Everyone knows: streets, houses, cities and villages, as well as various natural objects have their own names. However, not everyone knows that such a discipline as toponymy is engaged in their research. This is a science that studies geographical names with all their features.
Subject of study
The interests of this field of knowledge include such aspects as the history of occurrence and transformation, the reasons for the change, spelling, translation and pronunciation options, myths and legends associated with one or another “name”. Toponymy seems to be a secondary science only at first glance. Many historical data on the various peoples and tribes that originally inhabited a particular territory become clear after studying the names they left. However, this process is two-sided: some of the mysteries of toponymy cannot be understood without studying history and culture, associated with them and often determining the features of the names of various objects.
Value
The importance of toponymy objects and their study is easy to understand if you turn to maps. Without geographical names, they become useless. Without them, it is also very difficult to navigate the terrain, especially the unfamiliar. Phrase: “Go to the gray house, turn left and walk another five meters to the north,” many may be puzzled. And almost everyone is used to street names. A world without toponyms (the objects of this science are so designated) would be completely different, as well as without studying them.
The foregoing is well illustrated by one historical legend. Heinrich Schliemann, one of the founders of field archeology, set himself the task of finding the ruins of ancient Troy, the city described by Homer, and thereby prove its existence. While searching for a place suitable for excavation, he drew attention to the Gissarlyk hill, located in Turkey. Its name roughly translates as "the place of ruins." This prompted the archaeologist to begin his search here. As you know, Schliemann was not mistaken: under a thick layer of earth, ruins were found.
At the junction
Toponymy is a science that studies geographical names from all sides. Of course, she uses data from a wide variety of disciplines. Understanding the origin, meaning of the word, its semantic load for the indigenous population, as well as the events behind it, arises from the synthesis of data from history, geography and linguistics. If you go back to the example of Schliemann, all these aspects are perfectly shown in it. The historical “reference” and geographical location data were taken by the archaeologist from Homer and other sources. Translation of the name of the hill (the contribution of linguistics) also played a prominent role in the quest.
Many puzzles of toponymy can be explained if you understand the general principles of the construction of the name. Let's consider some of them.
Simplest option
Historical toponymy knows many cases when the term denoting its geographical features was used as the name of the area. There are many similar examples on the map. This is the Palau archipelago in Oceania ("Palau" in translation from Micronesian means "islands"), and the South American desert Atacama ("desert" translated from Native American). Often the name of an object is formed by attaching an epithet to a similar term. There are also plenty of examples: the Serra Dorada mountains in Portugal (the “Golden Mountain”), the Parana River in India (the “Big River”), Mauna Kea in Hawaii (the “White Mountain”) and so on.
Some place names are transferred from one object to another. A common example of this is the names of cities and rivers. In many cases, it is difficult to understand which object served as the source of the “name”. Nairobi, Moscow, Lilongwe, La Plata - all these are simultaneously the names of rivers and cities.
Changeable
The history of toponymy is full of examples where names changed over time. Quite often, this was the result of the arrival of new tribes, conquerors, or forced migrants. The human consciousness is structured in such a way that it tries to make everything unfamiliar to itself more understandable. This also happens with foreign toponyms. New residents take the geographical name they often come across and transform in their own way. So, the ancient Greeks rethought the Berber “adrar”, which means “mountain”, in the Atlas (translated from Greek as “carrier”). The new toponym organically entered the mythological system of Antiquity.
It happens that the name of an extended geographical object is not the same in different parts of it. This is not uncommon for rivers. Such puzzles of toponymy are easily explained: the main reason for a river to change its name, as a rule, lies in the transformation of the nature of its course. Bahr al-Jebel ("river of mountains") is the name of the Nile in the place where it loudly breaks from the mountain peaks to the East Sudan plain.
In addition, different peoples living on the banks of the same river give it their names. For the Nile, this is El-Bahr, given by the Arabs, the Coptic Earo, Cyprus and Tkuciri - in the Bunaga and Bari languages, respectively.
Memory of the past
The toponymy of a word often encounters a misinterpretation of certain names associated with the lack of certain knowledge in the field of their etymology (origin). This process is similar to the rethinking by new settlers of foreign terms, which was mentioned above. Vrazhsky Lane in Moscow, according to many, was a witness to some clashes with the enemy. The name is associated with the word "enemy." However, this assumption is erroneous: "enemy" means "ravine." This is precisely the meaning that the word bore until the 18th century.
There are many examples when toponyms told historians about the past. Names often reflect the life and characteristics of the population. It can be used to judge the prevailing type of activity in a particular territory or its affiliation, for example, to the lands of princes or landowners. Sometimes the terrain designations are associated with the natural and climatic features that were characteristic of it some time ago. Mysteries of place names often arise when there is no information about the past of a place and it is difficult to compare the "name" and the territory designated by it.