Toponomastics

Toponomastics, the study of toponyms, is a branch of onomastics, but in turn an interdisciplinary field of work to which several sciences contribute. These are primarily linguistics, historical studies, jurisprudence, geography and cartography.

Toponomastics, the study of toponyms, is a branch of onomastics, but in turn an interdisciplinary field of work to which several sciences contribute. These are primarily linguistics, historical studies, jurisprudence, geography and cartography. Linguistics contributes its interest in the linguistic form and ethymology of toponyms, in the form of toponyms in different languages, in their embedding in and relation to society (sociolinguistics). Historical studies deal with the documentary mention of toponyms, their historical development based on documentary evidence, their connection with political and social developments (e.g., place names changed after political upheavals). They also use toponyms as a key to the history of settlement and cultures, to reconstruct historical settlement, economic and transport structures, and as indicators for the spatial perception of past cultures. They are also concerned with comprehensive indexes of places and their names that go into diachronic depth. For jurisprudence, toponyms are a legal matter. Who can nominate? What names are allowed? When and where must the name be used? Under what circumstances are place-name changes possible? There is national and international law for this. Main fields of geographic toponomastics are the symbolic effect of toponyms, the importance of toponyms for space-related identity, the roles of toponyms in the relationship between humans or human community and space. In addition to purely technical questions such as the placement of toponyms on maps or the creation of place-name databases, cartography is primarily concerned with the rendering of place names on maps, the question of the use of endonyms or exonyms, script conversion systems (transliteration, phonetic transcription) and pronunciation notations, so that map users come as close as possible to the original pronunciation when pronouncing place names in other languages. In all these sciences, however, toponomastics is only a peripheral area. It has not yet been able to establish itself as an institutionalized science of its own at universities and academies. On the other hand, in many countries there are interdisciplinary toponymic committees that advise administrative bodies, institutions and publishers dealing with toponyms or are sometimes also responsible as place-name authorities for the official determination of toponyms. The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) was set up by the United Nations in 1959 and has since been working on the international standardization of toponyms on a scientific (toponomastic) basis. In 2012, the two global umbrella organizations of geography and cartography, the International Geographical Union (IGU) and the International Cartographic Association (ICA), established the Joint IGU/ICA Commission on Toponymy, which offers a forum at conferences, by symposia and publications not only for the geographical and cartographic aspects, but also for toponomastics in the broader sense. Toponomastics is also an important field of work in the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) with its triennial congresses, its journal "Onoma", its list of key onomastic terms and its online lectures.