the placename dictionary. where to from here?

Jan Tent is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Macquarie University, and Director of the Australian National Placenames Survey. His article is adapted from a presentation he gave at Australex 2009.

Toponyms (or placenames) are names to denote or identify human habitation sites (cities, towns, villages etc.), natural geographic features (mountains, rivers, lakes, bays, seas etc.), and political boundaries (states, municipalities etc.). They identify and reflect culture, heritage and landscape, and therefore offer much to cartographers, geographers, historians, genealogists, linguists, language planners, and tourists. Toponyms are also a vehicle for public and personal reference (Kostanski 2009). In the former, they are used for location delineation and identification (e.g. for emergency services, postal services, deliveries, communication, defence, navigation etc.). They can also function as powerful political tools (e.g. anti-German sentiments during World War I resulted in the renaming of 69 German placenames in South Australia). As a mechanism for personal reference, toponyms play an integral part in personal identity, because people always associate themselves with one or more places (e.g. where they were born, live and have lived, where their ancestors came from etc.). People have very strong attachments to placenames because they are linking agents or symbols of attachment between themselves and a place. To illustrate this, I cite one example. In 1993, a new virus was isolated in the Four Corners area of south-western United States. Residents so vehemently objected to it being named “Four Corners virus” or “Muerto Canyon Virus” (for obvious reasons) that it was ultimately named “Sin Nombre virus”, which in Spanish means “no name” (Strauss & Strauss 2008).

The naming of places is, therefore, a core human activity. Places without names are merely spaces. We can say that a place is space with meaning attached, and this is brought about by human interaction with a place and is recognised through its name (Kostanski 2009).

For all these reasons, placenames generate much interest with the public. For instance, radio station switchboards usually run hot when talkback broadcasters discuss placenames. This interest is also reflected by the numerous placename dictionaries that are published. Indeed, more placename dictionaries are published than any other type of dictionary.
Toponyms constitute a very distinct class of proper noun, and therefore require a special type of dictionary. In my work and research for the Australian National Placenames Survey, I sometimes refer to placename dictionaries as a first step in investigating the origin or meaning of a toponym. Unfortunately, they are frequently disappointing because the information they provide is regularly inaccurate, unreliable (often based on folk etymology), inconsistent in format, and well-known placenames are routinely omitted. Placename dictionaries therefore leave a lot to be desired and need reviewing.

Placename publications

Placename publications date back to at least the sixteenth century. In 1599, John Thorius [aka Thorie or Thorio] published a pocket-sized encyclopaedic style dictionary of places, The Theatre of the Earth. It alphabetically lists short accounts on towns, cities, a variety of geographical features, and countries in general. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a plethora of treatises on and dictionaries of toponyms. Many of these were etymological in nature, tracing the linguistic origin of toponyms.
I make a distinction here between what I would term placename (or toponym) dictionaries and dictionaries of places. The former largely deal with the etymology and meaning of toponyms, whilst the latter largely contain encyclopaedic information about the places to which the toponyms refer. Some publications are a blend of the two.

Dictionary functions

Dictionaries have two broad functions: communicative and cognitive. Those designed for communicative purposes are used for language encoding or decoding (bilingual dictionaries and learners dictionaries are prime examples of this genre). Dictionaries compiled for cognitive purposes are chiefly used for acquiring knowledge or information (technical dictionaries and the Oxford English Dictionary are key examples of this genre). Placename dictionaries have a cognitive function, i.e. they are knowledge-oriented, and should, therefore, also be considered as specialist or technical dictionaries because, like these, they have:
• a special purpose
• nouns as headwords (in this case
proper nouns)
• have a “technical” terminology 1
• have standardised forms, and
therefore have a normative function 2
• only denotations of terms
• often an encyclopaedic definition
style
• potential for the inclusion of
maps and illustrations.

How well placename dictionaries fulfil this cognitive function will depend on who their intended users are. A toponymist, geographer or linguist may require information on the etymology, geographic feature code, or toponym type. Historians will generally require more information in the form of location of the named feature, who, when and why a particular placename was bestowed, or historical notes about the place named. On the other hand, tourists, attracted to the cultural authenticity and identity of places they are visiting would be interested in all of this information, as well as local attractions, facilities etc.

A considerable range of placename dictionaries exists. Some attempt to cover the entire nation, others concentrate on specific states or regions (e.g. the Hunter River region), whilst others focus on certain types of placenames (e.g. Indigenous, French).
There is also a considerable range in the type of information provided under each entry in placename dictionaries. In what may be termed “pure” placename dictionaries, the user is presented with toponyms, their etymologies, and perhaps their meanings. In dictionaries of Indigenous placenames, toponyms’ purported translation equivalents are provided. Sometimes, when it is known, the Indigenous language from whence the placenames derive is given. In dictionaries of places, some or all of the above information may be provided, but primarily location of the named places, purported origins and meanings of the name, and histories of the places. As mentioned above, the quality of this information is often dubious and/or inconsistent.

Given the popularity and profusion of placename dictionaries, it seems puzzling that they are very rarely dealt with in lexicographic and onomastic literature. They only seem to be mentioned in the review sections of academic journals. Moreover, these reviews are generally superficial and uninformative, only dealing with the form and scope of entries.
It is clear that the placename dictionary is not a highly developed genre. My research indicates that there have been few, if any, innovations since John Thorius.

Where to from here?

What kinds of queries should a placename dictionary be able to satisfy? The answer naturally depends on who the intended users are. As outlined above, different users require different kinds of information. No print dictionary can satisfy the needs of all types of users. As a very minimum, it would entail the melding of “pure” placename dictionary entries and the encyclopaedic style entries of dictionaries of place. However, the large amount of information needed for each entry would restrict the total number of entries in such a dictionary, thereby significantly reducing its ultimate usefulness. An online dictionary, however, would solve this particular impediment because space is not an issue. Cross-referencing to other toponyms via hyperlinks, cross-referencing between other online dictionaries and encyclopaedias, audio pronunciations, stored user profiles, user defined filters/settings, images, videos, hyperlinks to all placenames depicted on maps, natural language queries (e.g. “capital of Victoria?”), fuzzy spellings (e.g. Woolongong > Wollongong), searching by exonyms (e.g. Nieuw Zuid Wales > New South Wales), statistical information (e.g. the number of Sandy Creeks in Australia), and toponym typology using spider diagrams are just some of the possibilities offered by this medium.
So, what might an online dictionary of Australian placenames and places contain? Among other things, it should contain:
• articles or information on:
scope and arrangement of the dictionary; relevance of toponyms; unique characteristics of Australian toponymy; features of the Australian toponymic system; Indigenous toponyms; introduced toponyms
• but also:
a toponym typology (by which all toponyms will be classified); a glossary of geographic feature types (by which all toponyms will be classified); abbreviations used in the dictionary; catalogues of introduced toponyms from different languages, e.g. French, Dutch, German, Polish, etc.; maps showing toponyms catalogued in the dictionary; useful web links; references.

The structure of individual entries could have the following arrangement:

Toponym /pronunciation/ [in audio, and in phonetic and respelling
forms]
• Location (State, latitude & longitude)
• Map reference
• Feature type [type of geographic feature, e.g. bay, stream, reserve, mountain
etc.]
• Toponym type [Indigenous or introduced, and whether descriptive, epony-
mous, shift etc.]
• Traditional Indigenous owners
• Alternative and previous name(s) [if any]
• Exonyms [foreign names for the toponym [e.g. Australisch Hoofdstedelijk
Territorium > Australian Capital Territory]
• Post Code
• Population statistics
• Parish / Municipality
• Electorates (State & Federal)
• Description [of the place]
• Origin of toponym [etymology, who bestowed the name and why etc.]
• Meaning [of the name, if relevant]
• History [of the place, and cultural significance of both the place and its
name]
• Local attractions [in, near or at the place]
• See also [nearby places, places with the same name, web links, other refer
ences and sources etc.]

Challenges

The dispensing of this prescription is not straightforward because the compilation of a placename dictionary brings with it challenges that compilers of other types of dictionaries do not face.
The most significant of these include the all too common lack of historical documents that detail or allude to the origin of introduced toponyms. This leads to the inability to establish the motivation for the bestowal of a particular name. This in turn, affects our ability to accurately classify toponyms. For a host of historical and linguistic reasons, the origin and/or meaning of innumerable Indigenous toponyms is also impossible to establish.
Added to this is the extensive amount of research needed for many toponyms. It is not unusual for me to spend six to eight fruitless months researching the origin of a toponym.
Finally, the sheer number of toponyms (approximately 5 million in Australia) makes a full coverage impossible. No general dictionary can contain all the words in a language; likewise no placename dictionary can contain all a nation’s or region’s toponyms. There are many more toponyms in Australia than there are words in the entire English language. For that reason, like the compiler of a general dictionary, the compiler of a placename dictionary must also decide which toponyms to include and which ones to exclude.

Conclusion

Judging by the content of the majority of placename dictionaries and dictionaries of places, their compilers seldom appear to take into account who the users may be. In so doing, these dictionaries rarely fulfil their proper cognitive function. Compilers and publishers alike should more carefully consider who the users will be and format their product accordingly. Secondly, lexicographers and toponymists should collaborate in developing some guidelines for the lexicographic selection and presentation of the toponymic data. This would ensure consistent and functional presentation of the data, thereby increasing the cognitive functionality of the dictionary. These guidelines should be applied to both print and online dictionaries. Given the type of data to be ideally presented in a dictionary of placenames and places, an online format is the most preferred. This medium is flexible and will allow the dictionary to be continuously updated, as well as significantly increase its cognitive functionality.

1 Toponyms are counted here as technical terms.
2 Gazetted or official toponyms have standardised spellings and therefore have a prescriptive function. A good placename dictionary should only catalogue gazetted toponyms.

References

Kostanski, Laura (2009). What’s in a name: Attachment and dependence in placename-based identity. Unpublished PhD, University of Ballarat.

Strauss, J.H. & E.G. Strauss (2008). Viruses and human disease. 2nd edition. London: Elsevier Academic Press Publications.

• Questionnaire (Feedback 32)
  
  
• Feedback 31 Report [PDF 22kb]
  
  
• Rubicon
  [PDF 81kb]
• Rubicon solution
  
  
• Letters to the Editor
  
  
• Word Column
  
  
• Occasional verse