Place-names and Cultural Identity: Toponyms and Their Diachronic Evolution among the Abui People from Alor

Activity: Talk or presentation › Presentation at conference/workshop/seminar

Description

This paper aims at documenting and reconstructing linguistic and anthropological aspects behind the naming processes of ancestral place-names, connected with etiological myths, among the Abui people from Alor Island, South-eastern Indonesia. Abui are a Papuan population from the Alor-Pantar Archipelago (Timor area). The name of their language, Abui, corresponds to the ethnonym. The language is endangered and is spoken by about 16,000 speakers from Central Alor. Over the years, several Linguists have partly reconstructed the Abui language and some lexical lists, both synchronic and diachronic, are available. Place-names, in Abui society, are deeply connected with the cultural identity of the local people and do not represent only their ‘intangible heritage’, but also their ‘intimate history’, which is considered, by them, ‘true’, besides the actual, evenemential History. This paper focuses on the etymological reconstruction and semantic interpretation of some ancestral toponyms of this indigenous population, connected with local genealogies and with newly documented funding myths. The investigation tries to provide a diachronic reconstruction of the analyzed place-names, at the etymological level, and an anthropological interpretation which clarifies their value as foundations of Abui people’s cultural identity. The article applies to the analysis a comparative approach, which considers several Papuan languages from Alor Island (e.g., Klon, Kafoa, Adang, Kabola, Kula, Papuna, Suboo, Tiee, Kamang, Kui, Sawila, Wersing, etc.), with the dual aim of investigating a possible common evolution and/or divergent naming processes in local place-names and their historical-linguistic origins. This investigation is aimed also at highlighting cultural-anthropological aspects of the perception and description of place-names among local speakers.
Period23 Aug 2024
Event title28th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS): ICOS Helsinki 2024: Sustainability of Names, Naming, and Onomastics
Event typeConference
LocationHelsinki, FinlandShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • Abui
  • Toponymy
  • Alor Island
  • Language Documentation
  • Toponomastics

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