquially used in former times to refer to both leopards and cheetahs. The German farm name Eulenruh, ‘owls’ rest’, is a translation of Nonikam, derived from the Bushman words !nonna, ‘owl’, and !ka:, ‘to rest’, thus ‘to roost’. Such fascinating translations abound in the book, providing ample proof of the creative naming skills of the indigenous peoples. Möller indicates that the former distribution of animals can sometimes be revealed by places named after their former occurrence there. For example, the river name Quassadi, discussed above, indicates that cheetahs formerly occurred in the Western Cape. The name Nqamakwe for a town in the Eastern Cape, translated as Hartebeestkop, or ‘hartebeest hillock’, shows that these animals occurred in that region in earlier times. REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS 205 Möller’s book is timeless in the sense that it explores almost forgotten sources and threading together linguistic and toponymic aspects of names from endangered and vanishing languages, and information on the cultures from which they originated, together with a presentation of the bio-diverse, natural world of animals that are threatened by extinction. The book is also timeous. In the words of the well-known environmentalist Dave Pepler: “The global loss of biodiversity is equaled by the loss of the rich early vocabulary of our indigenous cultures, which is fast disappearing. Work of this nature is what O.E. Wilson has been pleading for all his life, since biophilia is not simply our love of nature in all its complexity, but also the nurturing and conservation of the related fields of its rich cultural diversity.” He also captures the essence of this excellent publication in his statement that, “Lucie Möller’s glorious exploration of these animal origins stands proud, with the work of Bleek, as reminder and tribute to voices now silent.” Indeed, Möller’s masterly work uncovers a wealth of linguistic and zoological information, elucidates processes of language contact and acculturation, and highlights the relationship between the animals, the people who named them, and the places that were named after them. These names and their analysis make it possible to identify and reconstruct words from ancient and extinct indigenous languages, coined by peoples who have long since disappeared. This book provides the material and methodology that will pave the way for future generations of researchers and scholars to refine this and similar topics, and to solve perennial issues of onomastic, linguistic, and other disciplines. In view of its onomastic, scientific, and cultural content, this book should find a place in the libraries of schools and universities, nature conservation institutions, archives, and the like, not only in Southern Africa, but worldwide. Canadian Society for the Study of Names / Société canadienne d’onomastique Annual meeting of the Society with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences / Rencontre annuelle de la Société à l’occasion du Congrès des sciences humaines Website of the CSSN: http://www3.csj.ualberta.ca/sco/ La SCO sur le Web: http://www3.csj.ualberta.ca/sco/

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