Language, Society and the State in a Changing World 303118145X, 9783031181450

Table of contents :
Contents
Part 1 Mapping Language Landscapes
A Typology for Evaluating Language Maps
Introduction
Language Mapping: Foundations and Developments
Critical Reflection on Language Mapping
Toward a Tool for Understanding Language Maps
Presenting the Evaluative Language Mapping Typology (ELM-T)
Discussion and Conclusion
References
Issues in Classifying and Mapping the Semitic Languages of Ethiopia
Introduction
Inconsistent Theories of Semitic Language Origins
Issues in the Classification of Languages
Genealogical Classifications
Geographical Classifications and Patterns
Core Areas of Current Debate
Major Challenges in Classifications
Mapping Issues
Basic Notions of Mapping
Implications of Selected Language Maps
Implications of Selected Linguistic Maps
Limitations of Existing Maps
Major Mapping Challenges
Summary and Conclusion
References
Exploring the Linguistic Landscape of Cities Through Crowdsourced Data
Traditions and Trends in Linguistic Landscapes Research
Lingscape: Background
Crowdsourcing and Computation: Data-Driven Linguistic Landscape Research
Power Users and Passersby: Participatory Linguistic Landscape Research
Signage and Schools: Educational Linguistic Landscape Research
Conclusion
Data Statement
Changing Attitudes of Beijingness to Westernized Place Names in Beijing: From the Semi-Colonial Period to Postmodern Twenty-Fi...
Introduction
Perspectives and Tensions of Westernized Place Names
Three Periods of the Westernized Place Names in Beijing
Westernization of Place Names in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic
Social Background of Semi-Colonies
Only Two Short-Lived Westernized Place Names During This Period
Anti-Westernization of Place Names in the Early Cultural Revolution
Social Background Based on Extreme Left
Street of Anti-imperialism and Street of Anti-revisionism
Westernization of Place Names after the 1980s
Social Background of Westernization in Place Name
Westernization of Corporate and Real Estate Names
Conclusions
Thematic Categories for Place Names: Topology Typology
Introduction
Themes and Examples
Familial and Local Resident Recognition
Native People(s)
Memorials
Religion-Inspired
Literary Inspiration
Human Occupations and Activities
Aspirational, Feelings, and Opinions
Conflict, Death, and Negative Experiences
Recognition of Other Locations
Humorous Ideas and Unusual Thoughts
Wildlife
Physical Descriptions
Atmospheric Conditions, Dates, and Seasonal Connections
Combinations and Made-Up Names
Misspellings and Mistakes
Spatial Variability
Conclusions
Part 2 Language, Culture and Politics
Palestine´s Land Centrality and the Instrumentality of Historical Language
Introduction: Land Centrality and Colonial Zionism
Colonial Formations: Indigenous People and the ``Linguistic Contours´´
Imagining the World: Language and the Making of the Modern World
The Importance of Space
Interplay Between History and Space
The Spatiality of Politics and History
Conclusion: Palestine and Linguistic Genocide
The State of Languages in South Africa
Introduction
South Africa: Population and Language Demographics
South African Languages: History, Legislation, and Policies
Pidgination, Language Shift, and Identity in South Africa
Sign Language and Language in Digital and Electronic Space in South Africa
Conclusion
Languages and Language Politics in the Paraguayan Chaco
Introduction
The Linguistic Landscape of the Paraguayan Chaco
Territory
Domains of Use
Languages of the Paraguayan Chaco by Family
Guaicuruan
Matacoan
Enlhet-Enenlhet
Zamucoan
Tupí-Guaraní
Changes in Language Names and Linguistic Identification
Indigenous Language Policy in Paraguay
Ley de Lenguas No. 4251 (2010)
Ley No. 3231 (2007): Indigenous Education
The General Directorate of Indigenous Language Documentation and Promotion
Discussion and Conclusions
Reimaging the Art Scene in George Town, Penang
Introduction
Linguistic Landscape Research
Murals as a Component of Linguistic Landscape Research
Penang: Multiethnicity, Multilingualism, and Multiculturalism
The Present Study
Data Collection
Analytical Framework
Murals in George Town
Ethnic Representations
Lifestyle in the Old Days
Support for Current Issues
Concluding Remarks
References
Exploring Climate Change Through the Language of Art
Introduction
Disseminating the Message
Disappearing Islands
Hand-Weaving Vulnerable Coastlines
Background
Process
The Liminal Project (2010-2016)
Artworks
Shifting Sands: Capturing Climatic and Cultural Change Through Art
Project´s Structure, Approach, and Process
Island as microcosm
Concluding Remarks
References
Part 3 The Functions of Language on a Local and a Global Scale
Preservation of Magahi Language in India: Contemporary Developments
Introduction
Origin and Diffusion
Decline
Rejuvenation
Organization
Agitation
Construction
Media
Current Status
Conclusion
References
Learning Indigenous Languages in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction
The Racial Geography of Argentina
Interculturality and Bilingual Intercultural Education
Indigenous Language Programs in Buenos Aires
Learning a Language from Here
Conclusion
Reclaiming Transformation for Inclusive and Multilingual Education through Linguistic Landscape (LL) in South Africa and Malay...
Introduction
Conceptual Framework
Scientific Research and Definitions about Language Policy
Origins, Areas, and Development of Linguistic Landscape Research
Language Policy in South Africa and Malaysia
The Weight of History for Language Policy in South Africa
Impact of Precolonial History on Language Policy of Malaysia
Research Area and Data Collection
Schooling Environment and Beyond
Type of Learning Environment
A More Inclusive and Multilingual School
Learning Languages in the Curriculum
Learning Community Languages
Conclusion
References
Dialect Diversity and Migration: Disturbances and Dilemmas, Perspectives from Norway
Prologue
Introduction
The Complexity of ``Norwegian´´: Democracy and Dialect Diversity
Globalization and Migration: New Speakers of Norwegian and English
Demographic and Historical Background
Learning ``Norwegian´´: A Dilemma for New Speakers or for Norway?
English on the Rise: ``New Speakers of English´´
Disturbances for Both Old and New Speakers in the Country
Conclusion
Epilogue
Rise of English as Business Lingua Franca at the Turn of the Century: An Overview
Introduction
Review of Relevant Literature
Emergence of English in the International Arena
Conclusion
English and Bivalent Class Indexicality in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction
The Sociolinguistic Landscape of English in Latin America and Argentina
Excerpt 1
``Snobs or Weird - No in Between´´
Excerpt 2
The Bivalent Class Indexicality of English in Argentina and the Changing World Language Map
The Nature of Gender Relations: The Changing Language of Gender amid Anthropogenic Climate Change in Amazonian Peru
Introduction
Contextual Introduction to the Peruvian Amazon
Floodplain Livelihoods
Ribereños and Gendered Livelihoods
Climate Change in Amazonia
Evidence and Projections of Climate Change in Amazonia
Human Dimensions of Climate Change in Rural Amazonia
The Past, Present, and Future of Gender and Seasonality in Amazonian Floodplain Livelihoods
Concluding Remarks
References

Citation preview

Stanley D. Brunn Roland Kehrein   Editors

Language, Society and the State in a Changing World

Language, Society and the State in a Changing World

Stanley D. Brunn • Roland Kehrein Editors

Language, Society and the State in a Changing World

Editors Stanley D. Brunn Department of Geography University of Kentucky Lexington, KY, USA

Roland Kehrein Research Centre Deutscher Sprachatlas Marburg University Marburg, Hessen, Germany

ISBN 978-3-031-18145-0 ISBN 978-3-031-18146-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part 1 Mapping Language Landscapes ............................................................... 1 1. A Typology for Evaluating Language Maps ................................................... 3 Adam Stone and Erik Anonby 2. Issues in Classifying and Mapping the Semitic Languages of Ethiopia ...... 33 Tekabe Legesse Feleke 3. Exploring the Linguistic Landscape of Cities Through Crowdsourced Data ............................................................................................. 87 Christoph Purschke 4. Changing Attitudes of Beijingness to Westernized Place Names in Beijing: From the Semi-Colonial Period to Postmodern Twenty-First Century........................................................................................ 113 Shangyi Zhou 5. Thematic Categories for Place Names: Topology Typology ...................... 135 Lisa M. Butler Harrington Part 2 Language, Culture and Politics ............................................................. 155 6. Palestine’s Land Centrality and the Instrumentality of Historical Language ...................................................................................... 157 Seif Da’Na and Laura Khoury 7. The State of Languages in South Africa ...................................................... 169 Cecil Seethal 8. Languages and Language Politics in the Paraguayan Chaco .................... 187 John Elliott and Raina Heaton 9. Reimaging the Art Scene in George Town, Penang .................................... 215 Teresa Wai See Ong

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10. Exploring Climate Change Through the Language of Art ...................... 237 Laurie Brinklow, Rilla Marshall, and Brenda Whiteway Part 3 The Functions of Language on a Local and a Global Scale ................ 271 11. Preservation of Magahi Language in India: Contemporary Developments ..................................................................................................... 273 Ram Nandan Prasad Sinha 12. Learning Indigenous Languages in Buenos Aires, Argentina ................. 293 Lauren E. Deal 13. Reclaiming Transformation for Inclusive and Multilingual Education through Linguistic Landscape (LL) in South Africa and Malaysia ...................................................................................................... 307 Michael M. Kretzer and Teresa Wai See Ong 14. Dialect Diversity and Migration: Disturbances and Dilemmas, Perspectives from Norway ................................................................................ 337 Unn Røyneland and Elizabeth Lanza 15. Rise of English as Business Lingua Franca at the Turn of the Century: An Overview............................................................................ 357 Maganat Shegebayev 16. English and Bivalent Class Indexicality in Buenos Aires, Argentina ............................................................................................................ 367 Mary-Caitlyn Valentinsson 17. The Nature of Gender Relations: The Changing Language of Gender amid Anthropogenic Climate Change in Amazonian Peru .......... 385 Jennifer C. Langill

Part 1 Mapping Language Landscapes

A Typology for Evaluating Language Maps Adam Stone and Erik Anonby

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Language Mapping: Foundations and Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Critical Reflection on Language Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Toward a Tool for Understanding Language Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Presenting the Evaluative Language Mapping Typology (ELM-T) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Abstract

Language is a complex social phenomenon, and its spatial characteristics can be efficiently and powerfully represented through maps. Although language maps are widespread, there has until recently been little reflection on the act of language mapping, and this domain continues to lack coherence. This article proposes and delineates an evaluative language mapping typology. Using open-ended questions, this tool facilitates analysis and description of key aspects of language maps: technical set-up, context and theme, language map type, data, visualizations and representational strategies, and overall impact. The fine-grained

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_235-1. A. Stone University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC), Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] E. Anonby (*) Department of French and School of Linguistics and Language Studies (SLaLS), Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_1

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evaluation achieved through this process enables people to build language maps more reflectively. Keywords

Language mapping · Linguistic cartography · Linguistic mapping · Geolinguistics · Critical cartography

Introduction Language is central to what it means to be human. It anchors cognition, enables complex systems of communicative behaviours, and serves as a vehicle for defining individual and social identities. It is an intangible aspect of human experience, embodied and constantly shifting in time and space. Maps are powerful tools for communicating how languages exist within this space. But this communicative strength often requires the sacrifice of important details (Monmonier 2005), and cartographic representations of the same language situation can vary greatly. As an example of this issue, Lewis (2013) points out that many language maps show Iran as a uniformly Persian-speaking country. There are, however, several key maps of Iran’s languages that provide a more sophisticated picture of the language situation: • The foundational ethnic map of Iran in the Atlas Narodov Mira (Bruk and Apenchenko 1964), which has long been used as a surrogate for a map of the country’s languages • The CIA’s (1982) map, referring specifically to “ethnolinguistic groups,” which does not acknowledge its sources but is clearly based on the earlier Russian map (and other sources beknownst only to itself) • The carefully cartographed but small-scale map of the Middle East in the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (TAVO; Orywal 1988, 1991), a first major map explicitly devoted to the languages of the region • Hourcade et al.’s (2011, 2012, 2018) Irancarto and Cartorient maps of language in each of Iran’s districts: the only ones based on census data – albeit incomplete and problematic – and for which methods are clearly described and at least somewhat reproducible • Izady’s (2006–2022) colourful and perennially evolving infographs on the “Linguistic Composition of Iran” In the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI), Anonby, Taheri-Ardali et al. (2015–2022) provide fine-grained language distribution maps of several of the Iran’s provinces but have not yet produced a country-level map. Similarly,

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Fig. 1 Ethnologue’s “map” of Iran’s languages (Eberhard et al. 2021). (Source: https://www. ethnologue.com/country/IR/maps. © 2021, SIL International. Reproduced under a Fair Use licence for purposes of criticism and education)

Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2021), which has language maps for almost every other country of the world, does not attempt to produce a map for Iran (Fig. 1). Even a cursory examination of the key maps listed above reveals profound differences among them. The number of language varieties shown on the maps for Iran varies from 6 or 7 (Irancarto) to several dozen (TAVO and Izady). If Ethnologue’s 79 listed languages for Iran were mapped out, this would inevitably result in a map of a very different composition. Additional issues recurring in these maps relate to variable representation and perspective: differences in the names used for language varieties, perhaps inevitable in the “translanguaging” forum of language maps; ambiguity regarding whether varieties are considered languages or dialects of larger languages; and differences in classification – which varieties are grouped together as part of each language, and the criteria by which they are grouped (Anonby et al. 2020). Finally, there are major differences in the geographic placement of languages: three of the maps (Atlas Narodov Mira, CIA, and Izady) show large Arabic-speaking areas in southern Iran, covering thousands of square kilometres, but in varying locations; one map series (Irancarto/Cartorient) shows much smaller areas of Arabic; and one further map (TAVO) shows no Arabic in this region at all. This variability suggests a troubling lack of rigour in methodology or, in some cases, a simple lack of access to the sources of knowledge necessary for mapping languages in Iran. In short, the language situation in areas of focus such as Iran continues to be poorly understood and is represented in contradictory ways. Geographic variation in the distribution of linguistic structures in this region is similarly little explored, even now. It was in fact this state of affairs that led to the initiation of the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) research programme in 2009, as recounted in Anonby, Taheri-Ardali, and Hayes (2019). Language atlas projects for Iran have been attempted since the late 1950s, but none have yet come to fruition. If an atlas project were to succeed, one important starting point would be a thorough review of the

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literature on linguistic geography in Iran, including all available maps. What is the nature, content, structure, and value of these maps? What is the historical and disciplinary context of each of them? How were the maps built? What kind of data are being shown in them? What does each of these maps contribute to our understanding of the language situation? What other messages are being communicated through the maps, whether directly or indirectly? As Stone (2020) points out, and as developed in the section on critical reflection on language mapping below, a wealth of language mapping activity is taking place, but relatively little systematic self-reflection or cohesion exists in the field. The questions we have raised here are foundational to the field of language mapping, but because of their interdisciplinary nature are only infrequently broached by linguists, who most often have little background in mapping; by geographers and cartographers, who typically have little experience in the study of linguistic variation; and by practitioners of critical discourse analysis, who may lack familiarity with both fields. In our own work in linguistic research, language mapping, and reflection on our practices, we see the need for a systematic and holistic analysis tool: first of all, to compare, evaluate, and make full use of the existing materials available to us, but equally importantly, to enable us to make maps in a more intentional way – to focus our efforts, select appropriate methods and representations, and fine-tune our message, thereby avoiding some of the major shortcomings that are found in existing language maps. In preparing for analysis, we found – as linguists new to functionalities of language mapping – that no fully articulated tool existed. Ambrose and Williams (1991), with their basic classification of language map types and techniques, came closest, along with Luebbering (2011), who developed a survey form for noting cartographic features on language maps. Lameli et al. (2010) and Brunn and Kehrein (2020) provide rich anthologies of a wide range of topics in language mapping but provide no single, coherent vision of language mapping as a field, nor tools for analysis. Other important, albeit inadequate, models for such an enterprise will be discussed below. Taking our cue from Ambrose and Williams’ (1991) foundational reflections on language mapping, as well as Read’s (1989) observations that classifications can provide the framework for a typology of a discipline and that typologies facilitate understanding of the nature of a discipline and its artifacts, we have settled on a typology as our tool of choice for map analysis. Our typology is articulated as a detailed, systematic questionnaire which facilitates the analysis of individual language maps through deconstruction by means of a fine-grained taxonomy of components and features. Although our proposed typology proceeds from a specific context, that is, a reflection on maps of the languages of Iran, we see this tool as having practical value for scholars wishing to understand and clearly describe maps of languages elsewhere in the world. Through the typology, we aim to foster reflection in language mapping as a community of practice and in the allied disciplines of cartography and geography, along with applied linguistics and general linguistics. Finally, we hope that this reflection will enable people to build language maps in a more reflective and

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effective way while keeping in mind the purpose, context, methods, and consequences of language mapping. This article thus proposes a typology for analyzing language maps. Following this introduction, we provide an overview of language mapping as a field, and focus on critical reflection in language mapping. We then discuss the need for a tool that facilitates analysis and understanding of language maps, and possibilities for what such a tool would look like. The article’s central contribution is a presentation of our “Evaluative Language Mapping Typology” (ELM-T). This tool enables analysis and description of key aspects of language maps: technical set-up, context and theme, language map type, data, visualizations and other representational strategies, and critique of the map. Our study concludes with reflection on the contributions and limitations of this typology and prospects for its ongoing development.

Language Mapping: Foundations and Developments Two decades into the twenty-first century, language maps are found in an expanding variety of spheres (Trbovich et al. 2019: 36), ranging from established fields of academic inquiry such as dialectology (Rabanus 2017: 349) to growing discourses around language and education policy planning (Oliver 2013) and spatialization of language in the brain (Nakai et al. 2017). Broadly categorized, the majority of language maps can be classified as either language distribution maps, which display information related to the placement and number of language varieties across a geographic space, or linguistic feature maps, which display information related to variation in a language’s structure, such as vocabulary, speech sounds, or grammatical forms (Girnth 2010: 98–99; Anonby and Sabethemmatabadi 2019: 415–416). For the purposes of this paper, these are collectively referred to as language maps. Though language distribution maps are arguably the earlier expression of language mapping (Thun 2010: 507), mapping practices of both forms have a history spanning hundreds of years (Swiggers 2010: 273). The earliest language map is known from Kashgar in the Karakhanid Khanate of central Asia where, in 1073, Mahmud al-Kashgar compiled a map labelling the region’s ethnic groups and their languages (Mühlhäusler 2010: 357; Davidovich 1998). In the western scholarly tradition, language maps appeared centuries later in what is now known as Germany as a means of displaying the presence and relatedness of German language varieties (e.g., Scultetus 1593; Schmeller 1821; Bernhardi 1849). However, these maps were exceptional cases, and language mapping as a serious endeavour arguably did not take hold until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the production of detailed language atlases devoted to showcasing synchronic linguistic change across geographical regions such as the German Empire (Wenker 2001–2009 [1888–1923]), the Netherlands (te Winkel 1898; Schrijnen 1917), French-speaking regions in Europe (Gilliéron and Edmont 1902; Gauchat 1903; Millardet 1910), and Japan (Shimmura 1993 [1904]). Following on this period of intense activity in the early twentieth century, language

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mapping eventually spread to other regions, resulting in large-scale initiatives including for Britain (Dieth and Orton 1952), North America (Kurath 1967; Cassidy and Hall 1985–2013), Africa (Dieu and Renaud 1983), the Pacific (Wurm and Hattori 1981), China (Wurm et al. 1987), and Latin America (Lope Blanch 1990–2000; Da Silva Cardoso et al. 2014). Most of the earliest language maps were, at their core, expressions of political affinity. Subsequently, linguistic geography came into its own as a field of dedicated scholarly pursuit (among others, Dauzat 1943; Bottiglioni 1954; Pei 1965; Thomas 1974) and from there has found new purposes and directions into the present. In the twenty-first century, maps in general are continually developing new functionalities and applications (Trbovich et al. 2019: 36) in large part because of advances in computing and connectivity (Monmonier 1991: 3). For language maps, too, advancements in digital technologies mean that, in addition to academia, there are emerging and varied spheres where language maps can be of use, including educational systems (Luebbering 2011: 8), language learning (Cenerini et al. 2017: 320), community-based research (Stone and Anonby 2019: 451), and policy planning (Van der Merwe and Van der Merwe 2007: 4). Language maps are important to these areas because they enable novel comparisons between different kinds of knowledge – linguistic and geographic, for example – in ways that would be difficult to show with text alone, and in ways that resonate with people viewing them (Luebbering et al. 2013: 383; Wikle and Bailey 2010: 253). Because of this ability to bring together ideas and people (Upton 2010: 144), the ways language maps are made and the messages they communicate have far-reaching consequences for all those involved in the mapping process (e.g., Girnth 2010: 116; Ormeling 2014: 342). Given that maps are by design innately selective in what they show, Wikle and Bailey (2010: 253) urge language mapmakers to consider the consequences of decisions when engaged in the mapping process.

Critical Reflection on Language Mapping Despite the increasing prevalence of language mapping in a variety of spheres (Luebbering 2011: 54), little continues to be done toward understanding and enabling control over the impacts of the language mapping process (Luebbering et al. 2013: 383). This is not to say that meta-research on language mapping is entirely absent from the literature. Investigations into the methods, techniques, and technologies used in language mapping have begun to appear in the last three decades and can be generalized into three main waves of inquiry (Stone 2020: 81). 1. Toward the end of the twentieth century, authors such as Mackey (1988) identified language map elements and their associated challenges, while Ambrose and Williams (1991) developed a language mapping typology that classifies language maps and mapping techniques, and Ormeling (1992) offered an inventory of

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methods that could be applied to making maps of language. This wave of seminal research made conventions from geography accessible to linguists, brought to light many of the language-specific methods and issues now understood as central to language mapping, and laid the foundation for subsequent research in this area. 2. The reflective landscape remained sparse until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when authors such as Briscoe (2009) published a master’s thesis on the consequences of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for language mapping; Lameli, Kehrein, and Rabanus (2010) released an edited volume on research in language mapping; and Luebbering (2011) published a dissertation and one-page questionnaire focusing on the techniques, research, consequences, classifications, and applications of mapmaking practices in this area. At this time, these authors, along with Luebbering, Kolivras, and Prisley (2013), first clearly identified a lack of methodological coherence and critical reflection in language mapping, an observation that has since become a driving factor in renewed research about language mapping as a discipline. At the same time, Kretszchmar (2013) developed an online resource featuring a carefully organized core inventory of language mapping terms, techniques, and technologies. 3. A decade later, a third wave has seen more extensive research including the publication of a handbook of dialectology by Boberg, Nerbonne, and Watt (2018), explorations into how the theoretical framework of cybercartography can be applied to language mapping (Anonby et al. 2018; Anonby and Sabethemmatabadi 2019; Murasugi 2019; Rosen 2019; Ingram et al. 2019; Stone and Anonby 2019), the demonstration and refinement of tools used to survey language maps (Stone 2020), and an expansive handbook on language mapping research and practices (Brunn and Kehrein 2020). Importantly, this third wave can be thought of as “action-oriented,” as it builds upon the second wave by investigating changing technologies and demonstrating concrete solutions and practices. This lack of established conventions (Luebbering 2013: 45) and critical reflection (Lameli 2010: 567) is in no way unique to language mapping. Agumya and Hunter (2002: 406) point to a failure among mapmakers, as a larger body, to understand the consequences of the techniques they use, and Kent (2017: 194) notes that cartography has remained largely uncritical of its own practices. Such issues have remained relevant throughout the three waves of inquiry in language mapping, and although they have not negatively impacted the number of language maps that have appeared (Luebbering et al. 2013: 383), they have significant consequences for their consistency, quality, and communicative effectiveness (Luebbering 2013: 45–49). In language mapping, a process can be viewed as reflective when individuals or groups evaluate the effectiveness of, among other issues, past and present linguistic visualization techniques in delivering intended messages to users (Briscoe 2009: 10), the techniques’ influence on the power of those creating and using the maps (Peeters 1992: 8), and the potential for maps to address current research, issues, and technologies. Similarly, common knowledge and existing methods in language mapping can be described, evaluated, systematized, and codified by experts as best practices

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(Harvey 2015: 5). Given that Kent (2017: 194) remarks on a general tendency for cartographic theory to exist separately from practice, what does a lack of established guidelines and critical reflection mean for the development of language maps? The techniques and practices used in mapmaking are often complex, nuanced, and difficult to control, leading scholars such as Monmonier (2005: 216) to note that the inadvertent fabrication of unintended messages is more common than intentional deceit. As maps are inevitably framed by their authors’ perspectives (Kitchin 2010: 7), arbitrary decisions (Girnth 2010: 101), and unconscious ideologies (Harley 1988: 278), creators of language maps will, in one way or another, transfer these subjectivities to people accessing information through maps. Such transfers may occur through a variety of avenues, including the way boundaries (such as political or linguistic borders) (Luebbering 2013: 46–48), colours (Gill 1988: 36), and projection systems (Ormeling 2010: 30; 2014: 354) are used, to name a few. While digital mapmaking technologies such as GIS and the World Wide Web have made it easier for non-specialists to produce professional-looking maps (Perkins 2007: 127), the cartographic inexperience of many of these authors means that uninformed decisions regarding the map’s production can strongly impact the messages the map gives (Monmonier 1996: 2). A few other fields of study, such as geology, have ongoing discussions surrounding the standards and guidelines for mapping (Luebbering et al. 2013: 383) that help to inform mapmakers about how to avoid subtle yet impactful mistakes. However, as language – an activity embedded within culture, society, and the mind – is in many ways more of a continuous and dynamic phenomenon than other aspects of the physical world, there are added challenges to developing a systematic way of presenting it on a map. Because of the many ways in which language might be depicted on a map, and the reasons for these depictions, we argue that a capacity for critical reflection in the discipline of language mapping must come before informed, flexible, and meaningful conventions can be formalized. To systematically reflect on language mapping practices, however, a critical infrastructure needs to be set in place.

Toward a Tool for Understanding Language Maps To account for different elements of language maps and to be able to interpret them, a useful tool should be able to isolate a robust inventory of the maps’ features, analyze and critique them individually in relation to the nature of linguistic structures and functions they depict, and bring findings together in a critical synthesis that respects and describes the maps as a multifaceted communicative phenomenon themselves. Work in this direction began with Ambrose and Williams’ (1991) language map classification typology, which categorized language maps according to their tangible properties, representational techniques, and informational objectives. This approach was refined by Girnth (2010), Luebbering (2011, 2013), and Rabanus (2020), who explored and categorized greater numbers of language maps while also turning their attention to the use of language mapping techniques in the emerging digital sphere. In both cases, this work aligned with Read’s (1989: 158) conception of a

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classification system as an assertion about how a specific domain of phenomena is structured, providing important insights into the nature of language mapping. Still, as we will explain at the end of this section, disproportionate focus on physical (and especially visual) characteristics of language maps – perhaps resulting from emphases and practices elsewhere in cartography – meant that many important, and even basic, characteristics of language maps were inadequately handled. While such a system has not yet been developed within language mapping or studies of linguistic phenomena in physical space more generally, analyses of this kind are already found elsewhere in cartography. Competitive analysis, for example, is a form of comparative study that analyzes competing products’ relative strengths and weaknesses in relation to user interface designs (Nielsen 1992: 3). Researchers such as Roth, Quinn, and Hart (2015) employ competitive analysis as a means of exploring the frequency with which specific features occur within a selection of digital maps, such as the use of colour hue to denote uncertainty. From a different perspective, MacEachren (1995) devised a spectral typology in which maps are placed along two axes (image–diagram; atom–universe) according to how closely they resemble a “prototypical map” (Fig. 2). The spectral typology aims to systematically classify cartographic components which instead of being concretely defined (or definable) are gradient and meaningful primarily in relation to the contexts in which they feature (MacEachren 1995: 161). Hruby, Miranda, and Riedl (2009)

Fig. 2 MacEachren’s (1995: 161) spectral typology for the concept of “map.” (Source: A. M. MacEachren, How maps work: Representation, visualization, and design, © 1995, Guilford Press. Reproduced with permission).

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extend this typology to analysis of multilingual conceptualizations of maps. Given that some basic linguistic phenomena (such as the terms “language” and “dialect”) likewise defy definition according to discrete parameters (Whaley 1996: 4), this flexible classification system may lend itself well to language mapping research. Responding to limitations in earlier language mapping typologies, we have worked to develop an “evaluative language mapping typology” that goes beyond a closed list of cartographic techniques and the tangible products of mapping, to embrace the following qualities: (a) More thorough attention to deconstruction and analysis of individual components of language maps (b) Sensitivity to a broader cross-section of phenomena, many of which are intangible, that undergird these maps: situation of the map in its cultural and scientific context; attention to language maps beyond the prevalent genres of language distribution map and linguistic structure map (see section “Language Mapping: Foundations and Developments”); mapping techniques beyond visual modalities; greater emphasis on emerging technological capabilities of language maps; and critically, attention on the nature of the linguistic structures and functions themselves (c) Designed to enable a critical synthesis of the essence of maps as a unified communicative act, based on this broad yet fine-grained analysis The results of our reflection are presented in the following section. Rather than being limited to closed lists of possible features, the new typology invites the analyst into the communicative process of the maps – and, in fact, makes the process of analysis more explicit – through the examination of features using directed as well as open-ended questions. While we seek to provide a tool that is polyvalent and comprehensive, we recognize that no typology can be exhaustive. Therefore, we offer the present typology as a living, evolving model that can be used selectively, built upon, or repurposed for novel applications. Initial iterations of the present typology have been adapted and applied to analysis and design of maps of a variety of types: Iranian languages (Anonby 2015; Anonby, Taheri-Ardali et al. 2015–2022, 2019; Stone and Anonby 2020; Azin et al. 2021; Anonby and Sheyholislami 2022), Indigenous languages (Stone 2018; Moussa 2020), signed languages (Belecque 2019), and dynamic maps (Gooding 2019). In addition to developing a deeper understanding of the maps we are analyzing, with each application of the typology we have gained new insights into the types of features that can be analyzed and, more generally, the act of language mapping and the nature of language maps themselves.

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Presenting the Evaluative Language Mapping Typology (ELM-T) Here, we present the “Evaluative Language Mapping Typology,” henceforth abbreviated as ELM-T or the “Typology.” Available in its full form as an appendix (see Electronic Supplementary Material, Data 1 – Appendix) and in an online repository (Anonby and Stone 2022; https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/YQIIX2), the Typology is an eight-page document divided into six sections: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Technical setup Context and theme Type of language map The data Visualizations and other representational strategies Critique

The Typology is designed to facilitate an analytical procedure that begins broadly, with establishment of the nature and context of a map (sections 1, 2, and 3); hones in on details related to linguistic data and cartographic representations of the data (sections 4 and 5); and opens up to a systematic global critique (section 6) facilitated by the fine-grained analysis that has preceded it. Within each section, analysis proceeds from simple to complex, or basic to peripheral, depending on the nature of the topic. Component topics allow for grounding of language maps across the disciplines of computer and information science, geography and cartography, linguistics and applied linguistics, communication theory, and critical discourse analysis. Within each section, links between these disciplines are nurtured and explored so that a balanced, interdisciplinary picture of language mapping emerges. The reflective process is recursive, with initial reflections on analysis at each stage brought together for a summative reflection in the final section. While ethics are central to the construction, nature, function, and use of maps (Harley 1991; Monmonier 1991), there is no separate section of the Typology dedicated to this topic. Rather, we have woven ethical considerations throughout. Examples, which will be evident from our explanations of the Typology, are the importance of interrogating social bases and contexts; placement of all participants in the communication process on an equal footing in the act of analysis; consideration of motivations for representational choices on the part of map authors; and critique of the effects of such choices on map users and, centrally, people whose languages are featured in the map. Naturally, those who make use of the Typology will bring their own ethical frameworks to the process of map analysis or map construction, but the fine-grained and polyvalent questions raised in this tool will facilitate the understanding of these maps in a way that enriches existing perspectives and ethical frameworks. Section 1 of the Typology treats the technical setup of a map selected for investigation. While subsequent sections deal with higher-order analytical functions such as comparison and interpretation, this initial approach focuses on unambiguous technical specifications of the language map as an artifact, from the point of view of

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Fig. 3 In the Algonquian Linguistic Atlas (Junker et al. 2005–2022), map data are made available as recordings accompanied by transcriptions. (Source: © 2005–2022, M.-O. Junker et al. Reproduced with permission. https://www.atlas-ling.ca)

physicality, information technology, and cartographic tools. The medium of the map (section 1.1) is described according to dimensionality, which allows for identification of the language map as two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or spatialized through other dimensionalities or sensory mechanisms (see the combined visual/ sound map in Fig. 3). The media type may be a localized physical medium, such as paper, intended for direct sensory experience, or the map may be mediated through digital channels. Media size can be measured through units ranging from centimetres to pixels. Digital aspects of a language map (section 1.2) come with their own library of properties: geocoding, platforms and apps, and file structure; static versus dynamic representations; and interactivity (user direction) in view, content, or architecture. Issues of accessibility (section 1.3) range from copyright licences and simple availability of physical or digital media to provisions made for users with use considerations such as colour blindness. Website performance tools allow for examination of quantified performance measures. Already here, the Typology initiates reflection on reasons for this technical setup, and effects this setup may have on the map (section 1.4). Section 2 deals with the language map’s context and theme. This section facilitates an understanding of “external” characteristics of the map related to its significance as a communicative act within a social and disciplinary context; only within this larger context does the map have meaning. Analysis of the map’s social

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Fig. 4 A map, from Wikimedia Commons, for which no identifying contextual or thematic information is provided as text on the map. Some details, such as the author’s pseudonym and an explanation of some map elements, can be found in an accompanying metadata file. (Source: © 2006, Angr. Reproduced under a CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Northern_Cities_Vowel_Shift.svg)

context (section 2.1) opens with identification of the map’s participants: (a) the author, whether as an individual or as a team; (b) map users, whether intended, actual, or potential; and (c) people whose language is featured in the map. The extent of overlap between any of these participant groups is raised. Since any member of a communication situation can be actively involved, we have not used the passive labels of “audience” (for users) or “subjects” (for people whose language is featured in the maps). The context of the map itself within the discipline is laid out progressively through a catalogue of relevant bibliographic reference details; its placement within a larger work such as an article, book, or atlas; and its place within the discipline of linguistic geography, other domains of linguistics, and wider academic and societal discourses. Often, contextual information is lacking on a map and may be difficult to trace (Fig. 4). The language of the map (i.e., the language that the map has been written in) (section 2.2) constrains the communicative act to people proficient in that language. The map title (section 2.3) is the thematic anchor for this communicative act and prepares map users to interpret it. Still, thanks to frequent separation of digital or digitized language maps on the Internet from their original bibliographic context, a significant proportion of language maps has no accompanying title! Accompanying text (section 2.4), whether on the map, in a caption, or in the immediate or wider bibliographic context, defines further parameters for interpretation of the map and, as much as possible, should be included in its entirety for the analysis of the map (see Fig. 5 for a map with extensive explanatory text). A legend (section 2.5) tends to identify the most important individual elements of the map, so a review of legend

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Fig. 5 Izady’s (2006–2022) infographic on Iran’s languages provides accompanying text with ample thematic context and a rich discussion of the map’s content. (Source: © Dr. M. Izady, 2013, all rights reserved. Reproduced with permission. Dr. M. Izady, Atlas of the Islamic World and Vicinity, New York, Columbia University, 2006–present, available at https://gulf2000.columbia. edu/maps.shtml)

items leads well into analysis of the type of language map (section 3), the languagerelated data (section 4), and visualizations and other representational strategies (section 5). The theme of the map (section 2.6) may be evident in the title but should be considered on its own terms: often a theme can only be fully or precisely deduced from prior analysis of all the contextual features addressed here (sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5). At this point, the Typology facilitates reflection on possible reasons for why the map is situated in this larger context (section 2.7). However, implications related to the map’s participants (especially the map authors) and the map theme are revisited in section 6, where they are reconsidered as part of a wider-ranging critique of the map’s purpose, message, and limitations. Section 3 enables a general analysis of the language map type. Moving from technical aspects of structuring that make these communicative artifacts possible (section 1) and general social and disciplinary context for the map (section 2), this section turns the scope of analysis to the questions, forms, and conventions of linguistics, with a focus on geographic variation in language-related behaviours. As mentioned in section “Language Mapping: Foundations and Developments” above, the vast majority of language maps are of two types: language distribution

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maps, which schematize the geographic distribution of language varieties, and linguistic structure maps. Both types depend on the identification of the language varieties under consideration (section 3.1). Although assessments of “language distribution” are typically viewed as self-evident by members of language communities, people outside of these communities, and in practice, most linguists (see discussion in Anonby et al. 2019), such assessments are in fact the product of an exceedingly complex bundle of ideologies, experiences, and behaviours constructed within society and culture (Breton 1991). On its own, the Typology cannot hope to fully deconstruct ideologies and assumptions that generate assessments of language identity, but it enables a first approach to this issue in the map. By providing an inventory of the terminology and constructs used to conceptualize language varieties, the analyst can make areas of consensus, ambiguity, and divergence explicit. Reflection on language identification in the map is accomplished through recognition and framing of the language variety labels that are used (e.g., Black Vernacular English vs. African American Vernacular English vs. Ebonics): what are social and scientific implications for the use of particular labels on the map? Further, how does the author conceptualize variety type for each of the language varieties investigated: is it a “language family,” “language,” “dialect group,” “dialect,” “accent,” “slang,” or something else? (see Fig. 6). What does the choice of terminology for a type

Fig. 6 Within the Iranian language family, there is no consensus on which varieties should be considered “languages” and which are “dialects” of Persian. Stone and Anonby’s (2020) language distribution map lists language varieties but does not specify what type of variety they are. (Source: © 2019, A. Stone and E. Anonby. Reproduced under a CC BY licence)

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Fig. 7 Sheyholislami and Surkhi’s (in press) map shows the distribution of lexical (cognate) classes for the word “child” in Kurdish. (Source: © 2021, J. Sheyholislami and R. Surkhi. Reproduced with permission)

suggest about prestige, history, community size, and other non-linguistic characteristics of the language variety? (Moreau 1997). The Typology further asks the analyst to consider ways in which the language community is generalized in the map or delimited as a particular subset, for example, in a particular geographic region or social subgrouping. Even classification of language varieties in a map, whether explicit or implicit, can provide important indicators about the conceptualizations that undergird the author’s representations of “language distribution.” Linguistic structure maps (section 3.2), within the context of the language varieties that a map author has specified, document attested or potential usages of particular linguistic structures, most often: (a) lexicon, which deals with words and their forms and meanings (Fig. 7); (b) morphosyntax, which studies grammatical functions and possibilities for combination of meaningful units, whether within words (morphology), phrases and sentences (syntax), or larger units (discourse); and (c) the sounds of language, whether phonetically (according to their physical categories) or phonologically (the way that sounds function within the system of a language). A Typology-driven analysis will help identify salient patterns in linguistic structure maps, but for a fuller understanding of their content it needs to be carried out in conjunction with established methods that deal directly with the data displayed there, whether dialectometry, sociolinguistic analysis, language contact analysis, the

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Fig. 8 Anonby et al.’s (2020) multidimensional language relation web model, applied here to Kurdish, represents languages in conceptual space (Anonby and Sheyholislami 2022, forthcoming). (Source: © 2015–2022, E. Anonby et al. Reproduced under a CC BY licence. http://iranatlas.net/ module/taxonomy.selectMap)

comparative method, grammatical description, or other methods of investigating linguistic data. A wide range of other types of language-related maps (section 3.3) is possible, but beside the prevalent genres of language distribution map and linguistic structure map, such maps are only sparsely attested in proportion or variety. As a point of variation, additional dimensions such as time, social space, or conceptual space can be combined with one of the two basic language map types. From a broader perspective, these dimensions can also be the sole focus of a language map (see Figs. 8 and 9), thus freeing the practice of language mapping from the constraints of geographic space (Murasugi 2019; Rabanus 2020: 103; Skupin and Fabrikant 2003: 101), but making it more difficult to define and characterize the discipline of language mapping per se. Asking these broader questions in analysis of the language map type provides a framework for understanding the map’s core essence and function, but the questions are also intended to nudge language mappers in the direction of exploring additional possibilities for what language mapping can be. Section 4 moves from a general understanding of the map among possible types of language maps to characteristics of the key data – language-related data – that populate the map under investigation. These data are first evaluated thematically (section 4.1): what specific language-related behaviours do these data account for? For most language maps, data sources are not even generally recoverable. Partial exceptions to lack of traceability of source data in language maps, however, include TAVO (Orywal 1988, 1991) and APiCS (Michaelis et al. 2013) (Fig. 10). To address this issue, the Typology provides a list of questions that allows for the most detailed source identification possible, and reconstruction of likely data sources where they are not specified on the map or in related literature (section 4.2). Are the data in the language map simply based on the author’s knowledge? Are they sourced

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Fig. 9 The “Sculptionary” module of the Atlas of the Inuit Language in Canada (Murasugi 2016–2022), where language samples from a spectrum of Inuktut varieties are interactively mapped onto a traditional sculpture. The sculpture is the work of Gjoa Haven artist Nelson Takkiruq (1930–1999). (Source: © 2016–2022, K. Murasugi et al. Reproduced with permission. http:// inuktutlexicon.gcrc.carleton.ca)

from empirical research, and is the scope and validity of this research – with individuals? with sampled groups? – outlined in accompanying text? If the data are sourced from written publications, what are these publications, and is the ultimate source of the data in fact documented in those publications for each data point? The Typology further queries the selection of the data shown on the map (section 4.3): How and why has this particular data set been chosen from within a larger source data set, and from among other possible datasets that might show equivalent information? Has the selection and grouping of data led to the exclusion of related data that do not fall neatly into the theme or structure of the map and the data it shows? A thorough evaluation of the nature and quality of language-related data is in many cases beyond the possibilities of the analyst, let alone the author, but the representation of these data in the forum of a language map is likely to enable observations of this nature (section 4.4). Section 5 explores visualizations and other representational strategies used on the cartographic field of the language map itself. Representations, typically visualizations, are at the heart of the map’s communicative potential. They ground the map’s existence as a communicative artifact, allowing for the expression of spacerelated messages, and other complex messages, where words fall short (Upton 2010; 144; Wikle and Bailey 2010: 253). Even where all other aspects of the language mapping process are sufficient and in place, carefully selected representations remain essential to the successful transmission of these messages. Hosted by a physical grounding (section 1), it is representations that link the language map (section 3) and component linguistic data (section 4) to their social and scientific context (section 2). In communicative space, representations mediate between

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Fig. 10 In contrast to most language atlases and maps, APiCS (Michaelis et al. 2013) provides careful, specific referencing for data sources. (Source: © 2013, S. Michaelis et al. Reproduced under a CC BY licence. https://apics-online.info/parameters/19#2/26.9/10.6)

author, user, and the people whose language-related behaviours are featured in the map (section 2.1.1). A closed or limited set of choices is found for many of the technical features that enable external setup of the map (section 1), and this is also the case for standard cartographic conventions tied to the map field, presented with variable degrees of prominence (section 5.1): a border (section 5.2); superimposed cartographic elements such as scale ratio, a scale bar, cardinal directions, and coordinates (section 5.3); and the canvas itself, which acts as simultaneous spatialization and visual background for linguistic data (section 5.4). At two ends of a spatialization

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continuum, the canvas may be thematic – not representative of physical space – or it may be scaffolded by a cartographic projection and symbolized geographic features from the “real world.” The array of potential geographic elements in the map, necessary to situate the map user within the map space, is more varied. Many different elements of human geography (borders, populated places, transport routes, etc.) and natural environment (waterbodies, elevation, etc.) may be incorporated, and the visual possibilities for representing these elements are also diverse. The key data in a language map, that is, language-related data, can likewise be symbolized using a wide variety of cartographic strategies (section 5.5): labels, points, polygons, colours, and textures are common. Since the language-related data are complex and often spatially dense, strategies for resolution of visual complexity also need to be considered. Options for other means of representing space, or the key data themselves, are left open (section 5.5): sound, movement, tactile surfaces, and other sensory strategies are underrepresented in language maps, but certainly possible (Cauvin et al. 2010: 58) (section 5.6). Contrasting examples of representational strategies are found in Figs. 11 and 12. This section concludes with reflection on the use or absence of specific visualizations and other representational strategies, and their relationship to the communicative effectiveness of the map (section 5.7). While some map elements (scale, projection, landscape features, etc.) might be considered cartographic necessities (Vasilev 2007: 6; Girnth 2010: 106), many of these are recurrently lacking in language maps. Therefore, it is useful to reflect on how effectively such language

Fig. 11 The Nordiske familjebok’s (1907) map of peoples and languages of Europe (in Meijer et al. 1904–1926), contains traditional cartographic elements, and uses colour to express relationships among languages. (Source: Reproduced at http://runeberg.org/nfbg/0582.html)

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Fig. 12 Like many language maps, the “Languages world map” available in Wikimedia Commons lacks basic “standard” cartographic conventions. Further, it does not make use of similar colours to represent languages from related families. (Source: © 2006, Vardion. Reproduced under a CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Languages_world_map.svg)

maps communicate, and further but conversely, whether the absence of some of these “essential” cartographic features in fact serves the purpose of language maps well. Since factors influencing the selection of specific representations are tied to the overall purpose and message of the map, this final representation-related discussion is reserved for the global critique (section 6). Section 6 of the Typology facilitates a critique of the language map in light of the detailed analysis carried out in the previous five sections. This section, developed in reference to issues handled by critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk 2011), including critical cartography (Harley 1987; Kitchin et al. 2009; Monmonier 2018), deals with the scientific and communicative essence of a language map. The results of interdisciplinary analysis are indispensable to people working in linguistics and geography, who may not have the background or resources to carry it out themselves. What exactly does the map do? How and why does it do these things? Open-ended questions on possible motivations and bias (section 6.1), direct and indirect messages (section 6.2), and the map’s limitations (section 6.3) – whether or not they are acknowledged by the author – facilitate a global evaluation of the map’s substance, significance, and value (Fig. 13). These are complex and important questions, covering issues as diverse as the author’s selection of visualization strategies and features, and balance of power between the author and people featured in the map – or map users, for that matter. The Typology encourages further reflection through comparison, whether impressionistic or systematic, with other maps on the same topic (section 6.4). No analytical tool, the ELM-T included, can hope to identify all possible aspects of a map’s origins, features, and life outside of the artifact of the map itself, so a door is left open for further observations (section 6.5). A summative question cluster (section 6.6)

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Fig. 13 These maps, from Scotland’s 2011 census (https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk), feature the distribution of Gaelic (left) and Scots (right). Although, for example, only about 1% of people in Scotland now speak Gaelic, these maps’ use of uniform polygons across sparsely inhabited areas, and intense colour in areas where speakers constitute a small minority, give the impression that Gaelic and Scots are still major spoken languages. (Source: Census results and images reproduced in the Public Domain)

invites the analyst to distill the essence of the results of analysis: the map’s contribution to linguistic geography and related fields, its major gaps and weaknesses, and possibilities for improvement.

Discussion and Conclusion In this paper, we have proposed and delineated an “Evaluative Language Mapping Typology” (ELM-T). Using open-ended questions, this tool facilitates analysis and description of key aspects of language maps: technical set-up, context and theme, language map type, data, visualizations and other representational strategies, and overall contribution. In turn, the fine-grained evaluation of language maps achieved through this process enables people to build language maps in a manner that reflects on previous practices and accounts for them in contextually meaningful ways. The typology presented here marks a departure from earlier discussed typologies thanks to a shift in focus from creating a product-like classification system, to the means through which such classification systems are made in the first place. As a

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result, while this endeavour shares the label of “typology” with previous related works, it is presented as a list of questions meant to facilitate analysis rather than as a list of techniques that results from such analyses. As such, it is our hope that this typology will encourage coherence in the interdisciplinary enterprise of language mapping, and that a maturing community of practice will continue to develop and refine this tool. We also intend for it to be used in a way that fosters reflection on its own implementation. The Typology, in the form proposed here, should thus be treated as an initial instance of a dynamic and iterative series of tools that adapt to changing contexts and activities of language mapping. Rather than defining what language mapping should be, the Typology can be used by a wide variety of actors as a forum for reflection on best practices and innovation in this this living, changing domain. How will such reflection be accomplished? As communicated in the Typology, it would be beneficial for those who make use of it to offer a discussion of their experiences in analysis and how they believe the tool can be adapted or extended. As opposed to a simple invitation for reflection, we argue that this typology is most meaningful in its implementation when its own use is scrutinized and discussed. As such, this proposed tool is as much an evaluative typology as it is a typology evaluation. The Typology provides agency to language mappers (and their critics) as contributors to the continually evolving field of language mapping. There are several specific, existing avenues through which the Typology could be further actualized. For example, Roth, Quinn, and Hart’s (2015) competitive analysis strategy could inform how the results of a deconstructive language map evaluation are organized and visualized, while MacEachren (1995) and Hruby, Miranda, and Riedl’s (2009) spectral typologies could be employed for a complementary and visually-oriented classification of maps’ features, or more global comparisons of one map to another. Indeed, such a strategy was tested by Stone (2020), in which a competitive analysis of language maps’ components was followed by the implementation of a prototypical evaluative map typology on the same maps. However, an approach that integrates the two into a single analysis has yet to be attempted. While the Typology opens possibilities for shaping the discipline, it is accompanied by two important challenges, from opposite directions. First, proceeding from its attention to detail, and its insistence on tapping into a full spectrum of practices and perspectives, the eight-page Typology document is long and intricate. From our experience, it can take several hours to carry out a thorough initial assessment of a single map. When several maps are considered, the time required for analysis, not to mention comparison, is compounded. This potential depth of analysis is, on the whole, an opportunity rather than a shortcoming, but it can be overwhelming for people who wish to carry out simpler evaluations. Users are able (and encouraged) to pass over sections that are not relevant to their purposes but in practice may find themselves searching for a more succinct version of the Typology. Conversely, the elements in the Typology need to be, and remain, broad and open-ended. This ethos will help its users to recognize and welcome diverse and unexpected perspectives, whether within existing, more narrowly defined conventions in language mapping, or looking further afield to traditional spatial

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representations as varied as wood carvings, wampum belts, or stick charts (Hendry 2014: 111; Ingram et al. 2019: 484; Lucchesi 2018: 14). Open-ended questions will also leave room for incorporation of emerging and unanticipated technologies in the evaluation process. The process of analysis should be both feasible and engaging, and in light of these considerations, we see that the format of the Typology will benefit from a corresponding flexibility. So far, the Typology has been made available as a .pdf file and hosted as a fillable form for use in a classroom setting (Anonby and Stone 2016–2019). Recently, we have also posted it as a persistent document in our Linguistics Dataverse (Anonby and Stone 2022). The possibility of modifications and enhancements, handled in an interactive online forum by the broader language mapping community of practice, will help the Typology to live on as an accessible and organic document. In conclusion, as the scope, technologies, and perspectives in language mapping evolve, so too must our understanding of language maps and the consequences they have for the realities they endeavour to convey. We have proposed the “Evaluative Language Mapping Typology” (ELM-T), a tool for understanding language maps through evaluation of their structural and contextual complexity. Through the application of this tool, we aim to foster cohesive ways of knowing across a diverse cluster of language mapping practices in a manner that values all contributions to the mapping process. As a first iteration of many, the Typology has room to grow and will do so through the knowledge and participation of diverse actors. In this way, this article showcases not the end to a journey of inquiry, but the next steps toward a richer, more coherent understanding of language mapping. Acknowledgments The authors recognize the foundational and increasingly diverse work in language mapping that has taken place up to the present day, and the developing body of reflection on the practice. In our development of the Evaluative Language Mapping Typology, we are grateful for insights shared by students who applied the Typology in undergraduate and graduate seminars; for members of the Nunaliit Language Mappers (NunaLang) and Endangered Language Knowledge and Technology (ELK-Tech) research groups at Carleton University, who have provided a stimulating environment for the incubation of theory-building and practices in language mapping; and for the support of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC), whose activities in cybercartography, as realized in the Nunaliit Atlas Framework, have enabled us to apply our ideas to the creation and building of a growing number of language atlases. This research was supported through an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (Anonby, 2016–2018) and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant #435-2021-0794, “An Atlas of the Languages of Iran” (Anonby et al., 2021–2026). Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations

References Agumya, A., & Hunter, G. J. (2002). Responding to the consequences of uncertainty in geographical data. International journal of geographical information science, 16(5), 405–417.

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Issues in Classifying and Mapping the Semitic Languages of Ethiopia Tekabe Legesse Feleke

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inconsistent Theories of Semitic Language Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Issues in the Classification of Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Genealogical Classifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geographical Classifications and Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Core Areas of Current Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Major Challenges in Classifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mapping Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Basic Notions of Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of Selected Language Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of Selected Linguistic Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limitations of Existing Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Major Mapping Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The origin, classification, and mapping issues of Ethiosemitic languages have not been sufficiently discussed. Some archeological evidence implies that Ethiosemitic languages emerged as a result of prehistoric across Red Sea trade contact in Arabian Peninsula; however, there is no satisfactory linguistic evidence that verify this claim. The classification issue has relatively enjoyed a great deal of attention, but there are many contradictions among various classification proposals. The contradictions seem to emanate from the lack of data on some of the languages, methodological issues, and misconceived previous theoretical assumptions. Mapping is a highly neglected area as far as Ethiosemitic languages are concerned. There exist some language maps in previous publications, but T. L. Feleke (*) Arctic University of Norway, Tromso, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_2

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proper linguistic mapping has been largely overlooked. There are a few published morphology, phonetics, and lexicon-based maps. The maps manifest copious limitations such as simplicity, generality, incompleteness, and imprecise representations. Absence of linguistic data, political issues, lack of communication and transportation systems, and economic issues are among the deterrents in classifying and mapping Ethiosemitic languages. Keywords

Ethiosemitic · Classification · Mapping · Limitations · Challenges

Introduction This chapter discusses the progress that has been made and the sustained challenges in the process of classifying and mapping the Semitic languages of Ethiopia. The two concerns, that is, classifying and mapping, have been previously treated with a certain degree of differences. The classification issue has been discussed extensively in several earlier studies; however, paradoxically, it has remained the subject of academic discord (Demeke 2001; Hudson 2013; Feleke et al. 2020; Goldenberg 1977; Meyer 2018). On the other hand, mapping Ethiosemitic languages has received only marginal attention. Hence, this chapter discusses major achievements in the classification and mapping attempts, the challenges that have been faced and the sustained controversies. In the process, it strives to illustrate the link between the marginal attention given to mapping the features of Ethiosemitic languages and the enduring controversies in the classification attempts. The chapter first reflects on origin and classification issues. Then, it explores the implications of selected maps of Ethiosemitic languages and the limitations of the maps and challenges in the mapping processes. Finally, following Feleke et al. (2020) and Feleke (2020a, b), it argues that resolving the classification discord in Ethiosemitic languages merits a paradigm shift, a shift from the traditional comparative historical methods to methods of geographical classification. Exploring the links between the classification debates and the nature of the geographical distribution of Ethiosemitic languages is timely and exceedingly relevant. Given decades of academic discord with regard to the classification of Ethiosemitic languages, pointing out the core areas of the debate and the root causes of the controversies is crucial in order to mediate the difference among Semitists and to dictate the directions of future studies. The classification issues could be properly resolved only if the complex contact situation in Ethiopian linguistic area (Crass and Meyer 2009; Ferguson 1976; Tosco 2000; Zaborski 1991) is taken into consideration. Given centuries of intense contact within the Ethiopian linguistic area, the chapter emphasizes the importance of considering contact-induced features in the classification attempts. To reveal the importance of contact-related features, it touches upon the theoretical and methodological limitations in the traditional comparative historical methods (Aikhenvald and Dixon 2006; François 2015; Wang and

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Minett 2005) which dominated previous studies of Ethiosemitic languages. It further illustrates how the geographical classifications and evidence from linguistic geography complement each other. As Rabanus (2018) pointed out, maps – visual representations of the geographical distributions of linguistic features – are vital to understanding historical changes in the languages, to analyzing linguistic theories, and to recognizing future dynamics in the languages. Hence, this chapter grounds itself on the very assumption that a complete understanding of the history of the Ethiosemitic languages requires a critical evaluation of evidence from genealogical classifications, area studies, and linguistic geography. Classification and mapping issues are outlined as follow. Following this introduction, common assumptions about the origin of Ethiosemitic languages are discussed. Then, the classification issue follows which includes major classification proposals, limitations in the classification proposals, and challenges in the classification attempts. Then the mapping issue follows which further includes the basic concepts of mapping, the implications of selected language map, the implications of selected linguistic maps, general limitations of the maps, and major mapping challenges. The discussion concludes with a brief summary and final remarks. The discussion on mapping focuses only on general aspects of the maps, not on the detailed mapping techniques. For detailed mapping techniques, readers are advised to consult Kehrein (2012), Girnth (2010), Luebbering (2011), Rabanus (2011, 2018), and Wandersee (1990). Before delving into the subject matter, a note of caution is in order. In this chapter, the term “Semitic languages of Ethiopia” is used to mean Semitic varieties spoken in east Africa, particularly in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the tradition of Semitic studies, these languages are also called “Ethio-Semitic” or “Ethiosemitic” languages. Though they are widely spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea, “Ethiosemitic” and “Semitic languages of Ethiopia” are terms consistently used throughout the discussions. Establishing a link to previous Semitic studies is the only motive; the author does not have any intent disputing scholars who often opt for more neutral terms such as “North East Semitic” (Bender 2003; Hudson 2013; Raz 1989) or those who seek to accommodate both Ethiopia and Eritrea in the nomenclature using a more comprehensive term such as “Ethiopian and Eritrean Semitic” languages (Tesfay 2010; Tewolde 2016). Readers may also come across a frequent use of expressions such as “languages,” “dialects,” and “varieties.” These expressions may have different interpretations in different contexts. In this chapter, two or more language varieties are considered as dialects if they are mutually intelligible; otherwise they are considered as distinct languages. The term “language variety(ies)” is used in two conditions: in a situation where there is no clear evidence of mutual intelligibility or unintelligibility, and in contexts where both mutually intelligible and unintelligible languages should be collectively referred. Furthermore, maps included in the discussions are obtained from various published sources. Hence, there are some inconsistencies in the spelling and nomenclature of the languages displayed on the maps. In the discussions, the author consistently relied on Feleke (2020a). For alternative representations used in the maps, readers are advised to refer Table 1.

Map number Argoba Chaha Dobbi Endegagn Ezha Ge’ez Gumer Gogot Gyeto Hadiyya Harari Inor Inor dialect Kistane Kistane dialect

1.5 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

1.9 – – – – – – – – – – – – – Soddo –

1.10 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

1.11 – Caha – Endegan Eza – – – – – – Ennemor Ennar – –

Table 1 Alternative names of some of the Ethiosemitic languages (Feleke 2020b) 1.12 – Cheha Dobi Endegany – – Gumera – – – – Ennemor – – Desa

1.13 – caha – – – – – – – – – Ennemor – – –

1.14 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

1.17 – – – – – – – – – – Harari – – – –

– – – – – – – – – – – –

1.18 – –

36 T. L. Feleke

Kistane dialect Kebeena Maraqo Mesqan Muher Silt’e Silt’e dialect Silt’e dialect Silt’e dialect Tigre Tigrigna Welayta Wolane Zay

– – – – – – – – – – Tigrinya – – –

– – – – – – – – – – Tigrinya – – –

– – – – – – – – – – – Wolaaytta – –

– Qabenna Maraqo Masqan – Selti Azarnat Ennaqor Ulbarag – – – – Zway Aklil – – – – – – – – – – – – –

– k’abeena – – – – – – – – Tigrinya Wolaitta – –

– – – – – – – – – – Tigrinya – – –

– k’abeena – – – – – – – – Tigrinya Wolaitta – –

– k’abeena – – – – – – – – Tigrinya Wolaitta – –

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Inconsistent Theories of Semitic Language Origins One of the most controversial issues in the classification of Ethiosemitic languages is the origin of Ethiosemitic languages themselves. The issue of origin has been a subject of debate for decades among Semitists. The debate was sustained for several reasons, but largely due to lack of clarity about the origin of the Semitic languages in general. There are two hypotheses with regard to the origin of the Semitic languages: traditional theory and the Africanist view (Demeke 2001, p. 59; Menuta 2015, p. 10). The traditional view assumes that certain speakers of Afroasiatic languages initially migrated from Africa to Asia. Through time and after their separation from the rest of Afroasiatic speakers, their language developed its own distinct features in Asia and formed a proto-Semitic language. Then, the speakers of one of the affiliates of the proto-Semitic language migrated from south Arabia to Ethiopia (Ehret 1988, p. 641, Fleming 1968, p. 354, Gragg 2005, p. 163; Hetzron 1972, pp. 15–19). Based on this assumption, some scholars today believe that Ethiosemitic languages descended from the Proto-Semitic language family, particularly, from the South Semitic branch which was spoken in south Arabia. According to this theory, these migrants first moved from south Arabia to north Ethiopia. Later, some Semitic speakers moved from the north to the south (Hetzron 1972, p. 36). Those who took the direct route from north to the south are the speakers of Gunnǝn Gurage and Gafat which form together Outer South Ethiopic (Hetzron 1972, p. 36). However, those who moved from north Ethiopia to east Ethiopia and then moved to south constitutes the speakers of Amharic, Argobba, Harari, and East Gurage (Silt’e, Zay, and Wolane) which form together form Transversal South Ethiopic (Hetzron 1972, p. 36). The alternative hypothesis, contrary to the first one, is that the origin of Ethiosemitic languages is African. Therefore, it is called the Africanist view. According to this hypothesis, Ethiosemitic is a descendant of the Afroasiatic language which had been spoken in Africa in pre-Semitic era. The hypothesis implies that Ethiosemitic languages were spoken in Africa before the expansion of the Semitic languages across Asia and northern Africa. According to Demeke (2001, pp. 59–60), two explanations are often provided to support this proposal. First, among six of the Afroasiatic subfamilies (Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic, Berber, Chadic and Old Egyptian), only a few are spoken in Asia while all are spoken in Africa. Among these, three of them are spoken in Ethiopia (Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic). Based on this, Ethiosemitic is assumed as the mother language of all Semitic languages. Another reason is that more Semitic languages are spoken in Ethiopia (around 20) than in Asia. Hence, based on the “least move principle,” they assume that the source of all Semitic languages is Africa, particularly Ethiopia (see Hudson 2000). Though some scholars, for example, Demeke (2001) and Hudson (2000), believe that the second proposal is more convincing than the first. The current archaeological and linguistic evidence largely suggests the contrary. In the support of this evidence, recent phylogenetic studies suggest that Ethiosemitic languages are the descendants of South Semitic, a presumptive branch of Semitic language (cf.: Kitchen et al. 2009). However, it is too early to reject the claim that the origin of all Semitic languages is Ethiopia. Rigorous comparison of Ethiosemitic languages with

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other Semitic languages and combining this with recent archaeological findings may settle the debate sometime in the future. The argument about the origin of Ethiosemitic languages has usually been based on three sources: linguistic evidence, glottochronology, and oral tradition. With regard to the linguistic evidence, Hetzron (1972), for example, provided three evidence that link Ethiosemitic to the South Semitic: (1) the presence of a negation marking prefix al- in both branches, (2) a very close similarity in the second person singular masculine suffix, i.e., k in Ethiosemitic and –t in South Semitic (t – k), and (3) the presence of yV-CCVC jussive pattern in both branches, Yɨ-qbər in Ge’ez and l-ik’ber in Soqotri. Moreover, the separation between the North and the South Ethiosemitic is usually hypothesized based on the linguistic features in the two branches. For instance, Menuta (2015, p. 13) argues that a number of features that are present in the Gurage varieties (South Ethiosemitic) are absent in North Semitic languages, implying that the North and South Ethiosemitic are the outcomes of different developments. In the same manner, Hudson (1977, p. 129) mentioned the presence of several Proto-Ethiosemitic features in South Ethiosemitic languages including main verb markers (Leslau 1967, pp. 122–125; Hetzron 1968) and the archaic vowel of jussive (Leslau 1982a) implying that the South Ethiosemitic is directly linked to South Semitic. However, these claims could not be confirmed by adequate data since some of the features of South Ethiosemitic languages also exist in Cushitic languages. Many of the speculations with regard to the origin of Ethiosemitic languages come from studies conducted using glottochronology. In these studies, cognate frequency was employed to determine the time of separation of Ethiosemitic languages from their ancestors. For instance, Fleming (1968) employed glottochronology to estimate the origin and the genetic relationship among Ethiosemitic language, Modern South Arabia, and Old Epigraphic South Arabia languages. This method employs the changes in the basic vocabulary to hypothesize a period of divergence among genetically related languages. Fleming (1968) used the Swadesh list of 100 basic words. The Genetic branching among the languages was estimated under the assumption that 80–85% of the basic vocabulary is retained in every language for 1000 years. In other words, 15–20% “dissociation” occurs among “basic concepts and basic vocabularies” within 1000 years. Based on this assumption, Fleming (1968, p. 363) estimated that the South Ethiosemitic separated from North Ethiosemitic between 700 BC and 300 BC. However, the basic vocabularies of only a few languages were compared: Tigre from North Ethiosemitic and Chaha and Wolane from the South. He estimated that the separation between the North and South Ethiosemitic occurred either in south Arabia or around the Red Sea. Bender (1966) also employed glottochronology to estimate the date of separation of other Ethiosemitic languages from Ge’ez. He assumed that Ge’ez is the proto language of all Ethiosemitic languages, the assumption which is widely refuted today (Palmer 1958, p. 120). He examined the basic vocabulary of nine languages: Ge’ez, Tigrigna, Tigre, Amharic, Harari, Kistane, Chaha, Gyeto, and Mesqan. According to his estimation, North and South Ethiosemitic languages separated around 2000 years ago.

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There are also several oral traditions with regard to the origin of Ethiosemitic languages. For instance, there has been a general belief that speakers of a dialect of South Semitic crossed the Red Sea and settled in present-day Eritrea. Then, gradually they expended across the large territory of Ethiopia. It is believed that these people were initially the speakers of Ge’ez, the old language of liturgy used in Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Then the rest of the Ethiosemitic languages probably descended from Ge’ez (Felhnan 1996, pp. 205–206). However, this argument has recently been widely contested, and the more acceptable assumption today is that Ge’ez is not the mother language of any of the Ethiosemitic languages (Demeke 2001, p. 64; Faber 1997, pp. 6–7; Ullendorff 1955, pp. 11–12). It is just a sister language of the other two North Ethiosemitic languages (Tigrigna and Tigre). There are also several traditional claims about South Ethiosemitic. For instance, it has been believed that the Gurage people came from present-day Eritrea, an area called Akale Guzay during the reign of Amdetsion (1314–1344). The ancestors of the Gurage speakers, therefore, were assumed to be the soldiers of King Amdetsion. Some Gurage speakers even today believe that their origin is from a place called Gura. There is also a hypothesis that the ancestors of the Gurage speakers migrated from east of Ethiopia during the expansion of Ahmed Gragn (1524–1543), a Muslim warrior. During the expansion, the Islamist militia and troops immigrated to the Gurage area. Some also believe that the Gurage varieties are originally African; they were spoken in the south part of Ethiopia even before the reign of Amdetsion and the expansion of Ahmed Grange. There are different oral traditions: however, they have never been confirmed by proper linguistic, archaeological, and historical investigations. The origin of Ethiosemitic languages has remained contentious for several reasons. First, there have been insufficient studies on South Semitic languages, and some of the South Semitic languages which are vital to tracing the history of Ethiosemitic languages are extinct. Moreover, very little is known about the history of the migration of the speakers of Ethiosemitic languages. The claim about the migration of the speakers of Ethiosemitic languages from Africa to Asia and then from Asia to Africa is purely hypothetical. Likewise, there is little proper documentation about the history of migration of Ethiosemitic speakers within Ethiopia (Hetzron 1972, 1977). The long history of contact between Ethiosemitic and Cushitic languages is another challenge. Some of the “innovations” that are used to trace the history of Ethiosemitic languages have Cushitic origins (Goldenberg 1977; Kogan 2005; Voigt 2009). However, a full understanding of the origin of Ethiosemitic languages requires a combined effort of archaeological, historical, and linguistic investigations.

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Issues in the Classification of Languages There are two types of Ethiosemitic classification studies: genealogical and geographical. The majority of the studies are in the first category, but there also exist a few studies on the geographical classification. In this section, these classification attempts are discussed, together with the challenges of the classification attempts.

Genealogical Classifications The majority of the classification studies conducted on Ethiosemitic languages employed traditional historical comparative methods to reconstruct the historical relationship among the languages (Bulakh and Kogan 2010; Demeke 2001; Hetzron 1972, 1977; Kogan 2015; Leslau 1945a, 1969, 1971). Studies that took the historical path, in general, recognize the division of Ethiosemitic languages into North and South Ethiosemitic. There is also a consensus on the internal classification of the North branch (Kogan 2015, Voigt 2009 for the counter argument), but the internal classification of the South branch has remained controversial. Some Semitists believe that South Ethiosemitic languages are direct descendants of the South Semitic (Fleming 1968, p. 363; Hetzron and Bender 1976, p.4) while others argue against this claim (Hetzron 1972, 1977). The controversies often emerge from profound grammatical, morphological, and phonological differences between the South and the North Ethiosemitic languages (Demeke 2001, pp. 70–71; Hetzron 1972, pp. 22–28; Voigt 2009, pp. 1375–1376). Hence, some previous works (Demeke 2001; Hetzron 1972) have proposed classifications which reflect a certain degree of differences. These differences are mainly due to the lack of adequate data on some of the languages, especially the Gurage varieties (Demeke 2001, p. 67; Gutt 1980, p. 78; Hudson 2000, p. 84). Among the classifications that have been proposed so far, Hetzron (1972), Demeke (2001), Leslau (1969), and Hudson (2013) are among the most comprehensive ones. They dealt with almost all major Ethiosemitic languages. Many linguists believe that Hetzron (1972) is by far the most detailed and complete classification (Demeke 2001, p. 68; Goldenberg 1977, p. 461; Hudson 2000, p. 75; Rubin 2008, p. 92). Rubin (2008, p. 92) also argues that, following Hetzron (1972), there have been no detailed classifications of Ethiosemitic languages, partly because of the political instability in Ethiopia and partly since the work of Hetzron (1972) was complete. Hetzron (1972) has been admired especially for its methodological selection and depth (Goldenberg 1977, p. 461; Kogan 2005, p. 370; Palmer 1978, pp. 584–585; Rubin 2008, p. 79) though Robert Leslau and Marcel Cohen also contributed substantially to the study of Ethiosemitic languages. The classification of Hetzron (1972), nevertheless, has also been criticized for its limitations in particular on the classification of Gurage languages (Demeke 2001; Goldenberg 1977; Hudson 2000; Rubin 2008). The lack of data on some languages impeded Hetrzon’s work. Goldenberg (1977) also reviewed Hetzron (1972) and has criticized the validity and

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the consistency of its classification parameters which are the mixtures of morphological, phonetic, and syntactic features. As a response to these limitations, several later publications, for instance, Demeke (2001) and Hudson (2013), reviewed Hetzron (1972) and his subsequent publication. Hetzron (1977) exclusively focused on the classification of Gunnǝn Gurage and proposed alternative classifications. However, these later publications contradicted Hetzron (1972) in many ways. As can be seen from Fig. 1, Hetzron (1972) classified Ethiosemitic languages into North and South Ethiosemitic and classified the South Ethiosemitic languages into Transverse South and Outer South Ethiosemitic. The Transverse South consists of two branches: Central Transverse and Eastern Transverse. The Central Transverse consists of two languages: Amharic and Argoba. Hetzron (1972) further classified Eastern Transverse into Harari (spoken manly in the city of Harar) and East Gurage which also consists of Zay and Silt’e. According to Hetzron (1972), the Outer South Ethiosemitic branch consists of two subbranches: n-group and tt-group. The n-group in turn consists of Gafat (a dead language) and another branch, North Gurage, consists of Kistane and Gogot. Hetzron (1972) classified the tt-group into Muher and Western Gurage. Western Gurage is further classified into Mesqan and 3TG since they exhibit three tense markers. He further classified 3TG into Central West Gurage (CWG) and Peripheral West Gurage (PWG). The Central West Gurage consists of Ezha, Chaha, Gumer, and Gura, while Peripheral West Gurage consists of Gyeto, Inor, Endegagn, and Mesmes. Though Hetzron (1972) is a groundbreaking work, as indicated above, following its publication several critics have emerged (Goldenberg 1977). Though several publications have responded to the classification of Hetzron (1972), the present discussion focuses on two, Demeke (2001) and Hudson (2013), for two reasons. First, they included in their classifications almost all the languages treated in Hetzron (1972). Furthermore, they are latest publications, compared to the critics published in 1980s and 1990s. Demeke (2001) reexamined the classification of Hetzron (1972) and proposed some modifications, partly relying

Fig. 1 Classification of Ethiosemitic languages according to Hetzron (1972); “3TG” refers to three tense languages as opposed to two tense languages; “CWG” refers to Central West Gurage while “PWG” refers to Peripheral West Gurage

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on the classification proposals of other scholars (Leslau 1969; Rose 1996). Many of the disagreements between Hetzron (1972) and Demeke (2001) are on the classification of the Gurage varieties. The two scholars do not differ on the classification of South Ethiosemitic languages into Transverse South and Outer South. Both also classified Amharic and Argoba under Central South. However, there is a difference between them on the classification of Eastern South. Unlike Hetzron (1972), Demeke (2001) included Wolane under this group and presented it as a sister language of Silt’e. Hetzron (1972) did not include Wolane in his classification probably because he was convinced that it is a dialect of Silt’e. It is also important to note that Hetzron (1972) considered Zay as a sister language to Silt’e (classified under East Gurage). Demeke (2001), however, considered it as a separate language, a sister language to East Gurage. Nevertheless, Demeke (2001) did not provide convincing evidence for classifying Zay as a sister language of East Gurage. The classification of Zay under Eastern Gurage by Hetzron (1972), however, seems to be partly motivated by previous studies. Other scholars, for example, Bender (1971) classified Gurage languages into three: East Guarage which consists of Silt’e, Wolane, and Zay; West Gurage which includes Chaha, Gyeto, Ezha, Inor, and Mesqan, and North Gurage which comprises only Kistane. However, neither Hetzron (1972) nor Demeke (2001) provided adequate evidence to justify the position of Zay in their classifications. Demeke (2001) indicated that the branching of Zay directly from the Eastern South branch even does not necessarily mean that Zay has closer relation with Harari than with the East Gurage varieties such as Wolane and Silt’e. He, nevertheless, suggested that East Gurage languages (Silt’e and Wolane) are very homogeneous when compared to both Zay and Harari. As Fig. 2 illustrates, a significant difference between the two works is on the classification of the Outer South Ethiosemitic languages. Demeke (2001) rejected the -n and -tt classification arguing that these main verb markers are not the features of all the languages that Hetzron (1972) mentioned. Instead, he formed a group based on the suggestion of Leslau (1969). He took the initial letter of some of the

Fig. 2 Classification of Ethiosemitic languages according to Demeke (2001); “CWG” refers to Central West Gurage while “PWG” refers to Peripheral West Gurage

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languages in the group (Gogo, Mesqan, and Kistane (Soddo)) and formed a GMS-group, and he divided the Outer South Ethiosemitic into a GMS-group and Western Gurage. However, he did not provide linguistic evidence for the formation of GMS-group. A GMS-group consists of almost all the languages that are included in an n-group in Hetzron’s classification except Mesqan. In both cases, the group consists of Gafat and North Gurage. However, the two scholars differ on the position of Mesqan. Hetzron (1972) classified Mesqan under West Gurage while Demeke (2001) classified it under North Gurage. Nevertheless, Demeke (2001) did not consider Mesqan as a sister language of Kistane and Gogot since it has slightly different features from the two. Hence, he classified Kistane and Gogot under one group (AMCM) mainly due to affirmative main clause marker they contain. Moreover, Hetzron (1972) derived Muher and Western Gurage from the tt-group. However, Demeke (2001) dissolved the tt-group arguing that the -tt feature is not a representative of all the languages in the group and he directly derived Central West Gurage and Peripheral West Gurage from Western Gurage. Clearly, this change primarily affects the position of Muher. Demeke (2001) classified Muher under the Central West Gurage citing Leslau (1969, 1992). Therefore, Muher was moved to Central West Gurage along with Ezha, Chaha, and Gura. Demeke (2001) also rejected the 3TG classification of Hetzron (1972), arguing that the three tense system does not characterize all the languages. Hence, he divided Western Gurage into Central West and Peripheral West Gurage. This division is the same both for Hetzron (1972) and Demeke (2001). However, the two differ on the position of Inor. Unlike Hetzron (1972), Demeke (2001) classified Inor under Central West. Quoting Leslau (1996), he argued that Inor is close to Central West Gurage languages particularly Chaha. He further supported his argument by citing data from his informant. According to his informant, Inor is similar to Chaha. Many of the classification proposals such as Demeke (2001), Leslau (1969), Hetzron (1972, 1977) were largely based on morpho-syntactic parameters. However, many studies were also conducted on the classification of Ethiosemitic languages using lexical comparisons (Bender 1971; Bender and Cooper 1976; Fleming 1968; Hudson 2013). Many compared just the percentage of shared cognates; they did not undertake rigorous classification analyses. For example, Bender (1971) made lexical comparison among selected Ethiopian languages. His study adopted 98-word list from Swadesh (1950) basic vocabulary lists. The cognate identification was made based on the principle of “minimum one CVC” correspondence. According to this parameter, a pair of basic vocabulary needs to share at least one vowel and two consonants to be considered as cognates. Obviously, this method can be problematic since, for example, Amharic words [t’ǝllǝlǝ] “purified” and [k’ǝllǝlǝ] “became light” have shared CVC correspondents, but they are not cognates; there is no historical relationship between the two words. In other words, Bender’s approach does not exclude false associations. Moreover, Bender (1971) did not explicitly mention how borrowed words were treated in his study. The cognate frequencies of 13 Ethiosemitic languages were investigated in this study: Amharic, Argoba, Harari, Zay, Wolane, Inor, Chaha, Mesqan, Kistane, Gyeto, Ge’ez, Tigrigna, and Tigre. The

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classifications of some of these languages did not perfectly match with the classification previously proposed by Hetzron (1972). For instance, none of the East Gurage varieties (Harari, Zay, and Wolane) share more than 80% lexical similarity. The highest percentage of cognates is shared between Inor and Chaha (81%). Mesqan, surprisingly, shares 80% cognates with Chaha; these two language varieties are found in different groups in the classification of Hetzron (1972). The 81% cognate similarity between Chaha and Inor is also unexpectedly reported, although Inor is a Peripheral West Gurage language while Chaha is the Central West Gurage language. Among the studies that used the lexical approach, Hudson (2013) is the main focus of the present discussion for the reasons outlined above. Hudson (2013) compared 14 Ethiosemitic languages (Tigre, Tigrigna, Ge’ez, Gafat, Kistane, Mesqan, Muher, Chaha, Inor, Silt’e, Zay, Harari, Agoba, and Amharic) using 250-word list, collected from different sources: from Bender (1971), from lists of basic vocabulary (Swadesh 1955), and from the Etymological Dictionary of Gurage (Leslau 1979). The cognates were identified based on the form similarity among the words combined with personal intuitive judgment. Similar to Bender (1971), borrowed words did not receive any attention in the vocabulary selections. Hudson (2013) argues that borrowed words are difficult to recognize especially when they are “nativized” to the phonology and the meaning of the borrowing languages. He was convinced that the search for “the true cognate” should be a serious issue only in a conservative study of glottochronology when the aim of the study is speculating the date of the historical split between closely related languages (Hudson 2013, pp. 63–65). As can be seen from Fig. 3, Hudson (2013) classified Ethiosemitic languages into five groups: {Silt’e-Zay-Harari}, {Argoba-Amharic}, {Kistane (Soddo)-MesqanGurage}, {Gafat}, and {Ge’ez, Tigre, Tigrigna}. The first group consists of Harari, Silt’e, and Zay, with a strong similarity between Zay and Silt’e as compared to Harari. This classification is very similar to those of Hetzron (1972) and Demeke (2001). Similarly, the close similarity between Amharic and Argoba is consistent among all the classifications. However, from an historical point of view, Hudson (2013)’s classification is extremely different from that of Hetzron (1972) and

Fig. 3 Classification of Ethiosemitic languages according to Hudson (2013)

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Demeke (2001) since Hudson (2013) assumes that {Zay, Harari, Silt’e} and {Amharic, Argoba} are the direct descendants of the proto-Ethiosemitic. Moreover, according to Hudson (2013), {Kistane (Soddo), Mesqan, Muher, Chaha, Inor} form a group. This grouping is problematic as it contradicts the strong historical relationship among the Gurage varieties by proposing that {Zay, Harari, Silt’e} and {Kistane (Soddo), Mesqan, Muher, Chaha, Inor} independently descended from the protoEthiosemitic. Furthermore, Hudson (2013) groups Kistane, Mesqan, Muher, Chaha, and Inor together even though they are in different groups in the classification of Demeke (2001) and Hetzron (1972). Moreover, Hudson (2013) classified Tigre, Tigrigna, and Ge’ez under North Ethiosemitic. This classification perfectly matches the classifications of Demeke (2001) and Hetzron (1972) except that Hudson (2013)’s proposal shows a strong similarity between Tigre and Tigrigna as compared to Ge’ez. In the classifications of Demeke (2001) and Hetzron (1972), the three languages are considered as sister languages. The position of Gafat in Hudson (2013)’s classification is also completely different from those proposed in Demeke (2001) and Hetzron (1972) (see Figs. 1 and 2). From an historical perspective, Hudson (2013)’s classification shows that Gafat is the oldest Ethiosemitic language. The comparison between the results reported by Bender (1971) and Hudson (2013) also shows a great deal of disparities. For instance, Bender (1971) reported 80% lexical similarity between Chaha and Mesqan. However, Hudson (2013) reported just 54% lexical similarity between the two language varieties. Another significant difference is between Mesqan and Inor. While Bender (1971) reported 70% lexical similarity between the two varieties, Hudson (2013) reported more than 80% lexical similarity. The same is true for the lexical similarity between Mesqan and Kistane. Bender (1971) reported 69% lexical similarity while Hudson (2013) reported 81%. These differences may be attributed to the sample size since Bender (1971) used 100 list of words while Hudson (2013) used 250 basic vocabulary lists. The approach used by Hudson (2013) can also be questionable since he mixed cognates with synonym words (Meyer 2018). Bender (1971) and Hudson (2013) are not the only studies that employed lexicostatistics to classify Ethiosemitic languages. Cohen (1961) employed the same method to determine the distance among seven Ethiosemitic languages. He employed 116 basic vocabularies from Swadesh (1955) word list with some modification on the basic vocabulary lists. Regardless of a small number of languages included, the results support the grouping of the North Ethiosemitic languages: {Tigre, Tigrigna, and Ge’ez}. However, a considerable variance in scores of the North against South Ethiosemitic languages was found, for example, Tigre-Gafat 48% vs. Tigre-Harari 60% lexical similarity. The details of the methods employed in this study are not presented here since only a few South Ethiosemitic languages were examined. A comparison of frequency of basic cognates was also employed by Leyew and Siebert (2001) to determine the distance between Amharic and Argoba of ShewaRobit and Aliyu Amba. They counted the number of cognates in a list of 100 basic words of the two languages and reported that the two languages share about 80% of the basic vocabulary. Furthermore, Bender et al. (1972) used lexicostatistics to classify selected 12 Ethiosemitic languages.

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Geographical Classifications and Patterns Studies discussed in previous section aimed to classify Ethiosemitic languages genealogically. Classification attempts based on synchronic data which do not claim any historical relationship among the languages are considered as geographical classifications. Regardless of several years of contact among Ethiosemitic languages (Leslau 1945c, 1956, 1957) on one hand and Ethiosemitic and non-Ethiosemitic languages on the other (Leslau 1952; Crass and Meyer 2009; Little 1974), the geographical classification of Ethiosemitic languages has been marginalized (see Goldenberg 1977; Rubin 2008). Menuta (2015) is among a few studies that attempted to provide the geographical classification of Ethiosemitic languages. Menuta (2015) did not explicitly state that the classification is geographical. However, as the overall aim of the study was investigating intergroup communication among Gurage speakers, an historical relationship among the languages was not the focus. Menuta (2015) used 255-word list to determine the degree of similarity among 6 Gurage varieties: Kistane, Chaha, Inor, Mesqan, Muher, and Wolane. According to Menuta (2015), Chaha and Inor, Chaha and Mesqan, and Chaha and Muher share more than 80% cognates. Mesqan and Muher are also very similar. The similarity between Chaha and Inor contradicts the classifications previously presented by Hetzron (1972) since Chaha is a Central West Gurage language while Inor is a Peripheral West Gurage language. The same is true for the similarity between Chaha and Mesqan, and Chaha and Muher. Muher and Mesqan are West Gurage languages while Chaha is a Central West Gurage language. These again show a mismatch between the lexical similarity and classifications by Demeke (2001) and Hetzron (1972, 1977). Feleke et al. (2020) and Feleke (2020b) are among the latest attempts to provide geographical classifications of Ethiosemitic languages. Both studies applied techniques of dialectometry which classify languages based on a large aggregate data (Goebl 2010; Heeringa 2004; Nerbonne and Heeringa 2001; Nerbonne et al. 2005), not based on randomly selected specific features. Feleke et al. (2020) classified ten Ethiosemitic languages: Endegan, Inor, Chaha, Gura, Gumer, Ezha, Mesqan, Muher, Kistane, and Silt’e, combining three different measures: structural (phonetic and lexical), functional, and perceptual. The ratio of non-cognates to the total lexical items (randomly selected 240 words) was used as a measure of lexical distance. The Levenshtein algorithm was used to determine the phonetic distance (edit distance), while the degree of intelligibility (functional distance) was measured using the Semantic Word Categorization test (Tang et al. 2009). Perceptual distance was measured based on the perceptive judgment of the native speakers about the similarity and intelligibility between their native languages and other neighboring languages (Gooskens and Heeringa 2004; Gooskens 2007; Gooskens et al. 2010). By performing cluster analysis and using multidimensional scaling inspections, the study reported slightly different groups of languages for each of the measures. However, the combination of the three parameters yielded five groups of languages: {Kistane}, {Chaha, Gura, Gumer, Ezha}, {Inor, Endegan}, {Silt’e}, and {Mesqan, Muher}. Statistical analysis based on the cophenetic distance in the classification

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trees also showed a high degree of similarity between the geographical classification and the genealogical classification proposed by Hetzron (1972). The study also reported a strong correlation between structural, functional, and perceptual measures, implying the substitutability of one dimension of one measure by another. Feleke (2020b) is a recent attempt to provide a complete geographical classification of Ethiosemitic languages using phonetic and lexical measures computed based on randomly selected 147 words. The study relied on primary and secondary data (Elias 2014; Leslau 1945c, 1948, 1957, 1963, 1973, 1979, 1982b, 1987, 1997, 2010; Leyew and Siebert 2001; Mohammed et al. 2014) to classify selected 20 Ethiosemitic languages. The ratio of non-cognates to total lexical items was taken as lexical distance. The phonetic (string edit distance) was computed using the Levenshtein algorithm in Gabmap. The cluster analysis performed on the phonetic and lexical distances indicated seven groups of Ethiosemitic languages: {Chaha, Gura, Gumer, Ezha, Mesqan}, {Amharic, Argoba}, {Endegagn, Inor, Gyeto}, {Wolane, Silt’e, Zay}, {Muher, Gogot, Kistane}, {Ge’ez, Tigigna and Tigre}, and {Harari} with a slight degree of difference between the phonetic (Fig. 4a) and lexical (Fig. 4b) classifications. Using multiple linear regression analysis, this study also reported the influence of geographical distance, the diffusion of phonetic features from Oromo (a Cushitic language), and lexical and phonetic diffusion among Ethiosemitic languages on the distance among Ethiosemitic languages.

Fig. 4 Phonetic (a) and lexical (b) classifications of Ethiosemitic languages, from Feleke (2020b)

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Core Areas of Current Debate The discussions in previous sections show that the classification of Ethiosemitic languages is not a finished business. As indicated in above, though the classification of Ethiosemitic languages into North and South is generally accepted by many scholars, there remain linguists who suggest (e.g., Fleming 1968; Gragg 1997; Voigt 2009) further investigation. Besides, Hetzron (1972) and Demeke (2001) have disagreed on the classification of some of the languages. Zay being one of them. Demeke (2001) classifies it under Eastern South Transverse while Hetzron (1972) classifies it under East Gurage. The two classifications are very different since Hetzron considers Zay as a Gurage language, but Demeke (2001) does not. Other scholars such as Meyer (2005a, 2006), Gutt (1980), and Hudson (2000) also recognize that Zay is an East Gurage language, mainly probably based on the works of Hetzron (1972) and other. This disagreement indicates that further investigation is required on Zay and other East Gurage languages to determine the exact position of Zay. As already discussed, there has been a disagreement among scholars regarding the genealogical relationship among the Gurage varieties. According to Fleming (1968) and Faber (1997), Gurage varieties which constitute a large number of the South Ethiosemitic languages do not seem to have a common genealogical relationship. For instance, East Gurage is closer to Harari than to the rest of the Gurage varieties. Furthermore, Kistane and Gogot are closer to Gafat than to other varieties. The relationship between Zay and Harari is also not clear. Demeke (2001) considered them as sister languages, but Hetzron (1972) did not. Whether Wolane is a language or a dialect of Silt’e is another area that needs further scrutiny. Meyer (2006) recognizes that the two varieties are mutually intelligible based on descriptive linguistic grounds, but he prefers to consider the two varieties as separate languages based on sociolinguistic grounds. The speakers of the two varieties believe that there are cultural differences between them. Demeke (2001) treated Wolane as a separate language while Hetzron (1972) considered it as a variant of Silt’e. Indeed Demeke (2001) also agreed that Wolane is very similar to Silt’e. Other scholars such as Gutt (1980) and Menuta (2015) also agree that Wolane is very similar to Silt’e. The above discussion further shows that the classification of the Outer South Ethiosemitic languages is the most unsettled issue. The classification into n-group and tt-group by Hetzron (1972) was later reshuffled by Demeke (2001) since these tense markers are not shared among the languages that are included in each of the categories. The alternative classification into the GMS-group and Western Gurage by Demeke (2001) is supported by some evidence but is not detailed enough. The two scholars also do not agree on the position of Mesqan. Hetzron (1972) classified it under West Gurage while Demeke (2001) classified it under North Gurage. Though Demeke (2001) provided some evidence for doing so, it is obvious that a detailed description of shared innovations of all the languages in both West and North Gurage is required to determine the exact position of Mesqan. The relationship between Gafat, Kistane, and Gogot also needs further investigation. Gafat has a remote relationship with the two languages in Demeke’s classification than it has in the

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classification of Hetzron (1972). Moreover, Muher does not seem to have a firm position on the classification of the South Ethiosemitic languages. Hetzron (1972) classified it under tt-group. However, Demeke (2001) moved it to the Central West Gurage. It is important to note that Central West Gurage is the mother language of Muher in Demeke’s classification but a sister language in Hetrzon’s classification. Since Demeke was also not really certain about the exact position of Muher, determining the position of Muher in South Ethiosemitic languages is another area that needs further investigation. Both scholars also differ on the position of Inor. Demeke (2001) categorized it under Central West Gurage while Hetzron (1972) classified it under Peripheral West Gurage. Neither provided detailed and convincing evidence for their classification. The lexicostatistical studies on the classification of Ethiosemitic languages achieved their goal only partially. Studies such as Bender (1971), Bender et al. (1972), Cohen (1961), and Hudson (2013) consistently confirmed the close similarity among North Ethiosemitic languages but reported inconsistent results when it comes to the South Ethiosemitic languages. There are also contradictions among the lexicostatistical studies themselves (cf: Bender 1971 vs. Hudson 2013). The contradictions within the lexicostatistical studies are associated with the sample size, methods of data collection, data analysis, and the assumptions held in the studies. An interesting result with regard to the classification of Ethiosemitic languages is a general strong similarity between the geographical classifications (Feleke 2020a, b) and the genealogical classifications (Demeke 2001; Hetzron 1972, 1977). As will be discussed in the following section, this similarity raises theoretical concerns since geographical and genealogical classifications rely on extremely different theoretical assumptions.

Major Challenges in Classifications The previous discussion reveals a number of contradictions in the classification proposals. There are several linguistic and nonlinguistic factors that underpin these controversies. The core factor is the lack of data on some of the Ethiosemitic languages. As discussed earlier, the disagreement between Demeke (2001) and Hetzron (1972) emerges from a lack of data on some South Ethiosemitic languages. Lexicostatistical studies such as Hudson (2000) and Feleke (2020b) also highly relied on secondary data. For instance, all the words investigated in Hudson (2013) were obtained from Swadesh (1950) and Leslau (1979). List of words of 45% of the languages investigated in Feleke (2020b) were also obtained from various secondary sources. Therefore, the controversies both in the origin and in the classification of Ethiosemitic languages are strongly associated with the absence of data. This problem has still partly sustained since some languages are spoken in remote areas (e.g., Mesmes, Gyeto, Wolane and Endegagn), and collecting primary data are difficult. Also, some of the languages are on the verge of death (e.g., Mesmes and Ge’ez) since they do not have a large number of native speakers, and some are already dead (e.g., Gafat).

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Language contact is another important factor. Ethiosemitic languages are surrounded by Cushitic, Omotic, and Nilo-Saharan languages. Hence, there has been intense borrowing and contact between Ethiosemitic and non-Semitic languages (Crass and Meyer 2009; Leslau 1945b, 1952, 1956, 1957; Little 1974). The long history contact between Ethiosemitic and non-Semitic languages has made identifying Ethiosemitic “innovation” from non-Semitic features exceedingly difficult. In addition to the influence of non-Semitic languages, there has been heavy contact among the Ethiosemitic languages themselves. As reported in Feleke (2020a, b) and Feleke et al. (2020), the similarity among Ethiosemitic languages is largely the result of geographical proximity and horizontal diffusion of features. Feleke (2020a, b) and Feleke et al. (2020) also argue that the strong horizontal relationship among the languages shows that the genealogical claims are accepted only with a high degree of suspicion. Methodological problems have been another serious challenge. There are different types of method-related problems. The first one is the type and the number of classification parameters used during the classification. Hetzron (1972) argued that morphological features are the best parameters for historical comparative investigation. However, in his classification, Hetzron (1972) used phonetic, phonological, lexical, and abstract syntactic parameters in addition to the morphological parameter. Demeke (2001) did not specify the parameters used in his classification, but the linguistic evidence provided clearly shows that he also used mixtures of parameters. A further problem that is common to Demeke (2001), Hetzron (1972), and to all historical linguists is the number of innovations required to establish an historical relationship between two or more languages. In historical linguistics, in general, there is no threshold with regard to the number of innovations required. Furthermore, in most cases, the shared innovations are cherry-picked. There is also a problem associated with the concept of “innovation” itself. Historical linguists often opt for contact-free features. However, there has never been an effective mechanism that ascertains a given innovation is contact-free. This was precisely the case in the classification proposals of Ethiosemitic languages. For instance, Goldenberg (1977) and Rubin (2008) argue that many of the classification parameters used in Hetzron (1972, 1977) have Cushitic origins. There are similar limitations in the lexicostatistical studies. Bender et al. (1972), Bender (1971), and Cohen (1961) were aware of the problems of borrowing. However, adequate explanation has not been provided on the mechanism they employed to minimize the influence of borrowing. Since through time borrowed words are nativized to recipient languages, it is practically impossible to detect borrowing without a possibility of making an error. Hudson (2013) explicitly argues that borrowing is not a serious problem. However, the degree of the seriousness of borrowing relies on the conclusion one has to make. Any claim about genealogy of languages presupposes a full control over contact-induced features. Hence, as Aikhenvald and Dixon (2006) noted, an argument about the genealogical relationships among languages must be substantiated with adequate evidence. Hudson (2013) was also criticized for several methodological limitations including pitfall in identifying appropriate cognates, misconception about the relationship between lexical similarity and intelligibility, and erroneous lexical quantification (Meyer

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2018). A problem that is common to all lexicon-based studies is the percentage of lexical similarity required to group-related languages. Usually, 80% lexical similarity is taken as a threshold. Nevertheless, there has never been statistical proof. Theoretical assumptions of previous studies on the classification of Ethiosemitic languages have been another serious challenge. As discussed in preceding section, previous studies followed the traditional comparative methods to reconstruct the genealogical relationship among the languages. Nevertheless, there is no strong evidence that these approaches always yield the desired result, especially when applied in complex contact situations. The binary representation of language classification presupposes an abrupt division of language community as the main cause of the emergence of a new language (François 2015; Kalyan and Francois 2018; Kalyan et al. 2018). Nevertheless, in reality, it is not always the case that speakers of a language split in such a manner that they lose contact once and forever. As Aikhenvald and Dixon (2006) and François (2015) noted, the tree model fails to capture the very common situation in which linguistic diversification results from the fragmentation of languages into networks of dialects which remain in contact with each other for an extended period of time. A major shortcoming of the tree model is that it emanates from the assumption of an abrupt social split and its inability to explain the relationship between innovations in two or more sister languages. It fails to provide a concrete means of determining whether the shared innovations between the sister languages are the shared heritage of the remote ancestral language or not. Given the long history of contact among Ethiosemitic languages and surrounding non-Semitic languages, the classification of Ethiosemitic languages may require a new approach such as Historical Glottometry (François 2015; Kalyan and Francois 2018; Kalyan et al. 2018). Historical Glottometry identifies sub-grouping in a linkage situation and assesses the relative strength based on the distributions of innovations among languages. This approach combines the historical comparative approach and the assumptions of the wave model to determine the genealogical link among related languages. Such a wave-based approach towards the genealogical classifications should be warmly welcomed since previous studies show that not all classifications of languages are effectively explained by the tree model. For instance, the networks of Italian, Dutch, and Arabic dialects could never be modeled by any tree (François 2015, p. 170). This also casts doubts about the accuracy of the tree model when it is applied in the context of Ethiosemitic languages. The Ethiopian linguistic area is very diverse. Often each language consists of several dialects and subdialects. Given such diversity and the long history of contact, contact-free abrupt social split is simply inconceivable. It appears that the linguistic and social reality in the Ethiopian linguistic area contradicts the basic assumptions of the tree model itself. Given these conditions, it is also unlikely that previous classification proposals of the Ethiosemitic languages by historical linguists reflect the genealogical relationship among the languages, contrary to the predictions of the historical linguists. The strong dependency of comparative historical linguistics approaches on a fortuitously selected limited number of innovations could also be a challenge to consistent genealogical classifications of languages in general. As suggested by Feleke et al. (2020), Feleke (2020b), Goldenberg (1977), and Rubin (2008), geographical

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classifications, not the genealogical classifications, may best fit the positioning of Ethiosemitic languages. In addition to the linguistic, methodological, and theoretical challenges, there are problems related to social factors. In the Ethiopian linguistic area, there has been an intricate overlap between ethnic and linguistic identities. The link between the two has been tightened by the ethnic federalism that has been in place since 1994. Hence, it is likely that, for instance, a Chaha person presents himself/herself as a speaker of Chaha even though the mother tongue could be a different variety (Hetzron 1972; Goldenberg 1977; Feleke 2020b). Therefore, unless due attention is given to informant recruitment, data obtained from individuals with such a confused identity can be misleading. Politics also has its own share of ambiguity. Because of civil wars in the past, it was difficult to collect data on Ethiosemitic languages spoken in remote areas. These areas were partly under the control of various guerilla fighters. As a result, several previous classification studies including Demeke (2001), Leslau (1969), and Hetzron (1972, 1977) were conducted without having field trip knowledge to some of the language areas. These studies heavily relied on informants in Addis Ababa who often claim a false identity. It is also likely that some of them might have lost their linguistic competency because of mother tongue attrition. Political-related challenges still remain in some of the remote areas. A field trip to some remote areas can still be unsafe because of increasing ethnic conflicts among various ethnic groups. It is also crucial to mention challenges related to economic factors. In some cases, there is the absence of road connecting remote areas. In some places, there are also shortages or absences in available types of transportation. As a result, scholars of Semitic languages neglect languages spoken in remote areas and focus only on the major ones such as Amharic. Since in some areas transportation problems remain, there is a lack of adequate data on some Ethiosemitic languages such as Mesmes and Gyeto. Finally, misconception among scholars with regard to the studies conducted on the classification of Ethiosemitic languages is another factor. There is also a perception that the classification of Hetzron (1972) is complete and detailed enough (e.g., Rubin 2008).

Mapping Issues Mapping Ethiosemitic languages has received only marginal attention in previous studies of Ethiosemitic languages. This section explores the construction of some selected maps, identifies their limitations, and illustrates challenges related to mapping Ethiosemitic languages. It also demonstrates to what extent geolinguistic evidence supports the classification arguments. Unfortunately, previous studies on Ethiosemitic languages did not give adequate attention to mapping. Even though there are some studies devoted to identifying the geographical features (Ferguson 1976; Crass and Meyer 2009; Bisang 2006; Zaborski 1991), collectively they contribute little to visualizing the geographical distribution of features of Ethiosemitic languages. Visualizing the geographical distribution of linguistic features requires carefully designed maps which display the geographical extensions of

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phonetic, phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic features of languages. Maps are reliable instruments not only to demonstrate the geographical distribution of linguistic features in space but also to document historical linguistic changes. As Girnth (2010, p. 201) noted, linguistic maps are essential to document the distribution of linguistic features in space and to provide critical theoretical description. Mapping Ethiosemitic languages and African languages in general have been extremely marginalized (Rabanus 2018. pp. 357–361; Muhlhausler 2010). Hence, the present discussion is restricted to a few selected linguistic maps obtained from reviewed publications. Among the published maps, those that are supposed to be illustrative of the geographical distributions of main linguistic features are selected. Prior to describing these maps, we explore the basic notion of mapping. The following sections discuss the linguistic and theoretical implications of those maps and explain the limitations of the maps and challenges facing those who construct them. The discussions target linguistic maps, that is, maps that display the geographical extension of specific linguistic forms (Lameli et al. 2010, p. xvii; Girnth 2010, p. 98). Some language maps are included to portray the relative geographical locations of the languages.

Basic Notions of Mapping A map is visual representation of spatially arranged object (Lameli et al. 2010, p. xiii), whereas mapping is the process of making map. A typical linguistic map visualizes the geographical extensions of linguistic features, for example, variations of sounds or forms. The information displayed on the map is often not perfectly accurate since maps, in general, are the results of subjective judgments of the cartographer (Girnth 2010; Lameli et al. 2010, pp. xiii– xiv). According to Rabanus (2018, p. 348) and Girnth (2010), maps have different features such as map face (basic and main layers), border (the outer boarder of the map face), title (topic of the map), legend (descriptions of the symbols used), gratitude (coordinates), and scale. The basic layer is derived from the geographical map, which enables the map readers to locate the linguistic data in the proper geographical space. In most cases, rivers, coastlines, major cities, mountains, and administrative boarders are used for this purpose. This is often coded as background information using a weak color. The main layer displays linguistic information using different graphic elements. According to Girnth (2010), maps usually have three reference systems: historical (for example, important features for the historical reconstruction of other features), standard language (a language to which nonstandard varieties are contrasted), and grammatical system (grammatical features to which other features are compared). Based on the mapping methods employed, maps can be divided into two categories: qualitative and quantitative (Girnth 2010). Qualitative maps are drawn based on the subjective judgment of the map designer. They can be either point-related maps or area-related maps (Rabanus 2018, pp. 347–349). In point-related maps, symbols such as triangles, circles, squares, or other geometric elements, are placed at the correct location. Precision or accuracy refers to the exact geographical location of

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the data, but there is always a possibility of a shift in location because of scale and meaning of symbols. Point-related maps can be of different types including pointtext map and line-related map. In point-text map, written forms, either words or phonetic transcriptions, are superimposed directly on the location without any attempt of symbolization and linguistic classifications. Point-text maps are geographically coded databases rather than maps in the strictest sense since it is almost impossible to get an immediate and accurate picture of the data’s geographical distribution (Rabanus 2018, p. 353). Line-related maps can be of two types. In the first type, lines are used in the form of isoglosses to form an area map. In the second type, lines are used to connect locations that have similar linguistic features. For instance, in similarity maps, lines connect areas that have close linguistic similarities (Heeringa 2004; Nerbonne et al. 2005, 2011; Nerbonne and Wiersma 2006). Similarly, in perceptual dialectology, line maps are used to display the degree of perceived similarities between local dialects (Feleke et al. 2020; Preston 1999). Line-related maps may use either directed or undirected lines. In a directed line map, the directions of the spread of features and language change are indicated by direction lines. Network maps usually use undirected line maps (Feleke et al. 2020). In line-related maps, the thickness of the lines may reflect the degree of similarity among the languages (Rabanus 2018). Qualitative maps can also be area-related or geography-based maps where the linguistic area is determined based on nonlinguistic reference points such as mountain, rivers, and coastlines (Rabanus 2011). Area maps demarcate the geographical boundary of a linguistic form. The area can be identified using different colors or patterns. Quantitative maps are designed based on quantifiable statistical analyses and visualizations in the linguistic data. The linguistic area is determined based on the data from various statistical models. Since the boundary demarcation is based on some standard statistical quantification base or index of linguistic features, quantitative maps are considered as feature-based maps. Girnth (2010) discusses different types of quantitative maps such as a honeycomb map, variant occurrence map, cluster map, composite cluster map, and multidimensional scaling map. Feleke (2020a, b) and Feleke et al. (2020) discuss multidimensional scaling maps of Ethiosemitic languages. Multidimensional scaling maps take site by site distance matrices and display them on n-dimensional space in such a way that similar languages are grouped together and different languages are placed farther from each other (Feleke et al. 2020; Goebl 2010; Heeringa 2004; Rabanus 2018). Cluster map displays areas that show feature similarity using different color contrast (Feleke et al. 2020; Heeringa 2004, p. 234; Nerbonne et al. 2005 and 2011). Composite cluster maps align maps of different linguistic measures to provide a more representative one. Quantitative maps can be drawn without any reference points, just based on the quantified degree of similarity or difference (Heeringa 2004; Nerbonne et al. 2011; Nerbonne and Heeringa 2001; Nerbonne 2010; Rabanus 2018, p. 357). In principle, linguistic maps can display the geographical distribution of any linguistic feature. Nevertheless, according to Rabanus (2011, p. 34) and Girnth (2010), syntax, pragmatics, and phonology are among the neglected areas in major dialect surveys in

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the past. Pragmatics and phonology maps are extremely rare, while phonetic and lexical maps are very common (Goebl 2010, p.437; Lameli 2010; Nerbonne 2010).

Implications of Selected Language Maps Though limited in number, Ethiosemitic language maps present several interesting geographical and historical issues. Figures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 present the implications of the geographical distributions of Ethiosemitic languages. Figure 5

Fig. 5 Ethiosemitic and South Semitic language map, from Boivin et al. (2010, p. 270). (Used by permission, © Springer, Archaeological, linguistic and historical sources on ancient seafaring: a multidisciplinary approach to the study of early maritime contact and exchange in the Arabian Peninsula. In The evolution of human populations in Arabia, 2010, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

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Fig. 6 Contact between Ethiosemitic and South Semitic speakers Beyin (2013). (Used with permission, © Archaeopress Publishing Ltd., Prehistoric settlements on the Red Sea Coast of Eritrea: Implications for assessing early human dispersals across the Red Sea basin. Early Maritime Cultures in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean, 2013, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

displays the geographical proximity between Ethiosemitic and South Semitic families. The areas of the two subfamilies are separated by the Red Sea. Semitists tend to believe that Ethiosemitic languages descended from South Semitic, that is, the speakers of Ethiosemitic languages migrated from south Arabia to north Ethiopia after crossing the Red Sea (Fleming 1968, p. 363). The geographical proximity between the two areas on Fig. 5 tends to support this claim. On the map, the areas occupied by the speakers of the two Semitic subfamilies are illustrated by a dark color. Administrative boundaries are used to separate the two areas; South Semitic languages are located in south Arabia whereas Ethiosemitic languages are located in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Only a few Ethiosemitic languages (Amharic, Tigre, Tigrigna, and Gurage) and South Semitic (Bathari, Harsusi,

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Fig. 7 Third millennium trade exchange in Arabian Peninsula Boivin et al. (2010, p. 161). (Used with permission, © Springer, Archaeological, linguistic and historical sources on ancient seafaring: a multidisciplinary approach to the study of early maritime contact and exchange in the Arabian Peninsula. In The evolution of human populations in Arabia, 2010, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

Fig. 8 Chad-Ethiopian area from Dimmendaal (2011, p. 309). (Used with permission, © John Benjamins Publishing Company, Historical linguistics and the comparative study of African languages, 2011, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

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Fig. 9 Geographical location of major Ethiosemitic languages from Hudson (2013, p. 9). (Used with permission, © Harrassowitz, Northeast African Semitic: Lexical comparisons and analysis. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

Hobyot, Jibbali, Meheri, and Soqotri) are displayed on the map. “Gurage” is presented as a language on the map. However, as discussed in previous section, it does not refer to a single language (Feleke 2020b; Menuta 2015; Meyer 2011), but to mix of varieties, some which are even not genealogically related. The light Red Sea coastal area illustrates a demographic change which implies an extinction or replacement of South Semitic varieties by other languages, probably Arabic. This change has been one of the major challenges facing those studying the genealogical relationship between Ethiosemitic and South Semitic languages. There is also archaeological evidence which proves a prehistoric contact between north Ethiopia and south Arabia settlers (Fig. 6). Archaeological excavation of stone artifacts in two sites in Yemen (Abdur and Asfet) shows two-way Red Sea

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Fig. 10 Ethiopian linguistic area from Gutman and Avanzati (2013), freely available online

movements between north Ethiopia and south Arabian settlers. The artifacts are believed to exist for 200,000–500,000 years ago, an historical time which is often called Middle Stone Age (MSA). According to Beyin (2013), the Red Sea coast was visited and may have served as stepping-stones of ancient modern humans during their migration from Africa into Asia. Figure 6 also shows the hypothetical direction of the migration flow (Beyin 2013). The solid arrows show possible paths of these interactions, dashed arrows show path of interaction that may have existed during low sea level, and dashed circles show regions where prehistoric settlements were recorded. Figure 7 shows marine exchange activities between Africa and Arabian Peninsula around the third millennium BC. According to Boivin et al. (2010), urbanized states in the northern part of Ethiopia and south Arabia were major players in the trade. Coastal communities and local merchants played important roles as well. Marks (2010) presented similar two-way trade route during post-Acheulean population movement. Figures 6 and 7, in general, show two essential features. First, the contact between settlers of north Ethiopia and south Arabia was probably much earlier than

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Fig. 11 Geographical distribution of Gurage varieties, Hudson (2013). (Used with permission, © Harrassowitz, Northeast African Semitic: Lexical comparisons and analysis, 2013, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

usually assumed. For instance, Fleming (1968, p. 363) estimates that the separation between Ethiosemitic and Modern South Arabia languages took place somewhere between 3300 BC and 2600 BC. Second, the assumption that the speakers of a variant of Semitic languages migrated from south Arabia to north Ethiopia may not be true, contrary to the scholars of Semitic languages (Bender 1966; Hetzron 1972; Fleming 1968). It seems that the proto-Ethiosemitic language emerged in the form of creole due to across Red Sea trade contact. An indicator of the creolization process is that Ethiosemitic languages share several features with other African languages. Figure 8 illustrates the ChadEthiopian area (Greenberg 1963; Güldemann 2005), but it also shows the historical link between Ethiosemitic and the remaining Semitic languages. It shows the geographical similarity between Ethiosemitic and other African languages that geographically extends from east Africa into central Africa (Amha and Dimmendaal 2006; Güldemann and Fiedler 2019; Tosco 2000). Ethiosemitic languages most likely inherited this area similarity because of a long history of contact with Cushitic, Omotic, and Nilo-Saharan languages. Indeed, many of the features believed to be innovations within Ethiosemitic languages are the outcomes of that these contacts (Goldenberg 1977; Rubin 2008). The geographical similarity between Ethiosemitic and geographically remote other African languages supports the idea that

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Fig. 12 Gurage areas, from Hudson (2013, p. 26). (Used with permission, © Harrassowitz, Northeast African Semitic: Lexical comparisons and analysis, 2013, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

Ethiosemitic languages are probably the product of centuries of contact between South Semitic and early African languages. Once proto-Ethiosemitic was formed as a creole language, the speakers began expanding from the northern to the southern part of Ethiopia. Figure 9 displays the north to south expansion. This expansion history is only partly documented. Fleming (1968) predicted that the South Ethiosemitic separated from the North between 700 BC and 300 BC. On this map, abbreviated names indicate the approximate geographical locations of the languages. Dead languages, Ge’ez and Gafat, are illustrated by an additional superscribed (+) symbol. The map reveals two essential patterns. First, the pattern of the geographical distribution shows three groups of languages: {Tigre, Tigrigna, Ge’ez, Gafat}, {Amharic, Argoba, Harari}, and {Kistane (Soddo), Mesqan, Chaha, Muher, Inor, Silt’e, Zay}. Second, the map shows a strong similarity between the geographical distribution of the languages and the genealogical classifications previously proposed by historical linguists. The first group, except Gafat, belongs to North Ethiosemitic in the classification of Hetzron (1972) and Demeke (2001). The second group belongs to Transversal

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South Ethiosemitic in Hetzron (1972), and the last group to Central South Ethiosemitic in the classification of Hetzron (1972). The strong similarity between the geographical distribution and the genealogical classifications reveals the roles mapping can play in understanding the history of Ethiosemitic languages. Figure 9 displays only major Ethiosemitic languages, excluding Gurage varieties such as Gumer, Gura, Ezha, Mesmes, and Gyeto. Figure 10 displays the geographical boundary of Ethiosemitic languages and the contact areas between the Ethiosemitic and non-Semitic languages. Lines on the map illustrate current administrative boundaries of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, and administrative regions within each country. A large number of the Ethiosemitic language speakers are found in the northern and central part of Ethiopia. The “Gurage” area which is the home of the majority of Ethiosemitic languages (Demeke 2001; Feleke 2020a, b; Feleke et al. 2020; Menuta 2015; Meyer 2011) is located southwest of Addis Ababa, the capital. Harari is located east of Addis Ababa and is entirely isolated from the rest of the Ethiosemitic languages. The figure further illustrates that Ethiosemitic languages, in general, are geographically encircled within non-Semitic languages, resulting in a long history of contact between Ethiosemitic and non-Semitic languages (Bender 1983; Gragg 2005; Feleke 2020a, b; Leslau 1945b, 1952; Little 1974; Raz 1980). Harari and Gurage varieties are among the Ethiosemitic languages that have been heavily influenced by the non-Semitic languages (Feleke et al. 2020; Feleke 2020b; Leslau 1959, 1968; Meyer 2005b). The map also displays only areas that are occupied by the native speakers of Ethiosemitic languages. Amharic, for example, is spoken as a second language throughout Ethiopia. There are also geographically dispersed Argoba speakers along the main road from Addis Ababa to Harar city. Figure 11 illustrates the geographical distribution of some Gurage varieties. The broken line shows the territorial boundary of the Gurage area which is surrounded by non-Semitic languages such as Qabenna, Hadiya, Alaba, and Maraqo. The locations of Gurage varieties such as Kistane (Soddo), Wolane, Muher, Gogot, Mesqan, Selt’e, Ezha, Chaha, Geyto, Inor (Ennemor), and Gura are shown on the map. Some of the varieties shown are not languages in the strictest sense. For instance, Ennar is a dialect of Inor; Azaranat, Ennaqor, and Ulbarag are dialects of Silt’e (Hudson 2013). The map does not show the geographical boundary of each language. On the map, languages are represented by uppercase letters and dialects by lowercase letters. Names of common places such as Endeber and Butajira are shown in small letters. In general, the map shows that the Gurage area is one of the most diverse places in Ethiopia (Feleke 2020b; Feleke et al. 2020; Hudson 2013; Hetzron 1972, 1977; Meyer 2011). Figure 12 displays the geographical boundary of selected Gurage varieties. The language area is demarcated by dark solid lines. Light solid lines display the geographical boundaries of dialects of the Gurage varieties and illustrate the administrative boundaries of non-Gurage languages such as Yemsa, Hadiya, Kembaata, Alaba, and Oromo. The map does not consider Silt’e as a Gurage variety; it is separated from the rest of the languages by a light solid line which reflects a perception that has emerged after the administrative separation of Silt’e from the

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Gurage Zone in 2002. It also indicates that Mesmes is geographically isolated from the Gurage area. On this map, upper- and lowercase letters are used to distinguish languages from dialects. For instance, INOR represents a language, while Ener, Ennemor, and Endegegn are considered dialects of INOR. Not every scholar agrees that Endegagn is a dialect of Inor (Feleke et al. 2020; Feleke 2020a, b). Dobbi is a dialect of KISTANE, and Deta, Aklil, Muher, Ezha, Chaha, Gurage, Gumer (Gumera), and Gyeto are dialects of SEBAT BET GURAGE. Strictly speaking, SEBAT BET GURAGE does not refer to an independent language, but to a sociopolitical association (Feleke et al. 2020; Menuta 2015; Meyer 2011). The map further indicates that Gurage varieties are surrounded by several non-Semitic languages. Figures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 raise several essential issues that merit further scrutiny. Among them is the link between Ethiosemitic and South Semitic. The maps show that proto-Ethiosemitic is the outcome of early creolization process due to the cross-Red Sea trade contact between Semitic and non-Semitic speaking settlers. Nevertheless, the emerging archaeological evidence (see Figs. 6 and 7) needs to be substantiated by linguistic evidence. The internal classification of Ethiosemitic languages remains debatable. Mapping detailed features of Ethiosemitic languages also requires taking the geographical similarity into account as it may provide valuable evidence useful in understanding the internal classification of Ethiosemitic languages. Historical events that separated Gurage varieties and Harari from the rest of Ethiosemitic languages are also currently only partially understood. There are two possible assumptions with regard to the isolation of the Gurage varieties. One of the assumptions is that the speakers of the Gurage varieties migrated from northern part of Ethiopia and settled in the south in the middle of Cushitic speakers. The alternative hypothesis is that the Gurage people were the endogenous dwellers of the south but later were encircled, in the sixteenth century, by the Oromo movement, which also separated the Gurage speakers from the rest of Ethiosemitic speakers. Given the hypothesis that the source of all Ethiosemitic languages is south Arabia, it appears that there were two major movements; first, a north-south movement which led to a continuous expansion of Ethiosemitic languages followed by a south-north Oromo movement. This second movement might have interrupted the geographical continuity of the Ethiosemitic languages. There is some evidence which substantiates the latter hypothesis. For instance, in the Muher district of the Gurage area, there were monasteries built around the eleventh century. These monasteries must have been built by the Ethiosemitic speaking Christians, not by non-Christian Cushitic speakers. The situation of Harari is probably different. It is likely that the Harari speakers recently migrated from south Arabia, after most parts of east and central parts of Ethiopia were occupied by the speakers of Cushitic languages (Crass and Meyer 2001).

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Implications of Selected Linguistic Maps Figures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 display the geographical distribution of Ethiosemitic languages. However, there also exist some linguistic maps which illustrate the geographical extension of linguistic forms. These linguistic maps are discussed from two perspectives: (1) the linguistic forms they display (phonetic, lexical, morphological, and syntactic) and (2) the theoretical and practical implications of the visualized linguistic forms. Figure 13 portrays the geographical distribution of light verb constructions. Light verb construction is a type of complex predicates made up of two elements: a non-inflected lexical base and a light verb. The semantic content of the construction is mainly conveyed by the lexical base, while the verb carries markers of person, tense, and aspect (Darmon 2012; Ferguson 1976; Zaborski 1991). For instance, in Amharic, light verb construction k’uc’c’ al-ǝ, literally “to sit down,” k’ucc’ is the non-inflected lexical base while al is the light verb containing the number and person marking suffix, ǝ. According to Darmon (2012), whenever the light verb al-ǝ is used in transitive conditions in many languages of Ethiopia, it manifests two different forms, that is, it is transitivized either by the causative of the verb “to say” or by replacing the verb “to say” by other transitive light verbs such as “to do” or “make.” Figure 13 illustrates that North Ethiosemitic languages (Tigrigna, Tigre, and Ge’ez) use the causative of “to say” in transitive conditions, while the East Gurage languages (Harari, Wolane, Silt’e, and Zay), Transverse South Ethiosemitic

Fig. 13 Distribution of light verb constructions, adopted from Darmon (2012). The map is created by the author, further redistribution prohibited without permission

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languages (Amharic and Argoba) and West Gurage languages, including Muher, Inor (Ennemor), Kistane, Gogot, Mesqan, and Chaha, use other forms. The map further illustrates a high degree of similarity between North Ethiosemitic and North Cushitic languages (Beja, Bilin, Kemant, and Xamtanga) and similarly a high degree of similarity between South Ethiosemitic and Central and East Cushitic languages, in terms of the light verb constructions they use in transitive conditions. Hence, Darmon (2012) argues that light verb constructions are originally the features of Cushitic languages, not that of the Semitic languages. Given that light verb constructions are not common in Semitic languages spoken outside the Ethiopian linguistic area, it seems that light verb constructions diffused from Cushitic to Ethiosemitic languages. On the map, Ethiosemitic languages are represented by squares, while the Cushitic languages are represented by circles. The geographical distributions of light verb constructions with the transitivized “to say” are indicated by a light color, whereas other forms of light verb constructions are illustrated by a dark color. The map presents major Ethiosemitic languages, excluding some Gurage varieties such as Gumer, Gura, Endegagn, and Mesmes. In a strict sense, the map is not a linguistic map of Ethiosemitic since it also displays several Cushitic languages such as Xamtanga, Kemant, Oromo, Libido, Kambaata, Sidamo, Gedeo, Somali, and Gawwada. Figure 14 displays Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan linguistic area of converbs. Converbs are nonfinite verb forms making a clausal dependency relation (Amha and Dimmendaal 2006; Hetzron 1972; Hetzron and Bender 1976). They are attested in Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages which are spoken mainly west of the Ethiopian region extending into Nigeria and Niger. Hence, Afroasiatic languages and Nilo-Saharan languages that are spoken in northeast Africa and eastern Sahel Zone, respectively, are identified within the topological zone of converbs. The extended east-west geographical distribution of converbs is the result of geographical diffusion (Amha and Dimmendaal 2006, p. 422). Numbers (1–15) on the map displays Ethiopian languages containing converbs. The wide light area between eastern Sahel Zone and north-east Africa represents inhabitable desert areas and areas that experienced linguistic change because of the recent occupation of Arabs. The map illustrates that converbs are not the property of just Ethiosemitic languages but of several African languages. Figure 15 illustrates the geographical distribution of complex predicates, the grammaticalization of auxiliary verb purportedly meaning “say” to a predictive base of certain complex predicates (Güldemann 2005). Complex predicates were previously believed to be the specific features of Ethiopian linguistic area (see Ferguson 1976; Brinton 2018; Amberber et al. 2010). However, recent studies show that they had a scattered occurrence across a large area of Africa. They are relevant features for entire families of Cushitic and Ethiosemitic and areal subgroups of families like Nubian and Omotic. The distribution of the feature builds up two large compact areas: (a) the Sahel and Sahara regions around and east of Lake Chad with Saharan, Maban, and Furan languages and (b) a region comprising the horn of Africa stretching north to the Nile and the Nubian Desert which comprises several

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Fig. 14 Geographical distribution of converbs, Amha and Dimmendaal (2006, p. 395). (Used with permission, © Mouton de Gruyte, Converbs in an African perspective. In F. Ameka, A. Dench, & N. Evans (Eds.), Catching language: the standing challenge of grammar writing, 2006, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

families such as Cushitic, Ethiosemitic, and Omotic languages, as well as the isolates Kunama and Nera. According to Güldemann (2005) while the distribution of complex predicates extends much beyond the Ethiopian linguistic area, the typical feature of the complex predicate in Ethiopian linguistic area is that the auxiliaries function as focus predication operator. Figure 16 displays the geographical distribution of main verb markers (Leslau 1967, pp. 122–125; Hetzron 1968) in the Gurage area. Main verb markers are especial morphological features that are attached to main clauses in the independent clauses as opposed to the dependent clauses. According to Meyer (2014, p. 28), there are some degrees of variation among the Gurage varieties in terms of the main verb marking suffixes they use. In Kistane, the main verb making -u and its allomorphs are attached to affirmative perfective and imperfective verbs in independent clauses. In Muher, imperfective verbs are followed by -u and perfective verbs are followed by -m. Chaha uses only -m in affirmative perfective verbs while imperfective verbs are unmarked. Wolane, by contrast, obligatorily marks affirmative imperfective verbs in independent clause, but not perfective verbs. Inor and Zay represent more complex stages of Chaha and Wolane, respectively. Inor marks the affirmative perfective verb in independent clauses by an uncommon ultima accent on the verb which is considered a reflex of the vanished main verb marker -m (Hetzron 1977, p. 42f.). It also obligatorily attaches the KDT suffix to the non-present auxiliary and to negated indicative verbs in an independent clause. Zay, similar to Wolane, marks affirmative imperfective verbs in independent clauses by a temporal auxiliary, but in

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Fig. 15 Geographical distribution of complex predicates, Güldemann (2005, p. 147). (Used with permission, © Studies in African linguistic typology, Complex predicates based on generic auxiliaries as an areal feature in Northeast Africa, 2005, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

addition, it has an obligatory declarative marker that distinguishes different speech acts. The use of auxiliaries as main verb markers is not a typical property of Ethiosemitic languages; it is also common in Cushitic languages such as Oromo (Goshu and Meyer 2006). Some features of Ethiosemitic languages seem resistant to the geographical diffusion. Figure 17 shows the geographical distribution of case markers in northern and eastern Africa. On the map, the distribution of nominative case markers is indicated by a black color and accusative case markers by a dark light color. The map illustrates that all Ethiosemitic languages are characterized by overt accusative case marking in spite of a long history of contact with Cushitic languages, which have overt nominative case markers. In the Ethiopian linguistic area, nominative case marking is a typical property of Cushitic languages while accusative case marking is the attribute of Ethiosemitic languages. Figure 18 displays the distribution of the above case marking system in an elaborated manner. On the map, the dark pattern represents the Gurage area which is located at the middle of Cushitic and Omotic languages. In spite of the strong influence from both Cushitic and Omotic languages, Gurage varieties maintained the accusative case marking system.

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Fig. 16 Geographical distribution of main verb marker, Meyer (2014). (Used with permission, © Harrassowitz: Finiteness in Gurage languages. In A. Amha, R. Meyer, & T. Yvonne (Eds.), Explorations in Ethiopian linguistics: Complex predicates, finiteness and interrogativity, 2014, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

Figures 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 display the geographical distribution of morphological features. There are also studies on the distributions of phonetic and lexical features. Figure 19 is a quantitative map obtained from phonetic (a) and lexical (b) differences among selected Ethiosemitic languages: Argoba, Chaha, Gura, Gumer, Ezha, Muher, Mesqan, Silt’e, Wolane, Tigre, Tigrigna, Harari, Gyeto, Endegagn, Inor, Kistane, and Ge’ez. Closely related languages are represented by the same color and dissimilar languages by different colors (Heeringa 2004; Feleke et al. 2020; Feleke 2020a, b; Nerbonne et al. 2011). Figure 19a also illustrates the phonetic map of Ethiosemitic languages. The phonetic distance among the languages was computed by applying the Levenshtein algorithm to cognates in randomly selected word lists (Feleke 2020a, b; Feleke et al. 2020). Figure 19b shows the geographical classification of Ethiosemitic languages based on lexical differences. The Lexical distance was determined by computing the ratio of non-cognate words to the total list of lexical items. Both phonetic and lexical maps show 11 language areas. Compared to the maps discussed earlier, Fig. 19a and b are the most complete ones since 20 Ethiosemitic languages are included. Figure 20 displays the geographical distribution of structural (phonetic and lexical), functional, and perceptual features of selected Gurage varieties: Chaha, Gura, Gumer, Ezha, Endegagn, Inor, Muher, Mesqan, Kistane, and Silt’e. Figure 20a

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Fig. 17 Cases in northern and eastern Africa, Heine (2008, p. 266). (Used with permission, © Cambridge University Press: A linguistic geography of Africa, 2008, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

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Fig. 18 Geographical distribution of cases in southern Ethiopia and beyond Heine (2008, p. 267). (Used with permission, © Cambridge University Press: A linguistic geography of Africa, 2008, further redistribution prohibited without permission)

displays the phonetic map of the Gurage varieties. It shows that there are six Gurage areas (indicated by color differences), based on the phonetic similarity among the languages. Figure 20b illustrates lexical map of the Gurage varieties; five language areas are shown. Figure 20c is an intelligibility map; it displays the degree of intelligibility among the speakers of the Gurage varieties. “Functional distance” is the mirror image of the degree of intelligibility (Feleke 2020a, b; Feleke et al. 2020; Tang et al. 2009). This map shows that there are four Gurage linguistic areas based on the degree of intelligibility among the speakers. Figure 20d is a perceptual map; it indicates native speakers’ perception about the similarity between their mother language and surrounding related languages (Montgomery 2007; Preston 2010, 2018). The map shows five language areas based on the perception of the speakers. There is a slight degree of variation among the maps, but also a high degree of similarity among many of them. Figure 20d shows perceptual similarity between Silt’e (south dark blue) and Kistane (north dark blue) though there is an intermediate Mesqan area. This similarity between nonadjacent languages could be the manifestation of border tension between Silt’e and Mesqan on the one hand and between Kistane and Mesqan on the other hand. The match between structural, functional, and perceptual maps was also reported in previous studies (Schüppert and Gooskens

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Fig. 19 Map of Ethiosemitic languages based on phonetic and lexical similarities, Feleke (2020b), owned by the author, further redistribution prohibited without permission

2011; Van Bezooijen and Gooskens 2007; Preston 2010; Labov 2001; Niedzielski 1999). Figure 21 displays the multidimensional scaling plots and multidimensional scaling maps of 20 Ethiosemitic languages: Argoba, Chaha, Gura, Gumer, Ezha, Muher, Mesqan, Silt’e, Wolane, Tigre, Tigrigna, Harari, Gyeto, Endegagn, Inor, Kistane, and Ge’ez. The plot displays the distance among the languages in n-dimensional space. In other words, it takes the full site by site distance matrix as an input and creates a representation in n-dimensional space where distances are approximations of the original linguistic distances (Leinonen et al. 2016; Nerbonne et al. 1999; Snoek 2014). Figure 21a shows the multidimensional scaling plot of the phonetic distance. The map shows that in the first dimension (solid arrow), Tigrigna, Tigre, and Ge’ez have the highest phonetic distance values while many of the Central West Gurage languages have the lowest phonetic distance values. The second dimension (dashed arrow) shows that Silt’e and Wolane have the highest values while the Central West Gurage languages have the lowest phonetic distance values. Figure 21c shows the multidimensional scaling plot of the lexical distance. In the first dimension, Tigrigna, Tigre, and Ge’ez have the highest lexical distance value, while many of the Central West Gurage languages have the lowest lexical distance values. The second dimension (dashed arrow) shows that Silt’e and Wolane have the

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Fig. 20 Map of Gurage varieties based on structural, functional, and perceptual parameters, from Feleke et al. (2020), owned by the author, further redistribution prohibited without permission

highest values, while the Central West Gurage languages have the lowest values. On the multidimensional scaling map, the light color always represents an area that has the highest distance value (Heeringa 2004; Nerbonne et al. 2011). Figure 21b stands for the multidimensional scaling map of the 20 Ethiosemitic languages based on the phonetic similarity among the languages. The light color shows the area with the highest distance value which is Tigrigna-Ge’ez area. Figure 21c is the multidimensional scaling map of the Ethiosemitic languages based on lexical similarity among the languages. In this case, the light color shows the Tigrigna area with the highest lexical distance value. Figure 22 illustrates the lexicon-based Neighbor-net representation of Ethiosemitic languages. The Neighbor-net algorithm provides two types of outputs based on the nature of distance data. If the distance data reflects a vertical relationship, it produces a tree-like structure, but if the input distance reflects a horizontal relationship, a net-like structure appears (Huson and Bryant 2010; Prokic et al. 2013). This representation provides an opportunity to inspect whether a certain classification reflects a genealogical relationship or just a geographical similarity (Prokic et al. 2013). Figure 22 illustrates approximately six groups of Ethiosemitic languages: {Ge’ez, Tigrigna, Tigre}, {Amharic, Argoba}, {Harari, Silt’e, Wolane,

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Fig. 21 Multidimensional scaling maps of Ethiosemitic languages, from Feleke (2020b), owned by the author, further redistribution prohibited without permission

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Fig. 22 Neighbor-net representation of Ethiosemitic languages, from Feleke (2020b), owned by the author, further redistribution prohibited without permission

Zay}, {Kistane, Gogot, Muher}, {Inor, Endegagn}, and {Gyeto, Mesqan, Gura, Chaha, Ezha and Gumer}. The net-like structure of the Neighbor-net presentation indicates the role of lexical diffusion in the lexical similarity among the languages. The lexical diffusion among the languages could be the result of geographical proximity. A classic example is the affinity among the Gurage varieties. Except for Harari and the East languages (Silt’e, Wolane and Zay), the remaining Gurage varieties form a net-like structure. Given that these varieties are spoken in only a small Gurage area, their close similarity can be attributed to lexical diffusion. Feleke et al. (2020) and Feleke (2020a, b) are recent studies that dealt with the classification of Ethiosemitic languages. These studies are founded on theoretical assumptions that are different from the assumptions of previous studies. They were based on the assumptions of wave model, not on the tree model. The classifications are substantially similar to previous classifications proposals, making strong claims that the previous classifications were not “genealogical” as the historical linguists may think. The studies stress that the study of classification of Ethiosemitic languages merits a paradigm shift, a shift from genealogical to geographical perspective. As also illustrated in Figs. 19, 20, and 21, these latest studies argue that the similarity or difference among Ethiosemitic languages is the outcome of geographical proximity, contact among the languages, and influence of the neighboring non-Semitic languages. Feleke (2020a, b) and Feleke et al. (2020) did not investigate

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the genealogy of the languages. Nevertheless, based on the results obtained from geographical classifications and patterns of geographical distribution of phonetic and lexical features, they are inclined towards the assumption that Ethiosemitic languages originated in the northern part of Ethiopia and gradually expanded towards the south. The issue of origin and the historical phenomena associated with north to south expansion should definitely be the focus of future studies.

Limitations of Existing Maps Figures illustrated in the previous section are characterized by simplicity, incompleteness, random selection, imprecise presentation, technical frailty, and generality. Many of them are language maps which display only the approximate geographical locations of the languages. Such maps can be easily designed based on intuitive knowledge of the map designer about the approximate geographical locations of the languages. It may not require an extensive survey and can easily be drawn without relying on sophisticated cartography software. Exception are Figs. 19, 20, and 21 which are designed using modern dialect visualization software and advanced statistical models such as multidimensional scaling. Incompleteness is another feature of the maps discussed above; the maps display either a few languages or a few features of the languages. For instance, Amha and Dimmendaal (2006), Dimmendaal (2011), Güldemann (2005), Konig (2008), and Meyer (2014) mapped one morphological feature each. Several other morphological, syntactic, and phonological features have not been considered in any of the studies. Moreover, Gutman and Avanzati (2013) mapped only three (Tigre, Tigrigna, and Amharic) out of several Ethiosemitic languages. Likewise, Hudson (2013) omitted numerous Gurage varieties in Fig. 12. Dimmendaal (2011), Güldemann (2005), Konig (2008), Amha and Dimmendaal (2006), and Meyer (2014) mapped morphological features. In general, in Ethiosemitic studies, morphology received much more attention, probably since morphology of the African languages is relatively the most studied linguistic domain. Furthermore, many of the maps seem imprecise in terms of indicating the locations of the languages and portraying the language boundaries. For instance, the locations of languages on Figs. 9, 10, 11, and 12 are not precise. A random point was selected probably based on the intuition of that map designers. Some language boundaries are administrative boundaries (Figs. 10, 12, 13, and 16). They display administrative divisions, not the geographic boundaries of the languages or distinct features of the languages. Some weaknesses in the maps emerge from the inherent limitations in the mapping techniques. For instance, the aggregate mapping techniques employed by Feleke (2020a, b) and Feleke et al. (2020) have limitations in terms of illustrating clear geographical boundaries of the languages and in terms of distinguishing the geographical boundary of Ethiosemitic languages from areas of non-Semitic languages. For instance, in Fig. 19, a large territory around the Gurage and Harari areas, which is occupied by the speakers of Oromo, was incorrectly shown on the map. Aggregate dialect mapping techniques usually do not

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automatically exclude intermediate areas that are occupied by speakers of other languages. In the same manner, they do not filter out uninhabited areas such as desert areas, mountains, rivers, and seacoasts. Last, the maps are general in the sense that they demonstrate the geographical distribution of certain features from just one perspective. For instance, Konig (2008) illustrated the geographical distribution of nominative and causative case markers (Fig. 17). On this map, perfective and imperfective aspects, which could be crucial to distinguish Semitic languages from non-Semitic languages, were excluded. The geographical distributions of syntactic, phonological, and pragmatic features have also been basically neglected. As argued in the introduction, several factors such as lack of detailed descriptions of features of some Ethiosemitic languages, lack of interest in linguistic geography, and lack of modern communication and transportation systems. Whatever the causes, the marginal attention given to mapping Ethiosemitic languages has resulted in lack of essential data that could have been useful in tracing the historical changes in Ethiosemitic languages and understanding the dynamics that could contribute greatly to linguistic theories.

Major Mapping Challenges As acknowledged above, mapping Ethiosemitic languages is in its infant stage. Lack of adequate grammatical descriptions is one of the contributing factors. Ethiosemitic languages such as Endegagn, Mesmes, Gogot, Gyeto, and Gafat have not been well studied. Their phonological, morphological, and syntactic features are only partly described. This lack of knowledge has impeded the mapping attempts since designing linguistic map requires adequate description of the features of the languages. Several other factors have contributed to the lack of the descriptions. First, some languages are either dead (e.g., Gafat) or on the verge of death (e.g., Ge’ez). Hence, finding the native speakers has been an uphill task. Second, languages such as Endegagn and Gyeto are spoken in remote areas and they are distant from major cities or roads for detailed field surveys. Moreover, a field trip to some of the language areas would be difficult because of shortage of means of transportation and lack of roads that connecting isolated areas. This problem has been partially resolved as a result of recent road constructions, for example, in the Gurage area, but the problem still remains difficult in some areas. For instance, a field trip to Endegagn, Muher, Inor, Mesmes, and Gyeto areas can still be problematic because of a lack of transportation. In these areas, usually there is only one public bus per a day. Lack of hostels and restaurants pose another challenge even after arriving in the language areas. Political instability has been another deterrent. Before 1990s, a large part of the Ethiopia was under the control of various guerilla groups which made field trips lifethreatening. There have been recent improvements with regard to the security issues, though the problem remains substantial in some part of the country. For instance, there have been several recent ethnic and religious conflicts in some areas. More importantly, in the context of Ethiopia, mapping language is politically sensitive.

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There are ethnic-based administrative regions that have been in place since 1994. Any language map that does not perfectly align with the political administrative divisions may not be welcomed by politicians and ethnocentric individuals. There are also economic issues. Mapping involves gathering linguistic data from various language sites. A survey based on an extended language area requires funds that cover transportation, accommodations, and other costs. Obtaining such funds is not easy, particularly for Ethiopian linguists. Much related to these reasons is also the shortage of modern communication systems such as postal and telecommunication systems that could have been essential for a wide-range survey. It is also essential to mention a long-standing tradition among scholars of Ethiosemitic languages. As noted by Goldenberg (1977) and Feleke (2020b), classification studies and formal grammatical descriptions dominated previous studies of Ethiosemitic languages for a couple reasons. The fact that various languages lack detailed grammatical description moved the grammatical description on the top of the priority list of Ethiosemitic scholars. Moreover, grammatical description is cost effective since it relies on the knowledge of a few informants, compared to mapping which requires surveying a wide language area. In addition, mapping requires computer skills and experience in using cartography software. Hence, the lack of knowledge and experience could be discouraging for Ethiopian Semitists. This reason is apparently the case in Ethiopian higher institutions. For instance, at Addis Ababa University, a leading institution in studying Ethiopian languages, graduate and postgraduate students are encouraged to follow formal descriptive approaches. The nature of the Ethiopian linguistic area could be another challenge. The area is characterized by high degree of intermingling between Ethiosemitic and non-Ethiosemitic languages (Crass and Meyer 2009; Ferguson 1976; Little 1974; Zaborski 1991). Hence, identifying proper Ethiosemitic features from features of non-Semitic languages could be exceedingly complex.

Summary and Conclusion The take home from the above discussions is that the controversy about the origin of Ethiosemitic languages remains partly unsolved. The linguistic, traditional, and archaeological postulations explains only a part of the mystery. Archaeological evidence seems to suggest that the proto-Ethiosemitic languages emerged initially in the form of creole and gradually developed into complex languages that later expanded from the north of Ethiopia to the south. The across Red Sea trade contacts between the speakers of prehistoric Ethiopian languages and that of South Semitic area played vital roles in the origin of Ethiosemitic languages. This pattern somehow differs from the one-way migration theory widely held among the scholars of Ethiosemitic languages. The mystery has been sustained partly due to the lack of grammatical descriptions of some of the languages, the extinction of some South Semitic languages, and the lack of extensive archaeological excavations on prehistoric Ethiopian languages that used to be spoken in the coastal areas of the Red Sea.

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Hopefully, future studies will focus on these areas and resolve this enduring controversy. With regard to the classification of Ethiosemitic languages, it was indicated that, regardless of the repetitive attempts, the issue of the internal classification of Ethiosemitic languages has remained as controversial as the origin of the languages. The lack of data on some of the languages, the weaknesses in the traditional comparative methods, the marginal emphasis given to the geographical classifications, the complex contact situations of the Ethiopian linguistic area, and the lack of data on the linguistic geography of Ethiosemitic languages are among the contributing factors. It was also indicated that further studies on the link between Ethiosemitic and South Semitic, on the geographical classification of Ethiosemitic languages, and on the geographical distribution of features of Ethiosemitic languages can play vital roles in resolving the long-standing classification debates. The chapter further illustrated that mapping is the most neglected area in the study of Ethiosemitic languages. There exist several language maps and a few linguistic maps in reviewed publications. These maps illustrate that the geographical distributions of the phonological, morphological, and syntactic features have been entirely neglected. A certain degree of attention has been bestowed to mapping the morphological features, but the morphology-based maps have several limitations; they have attributes of incompleteness, imprecision, technical frailty, and generality. Several additional factors contributed to these weaknesses, including the lack of data on some of the languages, past and present political situations in Ethiopia, scholars’ lack of interest in linguistic geography, limited technical skills, and lack of transportation and communication systems. In sum, the chapter brought to the attention of scholarly communities interested in northeast Africa some of the enduring controversies about the origin and classification of Ethiosemitic languages, the limitations in the origin and classification studies, and the associated challenges. Also, it further reviewed major mapping attempts. In the process, it illustrated the limitations of the maps and the challenges faced in mapping Ethiosemitic languages. The current discussion represents a step forward. It hopefully will invite future studies, especially on mapping and the geographical classification of Ethiosemitic languages.

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Exploring the Linguistic Landscape of Cities Through Crowdsourced Data Christoph Purschke

Contents Traditions and Trends in Linguistic Landscapes Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lingscape: Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crowdsourcing and Computation: Data-Driven Linguistic Landscape Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Power Users and Passersby: Participatory Linguistic Landscape Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Signage and Schools: Educational Linguistic Landscape Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The survey of signage and language in the public sphere (as a central element of everyday social practice) has developed into a vital branch of sociolinguistics called “linguistic landscapes”. The field is currently witnessing processes of methodological consolidation, structural institutionalization, and thematic diversification. These processes foster the emergence of new trends in the field, such as participatory research, mobile crowdsourcing, and engagement in educational settings. In the context of this disciplinary dynamics, the chapter introduces a participatory research project, Lingscape, that focuses on the documentation and analysis of linguistic landscapes worldwide. The project aims at creating awareness for the semiotic complexity and social relevance of public signage by using a mobile research app to collect photos of signs in close cooperation with the public. After a brief introduction to the app and project, the text discusses three related aspects of working with crowdsourced data in linguistic landscapes research: first, the collected data is analyzed quantitatively to compare the linguistic crowdscapes of Luxembourg City and Vienna; second, user engagement in the project is discussed against the backdrop of user activity (photo C. Purschke (*) University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_3

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uploads, months of participation) and different spatial orientation strategies in the linguistic landscape; and, third, the use of the Lingscape app as a digital teaching tool in educational settings is highlighted using the example of a collaborative class project with a German school in Windhoek, Namibia. In doing so, the chapter illustrates the innovative potential of participatory research and crowdsourced data for further development of linguistic landscape research. Keywords

Multilingualism · Mobile research app · Public signage · Participatory research · Crowdsourcing · Educational apps · Linguistic landscape

Traditions and Trends in Linguistic Landscapes Research The study of linguistic landscapes has become a vital branch of sociolinguistic research. Starting from the analysis of visual multilingualism in urban settings in the late 1970s (Rosenbaum et al. 1977; Tulp 1978), linguistic landscape research has developed into a multifaceted approach to study the semiotic, structural, and social complexity of human action in the lifeworld. Given the dynamics and diversity of the field, there is no unifying definition of linguistic landscape research at the moment, although the field has already seen a couple of theoretical, methodological, and thematic shifts in its development (see Shohamy and Gorter 2009 or Barni and Bagna 2015 for an overview). Traditionally, studies dealing with aspects of visible multilingualism in urban communities refer to the definition by Landry and Bourhis (1997) which focuses on written language in public space. Starting from this, the field has been witnessing processes of consolidation, institutionalization, and diversification over the last 15 years: Consolidation: Most studies now operate within an established set of theoretical frameworks from a variety of disciplines like anthropology, ethnography, geography, linguistics, and sociology (Ben-Rafael 2009; Troyer and Szabó 2017). They apply standardized methodological setups for analytical taxonomies, data processing approaches, and interpretative framings (Scollon and Scollon 2003; Backhaus 2007) and develop comparable empirical regards in relation to the sociocultural dynamics, symbolic structuring, ideological framing, cultural embodiment, or digital transformation of human practice in the lifeworld (Blommaert 2013; Peck and Stroud 2015). Institutionalization: There is now a dedicated journal for linguistic landscape studies (Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal), a decade of linguistic landscape workshops around the globe as well as thematic panels and sections at sociolinguist venues, a comprehensive bibliography for the field (Troyer 2013), and numerous special volumes and book chapters covering a wide range of topics. Plus, several introductory articles cover the historic development of the field (Gorter 2013; Huebner 2016; Van Mensel et al. 2016).

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Diversification: At the same time, the field is fanning out massively in terms of topics, including more rural locations (e.g., remote islands; Buchstaller and Alvanides 2017), different modes of action and perception (“smellscapes”; Pennycook and Otsuji 2015), physical expressions (body modifications; Peck and Stroud 2015), real-life applications (“schoolscapes”; Szabó and Leihonen 2017), or participatory perspectives on linguistic landscape research (citizen science; Purschke 2017a). While such processes are typical for emerging and expanding research fields that attract many new scholars, some noticeable macro-level trends in linguistic landscape research describe the current overall evolution of the field. There seem to be shifts: • • • • •

From linguistic to semiotic landscapes From multilingualism to multimodality From interpretation-based to data-driven approaches From merely linguistic to wider social regards From urban spaces to “x-scapes” (the motto of the tenth International Linguistic Landscapes Workshop in Berne, Switzerland, in 2018)

Against the backdrop of these developments, this chapter discusses the potential of new theoretical, methodological, and empirical approaches to linguistic landscape research by using the example of the project Lingscape – Citizen science meets linguistic landscaping. Theoretically, the establishment of a citizen science approach opens up new perspectives for the study of linguistic landscapes but also brings with it some potential shortcomings in regard to data control and quality (Purschke 2017a). Methodologically, the application of computational and crowdsourcing techniques to data collection and processing enables linguistic landscape studies to widen their perspective by dint of bigger samples and to deepen their analysis of the semiotic structure of social spaces by combining linguistic landscape data with demographic or user data (Purschke 2017b). Empirically, the implementation of a mobile research app in educational settings (as a digital teaching and learning tool) leads to new possibilities for an interactive and socially aware teaching practice that addresses linguistic and cultural diversity (Purschke 2018).

Lingscape: Background The project Lingscape – Citizen science meets linguistic landscaping is an initiative developed by Christoph Purschke and Peter Gilles and hosted at the University of Luxembourg (https://lingscape.uni.lu). Using a mobile research application and crowdsourcing technology, the project fosters the documentation and analysis of linguistic landscapes around the globe. The rationale behind the project follows a citizen science approach: participants are actively included in all aspects of project work, from data collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of results to the development and testing of new features. In doing so, the project forms part of the

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citizen science movement – a current trend in academia – that pursues an opening (public participation in research activities), democratization (shared authority between citizens and scientists), and social embedding (societal engagement of research projects) of academic research (see Strasser et al. 2019 for a discussion). Luxembourg presents the ideal starting point for such a project: the country is being shaped by a complex multilingual situation, i.e., a historically grown societal trilingualism enriched by several minority and migrant languages, such as Portuguese, Italian, or Serbo-Croatian (Erhart and Fehlen 2011), and highly dynamic sociocultural setup characterized by rapid, socio-economically driven growth with a net population increase of 19.7% between 2011 (512,000) and 2019 (613,000) including 47.5% foreign residents (STATEC 2019). However, the focus of the project is not limited to Luxembourg; the platform and mobile apps are open to participants and projects worldwide. All project work is based on a free mobile research app, Lingscape, which was first released in 2016 and can be downloaded worldwide for Android and iOS devices. The app comprises three main functions (Fig. 1): a map viewer to explore all uploads including metadata, a photo upload for new contributions of photos and annotations, and an advanced mode for specialized sub-projects with customizable annotation categories that allow an in-depth analysis of public signage. Access to and use of the app are open and anonymous: neither a personal login nor the transmission of personal information is required. All uploads are instantly published on the map and moderated ex post to avoid inappropriate material and potential misuse.

Fig. 1 The three main functions of the mobile research app Lingscape: map viewer (left), photo upload (center), advanced mode with additional annotations (right)

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To facilitate app use and thus contributions by the public, the app uses a very simple data scheme that only requires basic metadata for a photo (i.e., location, visible languages, time stamp). Advanced annotation possibilities are only used in specialized sub-projects that require a more detailed analysis of contributions, for example, for discourse types, the operative state or visible scripts of signs. Project leaders can access and administer their data via a web front end. Participants can join a project simply by entering a specific project password in the app settings screen. Project data are publicly visible by default, but access to uploads can be restricted to project participants for data collection purposes. Additionally, all public uploads are accessible via an interactive online map with dynamic analysis widgets (using the map service CARTO (https://lingscape.carto.com)).

Crowdsourcing and Computation: Data-Driven Linguistic Landscape Research In recent years, mobile apps have increasingly entered linguistics, especially dialectology. Mobile research apps are used to collect voice recordings, document regional variation, or analyze specific voice characteristics (Leemann et al. 2016). The use of this technique (called crowdsourcing) makes it possible to collect large amounts of data with comparatively little effort and thus to place empirical research on a much broader foundation compared to traditional linguistic studies (Brabham 2013). Although such surveys have some limitations on the control and quality of the data collected (Wang et al. 2016), these are usually offset by the sheer volume of material collected. In this way, linguistic data (e.g., regionally different language usage in Germany) can be mapped based on crowdsourced data (Leemann et al. 2017). A similar development can be seen in linguistic landscapes research. In the last few years, quantitatively oriented studies that capture and analyze linguistic landscapes statistically and with the help of technical aids are gaining more attention compared with traditional, more qualitative ethnographic analyses (Lyons and Rodríguez-Ordóñez 2017). In addition to computational data analysis, this includes crowdsourcing apps that can be used to collect, process, and visualize data together with the public (Gaiser and Matras 2016). For linguistic landscape research, the combination of crowdsourcing methodology and computational analysis provides a multilayered view of linguistic landscapes, because data are not only collected and analyzed from a researcher’s point of view. Instead, the multitude of personal perspectives offered by the participants contributes to a more comprehensive, yet pieced up, picture of the linguistic landscape. In addition, this type of data collection opens up new types of research questions, such as the documentation of current trends and events in public signage (e.g., election campaigns), individual orientation strategies in public space, or the question of how citizens interact with participatory research apps (see section “Power Users and Passersby: Participatory Linguistic Landscape Research”). To date (April 2019), the Lingscape project has collected roughly 16,000 publicly available photos contributed by more than 900 unique participants including data

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from more than 80 sub-projects. Additionally, there are roughly 4,000 photos in private sub-projects currently hidden from the public. All collected data are stored on a dedicated server and processed manually by ex post moderation as well as computationally, i.e., transformed and transferred to the interactive CARTO map using a Python script. The map widgets allow the geostatistical filtering and analysis of the data based on categories (e.g., language labels), values (e.g., language count per sign), or dates (e.g., month of upload). By this means, the collected data can be easily analyzed quantitatively. For the purpose of this text, however, the data were extracted from the database and processed in a Jupyter Notebook (see the data statement at the end of the chapter). Through these computational means, it is possible to compare the data collected for the two best-covered cities in the dataset, Luxembourg City and Vienna, in relation to the distribution, frequency, and presence of languages in the linguistic landscape. Technically speaking, these data only represent the personal choices of the participants when uploading data to the map and, therefore, only a small subsample of the signs available in the respective linguistic landscape. Thus, the data have to be understood as a collaborative (re)construction of the linguistic landscape of a given location. To account for that fact, this kind of user-generated image of a linguistic landscape will be referred to as a linguistic crowdscape. Judging from experience, one might expect Luxembourg City and Vienna to look differently given their specific sociolinguistic setup: compared to “multilingual wonderland” Luxembourg, Vienna should be a more or less “German-speaking” city on the sociolinguistic macro level with (mainly) English as an addition to the linguistic landscape. Looking at the statistics for the distribution of languages, that is, the number of languages per sign, this assumption can already be substantiated from the dataset (the term sign represents a photo in the Lingscape database. In practice, some photos contain several individual signs, e.g., a collection of transgressive stickers on a street sign). The data (Table 1) show a higher number of monolingual signs for Vienna (70.2%), whereas the Luxembourg linguistic crowdscape contains a higher share of bi- and trilingual signs (48.7%). This relation is also mirrored in the average number of languages per sign, which is 1.77 for Luxembourg compared to only 1.27 in Vienna. Beyond that, both linguistic crowdscapes mostly contain signs that display between one and four languages Table 1 Distribution of languages in the Luxembourg and Vienna crowdscapes

Languages per sign Total number of signs 1 language 2 languages 3 languages 4 languages 5+ languages Missing labels Total 1–4 languages Average per sign (1–4)

Luxembourg 1260 577 (45.8%) 421 (33.4%) 193 (15.3%) 48 (3.8%) 12 (1.0%) 9 (0.7%) 1239 (98.3%) 1.77

Vienna 2689 1888 (70.2%) 511 (19.0%) 64 (2.4%) 9 (0.3%) 15 (0.6%) 202 (7.5%) 2472 (91.9%) 1.27

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(almost 99%, including the larger share of signs without language labels in Vienna). Therefore, the analysis will focus on these types of signs in the following section, also excluding the signs without language labels from the statistics. Methodologically speaking, signs without language labels demonstrate one potential disadvantage of citizen science projects: a lack of control over data quality due to an open and unsupervised upload policy. The difference between the two cities also becomes apparent in the maps (Figs. 2 and 3) displaying the distribution of mono- and multilingual signs in Luxembourg City and Vienna. The Luxembourg map shows higher amounts of tri- and quadrilingual signs (yellow and red dots) spread across the entire city. In contrast to this, the Vienna map is largely dominated by mono- and bilingual signs (blue and green dots), while instances of tri- and quadrilingual signs are relatively sparse (and seem to be restricted to commercial areas with a large numbers of restaurants and shops). This difference indicates that the cities vary in regard to their sociolinguistic setup: while the Luxembourg City map clearly reflects the country’s complex societal multilingualism, the Vienna map gives the impression of a society with one dominant language (German) and a secondary language (English) structuring a large part of the city’s linguistic landscape. Apart from the fact that Luxembourg seems to be a more multilingual city, that doesn’t tell much about the specific linguistic make-up of both places, that is, which languages dominate the linguistic crowdscape of Luxembourg City and Vienna. To

Fig. 2 Number of languages per sign in Luxembourg City (N ¼ 1239): 1 (blue), 2 (green), 3 (yellow), 4 (red)

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Fig. 3 Number of languages per sign in Vienna (N ¼ 2472): 1 (blue), 2 (green), 3 (yellow), 4 (red)

account for that, it is important to take a closer look at the frequency of the different languages in the dataset as well as their respective presence in mono- and multilingual signs. Tables 2 and 3 show frequency statistics for the four most frequent languages of each city against the background of all mono- to quadrilingual signs. For example, French in Luxembourg City is present on 44.0% of all monolingual, 80.7% of all bilingual, 95.3% of all trilingual, and 100% of all quadrilingual signs. The row “Total (of labeled signs)” shows the frequency of a language against the backdrop of all labeled signs in the dataset, for example, French is present on 67.7% of all mono- to quadrilingual signs uploaded in Luxembourg City. The column “Total (of x-lingual signs)” displays the share of the four languages per sign type, for example, 93.1% of all bilingual signs contain French, English, Luxembourgish, and/or German. In relation to the languages that dominate the respective linguistic crowdscapes, there are striking differences. The crowdscape of Vienna seems to contain predominantly German (present on 84.8% of all labeled signs) and, to a lesser degree, English (26.6%). Incidentally, the instances of French and Italian in the database appear mostly on commercial signs (i.e., for restaurants and shops). By contrast, Luxembourg City’s sociolinguistic make-up looks entirely different, and more diverse, with French being the most frequent language (66.7%), English in second place (39.4%), and Luxembourgish (31.4%) and German (28.5%) as strong

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Table 2 Language frequency in the Luxembourg City crowdscape (N ¼ 1239) Languages per sign (x) 1 2 3 4 Total (1–4 languages)

French 254 (44.0%) 340 (80.7%) 184 (95.3%) 48 (100.0%) 826 (66.7%)

English 136 (23.6%) 158 (37.5%) 149 (77.2%) 45 (93.7%) 488 (39.4%)

Luxembourgish 114 (19.7%) 155 (36.8%) 81 (41.9%) 39 (81.2%) 389 (31.4%)

German 50 (8.6%) 131 (31.1%) 134 (69.4%) 38 (79.1%) 353 (28.5%)

Total (of x-lingual signs) 554 (95.5%) 392 (93.1%) 183 (94.6%) 43 (88.5%) 1172 (94.6%)

Table 3 Language frequency in the Vienna crowdscape (N ¼ 2472) Languages per sign (x) 1 2 3 4 Total (of labeled signs)

German 1546 (81.9%) 484 (94.7%) 60 (93.8%) 7 (77.8%) 2097 (84.8%)

English 226 (12.0%) 372 (72.8%) 52 (81.3%) 7 (77.8%) 657 (26.6%)

French 26 (1.4%) 30 (5.9%) 22 (34.4%) 5 (55.6%) 95 (3.4%)

Italian 20 (1.1%) 34 (6.7%) 14 (21,9%) 5 (55,6%) 73 (3%)

Total (of x-lingual signs) 1818 (96.4%) 460 (90.0%) 49 (77.1%) 6 (66.7%) 2333 (94.4%)

contenders in third place. However, the most important minority languages, Portuguese and Italian, appear very seldom in the Luxembourg City linguistic crowdscape. Generally speaking, minority languages are not very present in the linguistic landscape of Luxembourg. There are only some localities in the country, where Portuguese is more present for sociodemographic reasons (e.g., the “Minette” region in the south). In the case of Vienna and given the official status of the German language in Austria, the data do not come as a surprise; one would expect similar images for many other cities in the German-speaking area. However, Eastern European languages, such as Croatian, Serbian, or Slovenian, which are fairly present in the Vienna linguistic landscape, are completely missing in the crowdscape data so far. In contrast, the Luxembourg City map not only reflects the official trilingual language regime, with French as dominant language in public space (due to its role as administrative language and most important language of commerce), but also two recent trends in the local linguistic landscape: a) The rise of Luxembourgish as a written variety that claims presence also in public space, at the expense of German (Belling and De Bres 2014; traditionally, German was seen as written equivalent of Luxembourgish as predominantly spoken variety)

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b) The growing importance of English in a highly diverse society that hosts up to 65% foreign residents in the capital (Pigeron-Piroth et al. 2015), besides its extensive touristic tapping Not only is the linguistic crowdscape of Luxembourg City more multilingual and diverse, but the dominant languages are also evenly spread throughout the entire city despite their relative frequency (Fig. 4) and thus have a similarly strong presence in the Luxembourg City linguistic crowdscape. Contrary to this pattern, where German and English are evenly spread in the Vienna linguistic crowdscape, the presence of French and Italian seems to be limited to certain areas, that is, the city center that contains a high amount of tourism information signs and some commercial streets with many restaurants and shops (Fig. 5). That is, the number of French and Italian signs in the dataset is rather small in general. However, such a linguistic make-up is typical for cities with one dominant language, as can be shown for the presence of heritage languages in the linguistic landscape of Manchester (Gaiser and Matras 2016). The comparison of the linguistic crowdscapes for Vienna and Luxembourg draws considerably different pictures for both cities. While Vienna fits the profile of a city with a dominant official language that is accompanied by a layer of English (mainly for commercial and touristic purposes), Luxembourg City gives the impression of a highly multilingual city with several dominant languages that are spread across the entire linguistic landscape and a high percentage of multilingual signs (54.5% of all collected signs) compared to Vienna (29.8%). Using crowdsourced data and computational analysis methods can help to reveal new and quantitative insights into the specific sociolinguistic setup of local linguistic landscapes.

Power Users and Passersby: Participatory Linguistic Landscape Research The same pattern holds true in relation to the participatory dimension of project work in Lingscape. The data collected by the participants can be used not only to examine the linguistic make-up of a city but also to show how users interact with mobile research apps in general, for example, by focusing on participation profiles of users and how individual users explore the linguistic landscape by dint of Lingscape, that is, their individual spatial orientation strategies. This focus can be achieved by analyzing the dataset for different types of users and engagement with the linguistic landscape of a specific location. Generally speaking, the aim of participatory research in the Lingscape project is to collect and analyze information about the linguistic (and cultural) diversity of modern societies together with interested participants using the example of public signage. For the participants, deliberately addressing the semiotic complexity of public signage initially poses a double challenge: on the one hand, in everyday life, many people usually pay close attention to signs only when they actively seek something or the signs are for some reason particularly conspicuous (i.e., labeled,

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Fig. 4 Presence of the dominant languages in the Luxembourg City crowdscape: French (blue), English (red), Luxembourgish (orange), German (green)

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Fig. 5 (continued)

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Fig. 5 Presence of the dominant languages in the Vienna crowdscape: German (green), English (red), French (blue), Italian (yellow)

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designed, or placed, in a salient manner). Theoretically speaking, the “contextual conspicuity” of signs is called salience as opposed to the “practical relevance” of signs as pertinence (see Purschke forthcoming). In addition, people are accustomed to reading signs primarily as bearers of factual information while being mostly unaware of the linguistic, graphical, and social informational layers that they contain. Working with participatory research apps has a lasting effect here: participants acquire a changed perspective on the linguistic and cultural diversity that surrounds them. Signs and inscriptions are no longer experienced merely as bearers of factual information, but consciously and as (graphically, linguistically, as well as socially) complex signs that carry rich sociocultural information. For example, the increasing presence of Luxembourgish in signs in Luxembourg can shed light on its growing importance as an official language and national symbol as well as on its expansion to the written domain, which can then be contrasted with public discourse on language policy, the societal role, and the symbolic function of the language. To take a closer look at the participation for the Lingscape project, it is helpful to assess different quantitative measures, e.g., the number of photo uploads and number of active users per month (Table 4; Fig. 6). Table 4 Number of photo uploads and active users per month Uploads Users

Mean 448.1 40.6

SD 365.8 22.5

Min 1 1

25% 174.5 24

Fig. 6 Number of photo uploads and active users per month

50% 343 38

75% 643.5 52

Max 1557 95

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As can be seen, both the number of total uploads and users vary heavily across the months ranging between only 1 user/upload (June 2016) and 95 active users (September 2018) and 1557 uploads (May 2017). Furthermore, the number of active users per month and uploads per month develop in similar patterns over time, as can be shown by clustering the months (using the K-means method; the optimal number of clusters was determined using the elbow criterion) by active users and uploads, that is, “busy” months that bring many photo uploads also tend to be months with many active users (Fig. 7), compared to “slower” months. However, there are some exceptions, that is, the scatterplot shows months that see many uploads submitted by a relatively small number of users (May 2017) and months with lesser uploads but a large number of active users (September 2018). Often peaks in either active users or uploads correspond to the carrying out of a new sub-project or social outreach activities in the media. So, while user activity varies in general, that does not tell much yet about the different user profiles in the dataset. To account for that, one can take a closer look at the number of uploads and the months of participation per user (Table 5). Although participation in Lingscape is anonymous, user participation can be analyzed by using a device-specific technical identifier that is being transmitted with every upload (for legal requirements). To maintain user anonymity (and match data protection regulations), these identifiers are being replaced by randomly assigned user names during data processing. Again, there is a great amount of variation in the dataset. Of 835 active users, some have many uploads/active months, and others have only a few of both, i.e., 50% of the users have submitted only 1 or 2 photos and 75% of the users have only

Fig. 7 Month profiles (clustering of photo uploads and active users per month) Table 5 User statistics (N active users ¼ 835) as for uploads and active months Uploads Active months

Mean 12.9 1.6

SD 49.1 2.0

Min 1 1

25% 1 1

50% 2 1

75% 8 1

Max 787 26

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actively participated for 1 month. For this analysis, the 3 most active users, who have more than 1000 uploads each, have been removed from the sample because they are directly (the author) or indirectly (project partners in Vienna hosting several sub-projects) linked to the project (regarding the classification of users below, this user type could be called hardcore users). Clustering users by active months and number of uploads reveals three distinct participation profiles, that is, the clusters in the scatterplot (Table 6; Fig. 8): a) A large group of casual users with only a few uploads and a short participation time. Many of these might be occasional “passersby” which test the app once and then move on. b) A small group of regular users with a large number of uploads and a longer participation time. These users will likely be participants and/or managers of sub-projects, e.g., students collecting data for their master’s theses. c) A very small group of power users with a very large number of uploads and a very large number of active months. These users will most likely be managers of sub-projects, those close to the project team, or enthusiastic linguists. As can be seen, participatory research in Lingscape profits from different types of users who contribute to data collection based on different participation profiles. But how exactly do regular and power users explore the linguistic landscape of a given Table 6 Participation profiles

Casual users Regular users Power users

Number of users 790 40 5

Total uploads Mean Max 5.5 46 89.7 262 563.0 789

Min 1 48 395

Participation months Mean Max Min 1.4 13 1 4.7 19 1 9.8 26 2

Fig. 8 Participation profiles (clustering of photo uploads and months of participation by user)

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location? Taking a look at the contributions by individual users reveals individual differences in spatial orientation strategies, that is, different ways of tapping the linguistic landscape. Table 7 and Fig. 9 demonstrate four different types of engagement with the task given to the participants in Lingscape. The maps show the uploads by four individual users for Vienna, all regular or power users. In terms of sheer numbers, the four users show similar behavior, despite the fact that Users 2 and 4 seem to focus more on monolingual signs and Users 1 and 2 capture a greater variety of languages compared to the others. However, the distribution of the four users’ uploads on the maps clearly shows why Users 1 and 2 capture a more diverse image of the Vienna linguistic landscape: they move differently through the city, not only in relation to the different areas they cover but also in terms of their spatial orientation strategy. a) Exhaustive: User 1 covers almost the entire city uploading a photo here and there without fully exploring any specific neighborhood. b) Strolling: User 2 represents a type of user who is wandering around in certain areas of the city capturing photos along the way. c) Street focus: User 3 focuses on specific streets instead of neighborhoods, capturing a larger portion of the available signs. d) Area focus: User 4 concentrates on specific small-scale areas in which they capture a large number of signs. An illustrative example for the strolling user type can be found in the Vancouver crowdscape. At this point there are 321 photos for the city in the dataset, all provided by the same user who uploaded signs during 10 consecutive days in late October/ early November 2016. Table 8 shows a rhythmic change between days with many uploads and days with only some, indicating that the user did not go to Vancouver only to explore the linguistic landscape. For the 5 days with the most uploads, the map (Fig. 10) shows how the user explored the linguistic landscape of Vancouver differently on these days, hiking all around Stanley Park on 1 day (yellow dots) while hopping between the downtown area, North Vancouver, and the Broadway area on another (blue). Table 7 Spatial orientation strategies in Vienna User Orientation strategy Uploads Languages average Monolingual signs Bilingual signs Trilingual signs Quadrilingual signs Five or more languages Unlabeled signs

1 Exhaustive 412 1.69 264 108 23 4 12 1

2 Strolling 262 1.34 182 75 3 1 2

3 Street focus 141 1.52 81 48 11 1

4 Area focus 608 1.15 522 80 6

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Fig. 9 Spatial orientation strategies in the Vienna linguistic crowdscape: exhaustive (green), strolling (red), street focus (orange), area focus (blue)

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Table 8 An individual user participation profile: uploads from Vancouver by day Date in 2016 Oct. 30 Oct. 31 Nov. 1 Nov. 2 Nov. 3 Nov. 4 Nov. 5 Nov. 6 Nov. 7 Nov. 8 Total

Uploads 60 2 75 90 7 36 35 4 3 9 321

1 language 55 2 50 73 7 31 26 2 2 8 256

2 languages 3

3 languages 1

4 languages

>4 languages 1

17 15

4 1

3 1

1

5 7 2 1 1 51

1

7

1

4

3

Fig. 10 An individual user’s participation profile showing uploads from Vancouver for the participant’s five most active days

While this spatial orientation strategy resembles the strolling pattern of User 2, there might be an additional motivation, for example, being a tourist in the city, that explains why the user covers many of the noteworthy spots in the cityscape while uploading photos along the way, at least on some days. Interestingly enough, looking at the uploads for the different days individually (Table 8) reveals the impression that a participant gets from a linguistic landscape can change from day

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to day, that is, capturing a more diverse image of the linguistic landscape on the five more active days compared to the five lesser active days as well as in downtown (Nov. 1–2, 2016) as opposed to the walk around Stanley Park (Oct. 30, 2016). By analyzing the photos submitted by the participants as well as their individual user type and spatial orientation strategy, the data demonstrate how citizens (a) engage in participatory research projects, (b) interact with mobile research apps, and (c) explore the linguistic landscape of a given location.

Signage and Schools: Educational Linguistic Landscape Research The third development in linguistic landscape research concerns the use of linguistic landscape methodology in classrooms to foster language learning, the discussion of cultural and linguistic diversity, and digital literacy training. This line of research can be illustrated using the example of a class project in Windhoek, Namibia, in November 2018 in collaboration with German teachers at the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule. The general potential of linguistic landscape research for education has already been addressed in research in the context of foreign language teaching (Lazdiņa and Marten 2009). It can be shown that the use of linguistic landscape materials in classroom settings can improve learning behavior and success (Dagenais et al. 2009), especially in embedded learning scenarios (Malinowski 2010; Rowland 2013). Malinowski (2015) discusses different types of potential activities in this context, that is, critical text analysis, collecting and analyzing public signage, and ethnographic interviews. The use of mobile apps as a learning resource has not been considered in the discussion thus far. Based on a teaching concept “Language in the City” (Purschke 2018), 2 groups of students (11th grade) explored the surroundings of their school in Windhoek collecting 196 photos altogether as part of a teaching unit on linguistic and cultural diversity in Namibia. The unit focused on the social value and societal role of the different heritage languages in the country. As a starting point, the groups discussed an article on the status and development of Namibian German and drew mind maps reflecting their personal perception of the country’s societal multilingualism. The groups then collected photos and presented their findings in class. According to the students’ photos, the linguistic landscape of Windhoek is dominated by English, the only official language of the country, but often accompanied by German or Afrikaans, two of the colonial heritage languages, except for some Chinese signs in commercial or touristic contexts and rare instances of national tribal languages. This dominance of English in the linguistic landscape can be explained by Namibia’s rich and conflictual history reaching from early settlement by local tribes over European colonization starting in the fifteenth century and administration by South Africa after World War I to a late independence in 1990. As a consequence of this history, English was proclaimed as the only and supposedly “neutral” language of administration (Frydman 2011). Based on this evaluation of the linguistic landscape, discussions in class shifted from the topic of Namibian German to the complicated role of English in the national

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language regime. While for the younger generation English is a main language of communication in everyday life, for larger parts of the population, the language poses a practical problem, for example, in relation to the accessibility of information. Also, illiteracy poses a common problem in the population. Despite being somehow a “neutral” language for all local communities, this neutrality of English also results in a lack of identification in the older generation and a general tension between official language policy and the historically grown cultural diversity. Afrikaans, for example, although being politically ostracized due to historical reasons, still plays an important role as an everyday language. Despite being a good case study for the use of linguistic landscape approaches in education, this class project also highlighted some practical difficulties, some of which concern methodological issues (e.g., the categorization of African language varieties for annotation, the availability of mobile phones, and network coverage), some of which relate to empirical hurdles (e.g., the limited mobility of the students, language knowledge, and motivation in the children), while others revolve around technical challenges (e.g., duplicates, untagged or blurry photos, the documentation and dissemination of results). Nevertheless, the use of Lingscape as a mobile learning resource in class projects opens up the possibility of developing new approaches to discussing linguistic and cultural diversity together with children, accompanying the projects with teaching materials, and thus giving new impulses to linguistic landscape research.

Conclusion The discussion of the Lingscape project in this chapter demonstrates how linguistic landscape research can benefit from new impulses and techniques. The analysis of crowdsourced data has shown that data collected by a large and diverse group of participants can be used to reconstruct the linguistic landscape of a given location. The comparison of Vienna and Luxembourg City, regarding their linguistic make-up, has revealed different linguistic crowdscapes that are in line with the respective city’s sociolinguistic setting, that is, quadrilingual for Luxembourg and mainly dominated by German (and, to some extent, English) for Vienna. The distribution, frequency, and presence of dominant languages have proven to be helpful categories for analyzing the specific structure of a city’s linguistic landscape. The discussion of user participation and personal spatial orientation strategies has shed light on how citizen engagement in participatory research projects varies in terms of upload quantity and months of activity: while most participants contribute to the project only for a short period of time by uploading one or two photos, there are also smaller groups of regularly or heavily engaged users who contribute to data collection over several months and/or by many uploaded photos. Furthermore, users seem to explore the linguistic landscape of a given location based on personal orientation strategies that focus on a specific area or street, that cover large parts of a city, or are the result of strolls in a specific area of a city.

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Using the example of a class project in Windhoek, Namibia, the implementation of mobile research apps in educational settings proved to be a good example to foster a discussion about linguistic and sociocultural diversity as part of dedicated teaching units. The students engaged consciously with the local linguistic landscape by collecting and analyzing public signage revealing a sociocultural tension in the local language regime: on the one hand, the complicated role of English as the only official language that also dominates in the Windhoek linguistic landscape and, on the other hand, the factors influencing the delicate balance in the language regime, that is, the historically grown linguistic and ethnic diversity of the country. In light of the above and given its structural development, linguistic landscape research certainly will continue to grow and diversify in the years to come, picking up new impulses and approaches from different disciplines along the way. The use of mobile participatory research applications poses one promising addition to the disciplinary landscape that opens up new perspectives for data collection, analysis, and dissemination but also brings with it potential shortcomings in relation to control over data quality and quantity (Purschke forthcoming). The analysis of Lingscape data, however, reveals how crowdsourced data can be put to good use for the survey of linguistic landscapes around the world.

Data Statement Data and code for this chapter is open access and available via the project GitHub repository at https://github.com/questoph/lingscape. The quantitative analysis was realized using a Jupyter Notebook with the Python packages Pandas, NumPy, and Scikit-learn for statistical analysis and Matplotlib, Seaborn, and CARTOframes for plotting/map creation.

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Changing Attitudes of Beijingness to Westernized Place Names in Beijing: From the Semi-Colonial Period to Postmodern Twenty-First Century Shangyi Zhou

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perspectives and Tensions of Westernized Place Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Three Periods of the Westernized Place Names in Beijing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Westernization of Place Names in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Background of Semi-Colonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Only Two Short-Lived Westernized Place Names During This Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anti-Westernization of Place Names in the Early Cultural Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Background Based on Extreme Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Street of Anti-imperialism and Street of Anti-revisionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Westernization of Place Names after the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Background of Westernization in Place Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Westernization of Corporate and Real Estate Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

One of the goals of China’s place name governance, which started in 2015, is to remove westernized place names. This study investigates what westernized place names are not suitable for a city in China. It uses Beijing as an example to analyze the westernized place names of Beijing in three periods against the prevailing social background. The first period is from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China. The second period is from 1949 to 1980 which started with the foundation of People’s Republic of China to the early years of China beginning to open up. The third period is from 1980 to 2019. In addressing this topic both the government and the mass media have asked major questions for study by toponymic scholars. Two major conclusions are provided. First, Beijingness knew the symbolic meaning of place names in the S. Zhou (*) University of Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_4

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first period and actively used place naming and renaming to reflect the prevailing ideological viewpoint of society. In the last period real estate developers started to commercialize the cultural capital of westernized place names. Second, after three periods of examining westernized place names, the attitudes of Beijingness toward westernized place names reflect balances between the old and new, the local and global, and a positioning and spiritual function. This discussion advances thinking about the administrative management of the westernized place names in Beijing and even in China, that is, acknowledging that the laws and regulations on place names need to be coordinated with existing laws and regulations, including those addressing property rights. Keywords

Westernized place names · Beijing · Toponymy · Regulation

Introduction Perspectives and Tensions of Westernized Place Names The Chinese have always had objections to westernized place names in China. That opposition has become stronger since 2015. The 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012 proposed to promote China’s outstanding traditional culture. Since then, China’s place name management and place name research have begun to emphasize the maintenance of the cultural tradition of Chinese place names. By 2015, the reflection on westernized place names has gradually increased. Results from a query on the search engine Muduo Discovering show that 39.5% of books and articles on westernized place names in Chinese language have been published in the last 5 years. On March 22, 2016, the State Council’s Office of the Second National Geographical Names Census Leading Group held a video conference on strengthening the protection of cultural names and cleaning up and rectifying irregular names in Beijing. The Minister of Civil Affairs, Li Liguo, stated that it was necessary to focus on the rectification of four types of place names existing in China: place names with larger scales than normal, westernized place names, strange place names, and duplicated place names. Against this background, both the government and the mass media came up with two questions for toponymic scholars: What kinds of westernized place names are not suitable for a city in China? and How does the government deal with westernized place names? Resisting westernized place names and changing colonial place names are common features in developing countries. For example, Yeoh (1996) discussed the end of 155 years of colonial era in Singapore. In post-independence a whole generation of indigenous toponyms spawned which not only drew inspiration from local material but also substituted the Malay equivalent jalan or Lorong for the word road or street. Another example is that the New Zealand government has pursued a bilingual place-naming policy to reflect the heritage of both Māori as the Indigenous

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people and Pākehā as the European colonizers (Albury and Carter 2017). Cultural geographers pay attention to changes of place names, especially the change of place naming rights accompanying social change. These studies coincide with the emergence of critical toponymy research that began in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s it was noted that a “critical appreciation of power and ideology is often far from the center of concern in toponymic studies” (Myers 1996, p. 237). This is no longer the case today since the “political” has now become one of the central concerns of critical approaches to place-name studies. Many scholars have emphasized the importance of understanding place naming as a contested spatial practice (Berg and Vuolteenaho 2009). This chapter reviews the change of the westernized place names in Beijing in three historical periods, which are mentioned in the following part of this chapter. Previous research of toponymy includes both traditional methods and critical methods. Zelinsky (1997, p. 465) calls for new perspectives of toponomy rather than “collecting, classifying, and seeking origins for names.” He emphasized the probes of connections to the encompassing totality of human phenomena. Rose-Redwood et al. (2010) found that three distinct approaches had been used to examining toponymic practices a decade after Zelinsky’s call. They are political semiotics, governmentality studies, and normative theories of social justice and symbolic resistance in “cultural arenas” (Rose-Redwood et al. 2010). Considering the perspective of political semiotics, Yu (2015) used Beijing Royal Garden as an example to analyze the Cosmological Symbolism in the cultural significance of place names in Beijing. Using the perspective of governmentality studies, Yue and Zhao (2010) analyzed the phenomenon in Beijing where the parcel name of land purchased by a real estate developer from local government later became a place name, and the government did not approve it as a geographical name. They pointed out that it is a loophole in government administration. According to the perspective of normative theories of social justice, Yuan (1996) pointed out that in the 1990s, the government practice of auctioning geographical names to enterprises would bring social injustice. This situation occurred in Beijing as well. The three approaches used in toponymic research have not discussed the westernized names in Beijing. The research guided by the three approaches of toponymy has not directly provided the answer to the two questions raised above. Even if people know the cultural meaning of a place name, the officials working in the place name office of the national or provincial civil affairs department cannot decide which place name meanings are acceptable. This confusion is understandable and is why Beijing residents have different attitudes toward westernized place names (Su 2006). Similar views were expressed in a book published in the 1920s, viz., that people should not be overly sensitive to the meaning of place names. “When I hear the name Friedrichstrasse or similar street names, I don’t think for a minute that the street is named after Friedrich I or anyone else” (Loewy 1927, p. 303). Regardless of the confusion, it is most important to understand what westernized place names mean for the cultural orientation of most people in a certain period. If people understand this meaning, they can understand what kind of westernized place names should be accepted and how the government should inform the public regarding acceptable westernized place names.

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The following tensions can also be discussed when people think of cultural orientation. The first is the tension between old and new. Massey (2005, p. 54) warns people against embracing “the longstanding tendency to tame the spatial into the textual.” But must the new be embraced? The combination of inheritance and innovation is what is needed more. The second is the tension between the local and the global. In any open city, a culture’s exchanges with the outside world include language and text. Such exchanges must be reflected in the naming and renaming of places. Only by positioning the cultural characteristics of a city in the global cultural framework will the cultural value of the local toponymy be enhanced. The third tension is between the utilitarian function and spiritual function. The utilitarian function of toponyms is not only for a spatial orientation, but also for economic benefit. The spiritual function includes public memory, nostalgia and indigenous knowledge. As early as 1987, Carter (1987, pp. 28, 67) noticed this tension. He demonstrated that the act of naming brought specific places into the realm of “cultural circulation,” thereby “transforming space into an object of knowledge, something that could be explored and read.” Toponymy commodity can convert symbolic capital into economic capital, but it often holds even greater currency as people vie for prestige and influence within the larger social and political order (Forest and Johnson 2002).

Three Periods of the Westernized Place Names in Beijing Changes in place names occur in any country (Room 1980). Place names are the symbols of the local society and culture (Fitzpatrick 2011). For example, in postapartheid South Africa, local people called for place names to reflect multiculturalism, not just the white culture (Guyot and Seethal 2007). Another example in the post-Soviet era is when residents and social groups in Irkutsk, Russia, changed many place names to provide a better city image (Polyuskevich 2018). Recent changes of place names in Beijing reflect changes similar to those discussed above. This chapter analyzes westernized place names appearing in Beijing during three distinct periods. The first period is from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China. The second period is from 1949 to 1980 which started with the foundation of People’s Republic of China to the early years of China beginning to open up. The third period is from 1980 to 2019. Westernized place names in the first two historical periods first appeared in the central city (Fig. 1). The built-up areas of Beijing in these two periods were mainly in the Xicheng District and the Dongcheng District (marked A and B in Fig. 1). The third period mainly corresponds to the marginal belt between the central city and suburban districts of Beijing which is where the newly named area extends. Research materials used for this chapter are from collections in the National Library of China, the Library of Beijing Normal University, and online texts identified by the Baidu search engine. The most precious materials are the ancient Chinese collections of Beijing’s place names in the city libraries. The earliest comprehensive record of Beijing’s place names was published in the Ming Dynasty.

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Fig. 1 Beijing’s territory (drawn by author)

The third emperor of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital city to Beijing in 1421. From then until the early Qing Dynasty the central government had captured the last piece of land on the mainland by the Ming Dynasty in 1661, the place names in Beijing changed greatly. Detailed information on names is gained by comparing two books. The first is A Complete Collection of the Street Names and Alleys Names in the Five Districts of Capital (Jing Shi Wu Cheng Fang Xiang Hu Tong Ji) compiled in the middle of the Ming Dynasty (Zhang 1560). The second is The Map of Capital City in Qianlong Emperor’s Period (Qian Long Jing Cheng Quan Tu) painted in 1750. The former has more than 1,200 place names and the latter has more than 1,500. In addition to more place names, some of the place names also changed. During the Qing Dynasty, place names in Beijing changed little. For example, the place names of Beijing changed little from 1750 to 1875. This observation comes from comparing the two historical documents. One of the documents is The Map of Capital City in Qianlong Emperor’s Period. The second document is The Names of the Streets and Alleys in the Capital (Jing Shi Fang Xian Zhi Gao) (Zhu 1875). From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, place names in Beijing changed much. A Japanese scholar compared the place names in these two map sources, The Names of the Streets and Alleys in the Capital (Zhu 1875) and the Newest Map of Peking (Zui Xin Bei Ping Quan Tu) published in 1928. He discovered more than 300 changes in the place names (Tada 1986, p. 14). After the foundation of the People’s Republic

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of China, the number of place names in Beijing increased to nearly 3,000 (Lu 1951). The increase was mainly due to the statistics of the place names of the newly built areas in Beijing, especially in the southern part where fewer people lived previously. After the 1980s reform and opening up, the number of place names in Beijing further increased as did the built-up areas (Yan 1986).

Westernization of Place Names in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic Social Background of Semi-Colonies When China officially became a semi-colonial country, foreign names began to appear in Beijing. An event on September 7, 1901, marked China’s official termination as a semi-colonial state. At the end of May 1900, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Japan formed the Eight-Nation Alliance. Disregarding opposition from the Qing government, they jointly organized the army to capture the Dagu Fort in Tianjin, east of Beijing. Then they marched to Beijing. On May 24th, the Qing government declared war on the Eight-Nation Alliance and ordered the diplomatic envoy of the countries to leave Beijing within 24 h. Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, the Germany minister in China refused to evacuate, and planned to negotiate with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He took a sedan and was escorted by the guards to the north entry of Dongdan Paifang (Dondan Arch). They clashed with the Chinese army on the street. Von Ketteler fired from inside of the sedan. En Hai, a Chinese officer, fired back, and von Ketteler was killed on the spot. In June, the Qing Army was repeatedly defeated in battles. In mid-August, the Eight-Nation Alliance broke into Beijing. The representatives of the Qing government formally signed the Final Protocol for the Settlement of the Disturbances of 1900 (or the Boxer Protocol) with the diplomatic representatives of Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Austria, Belgium, West, and the Netherlands (Wang et al. 2015, pp. 1–15). Following the signing of the Final Protocol for the Settlement of the Disturbances of 1900, the foreign population in Beijing increased. But they had less impact on Beijing’s place names. In the early period of the Republic of China, everywhere was controlled by warlords, and the central government in Beijing had little control over the country. Even under such situation, the central government still had an authority when dealing with foreign forces (Zeng and Fan 2014). In 1901, the number of foreign mission guards in Dongjiaominxiang area was 2000; this was where the embassies were concentrated (Li et al. 2016, p. 21). Dongjiaominxiang area includes several blocks (Fig. 2). Its name was from the main street in this area. The main street was labeled Legation Street in the English map. Dongjiaominxiang was also called Legation Quarter. Another street was called Rue Marco Polo. But they were not the formal street names recorded by the government. From 1900 to 1912 all the embassies in Dongjiaominxiang area were expanded, and a large number of new buildings were built. Although it became a brand new European-style architectural

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Fig. 2 The current corresponding place name of the westernized place names in the second historical period (drawn by the author)

area, the place names of this area were not westernized. Only as Beijing’s foreign population increased did municipal construction, infrastructures, and facilities began to learn from foreign cities (Shi 1995, p. 5).

Only Two Short-Lived Westernized Place Names During This Period During this period, only two formal foreign place names appeared in Beijing and their existence was very short. There are also some place names appearing in the early of the Republic of China that seem to be westernized, such as Road of Study Abroad (see Fig. 2). But it has nothing to do with studying abroad. The road was called the Ox Blood Alley in the Qing Dynasty because it was the site where cattle were slaughtered. Because this place name looked bloody, it was changed into Road of Study Abroad in the Place Name Refinement Movement of the Republic of China, as the Chinese pronunciation of “ox blood” is similar to “study abroad.” These specific cases are not discussed here. One example of the naming and renaming process was the Memorial Arch of Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler. Paifang (a kind of architecture that looks like an archway) is an important landmark in Chinese culture. The word Paifang is also an important kind of a place name, just like a cross or entrance in English. In early 1903, Ke Lin De Paifang (The Memorial Arch of Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler) became Beijing’s first place name with a foreigner’s name. China was a defeated country in 1901. According to German sources, the Qing government built a stone arch at the same width as the street and at the site where von Ketteler was killed. It was named Ke Lin De Paifang (see Fig. 2). 克Ke 林Lin 德De is the Chinese characters of Ketteler. In 1914, the First World War broke out and in 1917 China entered the war in support of the Triple Entente. In 1918, the First World War ended with the surrender

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Fig. 3 Peace Arch (Peace Paifang) (Photo by the author)

of the Central Powers. Thus, China became one of the victors. When news of victory came to Beijing, the locals removed the arch as they considered the Memorial Arch of Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler a national shame. The Central Powers requested that the Beijing government use the materials of the former Memorial Arch of Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler to construct a new arch at the Central Park (today’s Sun Yat-Sen Park) to commemorate the victory of the First World War (Fig. 3). The new arch was named Memorial Arch of Right Conquers Might because the post-war propaganda slogan of the Central Powers was RIGHT CONQUERS MIGHT. This place name was written in both Chinese and English (Gai 2018, p. 40; Ning 1997; Zhao 1989). The place is also called Peace Paifang by Beijingness. The naming and renaming of Morrison Street is another example of place naming history in Beijing. On February 12, 1912, the Qing Dynasty issued a letter of abdication. At this point, China’s imperial history that lasted for 2132 years came to an end. On February 15th, the Nanjing Senate formally elected Yuan Shih-K’ai as interim president. Yuan Shih-K’ai became the interim president of the Republic of China and took office in Beijing on March 10 (Ding 2013). During this period, Yuan Shih-K’ai met with Briton George Ernest Morrison, an Australian. Morrison had lived in Beijing since 1887. The first place he lived was in Dongjiaominxiang area. Later he bought a property on Wangfujing Street (see Fig. 2). Morrison, who has been stationed in China for more than 20 years, had experienced a series of major historical events in modern China and produced many reports and important materials (Morrison 1897). He was appointed as the resident correspondent of The Times in Peking in 1897. He left The Times to become a political adviser to Yuan Shih-K’ai, president of the new Chinese republic, in 1912. It is because of his background that Morrison was a respected and experienced journalist and that he enjoyed a very wide

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social circle in Chinese society. Even during the Republic period, Yuan Shih-K’ai still wanted to be emperor and Morrison provided him many suggestions to help him attain the goal. In December 1915, Yuan Shih-K’ai finally announced the establishment of a new dynasty, the Dynasty of Hongxian. When Yuan Shih-K’ai became emperor, he rewarded those who helped him according to what they contributed to his success. Morrison was one of them. The way Yuan Shih-K’ai rewarded to him was to change Wangfujing Street where Morrison lived to Morrison Street. And an English street sign with “Morrison Street” was erected on the street. Yuan Shih-K’ai died on June 6, 1916, after which the name Morrison Street returned to Wangfujing Street because people did not like Morrison for his support to Yuan Shih-K’ai‘s restoration of imperialism (Sun and Li 1991, p. 5).

Anti-Westernization of Place Names in the Early Cultural Revolution Social Background Based on Extreme Left Calls to change some place names in Beijing existed before the Cultural Revolution. In 1965, it was pointed out that the street names named after the three famous antiJapanese generals of Kuomintang’s Army (the Nationalist Party) needed be changed. The reason was that on December 19, 1951, the State Council proposed that “people names should not be used as street names.” On February 10, 1965, the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent a proposal to the Secretary-General of the State Council, Rongxin Zhou. Then he transmitted the proposal to Premier Enlai Zhou. The proposal addressed that such street names in Shanghai had already been changed while those in Beijing and Tianjin remained unchanged. So the two cities needed to change such street names. The State Council passed the proposal to the municipal of Beijing. The deputy Mayor Han Wu was in charge of giving an answer to the State Council. He discussed this matter with the officers in the Municipal Urban Planning Administration and other relevant departments. He then submitted a formal reply to the State Council. The first major point was that the municipality of Beijing agreed to change the names of the three streets that were named after three anti-Japanese generals. The second major point emphasized to need to proceed cautiously in weighing the impact of renaming the three streets and the Communist Party’s strategy of establishing a multiparty cooperative united front. In response to this cautious language, the three names were not changed in 1965. In 1966, the first year of the Cultural Revolution, the Extreme Left among Beijing residents started a movement to change the street names (Yang 2014). In mid-June of that year, the Beijing government was run by the Extreme Left. On September 14, the People’s Congress of Beijing submitted a report to the State Council and the CP committee of Beijing which suggested that the name of West District, East District, Xuanwu District, Chongwen District, and Haidian District should be changed into Red Flag District, Red Sun District, Red Guard District, Red Light District, and Cultural Revolution District, respectively. The original district names

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can be seen in Fig. 1. It also proposed to change the names of 23 main streets in the city, including (1) three streets needed to be renamed, which were named after the three famous generals’ names in the Anti-Japanese War mentioned above. (2) the East Chang’an Street, the West Chang ‘an Avenue, and the two streets connected the two ends of Chang’an Street at Jianguo Gate and Fuxing Gate should be given one name “Sun Rises Avenue.” The song of Sun Rises was very popular in the Cultural Revolution. The road from Front Gate to Nanyuan was uniformly named “Communist Avenue.” All these place names can be seen in Fig. 2. But the State Council did not approve the proposal which showed that senior officials of the central government had rejected the name change movement. However, driven by a fanatical trend of the Extreme Left, the citizens changed the names of 421 streets in Beijing to those with cultural revolution connotations. In 1971, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, vice President Biao Lin fled and died in a plane crash in Mongolia on September 13. By that time the Extreme Left had weakened. The CPC committee of Beijing decided that road names with “red” tags used by the public were not approved; it suggested that the original place names should be retained. By 1974, 389 of the city’s 519 streets, lanes and alleys had their original names restored to those before the Cultural Revolution, while only 14 names were modified by the Red Guards and mass organizations themselves in the early days of the Cultural Revolution (Chen 2014), such as Xinwenhua Street (New Culture Street), Dongguang Road (Eastern Light Road), Jinxiu Lane (Fairview Lane) (see Fig. 2).

Street of Anti-imperialism and Street of Anti-revisionism In the social context of the Cultural Revolution, even in the late period of the Cultural Revolution, the Beijing Municipal Government did not dare to completely deny the name-renaming movement of 1966. However, it took a positive approach toward the renaming of several street names. This was because these 16 renamed streets’ names had the meanings of anti-imperialism (mainly against the United States), anti-revisionism (mainly against the former Soviet Union), and antifeudalism. Examples include Anti-imperialism Street, Anti-revisionism Street, May fourth Avenue, etc. The May fourth Movement was a famous anti-imperialist and anti-feudal movement in 1919 which was first launched in Beijing and then extended to all of China. Anti-imperialism Street and Anti-revisionism Road are examples that show people resisted western culture with place names in that special period. The first example discussed is Anti-Imperial Street. This street was named Dongjiaominxiang Street before it was changed into Anti-Imperial Street, which was discussed above. Today it is still called Dongjiaominxiang Street. Its west end connects to Tiananmen Square and the east end to Chongwen Gate Street (see Fig. 2). After the Second Opium War in 1860, Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, Belgium, and other countries successively established embassies along the both sides of Dongjiaominxiang Street. In addition to the embassies, there were many foreign banks with headquarters in China that were

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located in this area, such as HSBC Bank and Chartered Bank of United Kingdom, Russia and China, Russo-Asiatic Bank of Russia, Yokohama Specie Bank of Japan, Deutsch-Asiatische Bank of Germany, and Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank of France (Dong 2017). There were post offices opened by France and hospitals opened by foreigners, etc. (Zu 2016). After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Dongjiaominxiang area was still used as an embassy area. In 1959, all embassies were relocated to the new embassy area around Sanlitun Street, which is outside the old city wall and much larger than Dongjiaominxiang area. Because of many eclectic architectures on both sides of this street, Dongjiaominxiang area had been planned as one of the 25 historical blocks in the old city of Beijing. It is sad that many original buildings have been destroyed. In September 1966, the Extreme Left changed the name of this street to “AntiImperialism Street.” This was not only because of the concentration of embassies of many imperialist countries, but also because of bloodshed associated with the May fourth Movement in 1919, the May 30th Movement in 1925, and the December ninth Movement in 1935 (Wang 1999). Following Beijing’s example, “Anti-Imperialism Streets” appeared in many cities in China in 1966. Most are historically associated with imperialist countries, such as the United States and Britain. For examples, churches, church-run schools, and hospitals are located along the street. There were renamed Anti-imperialism Streets in provincial capitals, such as Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, Chengdu of Sichuan Province, and Zhengzhou of Henan Province. There was even an Anti-imperialism Road in Zixi, which is a small town, Dong’an County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province. In 1972, the tensions between China and the United States began to ease. On February 21, US President Nixon arrived in Beijing for a week-long visit. Before President Nixon’s official visit, the United States sent an advance team to Beijing for preparation. Some Chinese officials worried that the name of Anti-Imperialism Street was mainly aimed at the United States and its location being next to Tiananmen Square (see Fig. 2) where foreign guests are welcomed. The leaders were worried that the street name might have a negative impact on the US delegation. But they were also worried that the removal of the street sign just before President Nixon’s visit might cause some misunderstanding among the Chinese people. In a dilemma, Liu Chuanxin, the director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, who was responsible for the US delegation’s security in Beijing, decided that the street signs on Anti-Imperialism Street would not be removed (Chen 2014). After the Cultural Revolution, its name was restored to Dongjiaomin Lane. The second example is Anti-Revisionism Road. It was called East Yangwei Road before it was renamed as Anti-Revisionism Road. Also, it returned to the former name after the Cultural Revolution. Why had East Yangwei Road been chosen to rename as Anti-revisionism Road? That was because the former Soviet Embassy in China is not far from this road. The embassy’s location is shown in Fig. 2. This road was the first road to be renamed in Beijing following the name change movement in 1966. The second Girls High School of Beijing, the current name being Dongzhimen High School, is next to the former Soviet Embassy (now the Russian Embassy in China). In the 1950s, when Sino-Soviet relations were close, this high school paid

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special attention to Soviet Union propaganda and took the “geographical advantage” of being close to the former Soviet embassy as a reason for operating the school. The school had a class called “Class of Pavel Korchagin.” Pavel Andreevich Korchagin (Павел Андреевич Корчагин) is a hero in the novel of How the Steel Was Tempered written by Nikolai Alexeevich Ostrovsky. Many students in Beijing took pride in being able to enter the “Class of Pavel Korchagin.” The school invited many Soviet celebrities to visit the school and give lectures. Among them was the wife of Ostrovsky. Many students from the high school also participated in summer camps organized by the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. With the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations in the 1960s, Chinese officials defined the former Soviet Union’s ideology as revisionism, that is, modified Marxism. Under pressure in the political environment, some teachers and students who actively participated in the friendly exchanges between China and the Soviet Union in the above school became the vanguard against revisionism. The renaming ceremony of this road attracted attention all over China. On August 29, 1966, the renaming ceremony officially started at 9 am, and 210,000 Red Guards came to the road to celebrate the renaming in a rally. Around 8 am, many foreign reporters rushed to the scene. An officer from the Albanian Embassy participated in the renaming ceremony. Albania was the only Eastern European country to keep good relations with China after the breakup between China and the former Soviet Union. When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, in addition to the former Soviet Union, those European countries that established diplomatic relations with China were mostly Eastern European socialist countries, such as Poland, Hungary, and Romania. From 1949 to 1972, a few of Western countries established diplomatic relations with PRC, namely, were Sweden, Switzerland, and France. After the renaming ceremony, The Red Guards parade lasted 2 days (Sun 2015). The renaming of East Yangwei Road to Anti-Revisionism Road showed the worsening diplomatic environment of China during the Cultural Revolution. After the Cultural Revolution, this road returned to its original name of East Yangwei Road.

Westernization of Place Names after the 1980s Social Background of Westernization in Place Name The increase of westernized place names in this period is mostly related to the rapid development of the real estate industry. China’s housing market opened in 1997. Before that date, urban residents in China were given housing under the welfare distribution system. After the opening of the housing market, the state-owned real estate developers were permitted to meet the huge demand of the housing market. So many private real estate enterprises appeared at that time. Those private real estate enterprises were the social basis for the emergence of westernized place names in this period. The emergence of westernized place names occurred mostly around 2010. This is because between 1998 and 2010, China’s cities built new housing mainly to meet the housing needs of two groups. First was the large number of

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Fig. 4 Distribution of the newly built residential communities in Beijing (2019) (Drawn by author; Data source: https://bj.fang.anjuke.com/loupan/xicheng/)

people who were not provided with housing during the previous planned economy period, such as the many families with three generations living in one unit. The second is associated with China entering a period of rapid urbanization in which large numbers of new urbanites also needed housing. At the beginning of the twentyfirst century, the annual investment in China’s real estate development exceeded 1,000 billion RMB. If 7 RMB equals to one US dollar, it was about 143 billion US dollars. Since the turn of the century, the proportion of real estate investment in China’s GDP has been increasing year by year, significantly higher than the international average. And the growth of real estate investment promoted the rapid development of China’s real estate enterprises (Zhang 2014). China’s real estate industry has become an important part of the national economy (Shen and Liu 2004). In Beijing, beginning a decade ago, new residential communities were built mainly in Chaoyang District, Haidian District, and Fengtai Districts, which are close to the two core districts: Dongcheng District and Xicheng District. In the past decade, new residential communities in Beijing have been built mainly in the city’s outskirts, except for the Chaoyang District, which has been the focus of construction (Fig. 4). After 2010, luxury housing began to appear in the real estate market. Many people, especially the wealthy, started using houses as investments or the social status symbols (China Economic Review 2013). To cater to the needs of these people,

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private real estate developers began to provide the residential communities with westernized names. Secondly, the increase in westernized place names during this period was related to the increase in the proportion of large private companies. Many place names in the city are the names of the company’s headquarters buildings or factories. After the foundation of P.R. China in 1949, Beijing transformed from a consumer city into an industrial city in China. Outside the Second Ring Road (the original old city wall, see Fig. 2), three important industrial areas have emerged. Many of the names in these areas are the names of state-owned industrial enterprises, such as Shijingshan Iron and Steel Plant in the west industrial area (its name at present is Capital Iron and Steel Company), State-owned Cotton Textile Factories from I to V in the east industrial area, 797 Factory, and 798 Factory in the northeast industrial area. Affected by the political system, none of Beijing’s state-owned enterprises have a westernized name. After China’s reform and opening up in 1978, private enterprises gradually emerged. On March 15, 1999, the Second Session of the Ninth National People’s Congress passed the Amendment to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. It states that the nonstate-owned economy, such as the individual economy, and the private economy within the scope of the law are the main components of the socialist market economy. Their legal rights and interests are protected. Since then, China’s private economy has developed with clear legal guarantees. There were 1.5 million private enterprises and 18 million employees in that year of 1999 (Zhang and Ming 2000, p. 3). Among the top 500 Chinese companies in 2019, only the names of some companies look to have foreign names. For example, Alibaba Group leads people to think of Alibaba and the Forty Thieves. The Chinese name of Deppon Logistics Co., Ltd. could be regarded as Deutsch Logistics Co., Ltd. The pronunciation of Ninestar Co., Ltd. sounds like NASDAQ. More corporations with westernized names are small businesses. Even if their names are marked on the outside of the building, they do not have the function of referring to the location of place names.

Westernization of Corporate and Real Estate Names The luxury residential communities in Beijing prefer to have westernized names. They are mainly located in the outskirts of the city (Zhao 2013; Lo and Wang 2013). This is because the building plot ratio of this kind of community is relatively low. As a result, the area occupied by the community is relatively large. But in the original built area, especially in the old city of the city, there is not such a large amount of land to build a luxury residential community. In addition, the natural environment and traffic conditions near Beijing are also better than in the inner city. On November 25, 2019, according to the website of Anjuke Inc., a major housing agency in China, 131 residential communities have been built in Beijing since 1997 which have the houses larger than 300 square meters per unit (Fig. 5). There are two reasons for counting this type of community. First, China opened its housing market after 1997. Second, the area of each luxury house or town house in Beijing is usually more than

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Fig. 5 Distribution of the 131 luxury gated communities in Beijing (Drawn by author; Data source: https://bj.fang.anjuke.com/loupan/xicheng/)

300 square meters, which is unaffordable for most middle-class families. A French scholar investigated the luxury housing estates in Beijing including Yosemite Villa, which is listed in Table 1. The area of each house in this gated community is about 300 square meters (Giroir 2006). People who buy such kind of house or town house value the “social capital” of the community’s name. Thirty of the 131 such communities (about 23%) were given westernized names. There are three types of westernized names of these communities. The first uses the names of foreign countries, cities, famous scenic spots as community’s name. The second has English letters or words to make the community exotic. The third is to label it with “international” or “global” (see Table 1). These residential communities with westernized place names create some dissatisfaction in Chinese society, especially those in low-income groups. As mentioned above, the name of an enterprise building or a factory may become the place name in a city. Since there are more than 600,000 enterprises with registered assets of more than RMB 50 million in Beijing, it is difficult to count the number of enterprises with westernized names in Beijing. However, by searching the corresponding Chinese characters of Venice, Manhattan, Rome, and Milan on the

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Table 1 Classification of the westernized names of 31 luxury residential communities in Beijing Types Exotic style

Community name Dear Villa 北京GOLF公寓 NAGA上院 麦卡伦地 远洋LAVIE 凯德麓语

Taking the place names in Western countries

International style

卡尔生活馆 澳景园 阿凯迪亚庄园 波特兰花园 东方普罗旺斯 枫露皇园 蓝岸丽舍 富力丹麦小镇 格拉斯小镇 莱蒙湖 美林香槟小镇 纳帕尔湾 水印长滩 唐宁ONE 威尼斯花园 温哥华森林 (Figs. 6 and 7) 优山美地 长岛澜桥 中海枫丹 棕榈滩别墅 中粮国际 新世界丽樽 万国城MOMA 嘉豪国际

Related foreign place names or words Dear Villa Golf Naga, name of a god in India Macallan, a brand of whisky, UK LaVie, a French brand Capital land, a company’s name Karl, German name Landscape of Australia Arcadia, USA Portland, USA Provence, France Fontainebleau, France Fontainebleau, France Danmark Grasse, France Lake Léman/Lake Geneva, Swiss Champagne area, France Napa Valley, USA Long Beach, USA Downing street, UK Venice, Italy Vancouver Forest, Canada Yosemite, USA Long Island, USA Fontainebleau, France Palm Beach, USA/Australia With word of “international” With word of “new world” With word of “international” With word of “international”

Baidu map search engine, the names of enterprises containing these words in Central Beijing and their distribution were identified. As shown in Fig. 8, these enterprises account for a small proportion of the total enterprises. Only enterprises covering a large area and located beside the highway are likely to be taken as place names. For example, the Milan-Life Plaza in Beijing is located on the W third Ring Road. In 2017 Beijing established a policy of removing billboards from the roof and fac¸ade of buildings, including corporate logos. The legal basis for this action is

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Fig. 6 The outside of a house in the Vancouver Forest Community (photo by the author)

associated with The Advertising Law of PRC, Work Safety Law of PRC, The Regulations on the City Appearance and Environmental Sanitation of Beijing, The Regulations on the Installation of Plaques and Signs of Beijing, and the Master Plan of Beijing (2016–2035). On November 27, the municipality of Beijing issued the Announcement of an Action to Removal of the Billboards on the Top of Buildings. The announcement stated that the purpose of the demolition was to make the city skyline clear and tidy. But the announcement did not define the skyline clearly. According to the statistics, more than 27,000 advertising plaques need to be removed, more than 70% of which are concentrated in the six districts in the central city (Sohu.com 2017). In the aftermath of the policy change, most corporations removed their advertising broads from the top of the buildings. Even if they had westernized names now, they would not have much impact on the city’s cultural context. There are a few exceptions, such as Alibaba Group, which ranks 182nd in the 2019 Fortune 500 in the world. Its headquarters in Beijing still bears the giant logo of Alibaba on the top of the building. Today the building is an important landmark in the area. Although the government eliminated the influence of enterprises with western names on Beijing’s toponymy context in this way, the “one-size-fits-all” method was opposed by the Beijingness. For example, on the third day after the demolition announcement, the official weibo account of Chinese National Geography posted a message: “Bald now... the logo of National Geographic of China will be reappeared in a

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Fig. 7 The West Gate of the Vancouver Forest Community (photo by author)

Fig. 8 The company’s name with the four foreign place names in the central city of Beijing (Drawn by the author; Data source: www.baidu.com)

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different form.” A photo of its office building removed its logo just behind the message. Another example is that people argued that the Chinese characters for “Milan” being regarded as the Chinese translation of the name of an Italian city. Milan (米兰) is the Chinese name of a flower. Diversified understanding of seemingly westernized enterprise names is also a postmodern attitude. An important concept in postmodernist geography is the “third space” (Soja 1996). It is the space people give meaning and a rapidly, continually changing space in which we live. It is the experience of living, which contains people’s contradictory, changeable views. As far as the westernized place names discussed in this chapter are concerned, the different attitudes of different subjects and the changing attitudes of the same subject reflect the characteristics of the third space. Only through constant dialogue between these views can people find a suitable way to manage westernized names. Such ways of thinking will be changed over time.

Conclusions This chapter has two conclusions. The first is that Beijingness has long been aware of the symbolic significance of place names. In the first historical period, it was the colonial country that enlightened the Beijingness to understand that a place name is also a political symbol. The Memorial Arch of Klemens Freiherr von Kettele was removed quickly after the First World War. Then Beijingness rebuilt a new place based on materials of the old arch and gave it a name for peace. In the second period, Beijingness used the place renaming process to demonstrate ideological statements. However, as the historical tradition of city place names finally prevailed over shortterm ideological demands, the place names in Beijing still retained their traditional context. In the third period, the entrepreneurs, including the real estate developers, realized that the social capital of westernized place names is profitable for them. But the growth in the number of the westernized names has also aroused public concern about the traditional Chinese culture of place names. The second conclusion is that Beijingness no longer simply resists the westernized place name following three periods of reflection. They seek to balance the three pairs of tension in their toponymic practice. Peace Paifang is a good example. Both the Chinese traditional shape and new stone arch form embody the combination of the new and the old. The bilingual (Chinese and English) writing form of the place name embodies the combination of the local and the global. The geographic location and monument function embody the combination of utilitarian function and spiritual function. The above analysis supports Sun’s conclusion where he expressed that people will not worry about westernized place names replacing Chinese place names in Beijing (Sun 2017). This is similar to Robertson’s argument that spaces are not charged by a singular perfected identity, but rather for spaces that are mutable and multivalent, spaces that are able to accommodate both difference and change (Robertson 2003). This conclusion provides the answer to the first question stated in the introduction. As long as the westernized place names are in line with the

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common aspirations of human beings and are subtly integrated into the Chinese culture of name naming, Beijing can accept them. Second is that China has issued regulations related to the administration of place names since 1949. On January 23, 1986, the State Council promulgated The Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Geographical Names. On June 18, 1996, the same Council produced The Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Regulations on the Administration of Geographical Names. The Ministry of Civil Affairs issued Order (No. 38) on December 27, 2010. The fourth article includes three amendments of The Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Regulations on the Administration of Geographical Names. In addition, the provinces and municipalities directly under the central government have formulated their own regulations on the administration of place names. The municipality of Beijing has the Measures for the Administration of Geographical names in Beijing. There is only one item in these files that refers to westernized place name. Therefore, some conflicts have happened when a city manages the westernized place names. The first example addresses Singapore where the government historically did not have strong regulations regarding place naming, so the nationalist ideologies depicted on Singapore’s street names represented an uneven process that reflects the contradictions and swings in the policies of nation-building and at the same time incorporates, to some extent, the reactions and resistances of its citizens. The end result is a coexistence of different systems of place names (Yeoh 1996). A second example is a case related to Nantong City of Jiangsu Province. In November 2001, the Nantong municipality received an application from Nantong Golden Eagle International Real Estate Development Company to rename a building. It planned to change the name from Ginza Building to Golden Eagle International Building. This is because the company had heard that the citizens did not like an office tower in the center of the city to be called Ginza, a Japanese place name. But part of the building’s property is owned by Nantong Golden Eagle International Real Estate Development Company, most of which has been sold to other companies. Therefore, according to The Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Regulations on the Administration of Geographical Names, it is legal to accept the application. However, it is illegal to accept the application according to the Property Law because the office tower is a shared property. Chinese Civil Law stipulates that the right of place name should be the subordinate to property law (Peng 1999, p. 320). Many Chinese scholars believe that the effective and reasonable management of westernized place names needs to abide by all administrative regulations and laws related to property and naming (Cui and Qiu 2005).

References Albury, J. N., & Carter, L. (2017). A typology of arguments for and against bilingual place-naming in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(9), 831–842.

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Thematic Categories for Place Names: Topology Typology Lisa M. Butler Harrington

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Themes and Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Familial and Local Resident Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Native People(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Religion-Inspired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literary Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human Occupations and Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aspirational, Feelings, and Opinions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conflict, Death, and Negative Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recognition of Other Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Humorous Ideas and Unusual Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wildlife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Physical Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Atmospheric Conditions, Dates, and Seasonal Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Combinations and Made-Up Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Misspellings and Mistakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spatial Variability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 6 6 7 7 8 9 9 10 11 11 12 13 14 14 15 15 16 17 20

Abstract

Place name guidebooks usually take the form of dictionary-like tomes, with alphabetical listings of places and brief notes regarding their names and history. Occasionally authors indicate a type of name based on the origin of a toponym, but this is rare. Exploration of US place names suggests thematic categories for toponyms. Themes identified include names associated with human occupations and activities, aspirations, negative experiences, religious concepts and people, L. M. Butler Harrington (*) Geography, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_5

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wildlife, physical descriptions, humorous ideas, memorials, familial and local resident recognition, native people/first nations, the old world and prior locations, and literature. In addition to these names, many place names include an indication of the type of place, such as Station, Ferry, Grove, Spring, and Camp, generally preceded by a surname. As rail line stops and post offices were established, those submitting names sometimes took the opportunity to recognize wives and daughters. The early names for such stops often became the name of the local settlement. In some cases, there have been naming chains, where a frontier settlement was named for an East Coast city, which in turn had been named for a European city. Misspellings have also played a role in creation of names, and some places have gone through a number of name changes over their histories. Keywords

Toponyms · History · United States · Place name origins

Introduction A place name is very simply the name of a place, whether the place in question is very small or very large. Places include springs and wells, mountains, villages and cities, mountain ranges, rivers or streams, and regions. Place names are also known as “toponyms.” Those who have a fascination with the labels humans give places often note signs announcing the names of cities and smaller settlements through which they have passed, as well as the names for physical features and settlements that can be seen on maps, ranging from state highway maps to maps for national parks, national forests, and other areas. Some names are particularly interesting, whether it be due to the humor, poetry, history, imagery, or “sound” they convey. Place name guidebooks, usually written for individual states, most often take the form of dictionary-like volumes, with alphabetical listings of places and very brief notes regarding their names and relevant history. Occasionally authors indicate a type of name based on the origin of a toponym, but this is rare. George R. Stewart’s (2008) book, Names on the Land: An Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, originally published in 1945, is a notable exception to this approach. Stewart elegantly described the history of naming, and how people likely approached development of original names and their later supplanting with other names by later residents. While the United States has places bearing names from many languages, including dozens of indigenous tongues and those of the many European and other explorers and immigrant groups, Stewart (2008, p. 20) identified English as the language with the greatest influence on modern place names: “Since they, in the end, took the land and spoke their language there, all before their coming was only a prelude. Though many places already had names, the English rejected most of them, and gave new names of their own. Those they adopted, they reshaped to fit their own tongues,” changing pronunciations and spellings, or guessing at

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spellings when the prior language was not written. Another notable book on American place names, by Mark Monmonier (2006), addressed the acceptability of early Euro-American names (or lack thereof), including names that today would be identified as racist (largely replaced through decisions of the Board on Geographic Names; see also Shelley, this volume). The second category of offensive names identified by Monmonier (2006, p. 60) include those referring to “body parts, sex, excrement, and other no-nos.” These, he noted, have remained on maps to a greater extent than those identified as ethnically insensitive and racist. Exploration of US place names suggests a number of thematic categories for toponyms. Adrian Room (2006) identified several place name types based on his review of place names of the world, including descriptive names, associative names, incident names, possessive names, commemorative names, commendatory names, folk etymology, manufactured names, mistake names, and shift names. The toponym types identified here, based solely on examples from the United States, differ from those of Room, although there are clear overlaps. “Places” considered here include both human settlements and natural features and are drawn from state and regional place name compendia, maps, gazetteers, and other sources. Some themes differ from but also overlapping those of Room (2006). In some cases, the overlap is fairly direct, although except for differing terminology; in other cases, themes identified here might be seen as subtypes of one or another of Room’s categories. Themes include names associated with human occupations and activities, aspirations, negative experiences, religious concepts and people, wildlife, physical descriptions, humorous ideas, memorials, familial and local resident recognition, native people/first nations, the old world and prior locations, and literature. In specific cases, there can be association with multiple themes (Table 1). As rail line stops and post offices were established, those submitting names often took the opportunity to recognize wives and daughters. These names often became the name of the local settlement. In some cases, there have been naming chains, where a frontier settlement was named for an East Coast city, which in turn had been named for a European city. Misspellings have also played a role in creation of names, and some places have gone through a number of name changes over their histories. The remainder of this chapter presents illustrative examples of the name types. Please note that some names can fall under more than one category, in which case, secondary and even tertiary themes are identified for many specific toponyms. It has been common for a particular settlement or other place to go through a sequence of names through time. Not only have some locales seen two names, but some have gone through three or more. Oftentimes, the earlier names were more unique and sometimes more amusing than later ones. It appears that names have been changed to embrace a more “dignified” identity at times, perhaps partly with a desire for promotion of growth and economic development based on a more attractive name connotation. As noted by Monmonier (2006) and Shelley (this volume), original names sometimes came to be seen as culturally unacceptable and were changed for that reason. Examples of name changes are shown in Table 2. Occasionally name changes have been relatively minor, such as a shift from Sandtuck to Santuck or Centreville Courthouse to Centreville, but other shifts

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Table 1 Place name themes Place name theme Familial and local resident recognition Native people(s)

Memorials

Religion-inspired

Literary inspiration

Human occupations and activities

Aspirational, feelings, and opinions Conflict, death, & negative experiences Recognition of other locations Humorous ideas and unusual thoughts Wildlife

Physical descriptions

Atmospheric conditions, dates, and seasonal connections

Subthemes Given name Surname Combined given and surnames Indigenous language Tribal recognition Individual recognition Political persons Military persons Explorers Artists and authors Saints Others Biblical Christian ideas and saints Classical religions Indigenous religions Poetry Novels Hymns Agriculture and other land uses Natural resources associated with human activities Tools, equipment, and structures Occupations Recreation Aspirational Emotional responses Assessment of places Conflict (especially warfare) Death Negative experiences International Domestic Humor Unusual and odd names Fauna Flora Ecological community Literal Metaphorical Colors Weather and climate The seasons Time of day Particular dates

Potential overlapping themes Memorials

Physical descriptions Wildlife Memorials Local resident recognition Religion-inspired

Memorials Literary inspiration

Religion-inspired

Physical descriptions

Human activities Religion-inspired Feelings Human activities Aspirational Religion-inspired Physical descriptions Physical descriptions

Human activities Religion-inspired Physical descriptions Human activities

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued) Place name theme Combinations and made-up names

Subthemes Combinations Reversed spellings New words

Misspellings and mistakes

Misspellings Misinterpretations

Potential overlapping themes Familial and local resident recognition Humorous ideas and unusual thoughts

Table 2 Some name changes for Alabama settlements. (Source: Foscue 1989) Bank’s Tank morphed to Bankston, but also was sometimes known as Bucksnort Dry Creek Crossroads became Blackwoods Crossroads, and later became Cleveland Falls of the Cahawba became Centreville Courthouse, then became Centreville Flea Hop became Sandtuck, then Santuck Germany became Buena Vista Sulphur Springs became Hogeye, then became Red Valley, then became Brownville The Ponds became Belleville Warrior Bridge became Bladon Springs Yattayabba Creek became Abbie Creek

have been much more dramatic (see Sulphur Springs in Table 2). It can be argued that many original names are more interesting, and often more imaginative, than later designations. Examples given below sometimes appeared more than once in an individual state, with several Bear Mountains in California and multiple Oak Hills in New York, in Texas, and in Virginia, for example. Such multiples are generally not noted here. The themes used here are certainly not the only ones possible, and many place names could be associated with multiple themes. For example, some wildlife-named locales also reflect native peoples, and while colors are noted here, they were applied as physical descriptors. In other words, name types suggested here are not mutually exclusive, although a specific name can be assigned to its primary theme, with secondary and tertiary themes possible. Here, the most specific cultural place names, those of streets, roads, churches, and the like, are omitted. Counties also are omitted. The examples given have been selected from the many thousands of unique – and not-so-unique – settlement and physical feature names found in the United States. Place name guidebooks, along with some Works Progress Administration guides dating back to the 1930s and 1940s, numerous paper maps and, of course, electronic maps and other Internet resources, have served as references for this chapter (WPA 1938). Given the variability in resources and, particularly, recording of the actual history of naming of places, some of the information is bound to be apocryphal, much like the stories included in county histories of a century ago. Hence, descriptions of the origins of names reflect efforts to locate information and occasional

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suspicion regarding the veracity of resources. At times, educated guesses or assumptions have been made, sometimes by prior authors, sometimes in this research. As toponyms are considered, keep in mind that names often may be misleading as to their inspiration. For example, Carnation (Washington) was named for Carnation Milk Products Company (Phillips 1971), Choctaw (Oklahoma) was named for the Choctaw Coal and Railway Company (Shirk 1974), Norway (Maine) was a misspelling of “Norage” (McCauley 2004), and Almond (Alabama) was the given name of the first postmaster (Foscue 1989).

Themes and Examples Familial and Local Resident Recognition Many, many places in the United States bear the surnames of early settlers and wellknown figures of the time (see also the section “Memorials”). Some surnames are very common in place naming. Taking Butler as an example, over 20 natural and cultural features have been marked with this family name: Butler (in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas); Butler County (Alabama, Iowa, and Kansas); Butler Springs (Alabama); Butler Island (Georgia); Butler Point (Georgia); Butler’s Landing (Tennessee); Butler Center (Iowa); Butler Peak (California); and Butler Mountain (North Carolina). These are largely in the Southeast and Midwest, coinciding with colonial and early Republic migration patterns for a family that originated in Ireland and arrived before the American Revolution. There are likely more Butler place names in the United States. Numerous places bearing other specific family names can also be identified, especially very common family names like Smith, Harris, and Williams. Even in parts of the southwestern United States, where more early Euro-American settler families originated in Spain, places bearing surnames appear to most frequently reflect the name-imprint of the British Isles. Given names also are common, although some of these are unusual – reflecting trends of the 1800s, in particular. As rail line stops and post offices were established, those submitting names sometimes took the opportunity to recognize wives and daughters, as well as local citizens (see, e.g., Foscue 1989). These names often became the name of the local settlement, as did given names associated with early settlers and prominent residents and property owners. Both males and females were recognized in this way, although the pattern seems to be for more women’s given names and more surnames from men. Once in a while, names were a combination of both given and surnames, such as Virginia Dale (Colorado) or John Day (used several times in Oregon). Other given names that became labels for places include, for example, Eoline (Alabama), Ardilla (Alabama), Corinna (Maine), Armel (Colorado), Uriah (Alabama), Anna (Illinois), Susanville (California and Oregon), Janesville (California, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin), and Maylene (Alabama).

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Native People(s) Several subcategories of names are associated with the first residents – Native Americans or First Nations people in North America. There are still many names based on those given by First Nations, based on numerous indigenous languages. Although many of these have been lost through renaming in English (or another European language), many others remain. Spellings are generally based on European interpretations of how the words (they thought) they were hearing should be spelled. Unfortunately, meanings have often been lost completely or were misunderstood by those speaking European languages. Such names, when translated, generally fit under other thematic categories given here, such as wildlife, but it is fitting to note that such legacy names linked to the people who first occupied an area still exist. Examples include Mooselookmeguntic Lake (Maine; Abenaki “‘portage to the moose-feeding place,’ or ‘moose feeding among trees’” (McCauley 2004, p. 110)), Sylacauga (Alabama; from Creek for buzzards’ roost (Foscue 1989)) Two more categories of naming related to native people can be considered a form of memorializing, either of groups or of individuals (see below). Examples of locations named for tribal groups include Cherokee (North Carolina), Cheyenne (Wyoming), Shawneetown (Illinois), Mt. Acoma (Colorado), the Chiricahua Mountains (Arizona), and Cathlamet (Washington). Specific Native American individuals have been recognized as well, through such toponyms as Powhatan (Alabama), Molasses Pond (Maine; named for a woman called Molasses (McCauley 2004)), Left Hand Spring (Oklahoma; Shirk 1974), and Red Feather Lakes (Colorado; Bright 2004).

Memorials Many explorers, politicians, and military figures were recognized by naming, but other regionally to internationally prominent individuals also inspired names applied to settlements and physical features. Political figures, particularly presidents and governors, were honored in many names. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson namesakes include many US settlements and several physical features, although some of these places may have been named for people other than the two presidents. As a Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin also inspired naming. Civil War General Philip Sheridan inspired naming, as well. Lewis and Clark were memorialized in several place names, including Lewis River (Washington), Clark Fork River (Montana-Idaho), Lewiston (Idaho), and Lewis and Clark Pass (Montana). Also related to the Lewis and Clark expedition, Sacagawea River was named in Montana. Explorer John Day was commemorated by two rivers and two settlements (in Oregon). Toponyms were bestowed for wellknown artist Albert Bierstadt: Mount Bierstadt and Bierstadt Lake (Colorado) were named for the important nineteenth-century painter. Even pirate Jean Lafitte (Louisiana) has been recognized with place naming. Locations named for saints (described below) might also be considered memorial names.

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Religion-Inspired Names on the land often reflect the Christian religion of settlers; First Nations’ naming sometimes reflects their religions, as well. In some cases, classical (e.g., Greek and Roman) religions inspired naming, as for the Styx River (Alabama). Interestingly, Maine has both Bible Point and Sodom. Names like Eden (New York and Utah), Eden Prairie (Minnesota), and Paradise (Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, US Virgin Islands) connect not only to religious traditions but also to aspirational or hopeful thinking (see below). Stanley Brunn and James Wheeler (1966) considered the distribution of (Christian) religious names in the United States. Purgatory and Hell have been included in toponyms, perhaps associated with less-than-hospitable terrain and features that seemed otherworldly. Purgatory appears in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and New Mexico. A longer name denoting Purgatory was given to a river in Colorado, in Spanish: El Rio de los Perdidas en Purgatoria (the River of Lost Souls in Purgatory). The same river was called the Purgatoire River from the French and is also known by its anglicized names of Purgatory River and the Picketwire (a corrupted version based on local pronunciation of Purgatoire). A similarly named river in Colorado, el Rio de las Animas Perdidas (the River of Lost Souls) has been shortened to Rio de las Animas, or the Animas River. Hell is in California and Michigan; Hell Creek is in Montana. Names after “the devil” or “devils” were especially popular for naming physical features; saints and angels are frequently memorialized in settlement names. These appear in multiple languages (particularly English, Spanish, and French). Examples include Devils Tower (Wyoming), Devils Postpile (California), Devils Backbone (Colorado and Utah), Devils Branch (streams in Georgia, Kentucky, and Virginia), Devil Peak (Nevada), and Devils Peak (California). In Spanish or mixed Spanish and English, similar names were given to Canyon Diablo (Arizona); the Diablo Range, Mount Diablo, and Diablo Valley (California); and Diablo Canyon (New Mexico). Alaska has a Demon Creek. It should be noted that Native American names absolutely differ from Euro-American names; Devils Tower is probably most commonly recognized as “Bear Lodge” or “Bear’s Lodge” (Matȟó Thípila) in the Lakota language. Alternative to devilish or demonic names, many places were given names of saints by speakers of several European languages; origins in French and Spanish associated with Roman Catholicism appear to be especially common. These include Santa Fe (New Mexico), San Isabel (Colorado), Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan), Saint Louis (Missouri), Santa Claus (Arizona, Georgia, Indiana), and many others. Angels are recognized by places like Mount Angel (Oregon) and Los Angeles (California and Texas); the name of the California city was originally “el Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles” (the Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels). Other religion-inspired names appear as Las Cruces (the Crosses; New Mexico) and Mount of the Holy Cross (Colorado). The latter seasonally displays a large snowfilled cross shape.

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Literary Inspiration In addition to the Christian Bible, poetry, novels, and hymns have inspired some names in the United States. St. Elmo (Alabama) was given its name based on a novel by a nearby resident (Foscue 1989), popular hymns – or the names of their melodies – are thought to be the basis for the naming of China and Poland (Maine; McCauley 2004), Waverly (Alabama) was inspired by the novels of Sir Walter Scott (Foscue 1989), and one explanation for the name of Auburn (Maine) was that it came from a Goldsmith poem (McCauley 2004).

Human Occupations and Activities This theme is perhaps the broadest suggested here, with a number of subcategories. These include agriculture and other land uses and associated natural resources; tools, equipment, and structures; occupations; and recreation. The key is that many place names reflect what people have historically done in a particular place. Professions or activities are noted by the names of Surveyors Creek (Alabama), Huntress Creek (Kansas), and Horsethief Canyon (Utah). The importance of surveying the landscape appears in the numerous high points named Lookout Mountain (Alabama/Georgia/ Tennessee, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington). Higher education is noted by several community names, including College Park (Georgia and Maryland), State College (Pennsylvania), and College Station (Texas). Examples of agricultural or farming-related names include Farmingdale and Farmersville (Maine), Farmington (Maine, New Mexico), Orchard (Utah), Dairy (Oregon), Irrigon (Oregon), Acequia [irrigation ditch] (Colorado), and Cherry Grove (Oregon). Hereford (Texas) bears the name of a popular cattle breed, and Corn (Oklahoma) was given the name of an important crop. Timber (Oregon) is named for the primary resource extracted from the area. Mining is another important activity noted in place names, although the names frequently refer more directly to the resource than the activity. This is the case with coal areas named Carbon (Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas); and Coal Valley, Coaling, and Coalmont (Alabama). Iron was frequently noted in place names, although some places named Iron Mountain(s) likely were not associated with iron mining activities. Silver and gold may or may not refer to metals being mined in an area but often did (e.g., several Silver Cities). Lime Kiln (Alabama), Lime Kiln Creek (California), and Lime Kiln Point (Washington) denote the locations of a useful type of structure for creating a material commonly known as quicklime; other types of kilns are commemorated by the name of Kiln (Mississippi). Church Lake (Minnesota) and Falls Church (Virginia) were named for local churches. Many place names include an indication of the type of place at the time of (EuroAmerican) settlement, such as Station, Ferry, Grove, Store, Spring(s), Crossroads, Mill(s), Chapel, Gap, Hollow, Camp and Campground, and Stand, some of which

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were associated with particular structures and/or activities. These are often preceded by a surname. Some of these are historical artifacts – a ferry may no longer be available at a place that was named for an original service, for example. Other names have regional meanings but are rarely found in other parts of the country with the same meaning: although Coves may be found broadly, designating protected coastal places or small harbors, the application to valleys is much more restricted. Names based on items used by people include Ducktrap River (Alabama); Basket Island (Maine); Canoe (Alabama); Mast Landing and Stave Island (Maine); Hatchet Creek (Alabama); Muleshoe (Texas); Muleshoe Ridge (Oregon); Pound of Tea Island (Maine); and Cache la Poudre River (Colorado), for a gunpowder cache or stored supply. Dime Box (Texas) refers to an early mail repository (Tarpley 1980). Dog Town, Alabama, is thought to have been named because the area was frequented by hunters and their dogs (Foscue 1989). Additional names for physical features were based on the perceived similarity of the feature to tools, like the teeth of a saw or the flat surface of an anvil or clothes iron (see physical descriptions, below). Places bearing the name Commerce (California, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas) may have described business activities taking place in the settlement but also may have reflected aspirations to become centers of trade.

Aspirational, Feelings, and Opinions Names that evoke hopes and feelings were applied by settlers and explorers. The idea of unity or harmony appears as Union, Unionville, Union River, and Unity (Maine) and Harmony (California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming). While not overly ambitious, pleasantness also is aspirational and appears many times in the United States as Pleasanton (California, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas), Pleasantville (Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin), and many communities named Pleasant Valley (Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and a ghost town in Nevada). Pleasant Unity (Pennsylvania) combines the two ideas. Amity, while not used much in modern conversation, was an important concept related to friendship or harmony during prior times. It was recorded with several variants, including Amity (Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania), Amity Hills (Oregon), and Amityville (New York, Pennsylvania). Frustration Falls (Oregon) was so named because of access difficulties (McArthur 1992). Useless Bay (Washington) and Point Sublime (Arizona) have names based on very low and very high impressions. Happiness found its way into a few names, such as Happy (Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas, and a past town in Kansas), Happy Isles (California), Happy Camp Spring (Oregon), and Happy Valley (a community in

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Oregon). Several actual valleys have been given aspirational names or names associated with positive thinking, including Treasure Valley and Magic Valley (Idaho), Enchanted Valley (Washington), and Paradise Valley (California, Montana, Nevada). Additional “Valleys” are communities, though they sometimes took their names from appellations for the physical area.

Conflict, Death, and Negative Experiences Place names commemorating battles, privation, and death, including the discovery of dead bodies, appear across the country, although they seem to be more prominent in the rugged and desert areas of the western United States. Such names include, for example, Murder Creek, Shades of Death Valley, and Shades Mountain (Alabama); Jornada del Muerto – the “journey of death” or “journey of a dead man” and Starvation Peak (New Mexico); Warrior Stand (Alabama); Death Valley (California); Dead Horse Point (Utah), Deadman Cove (Maine), Deadman Pass (Oregon), Dead Lake (Minnesota); Battle Ground (Washington), and Battle Mountain (Nevada). Cape Disappointment (Washington) is on the north side of the difficult-to-enter Columbia River. Several other US places have been marked as Disappointment. Difficult (Tennessee), Defeated Creek (Tennessee), and Lamentation Mountain (Connecticut) are examples of places bearing names for negative experiences, if not direct death or harm.

Recognition of Other Locations The “classical world” inspired many North American place names, along with other parts of the globe. In some cases, multiple locations were named for the same Old World place due to naming fads (see Zelinsky 1967). There have been naming chains, where a frontier settlement was named for an East Coast or Midwestern city, some of which had been named for an Old World location. Cairo, Egypt, inspired the name of Cairo, Illinois, whose name was later transferred to Cairo, Oklahoma (Shirk 1974): as people moved across the continent they often honored places where they had previously lived. Settlements named for one Cairo or another also were established in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and West Virginia. In some cases, more than one settlement of the same name was begun in a given state. Another naming chain example, of which there are many, is the adoption of Exeter (from England) in New Hampshire, and then the naming of Exeter, Maine, for the one in New Hampshire (McCauley 2004). Paris, France was an especially popular inspiration for American settlements, resulting in Parises in Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Not only was Europe a hearth area for some American place names, but other classical locations such as places in the Middle East and Asia inspired naming, and increasing global awareness

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even inspired the taking of names from other parts of the New World (e.g., Peru, New York). Room (2006) referred to toponyms conveyed from place to place as “shift names.” Locations mentioned in the Bible inspired some names in the United States; these also may be categorized as religion-inspired names (see below). Bethel was especially popular (Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin; also, Bethel Island, California), in some cases appearing multiple times in a single state. Less common biblical place names also were applied, such as Timnath (Colorado).

Humorous Ideas and Unusual Thoughts Some of the most intriguing place names are the very unusual and even humorous appellations. A few of these are questionable sounding, based on changes in popular word and phrase connotations, although at the time of naming, the term may have been more innocent. For example, Intercourse (Alabama and Pennsylvania) generally referred to communicating or conversations, and Blue Ball (Pennsylvania) was named for the symbol marking an early inn. Some names are drily humorous references to poorness, such as Needy (Oregon), Needmore (Alabama), and Lickskillet (Alabama, Kentucky) and Lick Skillet (Tennessee), which can refer to a need to lick the skillet in order to get enough food. Slapout (Oklahoma) was evidently named based on the habitual response of a storekeeper to requests: he was “slap out” of the desired item (Shirk 1974). For some reason, small creatures were used to designate several settlements, leading to humorous images. These include Frog Level (Alabama, Virginia), Frogville (Oklahoma), Toad Hop (Indiana), and Flea Hop (Alabama). All three settlements named Frog Level in Alabama were renamed (Foscue 1989). The Bubbles (hills in Maine) were originally called the Boobies (an anatomical reference, see physical descriptions below). George (Washington) took advantage of the state name to be combined with President Washington’s given name. The story about Ino (Alabama) is that one person during a discussion repeatedly said “I know,” and the decision was made to name the settlement with an alternative spelling; Zip City (Alabama) was named for traffic going through town (Foscue 1989). Lebam (Washington) was a backwards spelling of the given name Mabel. Puss Cuss Creek (Alabama) is a misspelling of a Choctaw name (Foscue 1989). Show Low (Arizona) was named for a card-cutting bet. Cape Flattery (Washington) took its name from a note by Captain Cook, who said it “flattered us with the hopes of finding a harbor” (Brokenshire 1993). Some additional examples of unusual names are Bucksnort (Tennessee); Tumbledown Dick Head and Tumble-down Dick Mountain (Maine); Truth or Consequences (New Mexico), locally referenced as “T or C;” Forty One (Oklahoma); Peculiar (Missouri); Flying Mountain (Maine); Buffalo Chip (South Dakota); Smut Eye

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(Alabama); Ugh Lake (Maine); Bogus Brook (Minnesota); and Bird-in-Hand (Pennsylvania).

Wildlife Wildlife includes both plants and animals, and most names reflect native wildlife rather than introduced species, although wild horses may be a notable exception to this. Wild Horse (Colorado) and Wild Horse (Nevada) are both unincorporated settlements. Several mountains are named Wild Horse Peak or Wildhorse Peak (California, Colorado, Idaho, Washington), or Mustang Peak (Alaska, Arizona, California). It should also be noted that domestic and feral animals, as well as fantasy creatures, also have served as the inspiration for names, such as Puppy Creek (Alabama), Dog Crossing (Georgia), Phenix [sic] (Alabama), and Phoenix (Arizona). Ape Cave (Washington) is associated with Bigfoot or Sasquatch, rather than a true ape. As far as native wild animals go, it would be possible to subcategorize these as different types, such as insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Some of these were often repeated in toponyms: Beaver Creek (Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina); Bear Mountain (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, West Virginia). Bear and Deer have frequently been noted in toponyms; other animals are mentioned in fewer instances, as in Grasshopper Flat (Arizona), Pelican (Louisiana), Manatee River (Florida), Oysterville (Washington), and Alligator (Mississippi). South Dakota actually has settlements named Bison and Buffalo relatively near one another. Native vegetation names often have noted specific kinds of trees or shrubs, although herbaceous plants and plant communities also have been noted. Names focused on the trees of an area (which may have been greatly reduced during the settlement process) include Oak Hill (Alabama, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin), Juniper (Oregon), and Aspen (Colorado). Other places recognizing plants include Azalea, Rhododendron, and Mistletoe (Oregon), and Flag Island (Maine; flags are a type of wild iris). Ferndale and Fern Prairie (Washington) are on the wetter fern-supporting side of the state. Pretty Prairie (Kansas) is an especially nice recognition of the native plant community. Wildlife names – especially those for native flora or fauna – also can be considered descriptive names for pre- and early Euro-American conditions. For example, several communities are named Buffalo east of the Mississippi, where bison once roamed, but are no longer found. Likewise, several locations are named for the Chestnut, although the introduction of chestnut blight has driven the native American chestnut to near extinction in the eastern United States.

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Physical Descriptions A very large number of both physical features and settlements bear descriptive names. Some of these may no longer fit the place, much the same as city streets named for elms no longer have these trees. Physical descriptions may be quite literal but often are metaphorically inspired by other items. While names based on native plants and animals can be considered physically descriptive, those offered as examples of this category are more focused on landforms and traits other than flora and fauna. The Big Muddy River (Illinois) was given a very direct or literal moniker. While not really “high ground,” other than perhaps in a relative sense, Terre Haute (Indiana) also is the type of toponym that can be considered literal. Heckletooth Mountain (Oregon) was so named because spires on the mountain reminded a woman of the teeth on a comb for flax, sometimes called a heckle (McArthur 1992). Anvil Rock (Arizona) bears the name of an important flat-topped metalsmithing tool. Slumgullion Pass (Colorado) was named for a kind of stew, evidently because there are streaks of colors in the rock similar to the stew (Bright 2004). Many rocks and hills apparently brought haystacks to mind for Euro-American settlers and explorers. Oregon alone has at least three: Haystack Rocks, Haystack Butte, and Haystack Creek (for a nearby hillock), and a settlement named Haystack for the nearby Butte (McArthur 1992). Quite a few Euro-American names applied by explorers – English speaking and others – were based on human anatomy, particularly women’s breasts. Such places include Grand Teton and the Teton Mountains (Wyoming), the Boobies (Maine; renamed the Bubbles Mountains [McCauley 2004]), Nippletop (New York), and Molly’s Nipple and Mollie’s Nipple (Utah). Colors frequently appear in place names and have been especially applied to physical features. Red, yellow, black, and blue are common, but other colors certainly appear. Rather than designating the metal, “Silver” can be more descriptive of appearance, as for waterfalls. Some color names are in non-English languages, with good examples in Spanish. Some are unusual. Brandy Pond (Maine) was named for having the color of brandy (McCauley 2004). Other color name examples include the Blue Ridge Mountains (Virginia) and the Blue Mountains (Oregon); Amarillo, Spanish for yellow (Texas); Colorado River (red or colored red in Spanish); Maroon Bells (Colorado); Ocre [sic] (Alabama); Red Rocks (Colorado); and Black Ground Mountain (Alabama). Black frequently names mountains, canyons, and lakes.

Atmospheric Conditions, Dates, and Seasonal Connections This rather broad category of place names is based on a relatively small number of names, but such names are identifiable for the Unites States. Weather, climate, the seasons, times of day, and particular dates are represented by certain names. Mist (Oregon) is reflective of common weather conditions. While neighborhood-level place names are generally avoided here, Foggy Bottom (District of Columbia) is

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worthy of note as bearing a weather-related name. Storms are noted by Hurricane (Alabama), Hurricane Creek (Alabama), and Hurricane Island (Maine). Hurricane Ridge (Washington) likely refers to the occasional storm-induced strong winds. Sunset and Sunshine (Maine) reflect a time of day and weather conditions, respectively. The Great Smoky Mountains, or Smoky Mountains, were so named because of commonly hazy conditions, as were the Blue Ridge Mountains. Rainy Lake and Rainy River (Minnesota) are reflective of mist from the waterfall where the river meets the lake (Fedo 2002). Winter Harbor and Winterport (Maine), Winter Haven (Florida), Summerton (South Carolina), and Summertown (Georgia; Krakow 1975) mark seasons. Names including Spring(s) most likely reflect water upwellings rather than the season. Several locations are named Christmas (Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi), or Christmas Knob (New York). This name can be considered as a recognition of a specific date/time of year, as well as being religion-inspired. Mardi Gras Bayou (Louisiana) is the namesake of a religious holiday, as well, having been named on the day of Mardi Gras, 1699 (Leeper 2012). Some seemingly weather- or season-related names actually are based on surnames, like Winter(s), Snow, and Rain. Several Wintervilles and Wintersvilles, for example, are named for people rather than the season. Snowflake (Arizona) is a combination of two family names (Granger 1960), although it is likely the double meaning was quite intentional. Snowflake does receive snowfall.

Combinations and Made-Up Names Room’s (2006) “manufactured names” describe names that were made up, either imaginatively (such as reversed spellings or completely new words, like Tolono, Illinois) or by combining words. Some names are combination of words that create meaning or create a different meaning than the original words. Several are on state boundaries, such as Kanorado, Florala, and Texarkana. Others are compounded from the surnames of early settlers. Eldorado (Illinois) was named for two families – the Elders and the Readers. Primghar (Iowa) is a combination of the first letters of the surnames of eight settlers (WPA 1938). Other combinations also were formed, such as Abanda (Alabama), based on the acronym for the Atlanta, Birmingham, and Atlantic Railroad: the AB and A (Foscue 1989). “Polis,” from the ancient Greek for city, and attractive as the United States developed, was sometimes combined with other terms, such as Indianapolis.

Misspellings and Mistakes Room’s (2006) categories include “mistake names.” Misspellings have played a role in the creation of names. In some cases, Native American and other non-English names have been corrupted through misunderstandings and misspellings. Square Lake (Maine) was mistranslated from a First Nation word for “round” (McCauley

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2004). A few examples of misspellings that became at least semi-permanent in names include Red Level (Alabama), which should have been Read’s Level (Foscue 1989); Arab (Alabama), which was intended to bear the given name of Arad (Foscue 1989); Orrington (Maine), for Orange town (Massachusetts) (McCauley 2004), and St. Froid Lake (Maine), for Sefroi Nadeau, an early settler in the area (McCauley 2004). Some names were established by the crossing of “i”s rather than “t”s on name applications: Manset (Maine) likely should have been Mansell (McCauley 2004), and Salitpa (Alabama) was to have been named for the Satilpa River (Foscue 1989).

Spatial Variability The tremendous variability of place names cannot be thoroughly illustrated via maps due to the great density of names for settlements and physical features. However, a sampling of names can illustrate some of the general variability around the United States (Figs. 1, 2, and 3). For the purposes of these illustrations, familial and local resident recognitions were omitted because they are so common. The names shown were selected for clarity of themes and relative interest. Although names included in these maps are comprised of subjective selections, they illustrate variability found across the country. The map of a selected portion of Maine, for example, includes a relatively large number of aspirational names (Liberty, Unity, Freedom, Hope, Union) common in the northeastern United States and often originating in the early days of the nation. Likewise, names commemorating “Founding Fathers” and key Revolutionary War figures (Washington, Hancock, Franklin, Steuben) were common in the region and sometimes renamed communities that had previously been known by other names. Southern Illinois is known regionally as “Little Egypt,” and some place names connect to this identity through Egyptian name adoptions (Cairo, Thebes, Karnak). Few names were inspired by the first residents, although Shawneetown recognizes the best known non-European occupants of the area. As in Maine, religion-inspired names are evident. Every part of the United States includes physically and biologically descriptive names for settlements and physical features like rivers, mountains, and valleys. Plants and animals are frequently noted, but this seems especially apparent for the northwestern Oregon place names (Fig. 3), and the many tree-related names recognize the densely forested environment. Physically descriptive names sometimes note the shapes of landforms and also recognize materials like rock, sand, and mud. Occasionally physically descriptive names originated with the original inhabitants of an area and their languages (Figs. 1 and 3), although much of the time European names are those evident. In some parts of the country, efforts to identify tribal names for features currently “unnamed” are being pursued, and there have been efforts to rename some features with their appropriate indigenous names (e.g., Denali was officially adopted for the peak formerly known as Mt. McKinley, Alaska).

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Fig. 1 Selected place names in central southern Maine

Conclusions Interpretation of the origins of names must be done with some care. As noted for some of the names above, the inspirations for place names can be misleading. Most often, this appears to be a case of using surnames that carry meanings that could fit a place. Friday Harbor (Washington) was given a man’s surname, rather than being the day of discovery. Some of the names seemingly anchored in weather, and seasons are examples of names that can be misinterpreted, as are the names for hymn melodies, like China and Poland. Place names have long been studied, with specific categories like classical names receiving particular interest. Additional identification and mapping of names

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Fig. 2 Selected place names in southern Illinois. (Primary source for name origins: Callary 2009)

associated with any of the identified themes would be of interest; death, conflict, and negative experiences, for example, may illustrate the extreme difficulties faced by First Nations, early EuroAmerican explorers, and settlers. Research to identify the types of names most commonly associated with different languages, whether in the home country or places of immigration (e.g., themes found to dominate French, Spanish, German, and English names in the United States, and name types associated with indigenous peoples), could contribute to linguistic-cultural understanding. Explorations of the differences between retained indigenous names and replacement European names also would contribute to understanding of history and cultural interactions, particularly when EuroAmerican acceptance of indigenous names is addressed over time.

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Fig. 3 Selected place names in northwestern Oregon. (Primary source for name origins: McArthur 1992)

Work should continue toward developing a better-defined set of themes based on the tentative suggestions here and those identified by Room (2006), especially with a goal of moving toward more exclusive categories and a reduction of potential overlaps. Attention to original intent with respect to a name is particularly important. Place names offer a fascinating area of consideration for exploring history and the application of language and for seeing people’s thoughts (and senses of humor) in practice. Names applied by earlier peoples and new names and modifications by later explorers and settlers offer a way to see human connections to the Earth and to specific places. Seeking understanding of place can take one in interesting directions; exploration of toponyms provides a rewarding approach.

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References Bright, W. (2004). Colorado place names (3rd ed.). Boulder: Johnson Books. Brokenshire, D. (1993). Washington state place names: From Alki to Yelm. Caldwell: Caxton Printers. Brunn, S. D., & Wheeler, J. O. (1966). Notes on the geography of religious town names in the U.S. Names: A Journal of Onomastics, 14(4), 197–202. Callary, E. (2009). Place names of Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Fedo, M. (2002). The Pocket Guide to Minnesota Place Names. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press. Foscue, V. O. (1989). Place names in Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Granger, B. H. (1960). Will C. Barnes’ Arizona place names. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Krakow, K. K. (1975). Georgia place-names (5th ed.). Macon: Winship Press. Leeper, C. D. (2012). Louisiana place names: Popular, unusual, and forgotten stories of towns, cities, plantations, bayous, and even some cemeteries. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. McArthur, L. L. (1992). Oregon geographic names (6th ed.). Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press. McCauley, B. (2004). The names of Maine: How Maine places got their names and what they mean. Beverly: Commonwealth Editions. Monmonier, M. (2006). From squaw tit to whorehouse meadow: How maps name, claim, and inflame. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Phillips, J. W. (1971). Washington state place names. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Room, A. (2006). Placenames of the world (2nd ed.). Jefferson: McFarland & Company. Shirk, G. H. (1974). Oklahoma Place Names (2nd ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Stewart, G. R. (2008). Names on the land: A historical account of place-naming in the United States. New York: New York Review Books. Tarpley, F. (1980). 1001 Texas place names. Austin: University of Texas Pres. Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Writers’ Project. (1938; reprint 1986). The WPA Guide to 1930s Iowa (originally published as Iowa: A Guide to the Hawkeye State). Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Zelinsky, W. (1967). Classical town names in the United States: The historical geography of an American idea. Geographical Review, 57(4), 463–495.

Part 2 Language, Culture and Politics

Palestine’s Land Centrality and the Instrumentality of Historical Language Seif Da’Na and Laura Khoury

“Why should landscape be any less dramatic than the event?” – Frederic Jameson (1991, p. 364)

Contents Introduction: Land Centrality and Colonial Zionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Colonial Formations: Indigenous People and the “Linguistic Contours” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Imagining the World: Language and the Making of the Modern World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Importance of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Interplay Between History and Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Spatiality of Politics and History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion: Palestine and Linguistic Genocide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Abstract

This chapter investigates the performative role of language in the total struggle to control the land of Palestine before and after the Nakba in 1948. While the pivotal role assumed by the non-military tools was instrumental in the construction of hegemony over space and the socio-political reconstruction of geography, it was rarely highlighted in favor of the military conflict. As the dynamics of struggle shifted, the dynamics and instrumentality of language and the politics of space shifted as well. In order to highlight the relevance of language, the chapter addresses the theoretical and practical dimensions of both the politics of space and the spatiality of politics in the Arab Israeli struggle. What is new in this paper S. Da’Na (*) Sociology Department, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Khoury Sociology Department, Birzeit University-Palestine, Birzeit, Palestine e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_6

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is that from inscription on currency to naming streets, towns, cities, and even the country as a whole, language not only served the political agenda of the various contenders but that its historical language is essential to conceptualize the nature and essence of the struggle, thus illuminating the failure to reach any compromise. Ultimately, the function of the social space is not independent from class contradictions. Keywords

Instrumentality of language, Historical language, Nakba, Politics of space, Linguistic genocide, Palestine, Colonial Zionism

Introduction: Land Centrality and Colonial Zionism In May of 1607, “three small ships sailed up the James River from Chesapeake Bay in search of a site for the first permanent English colony in North America” (Fredrickson 1981, p. 3). The choice of the prospective settlers of the “low and swampy” peninsula, known today as Jamestown, might not have seemed very ideal. However, the choice of Jamestown (an island) proved to be highly practical for the purpose of the arriving settlers. The European settlers gave “a high priority to their physical security,” and the choice of an island made it “defensible against possible attacks by hostile Indians.” Nonetheless, such a choice confirmed at least two important facts: first, the land Europeans were about to colonize was far from being bare and vacant, thus their security concern; second, Jamestown was not “so much an outpost as a beachhead for the English invasion and conquest of what was to become the United States of America” (Fredrickson 1981, p. 3). Forty-five years later, in 1652, “another three ships, flying the flags of the Dutch Republic and its East India Company, anchored in the Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope” (Fredrickson 1981, p. 3). The goal, this time, was neither to establish a Jamestown-like colony, nor a beachhead or an anchorage. It was to establish “a refreshment station where ships could break the long voyage between the Netherlands and the company’s main settlement in Batavia in Java” (Fredrickson 1981, p. 3). Little did Jan van Riebeeck, the commander of the expedition, know that he was initiating a course that would lead, following the construction of Cape Town, to the white settlement in South Africa. While similar penetrations of Asia, Africa, and the Americas took place in the seventeenth century, and, therefore, such occurrences might not have seemed significant to a historian or observant at that time, it is actually hardly possible to conceive the modern world without realizing their significance as central historical events. However, for a twentieth-century historian, the colonization of North America and South Africa retroactively represented a significant historical phenomenon that shaped the modern world and led to comparative colonialism as “settler colonialism.”

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A comparative comprehension of both significant experiences, however, illuminates much on the Zionist settler colonial experience in Palestine. The colonization of both North America and South Africa was possible due to their European-like latitudes (they are completely or two-thirds in the temperate zones, north and south). Unlike the tropics, the temperate zone climate that enabled the fauna and flora that Europeans historically depended on for food, fiber, leather, an power to thrive, was better than is Europe itself that lacked fierce competition (Crosby 2015). Most significantly: . . .since both regions also lacked the readily available mineral resources that stimulated Spanish colonization of South and Central America, as well as the opportunities for lucrative trade in scarce commodities cases that existed in the East, land for agriculture and grazing quickly became the source of wealth and sustenance most desired by European invaders. (Fredrickson 1981, p. 4)

Colonial Formations: Indigenous People and the “Linguistic Contours” Taking control of naming is an integral component of the process of assuming political power under colonization. Most research on naming places and connecting to power relations was conducted by historic anthropologists (like Basso 1996). Levi-Strauss discussed individuation as the final step and level of classification. He suggested that the level of “paradigmatic” ideas makes sacred languages get buried under and concealed. Additionally, as we will see, there are practices that shed light on both the overt and covert uses of power. Adala (2012) and the Association of Civil Rights filed a petition in 1999 asking the Zionist state to implement the colonized body’s Supreme Court decision of 2002. Adala says that it is a violation of the Supreme Court judgment delivered in 2002 that obliges municipalities in mixed Arab-Jewish cities to add Arabic to the traffic, warning, and other informational signs in areas under their jurisdiction. They said that they received reports of new or replaced road signs, signs denoting street names, signs for public institutions, and so on in the mixed city of Natzerat Illit which had been erected that display Hebrew and English only. This all ties to July 2009, when the Transport Minister made a decision to Hebraize all road signs in colonized Palestine, removing the Arabic names of towns and villages from the signs and replacing them with the Hebrew names of the places using Arabic letters. For example, “Jerusalem” would become “Yerushalaim” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and “Al-Quds” (the Arabic name for Jerusalem) would be erased from road signs. For Palestinians, the natives of the land, the linguistic contours in the Arabic names of Palestinian towns is an integral part of their culture. Massey (1995) reminds us of the dislocation between the past and the present of a place: the “contemporaneous plurality” signifying their political importance and practical

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effect. Bradley (2015) explains how for Indigenous peoples place names act as mnemonic devices, embodying histories, spiritual and environmental knowledge, and traditional teachings and place names also serve as boundary markers between home and the world of outsiders: . . .. Places are never static and are constantly in a state of flux; they’re always a product of social connections linking them to the outside world (this could be in the form of trading connections, colonialism, or migrations, for example). With colonialism, however, these interconnections between the outside world (world of settlers) and the local (Indigenous world) were unequal, and Indigenous ways of interacting with, knowing, and naming the land, were sometimes lost or made invisible. . . . Indigenous peoples across North America witnessed the surveying, mapping, and renaming of their homeland. Connections to their land, their pasts, and traditional knowledge disappeared from settler maps, words, and knowledge systems. The “linguistic contours” through which Indigenous peoples gave meaning to places was typically not included within the language and place names of settlers. Place names are powerful; they embody histories and can ‘claim’ ownership over the spaces we inhabit.

Imagining the World: Language and the Making of the Modern World The world, as we know it, was created between 1789 and 1848, as insinuated in Eric Hobsbawm’s (1962) account of the European Revolution: “this revolution has transformed, and continues to transform, the entire world (p. 1).” While the age of revolution, 1789–1848, resulted in a profound transformation, it was not limited to changing the political, social, and economic structures, but our ability to even imagine the modern world was constituted in this period as reflected by the English words which were invented or gained their modern meanings substantially in the period of 60 years: To imagine the modern world without these words (i.e. without the things and concepts for which they provide names) is to measure the profundity of the revolution which broke out between 1789 and 1848 and forms the greatest transformation in human history since the remote times when men invented agriculture and metallurgy, writing, the city and the state. (Hobsbawm 1962, p. 1)

The new words, or the words that gained new meanings, signify more than new political, social, and economic orders.

The Importance of Space In its modern form, social theory proposes a temporal master narrative of human society that silences the spatiality of thought and experience. The making of history in modern social account recalls an essentially historical epistemology. Social

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objects are temporally emplaced creating a historically based mode of comprehension. This explains, at least partially, the temporal character of historical accounts created by modern nations and their states. A gradual awareness and recognition of the spatiality of experience has been taking place for some time. The interpretive mode of social theory has been shifting from partial incorporation of spatiality of experience to some claims that “often tend to overstate their case, creating the unproductive aura of anti-history, inflexibly exaggerating the critical privilege of contemporary spatiality in isolation from an increasingly silenced embrace of time” (Soja 1989, p. 11). Such a shift, polemic as it is and insufficiently formed so far to be treated as broadly as an epistemological account, did in fact change the interpretive terrain of theory. In certain subfields, such as urban studies and race and the city, one might even claim a paradigm shift. Spatiality has been rapidly entwining with durée leading to reconsidering social events and rewriting historical narratives and accounts. The increasingly growing interest in the work of Henry Lefebvre (1974) on the social production of space and David Harvey’s (1990) geographical materialism transfigured many fields in the humanities, social sciences, and even architecture. Such publications propose specific ways of understanding the spatiality of social history as well as the socialness of space. Spatial and temporal narratives do not necessarily contradict each other, but rather might collide. Spatiality is another dimension of the narrative that might correspond to history in many ways even if it has its own existence relatively independent from history. Not only is space formed by historical events; it also forms historical events. The connection between the so-called mental space and social reality is the spacetime nexus that philosophers and social scientists either ignored as self-explanatory and evident (see Lefebvre 1974) or attempted to theorize about.

Interplay Between History and Space The case under consideration in this chapter is used to explain the interplay between history and space or how history forms social space and how social space shapes history in a particular historical moment and setting. The dialectic of time and space, both history of space and spatiality of history, are broken with the intent to show how; although both are relatively autonomous, they do collide. The chapter explores the spatiality of politics and history in the case of Palestine arguing that approaching the issue from the point of view of the politics of space alone is insufficient at best. Space does not merely mirror the power of politics, but has a power of its own; also, both are dialectically related. The following dialogue took place at the hearing of the Royal Committee on Palestine in 1937 (Al Kayali 1988: pp. 517–518): Mr. Awni Abdul Hadi: An additional issue that shows the bias of the Mandate government is inscribing the term “Land of Israel” in Hebrew on both the currency and postage stamps. Article 22 of the Mandate clearly states that the word Palestine should be written in the three

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languages. In Hebrew, however, it is written “Land of Israel.” This is a violation of the Mandate principles. Sir Hamond: Does it affect anybody? Mr. Awni Abdul Hadi: It strongly affects our moralities and feelings. I petitioned the Supreme Court to terminate these stamps. It hurts me a great deal to touch anything with “Land of Israel” inscribed on it. Sir Hamond: Do you prefer to have English as the only official language of the country? Mr. Awni Abdul Hadi: I prefer to have Arabic as the only official language. Mr. Kopland: On this piece of currency I see two dates: one in Arabic and the other in English. If I were a zealous Zionist, I would oppose it. Mr. Awni Abul Hadi: There are no Hebrew numbers that they can use [they use English numbers].

“Yafa (Jaffa) [or Jafa, a Palestinian city in Northern Mandate Palestine] has been translated to the bones” [Wa Yafa Turjimat Hatta Al Nokha’a] noted the Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (1969) on the current state of the old Palestinian city. The “original” Yafa, Darwish’s remark indicates, is Arab. The Hebrewization of the city from street names, shop signs, direction signs, street music, and even the city name (from Yafa to Yafu) is only a temporal and exterior change. He wrote in his poem “Diaries of a Palestinian Wound (1969)”: Abandoned beloved people and Yafa was translated to the bones As she is looking for me She did not find except her forehead Leave to me all the death, Sister, leave the loss and alienation I add him as a star of her catastrophe Ah, my surviving wounds My nation is not a bag And I’m not a traveler I am a lover and the land is my love

Darwish is observing Yafa every day, a city like all other Palestinian cities. He stresses that the names of Mount Carmel in Haifa is in us and our eyelashes, so is the Galilee. He makes the connection between the wounded body and the changes made on the land as he wrote earlier in the poem: We do not need to be reminded Mount Carmel is in us And on our eyelashes the grass of Galilee

Darwish’s observation is relevant to this chapter’s purpose in two ways. First, language, as a cultural practice, serves as a tool to relate to the place, define the place, and command the place. Simply, language and symbols can be effective [mediating] tools in manipulating the power of the space. The symbolic construction of space, of course, does not occur in a vacuum, but is historically and socially conditioned. Second, due to the fact that the struggle between Arabs and Zionist European immigrants has not ceased and does not seem to be concluded in the foreseen future,

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this translation of Yafa is not final or successful and the struggle, among many things, to command the space and/or manipulate its power continues. Yafa, therefore, is not a neutral space but rather a site of struggle; Yafa’s current mayor, like everything else, is Jewish; Jews living in Yafa are privileged majority (the majority of Arabs living in Yafa prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948 were expelled); and Yafa was defined by Israel as Jewish city and any Jew can live in Yafa. On the other hand, while most Palestinians cannot even travel to Yafa, Yafa is one of the most popular female names in Palestine in recent years, and it is a symbol of a struggle. Yafa was a center for Arab resistance to both British and Zionist colonization, and many documents of the Arab Palestinian resistance were issued from Yafa in the 1920s and 1930s to restore a way of life that has been destroyed with the establishment of Israel. Fairuz’s, a prominent Lebanese singer, song titled Yafa is very popular and presents an image of Arab Yafa as a way of life and culture. A link to the song is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼aItdkIgQecc. In her poem she describes the sea and its winds, the way the sea calls them, and how they will return despite the death that surrounds them. Most important is that the basis of this city is fishing. It says: I remember one day I was in Yafa, the sailboat at the port of Yafa, the days of fishing, the sea called us so we prepared our paddles, we see glimpses of the spectrum that made us long for Yafa. At Dawn, we took off and sailed so that the beach was lost, we fished abundantly, and gained much from it. But, at night the wind came like a storm that made the water reach the sky. It’s a nightly storm that fed the sea wolves, . . . that day they said we were lost and will perish in the cold forever, but we returned with the wind like the genie comes. And, we entered the port of Yafa. . . we were shouting with the wind, we will return Yafa, we shall come back to Yafa.

The case of Yafa is not a unique one. The Jewish European scheme rested on a narrative where all of Palestine is seen as Jewish. The Zionist scheme of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, therefore, forcefully expelled the Arabs reconfiguring the demography where Jews became the dominant numerical and sociological majority. Zionists believed that Jewish hegemony in Palestine (i.e., Judaizing Palestine) could be achieved through, among other things, demographic hegemony. In the Zionist racist tradition, demography defines the identity of the land. However, the manipulation of spatial power was deemed necessary, at least partially, to control the native Arabs, now minority, and contain their resistance to the colonial project of the European Jewish immigrants. It was also necessary to manipulate the consent of European immigrants regarding the Zionist narrative. The struggle over the definition of the space and manipulating its power, which took on the character of defining the national identity of Palestine itself and at the same time conquering or at least neutralizing the other, began with the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning and help of British colonization. Demography was one aspect (Jewish immigration was a central cause for most Arab uprisings since 1917) of defining the place. Additional aspects that proved to be very effective were the common religious sites such as the Buraq Wall in the Muslim traditions that is called Wailing Wall in the Jewish traditions.

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Although Hebrew had no place in Palestine prior to the British colonization, and although Jews together with Jewish European immigrants were only 7% of the population in 1917, Hebrew was treated as an official language of the British colonial authority sharing street and traffic signs, shop signs, postage stamps, and prints on currency with English and Arabic. Throughout the British colonial rule, Jews negotiated and renegotiated their share in local government (e.g., city councils, Mandate government, and the legislative council), which were other tools used to alter the existing definition of Palestine. The Arab Executive Committee, and other civil and political organizations, took stands against the legislative council and on the Arab resolution to boycott its elections and rejecting the proposed constitution in 1922 which clearly cites the question of defining Palestine and the threats to Arab hegemony in Palestine. These stands were rationalized based on the power given to Zionists in the council in terms of numbers (Arabs who were 93% of the population will have less power than both Jewish members and other members appointed by the Mandate government). The Council included 12 Arabs and 14 Jews and English members. Veto power was held by the Mandate governor “whom Churchill called a fervent Zionist.” The fact remains that the constitution allows/demands the Mandate governor to implement the policy indicated in the Balfour declaration (e.g., the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine) and, thereby, privileges transforming public land to Jewish immigrants by the governor (see Al Kayali 1988). In more than one document, Palestinian civil and political organizations cited the fact that Arabs were 93% of the population and that the proposed constitution and the composition of the legislative council privileges the Jewish minority and attempts to transform them into a hegemonic majority. Arab hegemony was not used to discriminate against Jews, Arab leaders insisted, as discrimination against Arabs was already taking place. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Arabic became simply one of the non-Hebrew languages (e.g., English) used in Israel and, later, in the West Bank and Gaza. Even in the old city of Jerusalem occupied mainly by Palestinian Arabs, Hebrew comes first and Arabic second, if present, which is just another non-Hebrew language. The police checkpoints in East Jerusalem are identified in Hebrew only, although East Jerusalem is the Arab section of Jerusalem. Any uninformed tourist might simply deduce that the use of Arabic is merely intended for touristic reasons like English or French. The order of writing street “official” signs, for example, reflected the power struggle and conflict over the use of space. Under the British colonization, Arabic came second after English. After 1948, Hebrew came first. The signs that define any place are not written in Hebrew first only, but the Arabic names were replaced with Jewish names. In this case, Arabic signs are written in the Hebrew tongue (e.g., the Islamic Mamluk Castle becomes King David’s Tower, Abraham Mosque becomes the Tomb of the Patriarchs or the cave of Machpelah, Al Aqsa Mosque site becomes the Temple Mount, Tel Al Rabie becomes Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, the Hebrew for Askalan, is written Ashkelon in Arabic instead of Askalan).

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The Spatiality of Politics and History The spatiality dimension is rarely mentioned in the literature of the struggle or the narratives of the different sides for what it really is. The Palestine narrative concurs that the space is not neutral and that it “is not less dramatic than the event itself” as Jameson (1991, p. 364) argued. The Buraq revolution in 1927 against the British colonization is one example of the power of the place. The Buraq Wall is sacred in the Muslim traditions since they believe Mohammad ascended to heaven from that place and was used “improperly” by Jews who call it the “wailing wall” and consider it a remnant of the Jewish Temple. The dispute over this wall continues today and could not be resolved in Camp David in 2000. The more recently Al Aqsa Intifada that started in September 2000 began with the infamous visit of Ariel Sharon to the mosque. The intifada is still going on today, not to say that the place itself is the reason, but the symbolism of the place is what manipulated it. Therefore, what is needed, in addition to the discussion of the politics of space, are analytical tools (concepts, models) that enable/explain the spatiality of politics and history in this case. As a historically and socially contingent experience, the production and the experience of space is an ongoing site of class struggle. It is contingent upon the class structure and its contradictions. This is exactly why spatiality is political and not neutral and why it cannot be crudely reduced to immediate or corresponding class interests. On the other hand, the reproduction of space reproduces the corresponding class structure itself. In other words, since social space is a social product, every form of society distinctive in its class structure has contradictions that produce its social space. The production of social space is a question of the specific social formation, given that every social formation produces its own space, as Lefebvre (1974) argued. This might be a question of political economy, an approach that rests on addressing issues of scarcity and inequality. Such an approach might be very useful in the field of urbanization where the quality (uneven development) and quantity of space matter.

Conclusion: Palestine and Linguistic Genocide Understanding the function of the social space independent from class contradictions is an impossible task. However, it is possible to analyze how space structures the reproduction of the corresponding class relations. This can be a non-crude formulation if one considers the fact that class contradictions (or even more generally contradictions within the social formation) might generate specific spatial structures. That is, space is a social construct, although it corresponds to a specific social formation. No place in the world can demonstrate the validity of this claim more than Palestine.

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The land of Palestine has been the site of wide-ranging comprehensive struggle between Arabs and European Jewish immigrants, invented the myth of the empty land (land without people for people without a land) so as to facilitate colonizing Palestine. The military, political, economic, and social aspects of the struggle have received much attention. Although the translation of Palestine sometimes took the character of a linguistic genocide, and although the symbolic (e.g., linguistic) ordering of the land of Palestine is as old as the European Jewish immigration, it has not been given equal attention. In some cases where attention was given, the focus has been on the ideology of language and limited emphasis on the politics space (e.g., see Suleiman 2004). Spatial distribution of domination, an arena of struggle in which the place might be central, is never fixed and is always a matter of power. In addition: Lefebvre’s work can also provide the political theorist with a useful set of conceptual tools for mapping the spatiality of politics and history, rather than simply explaining the politics and history of space . . . [but on the other hand,] Castles, palaces, cathedrals, fortresses, all speak in their various ways of the greatness and the strength of the people who built them and against whom they were built. (Jameson 1991, p. 364)

So, we may ask why should landscape be any less dramatic than the event? In sum, this chapter argues that there is a performative role for language in the total struggle and control of the land of Palestine -before and after the Nakba in 1948. This chapter showed how the dynamics of struggle shifted, as the dynamics and instrumentality of language and the politics of space also have shifted. The authors argued that from inscription on currency to naming streets, towns, cities, and even the country as a whole, language not only served the political agenda of the various contenders, but was essential to conceptualize the nature and essence of the struggle, thus illuminating the failure to reach any compromise.

References Adala. (2012). The inequality report: The Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. Legal Center for Arab Minority. https://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/upfiles/2011/Adalah_The_Inequality_ Report_March_2011.pdf Al Kayali, A. W. (1988). Documents of Arab Palestinian resistance against British colonization and Zionism 1918–1939 (2nd ed.). Beirut: Palestine Studies Institute. Basso, K. (1996). Wisdom sits in places: Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Bradley, K. (2015). What’s in a name? Place names, history and colonization. http://activehistory. ca/2015/02/whats-in-a-name-place-names-history-and-colonialism/ Crosby, A. W. (2015). Ecological imperialism: The biological expansion of Europe 900–1900. Austin: University of Texas. Darwish, M. (1969). Diaries of a Palestinian wound. (Yawmiyyat jurh Filastini) (In Arabic). Fredrickson, G. (1981). White supremacy: A comparative study in American and South African history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, D. (1990). The conditions of postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Hobsbawm, E. (1962). The age of revolution: Europe 1789–1848. New York: Vintage Books. Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso. Lefebvre, H. (1974). The production of space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Massey, D. (1995). Places and their pasts. History Workshop Journal, 39(Spring), 182–192. Soja, E. (1989). Postmodern geographies. New York: Verso. Suleiman, Y. (2004). A war of words: Language and conflict in the middle East. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

The State of Languages in South Africa Cecil Seethal

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . South Africa: Population and Language Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . South African Languages: History, Legislation, and Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pidgination, Language Shift, and Identity in South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sign Language and Language in Digital and Electronic Space in South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The issue of languages has been highly emotive and controversial, extremely contentious, and deeply political in South Africa. This has been the case since the early colonial years, and particularly since the turn of the nineteenth century. In South Africa, language became enmeshed with hegemony and power on the one hand and powerlessness on the other; the politics of inclusion and exclusion; racism, culture, and ethnicity; colonialism and postcolonialism; and access and denial to employment and sociospatial opportunities. Conflict over the use of language also provided the spark that precipitated the Soweto 1976 uprising and ushered in the push that led to the collapse of the apartheid state and the transition in April 1994 to a democratic, nonracial state. This chapter addresses the politics and conflicts over language in South Africa, and the duplicity of the state in precipitating and then attempting to defuse social discord over the use of languages. The chapter examines the marginalization and regionalization of the indigenous languages in South Africa, the ascendency of English and Afrikaans as hegemonic languages, the social contradictions over the use of languages, and C. Seethal (*) School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_7

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the postapartheid state’s resolve to ameliorate tensions and injustice over language in its adoption of 11 official languages. Legislation and official policies aside, historic and ingrained social tendencies and practices that incorporate racial, cultural, and ethnic inequities wax slowly, often necessitating judicial intervention to resolve disputes over languages. In the multiplicity of the issues related to language, the historical specificity of the South African case is both illuminating and instructive. Keywords

Indigenous languages · Pidgin languages (pidginization) · Political influence on language · South African Sign Language · South African language history

Introduction The issue of languages has been highly emotive, controversial, and contentious, and has generated deep political, socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic fissures in South Africa. In South Africa, language became enmeshed with a host of variables, including hegemony and power on the part of the minority white community on the one hand and powerlessness among the majority black population on the other; the politics of inclusion and exclusion; racism, culture, and ethnicity; colonialism and postcolonialism; and the denial of access to employment and socioeconomic, political, and spatial opportunities. Conflict over the enforced use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at schools in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948–1994) reached a crisis point by the mid-1970s and precipitated the Soweto 1976 students’ uprising. The 1976 students’ uprising against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools for black children followed the 1971–1972 labor unrest across the country and ushered in the final push that led to the collapse of the apartheid state and transition in April 1994 to a democratic nonracial state. Within these varied sociopolitical, economic, and cultural milieus, this chapter presents an overview of the state of languages in South Africa. In particular, the chapter records the duplicity of the state in precipitating (during the period of segregation and apartheid) and later attempting to defuse (in the postapartheid phase) social conflict and ameliorate tensions and injustice over the use of languages via the adoption of 11 official languages and later (in 2018) a twelfth official home language, namely the South African Sign Language (SASL). The chapter examines the marginalization and regionalization of the indigenous languages in South Africa, the ascendency of English and Afrikaans as hegemonic languages, the social contradictions over the use of languages, and language shifts. Legislation and official policies aside, historic and ingrained social tendencies and practices that incorporate racial, cultural, and ethnic inequities wax slowly, necessitating judicial intervention in some instances to resolve disputes over languages. Within the historical specificity of the South African case, this chapter highlights the multiplicity of these issues related to language. The nature of the debates on language in South Africa covers a broad spectrum. These incorporate the legislative and policy matters on language – often from an

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historical (temporal) perspective, and research on language issues that range from the national (macro) level to specificities at the local scale involving communities, schools, and universities – and language-in-education matters. In addition, the debates incorporate how the apartheid state’s actions impacted negatively on the development of literature and language; the waxing and waning of languages and the specific attempts to shore up those in decline; comparisons on languages in South Africa and among the major racial groups in the country; research on language and identity; and the interrelationship between language on the one hand and upward social, political, and economic mobility on the other. This chapter on the state of languages in South Africa incorporates the above themes and begins with highlighting the changing numbers of persons speaking different South African languages as reflected in the national population censuses of 2001 and 2011.

South Africa: Population and Language Demographics Selected details on South Africa’s population for official first language speakers for the (most recent) 2001 and 2011 censuses are presented in Table 1. The languages isiZulu (22.7%), isiXhosa (16.0%), Afrikaans (13.5%), English (9.6%), Sesotho sa Leboa/Sepedi (9.1%), Setswana (8%), and Sesotho (7.6%) are the seven dominant first languages spoken in South Africa. Between 2001 and 2011, English surpassed Setswana in terms of the number of first language speakers in South Africa, and also edged Sesotho sa Leboa/Sepedi as the fourth most important language. Of particular importance is that, between 2001 and 2011, the increase in the number of persons (1,219,420) who regarded English as their first language exceeded the increases in number for each of the other ten official languages in the country. Moreover, six of the official indigenous South African languages (i.e., isiZulu [ 1.1%], isiXhosa [ 1.6%], Sesotho sa Leboa/Sepedi [ 0.3%], Setswana [ 0.2%], Sesotho [ 0.3%], and siSwati [ 0.2%]) experienced relative declines in the percentages of their first language speakers between 2001 and 2011. On the other hand, the two West Germanic languages (viz., English and Afrikaans) recorded relative increases of 1.4% and 0.2%, respectively, between 2001 and 2011. A final critical point is that in the 2011 national census, almost 235,000 persons regarded the SASL as their first language. South Africa’s other minor and unofficial languages include Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, the Khoe, Nama, and San languages, Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Yiddish, Italian, Dutch, French, and German. Portuguese and French are among the fastest growing nonofficial languages in South Africa. This is because of the increased influx of Portuguese- and French-speaking refugees and immigrants from Angola, Mozambique, and Madeira, and from Francophone Central Africa, respectively. These immigrants and refugees have settled mainly in South Africa’s four largest metropolitan municipalities (Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini, and Tshwane). While the discussion above focused on South Africa’s population and language demographics from 2001 to 2011, Van der Merwe and Van der Merwe (2006) –

4,067,248 3,849,563 2,277,148 1,297,046 1,209,388 1,090,223 234,655 828,258 50,961,443

3,677,016 3,555,186 1,992,207 1,194,430 1,021,757 711,821 No data 217,293 44,819,777

8.2 7.9 4.4 2.7 2.3 1.6 – 0.5 100

2011 Census 11,587,374 8,154,258 6,855,082 4,892,623 4,618,576

Speakers as a first language 2001 % of Population Census (2001) 10,677,305 23.8 7,907,153 17.6 5,983,426 13.3 3,673,203 8.2 4,208,980 9.4 8.0 7.6 4.5 2.5 2.4 2.1 0.5 1.6 100

% of Population (2011) 22.7 16.0 13.5 9.6 9.1 390,232 294,377 284,941 102,616 187,631 378,402 – 610,965 6,141,666

Actual population change (2001– 2011) 910,069 247,105 871,656 1,219,420 409,596

0.2 0.3 +0.1 0.2 +0.1 +0.5 – +1.1

% Change (2001–2011) 1.1 1.6 +0.2 +1.4 0.3

Adapted from Wikipedia. “South African national census of 2011.” Date accessed: 4 December, 2018. (2001 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_ National_Census_of_2011)

English Endonym Zulu isiZulu Xhosa isiXhosa Afrikaans Afrikaans English English Northern Sesotho sa Leboa/ Sotho Sepedi Tswana Setswana Sesotho Sesotho Tsonga Xitsonga Swati siSwati Venda Tshivenda Ndebele isiNdebele SA sign Language Other languages Total

Language

Table 1 South Africa: First language speakers (2001 and 2011)

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using South Africa’s census data at the magisterial district scale for 1991 and 2001 (note: the four Bantustan homelands of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei (TBVC) were excluded from their study) – produced, inter alia, four sets of maps for each official language at the national level and for the English, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans languages in the Western Cape Province. These maps showed (a) the language distribution expressed as absolute number of speakers (via circle symbols) in 2001; (b) the ratio (%) of total population of each respective language group in each magisterial district (via color [choropleth] shading); (c) the language change from 1991 to 2001 for the respective languages expressed as absolute numbers (via circle symbols); and (d) the language change (1991–2001) for the respective languages as proportional (%) (positive or negative) change per magisterial district (via color [choropleth] shading). Van der Merwe and Van der Merwe (2006) also produced similar maps – using data at the ward scale – for the Cape Town metropolitan jurisdictional space but specifically for the English, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans languages. Their work highlights the spatiotemporal changes for each of the 11 official languages from 1991 to 2001 for South Africa (excluding the TBVC Bantustans), and for three languages (English, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans) in the Western Cape Province and the Cape Town metropolitan area. Having discussed South Africa’s population and language demographics with special reference to the 2001 and 2011 national censuses and Van der Merwe and Van der Merwe’s (2006) spatiotemporal linguistic mapping from 1991 to 2001, the focus turns to the history, legislation, and policies that impacted largely on the development of the South African languages, with particular attention to the field of education.

South African Languages: History, Legislation, and Policies The current complex configuration of the state of the languages in South Africa is grounded in a mix of largely historical variables that date back to when the first Dutch settlers established a base at the Cape in 1652. The Dutch initially encountered the indigenous Khoi-San communities who spoke the Khoe and San languages. Also, during the period of Europe’s search for trade routes to the East, English settlers – and to a lesser extent, French Huguenots and Germans – followed the Dutch settlers to the Cape. The English established a significant civilian presence in the Cape (from about 1795) – especially after the arrival of more (English) settlers in 1820 (Mesthrie 2015) – and their colonization of the Cape. The British colonization of the Cape precipitated the “Great Trek” among the Dutch (Afrikaner) settlers. The Afrikaners migrated to the east and north/northeast and encountered the local indigenous inhabitants who spoke the Nguni (Xhosa and Zulu) and the SothoTswana (Sesotho, Setswana, and Northern Sotho) languages. The Afrikaners subsequently established the Orange Free State Republic and the Transvaal Republic, while the English occupied the east coast and established the Natal colony. These political developments left their own particular imprints on the development of languages in these regions. Moreover, from about 1800 onwards the Christian

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Fig. 1 Dominant languages in South Africa (2011). (Source: Wikipedia 2018)

Fig. 2 Proportion of South Africa’s population that speaks a Nguni language, a Sotho-Tswana language, and a West Germanic language as a first language (2011). (Source: Wikipedia 2018)

missionaries who came to Southern Africa played an important role in developing literacy in the indigenous languages and advancing English as a language among a selected group of black-mission elites (Mesthrie 2015). The consequences of these early histories are clearly evident in the spatial distribution of the dominant languages in South Africa at the start of the twenty-first century (Fig. 1) and in the proportions of the South African population that speak the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, and Germanic (English and Afrikaans) languages (Fig. 2), as first languages. In 1910, the British controlled Cape and Natal colonies and the two Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal came together to form the Union of South Africa. Under the Union government, South Africa’s language policies were cast in a neocolonial mold with English and Afrikaans recognized as the official languages. In short, although the missionaries played an important role in

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reducing to print the indigenous languages, providing these linguistic communities with access to – and developing – literacy in their own languages, and facilitating the use of the indigenous languages in education and as languages of literature, the Union government ignored the indigenous languages that the majority black population spoke (Mesthrie 2015; Pluddemann 2015). With the dawn of the apartheid state in 1948, there were two major ramifications for language and the growth of literature in South Africa. First, [Nadine] Gordimer (1976) – the Nobel Prize laureate for literature in 1991 – documents how the vicious apartheid regime suppressed and banned the literary works of some of South Africa’s foremost writers (with some writers going into exile) across the different language groups because they were critical of the racist state’s policies. In so doing, Gordimer argued that state politics denied South Africans access to significant literary works and stifled language development in the different languages in the country. Second, Afrikaans became increasingly privileged as a language and reigned with English as the languages of power in South Africa. However, tensions over the dominance of the minority Afrikaans and English languages festered and heightened with the passage of the Bantu Education Act of 1953. This Act mandated the use of mother tongue education (MTE) for the first eight years of schooling, followed by a non-mother-tongue-based form of dualmedium education in which half of the secondary school subjects were to be taught in English and the other half in Afrikaans. The tensions erupted on 16 June 1976 when learners (school children) from Soweto (in Johannesburg) took to the streets in defiance against the grossly iniquitous racist apartheid education system on two principal fronts: first, the per capita expenditure for a white learner was ten times more than for a black learner, and, second, the apartheid state’s imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. The Soweto uprising soon engulfed the entire country and captured worldwide attention following the state’s massacre of young black learners. The apartheid state was forced to back off. It responded by reducing MTE for African school children from 8 to 4 (and later 3) years and granted schools the freedom to choose their own medium of instruction. Ironically, this led to the adoption of English as the preferred medium of instruction. In order to quell the political crisis in South Africa following the Soweto uprisings, the Nationalist Party-led apartheid state embarked on two major political initiatives as part of its grand apartheid scheme. First, the apartheid state enacted its Bantustan policy and granted self-governing rights to ten ethnolinguistic Black homelands and, later, pseudoindependence to four of them (Transkei [in 1976], Bophuthatswana [1977], Venda [1979], and Ciskei [1981]). Second, as part of its divide-and-rule strategy, the apartheid state instituted the tricameral parliamentary system from 1984 to 1994 (as per the South African Constitution of 1983). This involved the apartheid state’s creation of the House of Representatives (for coloreds), the House of Delegates (for Indians), and the House of Assembly (for whites), to try to draw the colored and Indian populations closer to the white laager. The impact of these two political initiatives for language development in South Africa was considerable. First, the Bantustan policy imbued the “apartheidcaptured” political elites and their rank and file supporters who were entrapped

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within the homelands political ideology to renew their vigor and energy to advance their own ethnic languages and identities within their own spatial enclaves. Second – following the establishment of the House of Delegates, for example – there was an upsurge in the development of the Indian subcontinent languages, identity, and culture as evidenced, for example, in the establishment of the Department of Indian Languages at the then (Indian) University of Durban-Westville, the launch of Radio Lotus (specifically for Indians), and the renewed teaching and learning of the various Indian languages in the Indian residential group areas (Prabhakaran 1997; Shukla 2007). A third critical outcome of the Soweto 1976 uprising was the general rejection among Blacks (especially those living in “white” South Africa) of Afrikaans – the language of the oppressors – in favor of English, the language of the British colonizers (Pluddemann 2015). Within the context of the highly fractious and toxic environment on languages in South Africa in the pre-1994 period, it was not surprising that the postapartheid state (post-1994) sought to promote multilingualism and improve the status of the languages of the historically disadvantaged majority black populations (Posel and Casale 2011). In consequence, the postapartheid state adopted 11 official languages (see Table 1) in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Republic of South Africa 1996). Moreover, the Constitution (Chap. 2 – The Bill of Rights – Section 29(2)) guaranteed that “Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable.” The Constitution (in Chap. 1(6)5) also made provision for the creation of the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB), which was empowered to promote and create the necessary conditions for the development and use of all official languages – the Khoe, Nama, and San languages and sign languages (Reagan 2007). In light of the above Constitutional pronouncements, the South African Schools Act (of 1996) (Chap. 2, 6(4)) declared that “a recognized Sign Language has the status of an official language for purposes of learning at a public school.” Then in 2001, the National Language Board for SASL was formed with two particular objectives in mind: first, initiating and implementing strategic projects aimed at creating awareness, identifying needs, and promoting SASL, and, second, identifying and funding projects aimed at developing the SASL. Although Reagan (2007) referred to the historical oppression of Deaf people and their language in South Africa, the SASL became – in 2018 – the country’s twelfth official home language. In spite of the state’s attempts at multilingualism, English became – in the postapartheid era – the lingua franca of government and politics, education, business, and technology, even though less than 10% of the South African population regarded it as their first language in the 2011 population census (Mesthrie 2015; Posel and Casale 2011). In so far as South Africa’s Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) is concerned, Posel and Casale (2011) contend that there is a mismatch between official language policy and practice. While the Constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to receive education at the school level in the official language or languages of their choice, The South African Schools Act of 1996 devolves to the nine provincial

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governments the responsibility for formulating suitable language policies within their jurisdictional areas. In addition, this Act entrusts to the parents-dominated school governing bodies (SGB) the right to choose the language of learning and teaching in their schools (McKinney 2007). A year after the passage of The South African Schools Act of 1996, the national Department of Education also developed the Language-in-Education Policy in 1997. This policy advocates the concept of “additive multilingualism or bilingualism” and seeks to maintain the home language(s) of learners while providing them the opportunity to acquire additional language(s). Although the LiEP is regarded as progressive, as recently as 2018 and 2019 this policy engendered localized conflict as Afrikaans-speaking schools of learning and teaching had to deal with the admission of learners who do not speak and/or are not proficient in Afrikaans. Such instances have led to the intervention of the member of the provincial executive committee (MEC) responsible for education in the Gauteng Province, for example. In some cases, the SGBs insisted that such conflicts over the language of learning and teaching be arbitrated in a court of law. While the LiEP was meant to raise the status of the official African languages to that of English and Afrikaans, SGBs in general have chosen English as the language of learning and teaching from Grade Four (or in some cases, from Grade One) given that English is regarded as an international language, dominates in public life and the workplaces (Alexander 2000), is spoken by the elite and the upwardly social mobile persons, and is deemed to advance job prospects (Pluddemann 2015; Posel and Casale 2011). It is therefore not surprising that Pluddemann (2015: 192) quotes the Department of Basic Education’s 2010 figures as follows: While an average of more than 8 in 10 African-language speakers begin their schooling in a HL (Home Language), this figure dwindles to 1 in 10 by Grade 4, by which stage almost 8 in 10 children have English as LoLT (Language of Learning and Teaching) (up from fewer than 3 in 10 in Grade 3).

Pluddemann (2015) has also reflected on the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) Incremental Implementation of African Languages (IIAL) draft policy, dated September 2013. This draft policy sought to make it compulsory for all South African learners to offer an indigenous language as a subject. Nonspeakers of indigenous languages and African children enrolled at former historically white, colored, and Indian schools will be required to take an indigenous language at least at the first additional language (FAL) level. The intention was to phase in this policy in Grade 1 from 2015. The draft policy did not focus on the LoLT. For Pluddemann, this is indicative of the DBE’s contradictory decision-making, its vacillation on the educational utility of the official indigenous African languages on the one hand and the planned introduction of an African language as the first additional language on the other. Within the legislative and policy frameworks (i.e., the structures) on languages in education in South Africa, it is also important to recognize the critical agency role that educators play – often without official guidelines – as policy violators,

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interpreters, performers, and advocates in the realization of language policy (Pluddemann 2015). In his case study of a selected group of educators in the Western Cape, Pluddemann noted their strong views on ensuring that the language of the community be made the LoLT; the key linkage between MTE on the one hand and identity, building self-confidence, and enhanced critical thinking on the other; the necessity for assessment of learners in their mother tongue; and the value and benefits of code-switching for educators and learners. In essence therefore, and approximately two decades after the adoption of the LiEP (in 1997), Pluddemann (2015) argues for a review of LiEP (1997) in light of the current research on languages in education in South Africa (and elsewhere). At the tertiary education level, the national Department of Higher Education launched the Language Policy for Higher Education in 2002. In terms of this policy, higher education institutions are required to include in their plans, the strategies they have instituted to promote multilingualism and ensure the development of all the official languages as academic/scientific languages. In addition, in 2003, a ministerial committee recommended that in addition to English and Afrikaans, at least one official African language of the province concerned should be introduced as a language of instruction (Paxton 2009). According to Madiba (2004), the institutions of higher learning were also required to specify how the introduction of the African language will be supported by terminology development, translation, and the development of study materials in assignments, examinations, and theses. In spite of the requirements that universities develop language policies appropriate to their multilingual context, few serious efforts have been made to accommodate the indigenous languages more adequately (De Kadt 2005). We turn our attention in the next section to pidgination, language shift, and identity in South Africa.

Pidgination, Language Shift, and Identity in South Africa The varied racial and ethnic composition of the South African population created the basis for multilingual complexity, which Gumperz and Hymes (1972) refer to as the concept of linguistic repertoire. The interactions of the different linguistic communities have given rise to new linguistic forms or the existence of koine and/or mixed languages such as the Black Urban Vernaculars (BUV) (Bornman et al. 2018). One of the earliest pidgin languages in South Africa is Fanagalo (also spelt as Fanakalo), which originated in the Natal colony (now KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa) in the early nineteenth century. Shukla (2007) contends that Fanagalo developed when the early indentured Indian laborers to KwaZulu-Natal encountered their English employers in the sugar industry and the indigenous Zulu people, and tried to speak English and isiZulu at the same time. (Many Indians communicate even today (2020) with their Zulu counterparts in Fanagalo). Fanagalo subsequently spread across the borders of KwaZulu-Natal into the then Transvaal and was used primarily as the lingua franca in the gold, diamond, coal, and copper mines and industries. While Fanagalo had somewhat general appeal, Slabbert and MyersScotton (1997) noted that Tsotsitaal, a township hybrid language (McKinney 2007)

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or a koine language in South Africa, was developed to facilitate communication among in-group members at a localized scale and exclude nongroup members. In addition, Du Plessis (2003) refers to Flaaitaal, a South African township argot and a new urban code that black males in various urban centers use, as well as Iscamtho (a variation of Flaaitaal) as important markers of urban identity. Bornman et al. (2018: 30) referred to another mixed language, Sepitori (meaning “the language of Pretoria”), that originated in the city of Pretoria. They state: it has not only become the lingua franca in black residential areas, but also serves as a marker of urbanisation and being “city-wise.” People who migrate to this metropolitan area adopt it to distance themselves from their rural backgrounds. Even speakers living outside the municipal borders try to learn and speak Sepitori, . . . to gain its concomitant positive social features such as urbanity, street-wisdom, social recognition and/or coolness.

What is clear, therefore, is that the state of languages in South Africa is dynamic and is characterized by a sense of hybridity, fluidity, and language shift, with perhaps the best example of language shift in South Africa occurring in respect of the Indian subcontinental languages of Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Gujarati. Although the Indian population in South Africa increased by 171,463 persons (or 14.27%) from 1,115,467 in 2001 to 1,286,930 in 2011, it comprised only 2.49% of the country’s total population in 2011 (Statistics South Africa 2011). However, in regard to the home languages of Indian South Africans, Christopher (2011: 541) (citing Mesthrie 2002) noted that successive censuses between 1936 and 2001 recorded the language shift of the Asian population of South Africa from those of the Indian subcontinent to English. In a period of 65 years, the home language of the group changed from 96.8% derived from India to 93.8% English.

Four Indian subcontinent languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, and Telugu) recorded peak numbers as the home languages of Indian South Africans during 1960, with Tamil peaking in 1970 (Table 2). In short, the language shift among Indian South Africans to English took root in the 1950s and 1960s, and by 1970 each of the Indian subcontinent languages had lost ground to English as the main home language of Indian South Africans. Thus by 1991, barely 25,000 Indian South Africans had registered one of the Indian subcontinent languages as their home language. Furthermore, despite concerted attempts to halt this language shift and maintain and grow the Indian subcontinent languages in the 1980s and 1990s via strengthening the relationship with religion and cultural activities (Prabhakaran 1997; Shukla 2007), there is no record of any Indian subcontinent language as the home language of Indian South Africans in 2001 (see Table 2). In essence, language shift on the part of the Indian population was complete and the Indian languages that the indentured laborers brought to South Africa had largely disappeared (Deumert 2010). While the Indian subcontinental languages have disappeared as the first language of Indian South Africans, there are emerging trends of language shift among South Africans, particularly at school and university, toward English. (Refer also

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Table 2 Language shift: home languages of Indian South Africans (1936–2001) Home Language Tamil Hindi Telugu Gujarati Urdu Other Indian English and an Indian language Afrikaansa Englisha

1936 83,731 60,276 25,077 25,408 13,842 4,303 –

1951 120,181 89,145 30,210 39,495 25,455 26,090 –

1960 141,979 126,067 34,483 53,910 35,789 1,789 –

1970 153,645 116,485 30,690 46,037 – – –

1980 13,020 14,739 1,875 17,757 7,679 – 118,784

1991 4,422 5,546 587 8,629 4,251 – –

2001 – – – – – – –

– –

7,205 22,139

8,007 69,026

9,386 200,416

10,010 600,565

12,938 936,637

19,266 1,045,845

The figures for Afrikaans and English are applicable to the Asian population of South Africa – the majority of whom were Indians. The number of persons in South Africa whose home language was Chinese peaked during the 1960 census at 4,832, while the number of persons whose home language was Japanese totaled only 134 in the 1936 South African census. (Adapted from Christopher 2011)

a

to Table 1 which showed that English was the fastest growing first language in South Africa from 2001 to 2011.) However, there is no single variety of English in South Africa. Rather, there are different “Englishes” that are largely identified in racial and ethnic terms. These include the English of South African Afrikaners (or Afrikaans English), Black South African English (BSAE), Colored English, English of Indian South Africans (or South African Indian English – SAIE), and White South African English (WSAE). In addition, there are further ethnic Englishes according to the speakers’ mother tongues that are identified within the broad racial groupings such as BSAE and WSAE (McKinney 2007; Mesthrie 2015). Within these various Englishes and the broader historical context of colonialism and neocolonialism, segregation and apartheid, race, power-relations, and political hegemony, speaking “proper English” in South Africa is often linked to the accents and varieties associated with WSAE. In short, speaking fluent white English is regarded as the standard on how English should be spoken, and thus constitutes a form of cultural or linguistic capital in South Africa. Given this situation, several consequences emerge for South Africans across class and race, and in terms of education, identity, and locality. De Klerk (2002) noted that affluent and middle-class African parents in the Eastern Cape who could afford to do so, specifically chose English-medium schools principally on two counts: first, because of their dissatisfaction with local Xhosa schools, and second, being proficient in “white” English is valued as an economic resource and is indicative of being well-educated. In short, these parents actively promoted language shift among their children from isiXhosa to English. Similarly, De Kadt (2005) noted in her study of selected students at the University of KwaZuluNatal (UKZN) (Howard College Campus) that the primary motivation for parents

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sending their children to attend a multiracial school was the quality of education there, while learning English was a secondary consideration. Posel and Casale’s (2011: 449) research – based on a 2008 National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) of 28, 000 individuals in the country – supports, in part, De Klerk’s findings. Posel and Casale found that (i) average earnings are significantly higher among African adults who report good English language and proficiency skills, (ii) English language proficiency is rewarded more highly than home language proficiency in the South African labor market, and (iii) African adults are more likely to be proficient in English if they are also able to read and write very well in their home language. Differences between learners and university students who studied at schools where English was the LoLT on the one hand and those who did not on the other hand, have becoming increasingly marked in recent years with significant consequences for identity. For example, McKinney’s (2007: 18) study on “race” and language use among youth at three Johannesburg secondary schools found a “complex self” and other positioning of “black” youth in relation to the different brands of English as well as to the use of African languages. Young persons used racial labels (e.g., coconuts, cheese girls/boys (Bornman et al. 2018), “top deck” [chocolate variety with white chocolate on brown], or Oreo) to characterize their peers who spoke with a WSAE accent and fluency. (The racial labels [e.g., coconut] refer to people who are black on the outside [re: skin color] but Westernized and typified as white on the inside.) On the other hand, De Kadt (2005) noted (i) the beginning of language shift among university students at the UKZN Howard College Campus, (ii) the difficulty that these students had in communicating in the indigenous African languages with their families and associates in rural communities and the alienation they experienced there, (iii) the increasing and regretful transition and concern – especially among those who attended multiracial schools – at the loss of their indigenous Zulu culture, ethnicity, and language given their exposure to the pro-Western sociospatial environment, (iv) the difficulties in communication among peers in their indigenous languages and the necessity for intra- and intersentential code-switching, and (v) the acknowledgement of the possibility of a complete language shift (from isiZulu toward English) among the younger children (i.e., those who are 10–15 years younger than the students themselves), who attended suburban multiracial crèches and schools where English is the medium of instruction. However, De Kadt notes that only a small percent of Black learners in South Africa attend multiracial schools, so language shift among the African population is a slow process. Regional and localized differences occur in South Africa in regard to language shift. For example, Deumert’s (2010) Cape Town study differs from McKinney’s (2007) Johannesburg study and De Kadt’s (2005) Durban study. Deumert reported that (i) for blacks, coloreds, and Indians, the increase in the number of English speakers between 1996 and 2001 outstripped their population growth, and that the growth of Cape Town’s English speech community occurred overwhelmingly outside the white population; (ii) according to the 2001 population census, it was the oldest generation that showed the highest rate of language shift; (iii) the rates of language shift were highest among blacks living in the lower-middle- and working-

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class colored communities; (iv) rates of language shift varied spatially (i.e., across suburbs and neighborhoods) with some areas showing shift rates above 50%; and (v) males were generally at the forefront of language shift in 2001. Within the context of the apparent national concern on the marginalization of the indigenous languages and the increasing trends in language shifts, it is not surprising that the year of indigenous languages was proclaimed on South Africa’s Human Rights Day (21 March 2019).

Sign Language and Language in Digital and Electronic Space in South Africa Reagan (2007: 28) notes that while there is diversity among sign languages, SASL is unique, unrelated linguistically to any of the spoken languages in the country, and is a rule-governed, grammatical, systematic and non-arbitrary communication system similar in nature to other natural sign languages . . . [and] that the primary characteristic of SASL syntax is that of spatial relationships, though clearly other significant factors play a role as well.

Reagan (2007: 36) identified several critical factors that are still particularly relevant for a language-in-education policy for sign language in South Africa. These include: 1. SASL should be utilized as a recognized medium of instruction in deaf education. 2. All educators of the Deaf should be required to demonstrate communicative competence in SASL. 3. Deaf individuals be recruited as educators for the Deaf. 4. Provision be made for teaching SASL to hearing groups, individuals, the hearing parents of Deaf children, future educators of the Deaf, and other professionals who interact (or are likely to interact) with the Deaf. 5. SASL should be offered as a second/additional language option for students at schools and universities. 6. Support should be provided for the teaching and learning of SASL and for its use in public settings (including the media). 7. Deaf students should learn to read and write (context-specified) spoken languages to help enable them to function better in the dominant hearing society. Clearly, with SASL recognized as an official home language in South Africa in March 2018 and its status as one of the examinable subjects at the National Senior Certificate (i.e., Grade 12 final, school-leaving examination), there is greater impetus for the realization of the critical issues that Reagan pointed to in 2007. The language that many South Africans use in electronic space is significant as the country becomes increasingly connected digitally across various media channels and in particular in the written form. In this regard, reference is made to two aspects

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in this chapter. First, the use of grammatically correct English (and other official South African languages) in social media interaction and communication (e.g., Facebook and WhatsApp) has largely disappeared – more particularly among the younger, Generation Z (or Gen Z) persons. In its place, there is an increasing tendency toward the use of “short-hand,” coupled with the creative spelling of words that resemble their pronunciation and smacks of poetic licence (e.g., “gud” for “good”; “u” for “you”; “Gm” for “good morning”; “R” for are; “C” for “see”; “thanx” for “thanks”; “njoy” for “enjoy”; “C U” for “see you”; “cum” for “come”; and “shud” for “should”). For now, there is no known research on how such electronic and social media short-hand, creative writing forms and poetic licence impact on generally acceptable and traditional written standards among South Africa’s languages. The second electronic media form in which the use of language is changing in South Africa relates to television and radio. South African subscribers can choose from a wide variety of television packages and tune into several radio stations of their choice. One television package, for example, incorporates channels of each of the eight metropolitan centers in the country, with each channel providing specifically for the dominant indigenous language in the area. However, viewers to each of these channels are often subjected to considerable code-switching – especially in the English language. Also, foreign (i.e., nonofficial South African) languages are often aired on radio stations or used in foreign-based films that are regularly screened on subscribed and pay television networks in homes or in local cinemas. These films (e.g., those from the Indian subcontinent) usually have English language subtitles. In consequence, they are particularly attractive to select, but small, South African communities and serve to reinforce specific identities and enhance cultural affinities. The characteristic features of the use of languages in television and radio (e.g., codeswitching) in South Africa also carry over into theatre performances. These new occurrences in South Africa are worthy of research.

Conclusion This chapter has focused on the state of languages in South Africa. It has highlighted the changing trends among first language speakers of the 11 official languages in South Africa – particularly since the turn of the twenty-first century and has noted the increasing shift toward English as first language. In addition, changes in the political hegemony in the country have impacted on the relative importance of the different languages in South Africa. In this regard, emphasis is centered in this chapter on selected pieces of legislation, language policies, and the role of the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) in enhancing language development – especially in postapartheid (post-1994) South Africa. The chapter highlighted the spatial distribution of the dominant languages in South Africa, and the concentrated nature of the spatial distributions of the populations that speak the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, and Germanic (English and Afrikaans) languages. The chapter drew attention to pidgination in South Africa with particular reference to Fanagalo, the

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Black Urban Vernaculars, and Sepitori; language shifts among the South African Indian population, who had predominantly spoken the Indian subcontinental languages early in the twentieth century to English by the 1950s, and the beginning of language shifts among the Black population from the indigenous African languages to English. In addition, attention was focused on the different Englishes that the different South Africans speak and the increasingly important role of sign language in South Africa. The state of languages in South Africa has generally been highly dynamic and fluid across spatial scales ranging from the national to the micro (neighborhood) level and the different languages have been highly impacted upon by sociocultural (including race and ethnicity), political, and economic variables.

References Alexander, N. (2000). English unassailable but unattainable. The dilemmas of South African language policy in education. Cape Town: PRAESA. Bornman, E., Alvarez-Mosquera, P., & Seti, V. (2018). Language, urbanisation and identity: Young black residents from Pretoria in South Africa. Language Matters, 49(1), 25–44. Christopher, A. J. (2011). Questions of language in the Commonwealth censuses. Population, Space and Place, 17, 534–549. De Kadt, E. (2005). English, language shift and identities: A comparison between ‘Zulu-dominant’ and ‘multicultural’ students on a South African university campus. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 23(1), 19–37. De Klerk, V. (2002). Language issues in our schools: Whose voice counts? Part 1: The parents speak. Perspectives in Education, 20(1), 1–14. Deumert, A. (2010). Tracking the demographics of (urban) language shift – An analysis of South African census data. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 31(1), 13–35. Du Plessis, T. (2003). [Review of Mesthrie, R. (Ed) (2002). Language in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]. Language Policy, 2(2), 208–213. https://doi.org/10.1023/ A:1024645501872. Gordimer, N. (1976). English-language literature and politics in South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 2(2), 131–150. Gumperz, J. J., & Hymes, D. H. (1972). Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Madiba, M. (2004). ‘Treading where angels fear most’: The South African government’s new language policy for higher education and its implications. Alternation, 11(2), 26–43. McKinney, C. (2007). If I speak English, does it make me less black anyway? ‘Race’ and English in South African desegregated schools. English Academy Review, 24(2), 6–24. Mesthrie, R. (2002). Language change, survival, decline: Indian languages in South Africa. In R. Mesthrie (Ed.), Language in South Africa (pp. 161–178). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mesthrie, R. (2015). English in India and South Africa: Comparisons, commonalities and contrasts. African Studies, 72(2), 186–198. Paxton, M. I. J. (2009). ‘It’s easy to learn when you using your home language but with English you need to start learning language before you get to the concept’: bilingual concept development in an English medium university in South Africa. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 30(4), 345–359. Pluddemann, P. (2015). Unlocking the grid: Language-in-education policy realisation in postapartheid South Africa. Language and Education, 29(3), 186–199.

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Posel, D., & Casale, D. (2011). Language proficiency and language policy in South Africa: Findings from new data. International Journal of Educational Development, 31, 449–457. Prabhakaran, V. (1997). The parameters of maintenance of the Telugu language in South Africa. Language Matters, 28(1), 51–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/10228199708566120. Date accessed 15 Dec 2018. Reagan, T. G. (2007). Language-in-education policy in South Africa: The challenge of sign language. African Education Review, 4(2), 26–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 18146620701652663. Date accessed 14 Dec 2018. Republic of South Africa. (1996). The constitution. Pretoria: Government Printer. Shukla, U. (2007). Halting language shift: Hindi in South Africa. Nidan, 19, 37–58. Slabbert, S., & Myers-Scotton, C. (1997). The structure of tsotsitaal and iscamtho: Code switching and in-group identity in South African townships. Linguistics, 35(2), 317–342. Statistics South Africa. (2011). Republic of South Africa – South African national census of 2011. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Van der Merwe, I. J., & Van der Merwe, J. H. (Eds.). (2006). Linguistic atlas of South Africa: Language in space and time. Cape Town: SUNPReSS. Wikipedia. “South African national census of 2011.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_ National_Census_of_2011. Date accessed 4 Dec 2018. Wikipedia. “Languages of South Africa.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_ Africa. Date accessed 20 Nov 2018.

Languages and Language Politics in the Paraguayan Chaco John Elliott and Raina Heaton

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Linguistic Landscape of the Paraguayan Chaco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Domains of Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Languages of the Paraguayan Chaco by Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guaicuruan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matacoan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enlhet-Enenlhet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zamucoan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tupí-Guaraní . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changes in Language Names and Linguistic Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Indigenous Language Policy in Paraguay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ley de Lenguas No. 4251 (2010) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ley No. 3231 (2007): Indigenous Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The General Directorate of Indigenous Language Documentation and Promotion . . . . . . . . . Discussion and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 4 5 8 10 10 11 13 15 16 17 19 20 21 21 23 24

Abstract

This chapter discusses the linguistic history of the Paraguayan Chaco focusing on the current state of Indigenous languages and communities in the region. An overview of the linguistic landscape given the current state of research is J. Elliott (*) Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. Heaton Native American Studies Department, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA Native American Languages Department, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_8

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provided, including linguistic classifications, language vitality, a discussion of (mis)naming, and the relationship between current language communities and ethnic groups. Some sociopolitical forces that influence Indigenous communities are identified, which includes a discussion of Indigenous language policy which promotes Paraguayan Guaraní but marginalizes the minority Indigenous languages of the country. The history of dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples in the Chaco is reflected in contemporary efforts by Indigenous people to regain their land rights and cultural and linguistic autonomy. Given that research on the Indigenous languages of Paraguay is still a developing field and the languages of the Paraguayan Chaco are still largely under-described, this work is important in that it presents the current state of research on these languages and offers a counter-narrative to the national discussion of Indigenous languages in Paraguay. Keywords

Paraguay · Chaco · Language policy · Language vitality · Indigenous language education

Introduction The Gran Chaco, both as an ecoregion and as a cultural area of Indigenous South America, extends across four modern nations: Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. The boundaries of the Gran Chaco ecoregion within Paraguay are shown in Fig. 1 (international boundaries are represented by yellow lines, while gray lines show departments/regional divisions). Despite its reputation as one of the more foreboding environments on the continent – sparse in natural resources, constantly alternating between drought and flooding, and prone to extremes in temperature – it is home to a large number of distinct peoples and is recognized as an area with great linguistic diversity. The Paraguayan portion of the Gran Chaco is central to the region, and all five of the Gran Chaco language families which continue to have native speakers (Guaicuruan, Matacoan, Enlhet-Enenlhet, Zamucoan, Tupí-Guaraní) are represented in Paraguay. The territories of the Indigenous peoples of the Chaco did not come under control of the Paraguayan state until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Mathias 2015). Several groups had only minimal interaction with Paraguayan society until the last decades of the twentieth century (Boidin 2014), and the Indigenous peoples of the Chaco were not granted full citizenship until 1992 (Duckworth 2015). To this day, Indigenous peoples in Paraguay have varying and sometimes contradictory views of their role and membership in Paraguayan society (Kalisch 2012, p. 9; Talavera Reyes and Gaona López 2013, p. 7), and for many, “Paraguayan” and “Indigenous” are mutually exclusive categories. Language is a major component of

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Fig. 1 The Paraguayan Chaco (in yellow)

people’s interaction with the Paraguayan state and their relationship to the broader Paraguayan society. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the Indigenous languages of the Paraguayan Chaco and the current state of Paraguayan national language policy. The next section provides a background on the linguistic landscape of the Chaco and how this is related to the linguistic landscape of Paraguay more generally. This discussion is followed by maps showing the current geographic distribution of the Indigenous languages of the region and brief discussions of their vitality and linguistic classification. The national language policy which is directly related to Indigenous languages is then discussed, along with a summary and discussion of challenges for the future.

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The Linguistic Landscape of the Paraguayan Chaco The greater Gran Chaco region includes languages from at least six distinct language families, five of which are not spoken outside of the greater Gran Chaco (Campbell and Grondona 2012). The Lule-Vilela languages have no living speakers, but Guaicuruan, Matacoan, Enlhet-Enenlhet, and Zamucoan have at least one representative language spoken in the Paraguayan Chaco. One of these families, the EnlhetEnenlhet family, exists only in Paraguay. There are also several Tupí-Guaraní languages spoken by Indigenous groups in the Chaco in Paraguay and neighboring countries. Table 1 provides a list of Indigenous languages of the Chaco with their ethnic numbers and speaker percentages from the 2002 and 2012 national censuses. The Tupí-Guaraní languages of eastern Paraguay are included for comparison and reference and are marked with an asterisk. The naming conventions and linguistic classification are discussed in the following sections. Because of the long-standing ethnographic recognition of the Gran Chaco as a distinct cultural region of lowland South America (Metraux 1946; Miller 1999; Renshaw 2002), many attempts have been made to also define it as a linguistic area, in which long-term intensive interaction between speakers of unrelated or notTable 1 Indigenous languages of Paraguay (DGEEC 2002, 2012)

Language *Mbyá Guaraní *Avá Guaraní *Paĩ Tavyterã Nivaclé Enlhet Norte Enxet Sur Angaité Guaraní Occidental Sanapaná Guaraní Ñandéva Ayoreo Toba (Maskoy) [Enenlhet] Qom Ybytoso [Chamacoco] Maká *Aché Manjui Guaná Tomárãho [Chamacoco] Lengua/Toba Maskoy

ISO 639-3 gun nhd pta cag enl enx aqt gui spn nhd ayo tmf

2012 Population 20,546 17,921 15,494 14,768 8,167 7,284 5,992 3,587 2,866 2,470 2,461 2,072

2012 Speaker % 38.7% 5.8% 40.5% 99.4% 97.4% 49.8% 9.7% 20.0% 43.0% 84.7% 98.5% 73.5%

tob ceg mca guq crq gya ceg tmf

1,939 1,915 1,888 1,884 582 393 152 N/A

80.9% 97.1% 97.3% 90.2% 83.3% 1.0% 100.0% N/A

2002 Population 14,324 13,430 13,132 12,028 7,221 5,844 3,694 2,155 2,271 1,984 2,016 1,474 1,474 1,468 1,282 1,190 452 242 103 756

2002 Speaker % 89.5% 59.6% 60.9% 99.0% 96.2% 77.0% 33.8% 31.1% 50.6% 93.5% 99.0% 94.4% 97.8% 99.6% 99.4% 97.0% 96.3% 14.6% 100.0% 1.9%

Languages with an asterisk* are spoken in eastern Paraguay, not in the Paraguayan Chaco

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closely-related languages has led to linguistic features being shared across the Chaco region (see Rona 1969–1972; Kirtchuk 1996; Adelaar 2004, p. 499; Fabre 2007; Comrie et al. 2010; Messineo 2011; Campbell and Grondona 2012; González 2015; Campbell 2017). However, evidence for the Chaco as a linguistic area is not widely accepted as definitive, since many traits common to Chaco languages are also found in other South American languages and related languages outside the Chaco (Campbell and Grondona 2012; Campbell 2017). Also, many of the proposed traits are primarily based on shared features of Guaicuruan and Matacoan languages, which have been proposed as being related (Comrie et al. 2010; Viegas Barros 2013). Therefore, while there are many shared cultural traits of Gran Chaco people, it is unclear at present whether there are shared distinctive traits of “Chaco languages.”

Territory The original territory of speakers of Lule-Vilela, Guaicuruan, Matacoan, EnlhetEnenlhet, and Zamucoan languages would have spanned the entire Chaco. Given the general scarcity of resources in the region, semi-nomadic peoples traversed large areas to take advantage of water sources, game, and seasonally more fertile areas (see Sušnik 1974; Renshaw 2002). Some major population movements are known from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries prior to colonization of the region (see Metraux 1946). Movement continued following colonization, when a large number of Indigenous people from various Chaco groups were compelled to work in the tannin and timber industries that developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Stunnenberg 1993; Kidd 2000; Villagra Carron 2014). The Chaco War (1932–1935), in which Paraguay and Bolivia fought to determine control of this vast territory, was devastating to the Indigenous inhabitants of the area. Although they were not official combatants, Indigenous peoples were killed with impunity and their lands were divided up and given away to ranchers, Mennonites, and industry (cf. Kalisch 2005). With hunting grounds now behind vast grids of fences and wild game becoming scarce, the Indigenous peoples of the Chaco were forced to centralize into small communities typically located near or around large estancias or missionary stations and to work as laborers on ranches or Mennonite farms or find work on military bases (Klein and Stark 1977). Starting in the 1980s, campaigns for land acquisition and territorial rights for the Chaco’s Indigenous communities led to further migration (Kidd 2000; Renshaw 2002; Horst 2003), as many communities moved from crowded mission lands and temporary communities on cattle ranches to newly acquired territories in other parts of the Chaco. Therefore, with the lone known exception of a band of “uncontacted” Ayoreo in the High Chaco of Alto Paraguay (Melià 2010, p. 20; Bessire 2014; Hill 2016), the vast majority of Indigenous peoples of the Paraguayan Chaco currently reside in permanent or semi-permanent settled communities (Braunstein 1999) in a range of legal situations. Some communities live on communally held territory to which the community has legal right and title. In other communities, the title to the land is held by outside institutions (see below). Still others are forced to live in makeshift

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communities on the edges of cattle ranches, unable to access and live on their traditional territory even when national and international arbitration has supported Indigenous land claims (Correia 2018). Finally, some still live in work camps for ranches and logging operations in conditions which have been described as “slave labor” (Juliano Barros et al. 2018). Territorial status is mentioned for each language family in the section below. It is important to note the correlation between territorial rights/ownership and language vitality. Indigenous communities forced to live at the margins of Paraguayan agriculture/industry rather than in their own communally held territories are more likely to be experiencing language shift. The Dirección General de Estadística, Encuestas y Censos (DGEEC), Paraguay’s national census organization, documents whether Indigenous communities have ownership and title to their land. Many Indigenous communities, some 28% nationally, live on land which is formally owned by an outside party. In the Chaco, this is most often land owned by cattle ranchers. Of those who do live on their own land, 96% have some form of official title to the land. However, for two-thirds of the Indigenous communities listed as having official title to their land, it is in fact a governmental institution which holds the title. The Instituto Paraguayo del Indígena (INDI), the Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Rural y de la Tierra (INDERT), and the Secretaría de Acción Social (SAS) hold titles to the land for 232 Indigenous communities across Paraguay, meaning effectively that these Indigenous communities have been “bestowed” their land by the state as opposed to owning it outright themselves. After these governmental institutions, the largest category of titleholders to Indigenous lands is churches or religious organizations, especially the Anglican and Mennonite churches in the Chaco region. Even among communities that have land that is owned and titled, problems including squatting by non-Indigenous campesinos, superposition of titles, and the renting out of lands to ranchers persist. Most Chaco Indigenous communities report shrinking game populations; no community lands are large enough to meet the national recommendation of 100 hectares of land per Indigenous family (Law 904/81, Article 18). Figure 2 shows the current locations of communities which speak Indigenous languages in Paraguay. The Paraguay river separates the Chaco (the western three departments: Presidente Hayes, Boquerón, and Alto Paraguay) from the eastern part of the country, home to speakers of Spanish and Tupí-Guaraní languages. The colors on the map correspond to different language families, and national boundaries are given in yellow for all maps. The demographic and speaker data come from the 2015 Atlas de Comunidades de Pueblos Indínas en Paraguay, a product of the 2012 Paraguayan national census (DGEEC). Several facts are apparent from Fig. 2. First, the areas actually occupied by Indigenous peoples where Indigenous languages are spoken are much smaller than maps of the Chaco generally suggest (see, e.g., Messineo 2011, p. 187). Second, the satellite image clearly shows the amount of human intervention in the landscape with clear evidence of deforestation and the creation of thousands of square plots of pastureland (see also the Chaco data in Hansen et al. 2013; Baumann et al. 2016).

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Fig. 2 Indigenous languages of Paraguay, based on the 2012 census (DGEEC 2012)

Third, the Chaco is highly multilingual, often with more than one language family represented in an area and even in the same small community. For example, Pozo Amarillo typifies a small town of approximately 1,600 people encompassing about 8.5 sq mi (8,591.67 ha), and yet it is home to speakers of seven languages: Enlhet Norte, Enxet Sur, Enenlhet, Sanapaná, Angaité, Guaraní, and Spanish (DGEEC 2012). Any graphic representation of languages of the Paraguayan Chaco as contiguous and exclusive territories would fail to account for these complexities in its linguistic geography.

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Domains of Use Indigenous communities in the Paraguayan Chaco are generally quite small; the 2012 census identifies communities composed of as few as 9 individuals (Ngalec Qom, composed of 4 Qom-speaking households on the edge of Benjamín Aceval) to the largest community of 2,115 individuals (Nivaclé Unida, as well as Uj’elhavos, both Nivaclé-speaking communities south of Filadelfia) with a mean community size in the low 100s. Additionally, communities which speak the same language are often quite far from each other, transportation is difficult, and speakers are surrounded by Spanish and Paraguayan Guaraní as well as other Indigenous languages (and often also German and Portuguese), all which are contributing to language shift (Melià 2010; Boidin 2014). The degree of language endangerment varies widely across the region. Two languages, Guaná and Angaité, are severely endangered with few speakers (as few as four in the case of the former). Meanwhile, Maká, Nivaclé, Enlhet Norte, and the Zamucoan languages all have rates of speakership above 90% and show no major signs of shift. Between these extremes, most Chaco languages show declining rates of speakership despite substantial population increases (from 10% to 50% between 2002 and 2012; Fig. 3; see Table 1). These trends indicate major breakdowns in intergenerational transmission and suggest that for languages including Qom, Enxet Sur, Sanapaná, Enenlhet, Guaraní Ñandeva, and Manjui, language shift has accelerated in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

21,000 18,000 15,000 12,000 9,000

Increase in Paĩ Tavyterã population from 2002 to 2012 2002 Population 2002 Speakers

2012 Population 2012 Speakers

Decrease in Paĩ Tavyterã speakers from 2002 to 2012

6,000 3,000 0

Fig. 3 Comparison of population size and speakers of each language. In nearly every case, the population increased (dark gray vs dark red bars), but in some cases the population who speaks the language decreased (light gray vs light red bars) as indicated for Paĩ Tavyterã

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The loss of language in these communities has serious consequences, not only in the pain that accompanies the break in intergenerational transmission of culture but in concrete economic ways as well. The Indigenous peoples of the Chaco traditionally were hunter-gatherers and despite a growing dependence on wage labor and government-sponsored food programs, many communities are still quite selfsufficient and rely on their environment for subsistence. In losing their traditional language and the culturally specific knowledge maintained therein, they lose a tool which would help them maintain functioning traditional economies (Kalisch 2007). Along with the loss of traditional lifeways resulting from a lack of enough territory, this loss of traditional economies creates a cycle of increased reliance on the state and the Paraguayan labor market which often fosters negative attitudes towards the language and culture and furthers the degradation of the intergenerational transmission of Indigenous languages (Batibo 2009). Furthermore, Indigenous communities are defined in Paraguayan law (Law 904/81, Article 2) as groups that speak an Indigenous language. The few privileges nominally afforded to Indigenous individuals and communities by the state, including community recognition by and support from INDI and special funding and scholarships for secondary and university education (Talavera Reyes and Gaona López 2013, pp. 21–22), are allocated based on the notion of a distinct ethnolinguistic identity. The loss of languages, therefore, represents a threat to the state recognition and declaration of Indigenous rights that communities have only just recently achieved and are still struggling to implement. A major component of language shift, or the ability to resist it, is the degree to which communities and speakers bring their languages into new linguistic ecologies and emergent domains of use. The Indigenous languages of the Chaco, like those of all South America, did not have a written form prior to contact with western missionaries and were, therefore, exclusively oral languages until recently. Historical documents suggest the existence of missionary grammars of Lule-Vilela as early as the sixteenth century and descriptions of various Zamucoan and Guaicuruan languages were created throughout the eighteenth century (Ciucci 2018; González Breard 2018). Some languages in early descriptions were the predecessors of modern languages which are now extinct. The Enlhet-Enenlhet and Matacoan languages, likely due to their greater distance from colonial centers and outposts, were not written or described in any significant way until Anglican missionization occurred in the late nineteenth century (see Grubb 1911) and the arrival of Mennonites and associated missionary action in the twentieth century (Braunstein 1999; Unruh and Kalisch 1999, pp. 102–131; Fabre 2016, p. 30). This missionary legacy is still evident in the written record where the most substantial domains for reading and writing for most Chaco languages are Bible translations, hymnals, and other church documents. Various missionary groups operating in the region were also the first to provide formal education using Indigenous languages. As a result, the shift from missionary to state oversight of education in some cases led to a decline in the use of Indigenous languages in formal schooling. While various institutions within the Paraguayan government now assist communities in the production of small schoolbooks in their

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languages, these materials as well as the formal use of Indigenous languages in the schools are generally limited to the early primary level. Indigenous language teachers often produce their own hand-written materials for their classrooms. To our knowledge, Indigenous languages are not used in secondary education, or at the college/university level, either as a subject or as a medium of instruction. Many communities now have standardized orthographies for their languages, but these are rarely taught in a formal setting; most speakers of these languages use ad hoc orthographies, if they write in the language at all. The written languages are rarely if ever used for public signage or government documents, although there is a growing push for translation work for the latter, especially the translation of the national constitution and laws specifically pertaining to Indigenous persons and communities (Cooperativa.cl 2017). There are also isolated projects to create public signage in Indigenous languages (Kalisch and Unruh 2016). In communities that have not experienced major language loss, Indigenous languages are not only the language of the domestic sphere and day-to-day life but also typically of church life. Additionally, Indigenous language radio stations are a staple of daily life in many larger communities in the Chaco, and the use of longdistance two-way radio is prevalent in some others (Bessire 2011). Local radio is one of the major domains where speakers of Indigenous languages receive information and interact in a larger media setting. In addition to radio, the rapid adoption of social media, especially WhatsApp and Facebook, presents an opportunity for a new major domain of written use for the Chaco’s Indigenous languages. However, based on the authors’ experience with speakers of Enlhet-Enenlhet languages, there is a preference for the use of written Spanish and to a lesser extent Guaraní in social media use. The former is especially surprising given that Spanish is being used by speakers who almost never use Spanish for face-to-face communication. It appears to be more common that speakers communicate using WhatsApp in Indigenous languages and by using the voice recording feature rather than by writing out words. Research on Indigenous language literacy in the region, especially as it relates to social media, is an open area for further investigation.

Languages of the Paraguayan Chaco by Family The following sections provide additional information about the languages of each language family of the region, including brief descriptions of the location and territorial situation of communities, their linguistic ecology, and some ethnographic and historical information.

Guaicuruan The majority of speakers of Guaicuruan languages reside outside of the Paraguayan portion of the Chaco. Kadiweu is spoken on the northern edge of the Chaco in Brazil,

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Fig. 4 Guaicuruan-speaking areas in the Paraguayan Chaco based on the 2012 census (DGEEC 2012)

and the other living languages, Pilagá, Mocoví, and (Toba) Qom, are primarily spoken in the departments in Argentina bordering on the Paraguayan Chaco. According to the 2012 census, Qom is the only Guaicuruan language spoken in Paraguay and only in a few communities. Although Qom is the dominant language in all communities in Fig. 4, almost all are multilingual and home also to speakers of Paraguayan Guaraní and in a few cases Enlhet Norte and Enxet Sur. Qom is spoken by 80.87% of its ethnic population in Paraguay (DGEEC 2012) which is suggestive of some language shift, primarily to Paraguayan Guaraní. Despite some scholarship suggesting that the Guaicuruan and Matacoan languages are related and form a single genetic unit (Comrie et al. 2010; Viegas Barros 2013), Qom speakers in Paraguay have firmly rejected the suggestion that they be included with Matacoan languages in the government’s official linguistic classifications (Gynan 2011, p. 299).

Matacoan The Matacoan languages include Nivaclé, Maká, Chorote/Manjui, and Wichí (spoken in Argentina and Bolivia, but not Paraguay) (Fig. 5). The Nivaclé are by far the largest ethnic group in the Paraguayan Chaco as well as in the broader Gran Chaco.

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Fig. 5 Matacoan-speaking communities in the Paraguayan Chaco based on the 2012 census (DGEEC 2012)

While there are ethnic Nivaclé communities in the Argentinian Chaco, the language is far more endangered there with perhaps only a few hundred speakers (Fabre 2014; Campbell 2017). While most Nivaclé traditionally lived on or near the Pilcomayo, many migrated to work in the Mennonite colonies farther north (Stunnenberg 1993, p. 126). Nivaclé communities are now quite widely distributed across the department of Boquerón in Paraguay. Maká is often included in discussions of languages of the Gran Chaco, although at present they do not reside in the Chaco proper. Originally, they were the inhabitants of the region between the Confuso and Monte Lindo rivers not far from present-day Villa Hayes. The Maká were forcibly relocated during the Chaco War to areas outside of Asunción on the East bank of the Paraguay river (Messineo and Tacconi 2017). Despite this forced relocation to an urban area, the Maká communities of Roque Alonso and Falcón have maintained a distinct ethnic identity for many generations, avoiding assimilation and maintaining a high degree of intergenerational transmission. The 2012 census also references Manjui, a language with different autodenominations at different times and in different communities, the most common being enquíjwas (“man” or “person”) (Tomasini 1996; Fabre 2007). The name Manjui is an exonym the Nivaclé use for this group (Bareiro 2006), and the Manjui speak varieties of the language most often identified as Chorote (Fabre 2007), with two recognized dialects spoken in Paraguay: lumna wos “language of the northerners” and luwa’a lele “outsider language.” Chorote is spoken by two other distinct

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ethnic groups in Argentina. Intermarriage with Nivaclé and subsequent Nivaclé-Manjui bilingualism is not uncommon (Tomasini 1996). For the purposes of this chapter, we use the Paraguayan term Manjui to refer to Chorote speakers in Paraguay. Speakers of Nivaclé and Manjui are located primarily in the western part of the Paraguayan Chaco in the department of Boquerón. The vast majority of the land is owned and titled, particularly in Nivaclé- and Maká-speaking areas. Even if there are multiple languages spoken in a community, generally Nivaclé or Maká is the dominant language. Indeed, 98.6% of members of Matacoan ethnic groups speak Matacoan languages, and the average Matacoan language has a 93.32% speakership (the mean of speaker percentages for each language).

Enlhet-Enenlhet The Enlhet-Enenlhet languages (formerly known as Mascoyan) are spoken primarily in the departments of Presidente Hayes and Boquerón in the Central to Lower Paraguayan Chaco (Fig. 6). There are also a few Enlhet-Enenlhet communities in Alto Paraguay and near urban centers like Concepción on the east bank of the Paraguay river. Of the language families of the Paraguayan Chaco, the EnlhetEnenlhet languages are the most geographically dispersed; they are found in 40 majority Enlhet-Enenlhet communities and numerous other Indigenous

Fig. 6 Enlhet-Enenlhet-speaking communities in the Paraguayan Chaco based on the 2012 census (DGEEC 2012)

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communities of a different majority ethnolinguistic group. By ethnic affiliation the Enlhet-Enenlhet communities are the most populous in the Paraguayan Chaco, although some communities have high numbers of Enlhet-Enenlhet people who are not speakers of these languages. At present, Enlhet-Enenlhet speakers self-identify with one of six ethnolinguistic affiliations: Enlhet (Norte), Enxet (Sur), (Toba-)Enenlhet, Angaité, Sanapaná, and Guaná. This is the linguistic classification used in modern linguistic literature as well, although each of these six languages likely constitutes a point on a dialect continuum (Unruh and Kalisch 2003; Van Gysel 2017), and several of these linguistic affiliations have emerged only within the twentieth century (Villagra Carron 2014; see also the section below on naming and ethnic affiliation). While the 2002 census listed a spurious ethnolinguistic category “Toba-Maskoy,” this was corrected to match the general academic consensus in 2012. The distribution of Enlhet-Enenlhet communities largely reflects the history of colonization in the region. Many Angaité, Sanapaná, Guaná, and Enxet Sur of the eastern Chaco moved to the banks of the Paraguay river in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work in early tannin factories (Stunnenberg 1993; Villagra Carron 2014), while other Enxet Sur and Sanapaná relocated to areas near Anglican missions (Kidd 2000). Farther west, in the central Chaco, Enlhet Norte and Enenlhet settlements developed around Mennonite colonies starting in the 1930s, providing budding industries with a cheap labor pool. The population movements associated with these twentieth-century changes were more severe and impactful in the eastern Chaco communities, which can be seen in the decrease in language vitalities of these eastern Chaco Enlhet-Enenlhet communities compared to those farther west. It is common for speakers of different Enlhet-Enenlhet languages to reside in the same community. For example, the community La Herencia is home to speakers of Enxet Sur, Enlhet Norte, Sanapaná, and Angaité, as well as Paraguayan Guaraní. Although this mix often means that speakers default to communicating in Guaraní, passive multilingualism is not uncommon, and interaction might occur with each speaker using his/her own Enlhet-Enenlhet language. Most of the land is owned and titled for the larger communities in the center and west of Presidente Hayes and in Boquerón, although many of the communities farther east lack either de facto or de jure rights to their land. Enlhet-Enenlhet languages range in vitality from “threatened” to “critically endangered” (Catalogue of Endangered Languages 2019). The largest and most vital is Enlhet Norte, with over 8,000 speakers where 97.4% of the ethnic population speaks the language. This stands in contrast to Enxet Sur and Sanapaná, where 43– 50% of the ethnic population are speakers. The most endangered members of the family are Angaité, where only 9.7% of the population are speakers, and Guaná, which at present has only 4 elderly speakers out of an ethnic population totaling almost 400. Enlhet-Enenlhet languages are, therefore, on average much more endangered than other Chaco language families (see Table 1). Language loss in these communities has resulted in Guaraní monolingualism for many younger speakers and in some cases whole communities. While some scholars have suggested a

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distinction between the Guaraní spoken by Enlhet-Enenlhet peoples (or other Indigenous groups) and that of other non-Indigenous Paraguayans (Kalisch 2007, p. 65; Talavera Reyes and Gaona López 2013, p. 20), the topic merits further study.

Zamucoan Zamucoan is typically described as comprised of two living languages: Ayoreo and Chamacoco (Adelaar 2004, p. 623; Ciucci 2016). Both languages are spoken in the Paraguayan department of Alto Paraguay and numerous Ayoreo communities in Boquerón (Fig. 7) as well as the Bolivian Gran Chaco province. The most recent 2012 national census done in consultation with communities listed two dialects of Chamacoco as distinct languages: Ishir Ybytoso and Tamárãho (DGEEC 2012). The two groups have been distinct since before colonization, with the Ybytoso living along the Paraguay river and the Tamárãho living farther into the central Chaco. The Tamárãho, however, relocated to the community of Puerto Esperanza on the Paraguay river in the 1980s with the help of the Ybytoso (Escobar 2007). Unlike other language groups in Paraguay, for the most part Ayoreo and Chamacoco are the only languages spoken in these communities (97.94% speak their language, with an average speakership of 98.53%). Additionally, most of the land is owned yet much is untitled (DGEEC 2012).

Fig. 7 Zamucoan-speaking communities in the Paraguayan Chaco based on the 2012 census (DGEEC 2012)

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Tupí-Guaraní Although Tupí-Guaraní languages in Paraguay are mostly concentrated in the eastern half of the country, Paraguayan Guaraní is also increasingly spoken in Indigenous areas in the Chaco. This overlap is evident from the map below, where Guaraní (both in polygons and placemarks) is present in Enlhet-Enenlhet- and Matacoan-speaking areas as well as in Qom communities along the southern edge of the Paraguayan Chaco. Towns where Guaraní is the dominant language are marked in yellow, while towns where the dominant language belongs to one of the other language families in the Chaco appear in other colors (as in Fig. 8, blue ¼ EnlhetEnenlhet, purple ¼ Zamucoan, white ¼ Matacoan, and green ¼ Guaicuruan). Yellow lines continue to demarcate national borders, while gray lines demarcate departments. In addition to Paraguayan Guaraní, Paraguay is also home to speakers of Aché, Mbyá Guaraní, Paĩ Tavyterã, and Avá Guaraní in the eastern part of the country as well as Guaraní Occidental in the northern part of Boquerón. The 2012 census also lists Guaraní Ñandéva as a language, although it is often considered a dialect of Avá Guaraní in the linguistic literature. Speakers of Guaraní Occidental and Guaraní Ñandéva in the Chaco region have been in these areas since pre-colonial times.

Fig. 8 Tupí-Guaraní-speaking communities in the Paraguayan Chaco based on the 2012 census (DGEEC 2012)

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While Paraguayan Guaraní is quite strong, the other Tupí-Guaraní languages in Paraguay range from “vulnerable” to “severely endangered” (Catalogue of Endangered Languages 2019). It should also be noted that the discourse surrounding the “Indigenous” nature of Paraguayan Guaraní is a complicated one, especially in the linguistic landscape of the Chaco. Guaraní is, of course, “Indigenous” in the sense that it is a Tupí-Guaraní language of lowland South America and not a language of Europe, and the Indigenous heritage of the language is an element of national pride. However, especially from the perspective of many of the Indigenous peoples of the Chaco, Guaraní is associated with non-Indigenous Paraguayans and is therefore not an Indigenous language. In fact, in national language policy (discussed below), “lenguas indígenas” as a category explicitly excludes Paraguayan Guaraní, and speaking Paraguayan Guaraní does not generally confer Indigenous identity in broader Paraguayan society (Gynan 2001; Horst 2003). Furthermore, “Paraguayan Guaraní” is a cover term for a range of varieties of Guaraní from the “pure Guaraní” that exists mostly as an abstract academic notion to varieties of Jopará, the Spanish-influenced Guaraní that is actually spoken by a majority of Paraguayans (Hauck 2014; Von Streber Lee 2018). For the remainder of this chapter, the term “Indigenous languages” does not refer to Paraguayan Guaraní, although other Tupí-Guaraní languages of Paraguay are included in this category.

Changes in Language Names and Linguistic Identification The Gran Chaco was one of the final frontiers of western colonization in South America. As a result, it has historically been one of the least well-known South American regions to western ethnographers and anthropologists. The nomenclature for various groups and peoples has been quite fluid in the literature until rather recently (and to avoid temporal hubris, we should point out that it is likely to continue to change). For example, Loukotka’s (1968) classification of Matacoan languages recognizes as many as 18 distinct languages, compared to 4 in Campbell and Grondona’s (2012) classification. Some of this reduction comes from linguistic assessments of mutual intelligibility and recognizing various languoids as dialects of a single distinct language, like the linking of Iyo’wuja, Yohwaha, and Manjui as dialects of a single Chorote language. In other instances, older classifications like Loukotka’s were chasing ghosts in the historical and academic record. For example, Loukotka lists “Sújen” and “Chulupí” as distinct languages in his Eastern Branch, despite the fact that “Sújen” is simply an Enlhet-Enenlhet name for the same “Chulupí” people, both referring to the group that now identifies as Nivaclé. Such improvements and adjustments to our knowledge of the linguistic landscape of the region come from continuing improvements in the documentation and description of Indigenous languages and improved methodologies for conducting fieldwork in Indigenous communities.

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Many changes in the naming of peoples, places, and languages in the Paraguayan Chaco, both in official documents and academic texts, are the result of increasing demands for Indigenous self-determination and self-representation (Villagra Carron 2014, p. 148). This interest is reflected in the official use of endonyms for individual groups, including the use of “Enxet/Enlhet” in place of “Lengua,” “Ayoreo” in place of “Moro,” and “Ishir” in place of “Chamacoco.” The term “Toba,” which had previously been applied both to Enenlhet (Enlhet-Enenlhet) and Qom (Guaicuruan), is increasingly falling out of use. The acceptance and use of endonyms versus exonyms vary among the Indigenous peoples in the Paraguayan Chaco. Some communities, like the Manjui, appear to openly adopt the use of exonyms when speaking Spanish or Guaraní (Bareiro 2006), while others like the Angaité have incorporated an exonym into their own language and use it self-referentially (Unruh and Kalisch 2003; Villagra Carron 2014, p. 149). To further complicate the naming situation, changes in social and political organization have had an effect on linguistic identification. These changes were brought about in part by the nature of colonization in the Chaco, which in many cases saw small bands of semi-nomadic peoples coerced into sedentary life, which in turn altered the way sociopolitical and familial groups were structured. However, some of the fluidity in group association is likely a long-term endemic cultural trait that pre-dates western colonization. The shifting nature of language and linguistic identity in the Chaco can be seen in the modern distinction between Enlhet Norte and Enxet Sur, formerly called “Lengua Norte/Sur” or simply referred to as a single “Lengua” ethnic group. From the first detailed ethnographic accounts in the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, the “Lengua” were treated as a singular ethnolinguistic identity within the larger “Mascoyan” stock, even though no equivalent ethnic category or label existed among the people who were being called “Lengua” by outsiders. Rather, the “Lengua” were composed of a number of small bands with their own names and associated traditional territories. These bands themselves were likely rather fluid, since those band names that can be traced back in the oral and historical records to the late nineteenth century do not correspond at all to those recorded by expeditions in the eighteenth century. As these various Lengua bands became settled and reorganized during colonization, the distinction between the “Lengua Norte” and “Lengua Sur” emerged largely as a result of the spheres of territorial influence of different non-Indigenous actors. Some Lengua groups came under the sphere of influence of Anglican missionaries in the eastern Chaco, while others to the North became dependent upon the ranch economy of the Mennonite settlers. Those Lengua bands in the Anglican zone were the ancestors of today’s Enxet Sur people, while those in the Mennonite sphere of influence are today’s Enlhet Norte. The lack of a distinction between the two groups in earlier scholarship is, therefore, not an oversight; rather, the ethnolinguistic identities were themselves emerging during that period.

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Indigenous Language Policy in Paraguay Through almost three decades of ongoing reform, the Paraguayan state has crafted language policy that meets a baseline tolerance for the endemic multilingualism of its people and which provides some funding for active work to maintain and revitalize the languages of Indigenous communities, especially those of the most endangered Chaco languages. Nonetheless, current language policy in Paraguay maintains a threetiered hierarchical orientation towards the languages of the country: • Spanish remains the de facto language of privilege and access. • Paraguayan Guaraní is viewed as a national resource for the fostering of patriotic sentiment. • Indigenous languages are viewed as obstacles to development which must be overcome, rather than as resources with inherent benefit to the national society. Throughout much of the twentieth century, including the right-wing dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, the Indigenous people of the Chaco suffered immense hardship with no protection from the economic and political forces reshaping the region. After the palace coup that removed Stroessner from power in 1989, the 1992 National Constitution enacted by his successors was the first to grant the nation’s Indigenous peoples full citizenship rights, to recognize their existence as distinct ethnic groups and to ensure their rights to communal property, formal education, and the maintenance of their distinct cultures. The new constitution also declared Paraguayan Guaraní Paraguay’s second official language (Article 140) and established the right to mother-tongue education in Guaraní. This declaration was significant not only in making Guaraní the first non-European language to gain national official status in South America but also in signaling an intention to support educational development among the country’s predominantly Guaraní-speaking rural population (Gynan 2001). There has been substantial criticism of the implementation of Guaraní as a true national language, especially in the lack of actual implementation of mother tongue education for Guaraní-speaking children in rural areas (Gynan 2011; Ito 2012; Mortimer 2013; Boidin 2014). Additionally, the constitution’s framing of Paraguay as a bilingual nation inherently excludes speakers of the many other Indigenous languages in the country. Although Paraguay’s Indigenous languages still lack national or sub-national official status like those in other Latin American nations (e.g., Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico), numerous policy changes since the 1992 constitution have sought to address calls for stronger Indigenous language rights and development. Here, we discuss three areas of national language policy which have the most direct effect on Indigenous languages in the Paraguayan Chaco: (1) the 2010 Law of Languages and the Secretariat of Linguistic Policy (SPL), (2) the 2007 creation of the Directorate of Indigenous Education, and (3) the work of the SPL sub-department responsible for language documentation and revitalization.

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Ley de Lenguas No. 4251 (2010) In 2010, the administration of Fernando Lugo enacted the Ley De Lenguas No. 4251. The primary objectives of the law were to create organizational structures to establish Guaraní as a true co-official national language with Spanish and to “promote and guarantee the use” of the country’s Indigenous languages (Article 1). It reiterates throughout the notion that Paraguay is a bilingual (not multilingual) country and that special attention ought to be paid to Guaraní for its cultural importance to Paraguayan nationhood while at the same time calling for “respect” for “preservation” of Indigenous languages. Most notably, it established the Secretariat of Linguistic Policy (Secretaría de Políticas Lingüísticas/Paraguaí Ñe’ẽnguéra Sãmbyhyha; henceforth SPL) which works with institutions to directly administer Indigenous language education (see the next section) and is the primary governmental authority tasked with overseeing national language policy. The law specifies linguistic rights in various domains for different languages. The use of both Spanish and Guaraní is guaranteed in court, in the national government’s official communication, for the registration of public documents, for personal identification, for communication in public transit, in academic titles, in the naming of public institutions, and in toponyms. The law only protects the use of Indigenous languages in a subset of these domains, primarily the naming of public institutions and toponyms. It also acknowledges that preference will be given to speakers of local Indigenous languages in hiring for governmental positions in regions where Indigenous languages are spoken and that lower level courts have the jurisdiction to hear cases regarding linguistic discrimination. It also provides for mother tongue alfabetización (development of literacy), including for children who are first language speakers of Indigenous languages, although it very explicitly states that Indigenous language use in school should constitute the “initial phase” of schooling. Guaraní, by contrast, is to be promoted and integrated at all levels of the education system. The attainment of these goals is the raison d’etre for the SPL, which oversees language planning for all languages of the country, especially Spanish and Guaraní, in a comprehensive list of domains: “public communication, education, judicial, commercial, administrative, political, professional, and in all instances of social interaction” (Article 34). The only explicit mention of the promotion of Indigenous languages by the SPL is in media (TV and radio), new technologies, and “cultural industries.” The law states that employees and officials of the SPL should have communicative competence in both Spanish and Guaraní. It does not provide incentives for the hiring of persons who speak any of the country’s Indigenous languages to the SPL. Finally, the Ley de Lenguas formally established the Academia de la Lengua Guaraní/Avañe’ẽ Rerekuapavẽ (ALG), a publicly funded institution whose stated purpose is to standardize Guaraní and create resources that would support its use. The ALG is tasked with standardizing the language for the purposes of translating official documents, publishing materials like dictionaries and grammars based on the modern spoken language, and developing neologisms for particular professional and

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scientific fields. There is no explicit support for the establishment of similar institutions for Indigenous languages.

Ley No. 3231 (2007): Indigenous Education In 2007, after years of protest on the part of Indigenous communities, Law 3231 established the Dirección General de Educación Escolar Indígena (DGEEI) within the Ministry of Education and Culture (Talavera Reyes and Gaona López 2013). The DGEEI’s foundational goals are to establish and support Indigenous public education systems which recognize and support their cultural identities and autochthonous forms of knowledge, largely through the development of improved teacher training for Indigenous teachers and the production of community-specific teaching materials. Along with the creation of the DGEEI, the law established a formal system for recruiting, training, and funding official docentes indígenas to act as representatives to the DGEEI to evaluate the implementation of formal education in Indigenous communities. Although the DGEEI constitutes a major step towards involving Indigenous peoples in the administration of education in their own communities (on paper at least), Law 3231 provides little detail about the use of Indigenous languages in Indigenous education. Although the use of Indigenous languages is perhaps implied in the language of the law which mandates culturally specific and appropriate education, explicit mention of Indigenous languages is limited. The law mandates that the DGEEI will “enable” the production of pedagogical materials in Indigenous languages and “ensure” the use of Indigenous languages in the school setting. In practice, most support for Indigenous languages in Paraguayan schools does not extend beyond early childhood education, which means it is almost entirely lacking at the secondary level and is generally quite superficial (Melià 2010). The lack of Indigenous languages in educational systems beyond early primary school should also be considered in the larger context of Indigenous education outcomes in Paraguay, where only 50–60% of Indigenous Paraguayans continue their education past the primary level, which is 15–25% lower than the rate for the non-Indigenous population (Talavera Reyes and Gaona López 2013; Blanco Spinzi and Wehrle Martínez 2017).While the DGEEI encourages non-Indigenous teachers working in Indigenous communities to learn to speak the Indigenous language(s) of the community, there is no enforcement mechanism or formal language learning process to that end.

The General Directorate of Indigenous Language Documentation and Promotion The branch of the SPL most directly related to Indigenous language policy in the Chaco is the General Directorate of Indigenous Language Documentation and Promotion (Dirección General de Documentación y Promoción de Lenguas

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Indígenas/Ypykuera Ñe’ẽ Ñeñongatu ha Ñemyasãi Moakãhapavẽ; henceforth DGDPLI). Its primary goals, as stated in Articles 39 and 42 of the Law of Languages, include the creation of oral and written documentation for the Indigenous languages of the country, the promotion of revitalization efforts, and the dissemination of information about Indigenous languages to the wider Paraguayan public so that they can be recognized as part of the nation’s cultural heritage. Since its creation, the organization has had a staff of fewer than ten, although it has collaborated with external academic and community linguists in its projects. Since 2013, the DGDPLI has been involved in a language documentation project in Río Apa, the only Guaná community with living speakers (Agencia de Información Paraguay 2019). The project, which has thus far produced a dictionary and grammatical description (in Spanish, rather than the Guaraní which most Guaná speak), has been conducted with the assistance of both American and Paraguayan linguists. The group has also done some audio and video documentation and dictionary work with the Manjui and is in the initial stages of a revitalization project with the Angaité. The DGDPLI has additionally, in accordance with their third stated institutional goal, supported a number of public events to promote knowledge of Paraguay’s Indigenous languages, including language festivals, an academic symposium at the Universidad Católica in Asunción, and some events for the public presentation of Indigenous cultural traditions in parts of eastern Paraguay. The organization has an imperative to prioritize work with languages which are most endangered. This has meant that priority has been given to work with Guaná and Angaité, the two Enlhet-Enenlhet languages which are the most endangered, and to a lesser extent Sanapaná and Manjui. The DGDPLI also goes to great lengths to create community consensus and consent for its efforts before moving forwards with official events. Its documentation and revitalization project with the Angaité began with a series of workshops intended to build consensus about how the Angaité would like to proceed with orthography development, language documentation, and language promotion and to choose members of the wider Angaité community to act as representatives to the SPL (DGDPLI 2017). This has involved several years of meetings with Angaité communities to define the nature of the relationship between the DGDPLI as a governmental organization and the Angaité, especially the financial and institutional obligations of the SPL and DGDPLI if communities agreed to engage in the proposed work. The process is slow, especially because many Indigenous communities see their interaction with the DGDPLI as an opportunity to address their grievances with other elements of the Paraguayan state which has neglected them and violated their rights to land, education, legal protection, etc., even though the DGDPLI and SPL lack the resources and influence to act in such a capacity. A similar proposed project with the Sanapaná is, at the time of writing, in talks with DGDPLI representatives, attempting to coordinate between several communities to agree on a joint plan of action.

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Discussion and Conclusions This chapter provides a brief introduction to the forces underlying changes in the linguistic geography of the Paraguayan Chaco. Continued improvements in the collection of demographic data on the part of the Paraguayan state, improved documentation and description via linguistic scholarship, and greater attention to and collaboration with the speakers of the Chaco’s Indigenous languages have all led to a much clearer picture of the linguistic landscape of this diverse region. Language shift and language loss are serious concerns in some communities, especially those which have struggled to gain access and rights to territory. However, there are also many Indigenous languages which are spoken by the vast majority of the people in their communities and which are experiencing substantial population growth (see Table 1). Although there are many challenges facing the Indigenous communities of the region, it is critical that the discourse surrounding their languages situates them in the present and future, not just the past. To that end, language policy in Paraguay has made incremental strides since 1992 in its tolerance and support for the linguistic diversity of the Chaco’s Indigenous peoples. However, these policies almost always focus on the promotion of Paraguayan Guaraní in part to foster Paraguayan patriotism. A review of the Ley de Lenguas shows relatively little in the way or programs or protections specific to the current needs and historical circumstances of minority Indigenous languages (Kalisch 2012). The most substantial policy which addresses the unique concerns of Indigenous languages is the establishment of the DGDPLI whose incipient revitalization efforts show promise. However, a fundamental shortcoming of current policy is a lack of significant support for the majority of Chaco languages which are not highly endangered at present, but which are in need of proactive maintenance policies to be stable into the future, particularly as Indigenous communities become more integrated into the national economy. The two largest languages in the Paraguayan Chaco, Nivaclé and Enlhet Norte, have grassroots organizations for the promotion of their languages and the creation of language materials. Nengvaanemkeskama Nempayvaam Enlhet, based in the Enlhet Norte community of Campo Largo, has produced extensive monolingual documentation of Enlhet Norte and has also done some work with speakers of Enenlhet and Guaná. In 2016, the Comisión Lingüística Nivaclé founded the Academia de la Lengua Nivaclé, partially modeled after the Academia de la Lengua Guaraní, with the goal of improving the training of Nivaclé-speaking schoolteachers. These organizations have some interaction with the SPL but receive no direct monetary or institutional support from the Paraguayan government and therefore have tenuous funding. Policy which could support such organizations monetarily and institutionally as well as encourage the development of community-led language organizations in other Indigenous communities would be a major step beyond current policy, which is primarily designed to support language conservation for languages which are moribund. Empowering the Indigenous communities of the Paraguayan Chaco to create and maintain their own grassroots organizations for

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language development would go a long way towards helping to maintain the linguistic diversity of this region.

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Reimaging the Art Scene in George Town, Penang Teresa Wai See Ong

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linguistic Landscape Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Murals as a Component of Linguistic Landscape Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Penang: Multiethnicity, Multilingualism, and Multiculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Present Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analytical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Murals in George Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethnic Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lifestyle in the Old Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Support for Current Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Penang is a small island city situated off the coast of the northern Peninsula of Malaysia. Founded by the British in 1786, Penang hosts a variety of ethnic communities who practice different cultures and traditions. After Malaysia gained independence in 1957, Penang continued to maintain its historical heritage and living culture, which spurred the emergence of a unique Penang identity. This identity granted its capital, George Town, UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2008. In celebration of the recognition, many murals have been drawn around the streets in George Town. To gain a deep understanding of the unique Penang identity, an examination of the murals is conducted. Borrowing the concept of “free space” for analysis, the study suggests that murals offer a way of obtaining additional meaning in the construction and affirmation of the city’s identity. The findings contribute important knowledge informing us about “new” strategies employed by a city to reconstruct its identity in the era of modernization. T. W. S. Ong (*) Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_9

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Keywords

Murals · Linguistic landscape · Identity · George Town · Penang

Introduction In recent years, urban development has observed an accumulation of street art, which is making an image for many cities across the globe (Zukin 1994). Jensen (2007) states that the new cultural landscape in a city, which is usually linked to inequalities and deprivation, is moving toward advanced capitalism. Now, it is a selling point for a city to build its image as a global hub for culture and creativity. These reimaging strategies involve complex processes in which under the twin influences of globalization and modernization the city hopes to dominate in economy and at the same time, heighten experiences in everyday life (Lash and Lury 2007). Such reimaging strategies have worked in the case of George Town, the capital city of Penang. In the past, George Town was a free trading port with a diversity of ethnicities living together. Today, it has transformed into a popular art scene that is constructed by many attractive murals. The scene has caused a spark of excitement among both local and international tourists. Borrowing from the analytical framework of Evans and Boyte’s (1986) concept of “free space,” this study aims to find out how heritage traits and living culture of Penang are conveyed through murals and the meaning behind their linguistic and nonlinguistic features. It is guided by the following research question: To what extent do murals in George Town support the construction and affirmation of the unique Penang identity? What ensues is a discussion of the integration of murals as a component of linguistic landscape research. This is followed by a brief outline of the context of Penang and methodological issues and analytical framework used in this study. Subsequently, the findings are reported and discussed. The study concludes with remarks regarding murals as new and possible ways for cities to reconstruct their identity in the era of modernization.

Linguistic Landscape Research Linguistic landscape research began with a classical definition of “the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings [combining] to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration” (Landry and Bourhis 1997, p. 25). This definition provides an understanding of a linguistic landscape as having both informational and symbolic functions. A linguistic landscape is informational because it emphasizes the languages displayed in a public space and the interconnection between the displayed languages and language users

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in that space. At the same time, it is also symbolic because the displayed languages act as a marker of power and status. However, if linguistic landscape research continues to adopt such a narrow definition (language as script), it would miss out many interesting aspects of the public space and “the possibilities of thinking about language and place in different ways” (Pennycook 2009, p. 304). Pennycook (2009) states that the focus of linguistic landscape research has always been centered around the issue of language representations in public space that links to questions of language policy and multilingualism. Nevertheless, if we take a careful look at the space, there are meanings embedded not only in the text but also in other semiotic discourses. As Spolsky (2020, p. 8) argue, there have been many cases where “the linguistic landscape illustrates public literacy but misrepresents the sociolinguistic environment” and thus, there is still important work that needs to be done “in the wider field of human production of cityscape and landscape, including signs and graffiti and gardens and architecture.” In regard to the wider field of human produced landscape, Mitchell (1986, p. 9) states: “We speak of pictures, statues, optical illustrations, maps, diagrams, dreams, hallucinations, spectacles, projections, poems, patterns, memories, and even ideas as images, and the sheer diversity of this list would seem to make any systematic, unified understanding impossible.” He further adds that, “It might better to begin by thinking of images as a far-flung family which has migrated in time and space and undergone profound mutations in the process” (Mitchell 1986, p. 9). In other words, it is necessary to consider “all possible discourses that emerge in changing public spaces” (Shohamy and Waksman 2009, p. 328) when conducting linguistic landscape research so that an overall understanding of the ecology can be gained. Recent linguistic landscape studies have begun investigating a broad range of discourses, such as iron rod sculptures (Macalister and Ong 2020), monuments (Moore 2019), scents (Pennycook and Otsuji 2015), sounds (Pappenhagen et al. 2016), tattoos (Peck and Stroud 2015), and the Black Rock (Lamarre 2020).

Murals as a Component of Linguistic Landscape Research Murals are often referred to as “large, often multicolour, and labour-intensive paintings such as wall, airbrush, and spray can paintings” (Philipps et al. 2017, p. 386). They have fundamental characteristics of urban and street art; however, their significance should not be neglected/overlooked when studying a public space because they are considered a representation of cultural-based form of selfexpression (Treguer 1992), which is used to illustrate historical or cultural heritage knowledge (Delgado and Barton 1998). In other words, murals are similar to “newspapers on walls” (Holscher 1976-1977, p. 45); they provide valuable information to a range of people including educators, politicians, architects, sociologists, and researchers. As “part of an evolving pattern of street art” (Arreola 1984, p. 409), murals have gained recognition in recent years of having more functional importance than only representation of an artistic/creative expression. According to Rivera and Wolfe (1934, p. 13), murals are able to “help in [a person’s] struggle to become a

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human being, and for that purpose it must live wherever it can; no place is bad for it, so long as it is there permitted to fulfil its primary functions of nutrition and enlightenment.” As Kress and Leeuwen (2001) argue, it makes no sense to separate text from images and therefore, linguistic landscape research should include “other discursive modalities: visual images, non-verbal communication, architecture and the built environment” (Jaworski and Thurlow 2010, p. 2). The reason for the inclusive is that these discursive modalities are “made through deliberate human intervention and meaning making” (Jaworski and Thurlow 2010, p. 2). This means that even if these modalities do not speak through words, they still perform the function of communicating a message to the community. Focusing on visual images as part of the modalities, Irvine (2012, p. 235) asserts a comparable idea using street art, stating that it is “a community practice with its own leaned codes, rules, hierarchies of prestige, and means of communication.” He (Irvine 2012, p. 238) further suggests that “a street work can be an intervention, a collaboration, a commentary, a dialogic critique, an individual or collective manifesto, an assertion of existence, aesthetic therapy for the dysaesthetics of urban controlled, commercialised visibility.” Hence, it can be presumed that murals, which have characteristics of urban and street art, are a component of linguistic landscape research.

Penang: Multiethnicity, Multilingualism, and Multiculturalism To provide background information regarding the site of research, this section presents a brief history of modern Penang and its development in becoming a multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural city. Penang, known as the “Cinderella of the Strait Settlements” (Yeap 2019, p. 7), is a small tortoise-shaped island city situated off the coast of northern Peninsular Malaysia. Being a down-to-earth island city, it hosts a population of 809,000 inhabitants (Penang Institute 2019) that consists of three main ethnic communities. The Bumiputras (translated as “sons of the soil” to refer to the Malays and Indigenous people) holds the largest composition (43%), followed by Chinese (39%) and Indians (9%). Other ethnicities such as Eurasians, Thais, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Japanese, South Koreans, and Vietnamese form the remaining 9%. Since establishment in 1786, Penang is recognized for its “rich and colourful admixture of socio-cultural traits and traditions” (Ooi 2015, pp. 27–28), which is a result of the historical traces and evidences of a variety of ethnic communities living together harmoniously. The modern history of Penang began in the late eighteenth century. In 1770s, the British East India Company ordered Sir Francis Light to form trade relations in the Malay Peninsula. Consequently, Light landed in Kedah, a state that was linked to the power struggle between the Siamese (Thailand) and Burmese (Myanmar) governments. The rulers of Kedah–Sultan Muhammad Jewa (1710–1773) and Sultan Abdullah Mukaram Shah (1773–1798) – offered Penang to Light in exchange for British military protection against their enemies, namely Burma and Siam. After an agreement was ratified, Light sailed to Penang and arrived there on 17 July 1786. He

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took possession of the island and renamed it as “Prince of Wales Island.” This event marked formally British involvement in Malaya, which later George Town was declared as a free trading port (Andaya and Andaya 2017). Being strategically located in the crucial commerce point of the Malay Archipelago, George Town played an important role for trade and commerce in the region. Providing a safe anchorage for vessels, the port attracted merchants from China, India, Siam, Java, Sulawesi, Burma, Arab, and Sumatra to trade with the Europeans. Manufacture goods from Britain and India such as opium, cotton, steel, gunpowder, iron, and chinaware were distributed at the port, while typical products from the Archipelago including rice, tin, spices, rattans, gold-dust, ivory, ebony, and pepper were collected for redistribution (Mills 1966; Yeap 2019). The flourishing trade that ensued contributed to the development of Penang through the setting up of shops by Chinese merchants in the business district of George Town, which was formed by Beach Street, Light Street, Chulia Street, and Pitt Street. The booming of tin mining industry in Perak brought in more Chinese laborers, mainly the Hokkiens, Cantonese, and Hakkas. When the tin mining industry began to subside, the laborers flocked to bigger cities such as Penang for employment and subsequently settled down; some married local women while others brought their wives from China. The free trade concept has triggered Penang’s population to a remarkable growth – from 6973 in 1797 to 247,460 in 1947 (Jackson 1961). Apart from the Malay community, the Indians settled in Penang, similarly to the Chinese. Merchants from Bombay (Mumbai) had a presence in Penang for commercial activities “as early as 1770” (Mujani 2012, p. 1350). This was followed by an influx of laborers who worked at rubber, tea, and coffee plantations (Mukhopadhyay 2010), and convicts who engaged in construction work. Subsequently, family members in India moved to join those in Penang. In addition to the three communities, Penang also attracted immigrants from a vast variety of ethnicities including Eurasians, Siamese (Thais), Acehnese, Arabs, Armenians, Jews, Japanese, Burmese (Myanmarese), and Europeans. Some arrived during the formative years of Penang while others came later. The diversity of migrants settling in Penang has laid the foundations for a multiethnic society, which is often portrayed as “colourful and variegated” (Ooi 2015, p. 34). Language plays an important role for nation-building (Byram 2008). After Malaysia’s independence in 1957, language became a sensitive issue among ethnic communities. The issue was resolved through the National Language Act 1963/1967 that allowed any languages besides Bahasa Melayu to be learnt, taught, and spoken in Malaysia. When the British headed the government administration in Penang, English (language of the colonizer) and Bahasa Melayu (language of local people) were used in a diglossic manner where both languages of different language families complemented each other in their usage. English enjoyed a prestigious status as a working language; it was the language used in government institutions, law courts, trading activities, and English-medium schools. Today, it remains as an important working language for international commerce, local corporate, education, and interethnic communication (Jenkins et al. 2011). Bahasa Melayu, the dominant language spoken by the Malays and Indigenous people, remained the language of

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trade among the kingdoms in the Malay Archipelago. After independence, Bahasa Melayu assumed the role of English and became the sole official and national language of Malaysia. It acted as the language of government administration and law in Malaysia, as well as in Penang, and served as the medium of instruction in national schools. In addition to English and Bahasa Melayu, there were other languages that boosted the multilingual scenery of Penang. The Chinese, who came to Penang, originated from several provinces in China, mainly Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. They brought along their heritage languages, such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew, Hainan, Fuzhou, and Taishan (C. B. Tan 2000). In 1920s, Mandarin Chinese was introduced in Malaysia as the medium of instruction in Chinese-medium schools (Wang 2014). Today, it is a common language spoken in many Chinese families in Penang (Ong 2018). Equally for the Indians, they also brought together their heritage languages, such as Hindi, Telugu, Punjabi, and Malayalam (UNICEF Malaysia 2016), which they continue to speak today. The Tamils, who arrived in Penang in the late nineteenth century and constituted the majority of the present-day Indian population (Andaya and Andaya 2017), spoke Tamil, which later became the medium of instruction in Tamil-medium schools. The vast number of immigrants who settled down in Penang added a further layer to the multilingual scenery through their heritage languages; these included Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Nepalese, German, French, and Vietnamese. This witness of language diversity reveals a rich and complex linguistic landscape that forms Penang’s unique identity. Penang’s growth as a multicultural island city owes to the preservation of cultures, customs, and traditions by the various ethnic communities. During its commercial days, the larger ethnic communities assimilated into others through intermarriages. Chinese merchants bonded with local Malay women and formed the basis of the Peranakan culture (L. E. Tan 2000), where they adopted the Malay sociocultural traditions in cuisine, attire, and language. The Babas (reference for men) wore Western suits or Chinese garments while the Nyonyas (reference for women) preferred sarung (a large tube of fabric wrapped around the waist). They served spicy food like assam laksa (rice noodles in spicy fish soup) and achar (pickled vegetables). The Indians (both Muslims and Hindus) also married Malay Muslim women and established the Jawi-Peranakan community (Yusoff and Aziz 2010), who then dominated economic niche such as money changers, newspaper vendors, barbers, and nasi kandar (rice with a variety of curries). Other smaller ethnic communities have also left their mark of cultural traits through their presence in Penang. The Burmese-Siamese community were evidenced in Pulau Tikus, a north-west outskirt of George Town, through the constructions of Siamese and Burmese Buddhist temples and stupas. The booming of tin and rubber attracted Japanese entrepreneurs to Penang who set up Japanese associations and schools that remain today. The Armenians, who arrived in the nineteenth century, left their presence through their management of well-known landmark properties such as the Eastern and Oriental Hotel. The Jews, who arrived during the same period as the Armenians, buried their deaths at the Jewish cemetery

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where many tombstones were engraved with Hebrew inscriptions. Intermarriages that took place between Asian and European traders and their admixture traits were reflected in the Eurasian community (Goh 2002). The pioneers of the Eurasian community, for example, settled at China Street and Bishop Street and conversed using an English patois that contained traces of Portuguese, Malay, and Siamese elements (Ooi 2015). Several decades have elapsed since Malaysia gained independence from the British. Today, Penang has become a well-known multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural island city in which its heritage traits and living culture spurred the emergence of a unique Penang identity. This identity was developed through Penang’s embracement that began during the foundation years until the colonial period and continued after Malaysia’s independence. As Parrillo (2008, p. 599) states, the strength of Penang “lies in its diversity, that the blends and contrasts of its different peoples generate a dynamic synergy in its culture, quality of life, and achievements.” In other words, Penang’s diversity growth is an unwritten policy that owes much more to pragmatism rather than an ideological adjustment (Ooi 2015).

The Present Study This study is an expansion of two previous linguistic landscape studies conducted in Penang. The former was by Ben Said and Ong (2019) where the authors explored the social and historical changes observed on shop signs in George Town. Through the employment of the geosemiotic approach (Scollon and Scollon 2003), Ben Said and Ong found that different historical periods reveal different choice of languages displayed on shop signs and different materials used for making them and where these changes were attributed to “historical developments, economic progress, globalisation, and modernity” (Ben Said and Ong 2019, p. 226). The latter was by Macalister and Ong (2020). In this study, the authors examined iron rod sculptures that were erected in George Town in relation to remembering memories of the past. The authors found that the sculptures, presented in a light-hearted way, constituted part of the city’s heritage. While both studies examine different discourses in the linguistic landscape of Penang, they identify some similarity; their emphasis lies within the preservation and protection of the living culture, heritage, and traditions of Penang. As was mentioned above, George Town has a reputation of maintaining its heritage traits since the colonial days. These efforts of maintenance and preservation are responsible for the city earning the UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2008. In honor of such recognition, the George Town Festival is now held annually to celebrate its diverse arts and cultural heritage. In 2012, murals were painted on the public walls of George Town as part of the festival, which ultimately revolutionized the art scene in Penang. In 2013, twelve new murals were painted, which aimed to raise awareness over the issue of stray animals. In 2014, Hin Bus Depot, a former bus depot, collaborated with Urban Nation for an art project. In 2018, China House, a popular café in George Town, opened Art Lane Penang, an alley full of murals. In

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2020, Penang organized the container art festival where international artists were invited to draw on containers. Continuing the popularity of these murals, commercial shops and hotels in George Town have begun drawing murals on their outdoor walls, usually portraying goods sold or services offered. The drawing of murals has also expanded to other parts of Penang. In short, murals are dominating the overall art scene of Penang. The literature review refers murals to as large, building-sized paintings and consist more of images than words (Blanché 2015). As they have the characteristics of urban and street art, they are considered as part of the linguistic landscape. Although the review shows that murals have significant values, Macalister and Ong (2020, p. 232) acknowledge that the murals in George Town “do not explicitly address heritage or language concerns.” Despite their criticism, the argument for this study is that the linguistic and nonlinguistic features of the murals themselves contribute to the construction and affirmation of the unique Penang identity from various perspectives.

Data Collection The data collection for this study took place in early February 2020. For four continuous weekends, the art in George Town was located using an interactive map from https://streetartpenang.com/. George Town (Fig. 1) is a historical center that is bordered on the north and east by roads, the shore, and a commercial port, and the west and south by roads. In addition to fieldnotes, a total of 84 photographs were taken of murals in the heritage enclave. Most murals were located on the exterior walls of old buildings and shop lots.

Analytical Framework This study borrows the concept of Evans and Boyte’s (1986) “free space” for analyzing the murals. According to these authors, “free space” stands between the private self and large public institutions. They affirm that such associations, ranging from the Populist movement to welfare-rights organizations, are beneficial in their own way, that is the efficacy of battles for economic and political democracy. In addition, the free space allows the community to come together to share concerns, hopes, and values. As Evans and Boyte (1986, p. 17) state, “the central argument . . . is that particular sorts of public spaces in the community, what we call free spaces, are the environments in which people are able to learn a new self-respect, a deeper and more assertive group identity, public skills, and values of cooperation and civic virtue. Put simply, free spaces are settings between private lives and large-scale institutions where ordinary citizens can act with dignity, independence, and vision.” In the case of the murals in George Town, they were painted on the exterior walls of old buildings and shop lots, which are considered as free space. Although this space is not owned by the community, it has “transformed from [its] original purpose

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Fig. 1 Location of George Town’s art scene on Penang Island, Malaysia. Source: D. Gilbreath 2020 for the author

as part of a building structure to a message board for the internal and external community to see, read, and learn from” (Delgado and Barton 1998, p. 347). In other words, the free space acts a canvas of expression for the murals. Applying this free space concept to the photographed murals, they are qualitatively analyzed for their linguistic and nonlinguistic features.

Murals in George Town The development of the open-air art gallery in George Town was initiated by Ernest Zacharevic, an artist from Vilnius in Lithuania. Prior to painting in the streets in George Town, Zacharevic used to paint in the streets of Vilnius but it was considered illegal; thus, his drawings were always removed. However, when he began to paint murals in George Town, he was not chased away by policemen. Instead, the locals gave him thumbs up, which encouraged him to paint more murals. They were so popular among locals and tourists that Zacharevic was commissioned to work on the project “Mirrors George Town” in contribution to the 2012 George Town Festival.

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The goal of the project was to portray the inhabitants of George Town in connection to multiculturalism. Zacharevic had an iconic style of placing physical objects to his murals, which created a three-dimensional effect. In addition, most of his murals were at street level or life-sized, making them easy for interactions. After his murals found success, artists from around the world were invited to paint in Penang. For example, Russian artist, Julia Volchkova, painted several life-sized murals in George Town and Balik Pulau, a town located at the southwest of the island. Language features were usually not found in most murals, but for those that had them, English was predominantly used, which was also found in the study of iron rod sculptures (Macalister and Ong 2020). The use of English in this case supports its importance as a postcolonial language in Penang and a global language for local and international tourism. In most murals, people (and sometimes animals) were present. The people were of a diversity of ethnicities, ranging from Bumiputras to Chinese, Indians, and Europeans/English, and of different ages, old and young. The animals drawn were usually cats because they were popular among the Bumiputras. As for the objects drawn, they were usually bicycles, bikes, boats, and trishaws, which portrayed the lifestyle in the past. In summary, the murals speak for the multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural traits of Penang, both from the past until present day. The three main themes that were identified in the analysis are discussed in the following sections.

Ethnic Representations Through the brief history told in the earlier section, Penang, in particular George Town, offers a remarkable example of “historic colonies that demonstrated the succession of historical and cultural influences” (Harun and Ismail 2011, p. 1). It bears testimony to a living multicultural heritage of Asia, where many ethnic communities continue to live together even today. Their coexistence reflects the cultural elements coming from local Malays, and Chinese and Indian merchants and laborers, who consequently created a unique identity for Penang. Today, such diversity is observed in the different heritage areas of George Town, such as the Malay enclave, the Chinese clan houses (community buildings where old folks, who share the same surname and speak the same language, gather and interact), and Little India. The presence of these three major communities is also witnessed through the painted murals in George Town. The first mural discussed, “Edora” (Fig. 2), is located at Art Lane Penang. Edora portrays a Malay woman holding the edges of her headscarf. This mural was part of the 2018 George Town Festival and a collaboration between two artists, Akid One and Sklo. Akid One is a graffiti artist from Malaysia while Sklo is a visual artist from Singapore. Capturing the expressions of hard and unsmiling, and dressed in a simple greyish Batik headscarf, the mural resembles the daily life of Malay women in a village or paddy field. In the past, most Malay women worked in the paddy field or remained at home to take care of their families. Those working in the field had long hours as the work of planting and harvesting the paddy was tedious and

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Fig. 2 “Edora by Akid One and Sklo,” located at Art Lane Penang. Photo by the author. I express my appreciation to all artists who provided their consent for the reproduction of the murals in this study. All interpretation and mistakes are solely by the author

time-consuming. Those remained at home usually borne many children as families were of large size during those days. Consequently, their tasks of taking care of their children while doing house chores and preparing three meals for the family were exhausting. Hence, these women usually had expressions that were not pleasant yet worrying. The woman in the mural was drawn behind a painted tiled wall. The wall had repeated images of tiger, fish, bird, flower, and a boy, and resembled the walls of rich Chinese merchants’ houses in those old days. To sum up, Edora is a well-defined illustration of the local Malay women. The second mural is located at Art Lane Penang. Entitled “Chinese Opera Performer” (Fig. 3), the mural portrays a performer dressed in Chinese opera costume. The mural was drawn by Thomas Powell, a British artist based in Penang. Chinese opera is a multifaceted musical theatre that has its roots from China since the thirteenth century. The performers act out a story through “singing, speech, movements, instrumental accompaniment, and stage props” (Lee 2009, p. 5). Chinese opera is usually performed in Penang on a temporary stage, built out of poles and canvases, at the vicinity of a temple to celebrate deities’ birthdays/temples’ anniversaries, or at an open space such as parking lot or field. They are held consecutively for 2–3 days. The performers come in a troupe and usually perform twice a day, once in the afternoon and once in the evening. They performed using different Chinese languages such as Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew. Set a hammock under the temporary stage, these performers rested there after their performances ended.

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Fig. 3 “Chinese Opera Performer by Thomas Powell,” located at Art Lane Penang. Photo by the author

However, nowadays, performances are held only once a day because the cost of performances is high due to lack of troupes available. In addition, the troupes usually come from Thailand as the cost is cheaper to hire foreign troupes than local troupes. Since the arrival of Chinese in Penang, Chinese opera has served as a form of entertainment alongside social and religious elements until today. Therefore, it marks as an important representation of the Chinese culture. Because the performance requires strict training for its artistic skill, it has not gained popularity among the young people in the contemporary era. To preserve this living culture, a museum of Chinese opera has been set up in Penang. It conducts workshops to train young performers, holds performances in big and small stages, and exhibits costumes, and other necessities related to Chinese opera. Returning to Fig. 3, the mural demonstrates a form of cultural preservation for the Chinese ethnic group in Penang because Chinese opera is a fundamental part of the Chinese culture. The third mural discussed, “Indian Boatman” (Fig. 4), is drawn by Russian artist, Julia Volchkova. It is located at Stewart Lane. The mural depicts an Indian man rowing a boat. The Indian community is the third largest community in Penang, consisting of two major groups: Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus. As mentioned earlier, when the British governed Penang, they brought laborers from Southern India to work as shipbuilders, boatmen, and coolies. As George Town port flourished, Indian merchants came to trade spices and other goods with European and Chinese merchants. Soon, they settled down in Penang with their wives from

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Fig. 4 “Indian Boatman by Julia Volchkova,” located at Stewart Lane. Photo by the author

Indian while others married local women. When the community began to grow, the British administration allocated an area in George Town for them to work and live. The area encompassed Queen Street, King Street, and Church Street; it is known as Little India and housed a Hindu temple and many shops that sell Indian spices, food, music CDs, and clothes. Adjacent to Little India is Little Madras. Little Madras is located close to the Malay community at Armenian Street and Acheh Street, and hence, many Indian Muslims settled there. In Little Madras, there is a famous landmark built by the Indian Muslim community, the Kapitan Keling Mosque. The mosque was built in 1802; its design of Mogul influence reflects the influence of the colonial style. Volchkova’s work is heavily influenced by the Indian culture in which she integrates them into her murals. The area where Volchkova painted the Indian Boatman is located opposite Little India. In this area, there are many old houses where the Indian community continues to live there until today. Thus, Volchkova’s mural clearly reflects the area’s history.

Lifestyle in the Old Days As noted earlier, Penang’s foundation years have formed its diversity of ethnicities. It is perhaps not surprising that their coexistence has paved the way for the various communities to continue practicing their cultures and traditions, which can be observed in their everyday life. Some of the murals around George Town are seen to portray such lifestyle, in which they have become live history lessons to many local and international tourists. Two iconic murals related to the lifestyle in the old days are discussed. The most famous mural today, which has become an iconic trait for Penang, is Ernest Zacharevic’s “Children on a Bicycle” (Fig. 5). It can be found at the end of

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Fig. 5 “Children on a Bicycle by Ernest Zacharevic,” located at Armenian Street. Photo by the author

Armenian Street, adjacent to Beach Street. Armenian Street is car-free from 3.30 pm to 10:00 pm daily – this is to ensure the safety of the large number of tourists in the street. The mural depicts a young girl taking her brother on a physical bicycle. In the old days, bicycle was a popular means of transport for many communities in Penang. It was cheap to purchase and convenient to move around. Families were of large size; this means that the head of the family usually had several wives, leading to many children in the family. The older children would assist in taking care of the younger children, similar to the portrayal in the mural. The big smile captured in the boy gave out a nostalgic feeling of young children happily playing together within their home compound or village surroundings. Next to the mural is a small tag that provides the mural’s title and artist’s name in English. On a nice sunny day, there would be a long line of tourists, local and international, queuing to engage with the mural and take photographs. The mural is located next to a contemporary café where many young people are seen hanging out with their friends. It is a convenient location for tourists to get a takeaway coffee while waiting in the queue. Opposite the mural is a small open space with two green telephone booths, a pole resembles a tree, and two art sculptures, red and black. Behind the telephone booth hangs a plaque on the wall. The plaque was produced by George Town World Heritage Incorporated and stated the history of Armenian Street. To brighten up the space, there are some pots of pink bougainvillea flowers. An artist is seen under an umbrella tent in the open space, performing face drawings for tourists. There are also some youths busking while others handing out travel leaflets. To the right of the open space is a building from the year 1907; it houses a local coffee shop. To the left are two opposite rows of shops, selling local snacks and souvenirs such as postcards, tee shirts, and bags. There are also shops that specialize in beading Nyonya shoes, designing jewelry, and doing artwork. With the

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Fig. 6 “Trishaw Man by Ernest Zacharevic,” located at Penang Road. Photo by the author

many activities going on at Armenian Street, the mural and its surroundings provide a sense of happiness to tourists, similarly to the relax lifestyle in the past. There is another mural painted by Zacharevic that has gained tremendous attention. “Trishaw Man” (Fig. 6) differs from the three-dimensional effect mural of “Children on a Bicycle” because of its size, which is huge and covers the entire surface wall of a building at Penang Road. Beside the building is a carpark and in front of the carpark is a trishaw rental stop. The mural reveals an old man resting in a trishaw, probably waiting for passengers – this is a classic scene of George Town during the old days. Trishaw, also known as rickshaw, is a three-wheeled passenger cart that is pulled by one man. Trishaws were introduced in Penang during the 1950s and became an important means of transportation to the locals. Streets around George Town were narrow, and thus trishaws served as a convenient transportation, yet the charges were relatively cheap. Soon after the arrival of public buses and taxis in Penang, the popularity of trishaws declined. Today, trishaws serve as a mean to boost the tourism industry in George Town and to maintain the living culture. The charges for a trishaw ride are expensive, nevertheless, tourists find it handy as they can request for specific stops while experiencing an authentic sightseeing in George Town. Today, there are about 200 trishaw riders left in Penang. They can be seen at the trishaw rental stops around George Town where they wait for passengers. The classic scene captured in Zacharevic’s mural represents the laidback lifestyle in the old days, which is still observable on a sunny day in the streets of George Town today.

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Support for Current Issues The two themes discussed in the previous sections have demonstrated Penang’s identity as a multiethnic and multicultural community, from the past to the present. In this section, the murals discussed will demonstrate the representation of Penang’s identity in the contemporary era where the community plays an important role in supporting current issues. In the past, the vast majority of Chinese in Penang who came from Fujian in China spoke Hokkien as their main language of communication. As time passed by, the spoken Hokkien was influenced by Cantonese, Bahasa Melayu, and English, and subsequently became variety of its own, commonly known as Penang Hokkien (Ong 2019a). Today, Penang Hokkien is a lingua franca in Penang (Penang Monthly 2017); it dominates in almost all domains, including governmental departments where Bahasa Melayu is commonly spoken. Many older generation Chinese do not speak fluent Bahasa Melayu or English, and thus, they switch between those languages and Penang Hokkien with the government officers. Consequently, many Bumiputra and Indian officers will either pick up common Penang Hokkien phrases from their Chinese colleagues or attend Penang Hokkien classes to learn the language. Despite Penang Hokkien playing a crucial role in the linguistic scenery of Penang, it is not taught in Chinese-medium schools. Instead, Mandarin Chinese is taught (Ong 2018), which lead to a situation of rapid language shift away from Penang Hokkien to Mandarin Chinese among younger generation Chinese in recent years (Wang 2017). Hence, to ensure Penang Hokkien continues its survival, efforts have been made to maintain it (Ong 2019b, 2020). One of the efforts is seen through the mural located at Soo Hong Lane (Fig. 7). The mural, painted by Jim Oo Chun Hee and John Cheng in 2014, shows a boy

Fig. 7 “Teach You Speak Hokkien by Jim Oo Chun Hee and John Cheng,” located at Soo Hong Lane. Photo by the author

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Fig. 8 “Burning by Cloakwork,” located at Ah Quee Street. Photo by the author

conveying the message of “Teach You Speak Hokkien.” The message was written in Penang Hokkien pinyin and Chinese characters in the speech bubble (although it is no longer clearly seen). In Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) terms, the mural is seen as an example of transgressive semiotics, but it somehow serves as an interpretation to encourage the community to continue speaking Penang Hokkien. In other words, the mural functions as an activist in support of language maintenance and language renewal, which is a worldwide issue for linguists. The issue of smoking has always been addressed by the Malaysian government because it is a chief preventable killer in Malaysia (Ng et al. 2014). Tobacco-related diseases such as heart and pulmonary circulation diseases accounted for the main deaths in the public hospitals (Malaysia Ministry of Health 2006). According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2011, 31% of the adult population in Malaysia are tobacco smokers. A Malaysian adult smokes an average of 14 cigarettes per day and only 9.5% had so far quit (Institute of Public Health 2012). One of the interventions to combat smoking is the implementation of anti-smoking policies to discourage smoking. In 2005, Malaysia became an official party to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. As part of the initiatives to comply with the framework, the Penang government made a proposal to create smoke-free zones in commercial and residential units around Penang, which aimed at protecting the community from smokers. George Town World Heritage Site was selected to be included in the proposal. To raise awareness about air pollution caused by smokers, Kuala Lumpur-based graffiti artist, Cloakwork, painted a mural, “Burning” (Fig. 8), at Ah Quee Street in 2016. The mural portrays a man wearing a gas mask and holding a balloon that has a nonsmoking logo. On top of the man were ten flexible poles that are modified to look like giant cigarette butts. Cloakwork included a message in his mural, “only you can stop air pollution,” and a nonsmoking logo. “Air pollution” had bigger size font than

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“only you can stop” – an emphasis to show the importance of his message. In this case, the mural serves as a significant educational board that promotes valuable learning to the community. Nevertheless, it has been vandalized; the message has been covered up with paint as a means of protesting the smoke-free policy. It is an eyesore and demonstrates the uncooperative attitudes of the vandalizers.

Concluding Remarks This study began with a research question that asked, “To what extent do murals in George Town support the construction and affirmation of the unique Penang identity?” Out of 84 murals, eight were selected for discussion. The selection represents the lifestyles of the communities in Penang, the meaning of multiethnicity and multiculturalism, and the ways in which the communities engage themselves in supporting current issues. The eight murals reveal that without doubt they represent the presence of the three major communities that constitute the city’s unique identity from the past to the present. They convey the meaning of culture and heritage in a nontraditional way that allow locals and tourists to interact, engage, and learn about the history of Penang. In addition, the styles of the various artists and the locations of the murals offer a sense of belonging, membership, and identity that is beyond imagination. In simpler terms, the murals function as a “showcase” to the community; they reflect the “social, political, economic, historical, linguistic, ethnic, and religious movements of a society” (Schmitt 2018, p. 16). Although the art scene of George Town is an “invented” environment of its past, the murals still delivers social effects and experiences that are rather authentic. Located in the “free space” of George Town, the murals have shed light to new and innovative ways of reimaging the linguistic landscape of Penang in terms of “integration, identity, imagination, illocution, and interpellation” (Pennycook 2009, p. 309). A more dynamic space and interaction have taken place when the eight murals were examined and analyzed. The murals are a representation of the urban semiotic space, produce meaning that goes beyond what is seen, and tell the story of the city. A walk through the art scene of George Town World Heritage Site conveys a strong sense of being a local, but reading and interpreting the murals provides a deeper understanding of what makes up the unique identity of Penang. More importantly, the reimaging experience of the murals as part of the art scene in an urban semiotic space is indeed an interactive process that speaks about identity of the past and present. This identity should be celebrated and encouraged for maintenance and preservation so that the important historical events of Penang will not be erased and its uniqueness will always be remembered.

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Exploring Climate Change Through the Language of Art Laurie Brinklow, Rilla Marshall, and Brenda Whiteway

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disseminating the Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disappearing Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hand-Weaving Vulnerable Coastlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Liminal Project (2010–2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Artworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shifting Sands: Capturing Climatic and Cultural Change Through Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Project’s Structure, Approach, and Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Island as microcosm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

In 2013 Prince Edward Island fabric artist Catherine Miller joined a panel of scientists and government officials to lend her voice to a discussion about the effects of Anthropogenic climate change on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Her installation entitled Changing Environs hung just outside the lecture hall, including Rising Sea Level, PEI, 2010, demonstrating blatantly and poignantly what will happen to the beloved Island when the Northumberland Strait inevitably rises. Artists will go to great lengths to protest the ways in which humans ravage the environment – and to demonstrate the results. This is hardly new: for centuries writers and artists have been producing work that brings social issues to the fore. Sometimes what they create reaches audiences at the intellectual level, but more often it grabs people emotionally. At the same time, artists are acutely attached to L. Brinklow (*) · R. Marshall · B. Whiteway Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_10

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their landscapes, and wish to tend what geographer Edward Relph calls “fields of care,” the places they call home, documenting them before they change irrevocably or disappear altogether. This chapter explores how humans convey information through the language of art, and highlights some of the efforts artists have made in protesting climate change. The chapter will segue into presentations by Island visual artists Rilla Marshall and Brenda Whiteway, who create art in response to how they see Anthropogenic climate change impacting their island. Keywords

Creative arts · Islands · Anthropogenic climate change · Sea level rise · Prince Edward Island · Place-making

Introduction In 2013, the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, hosted a discussion panel and invited Island artist Catherine Miller to join a University of Prince Edward Island climatologist and two government officials from the PEI Department of the Environment to discuss the impacts of climate change on Prince Edward Island. Displayed outside the lecture theatre was Catherine’s exhibit: Catherine Miller: Changing Environs, which explored the Island’s land use and environmental practices through the vocabulary of her long-standing textile practices. Rising Sea Level, PEI, 2010 (Fig. 1) was a series of five recognizable images of Prince Edward Island – in paint, white wool, and rusted square iron nails – showing the Island becoming several islands. It was a wake-up call for many Islanders that beloved Prince Edward Island would, conceivably in the next generation, become Prince Edward Islands. Anthropogenic or human-induced climate change is without a doubt the most important issue facing humankind today. As the United Nations (UN) SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres told the world in December 2019, on the eve of the International Climate Conference in Madrid: “The point of no return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and hurtling toward us” (Parra and Jordans 2019). Indeed, since December 2016 when a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, declared the first “climate emergency” (CACE 2019), over a thousand jurisdictions worldwide have declared climate emergencies in an effort to raise awareness of the urgency and use their powers to enact change. While some people react with a sense of hopelessness, or “solastalgia,” others are on the front lines protesting; many are following the lead of 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg was recognized in 2019 as Time’s Person of the Year (Time 2019) for her one-person “School Strike for Climate” which went on to mobilize activists the world over and led to “climate strike” being declared Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2019 (Guardian 2019).

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Fig. 1 Sea Level Rise, 2010. Copyright © by Catherine Miller. The landmasses, formed from nails handwoven into the white fabric, are colored by the rusting action of water “painted” on the cloth and nails. (Used with the permission of the artist)

A warming planet means warming oceans, resulting in increasing numbers of extreme weather events, such as storm surges and hurricanes, record droughts, and floods. Extreme temperatures and drought result in massive wildfires that consume

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everything in their path indiscriminately be it human life, flora and fauna, buildings, and businesses; witness the devastating fires that wreaked havoc in Australia in the summer of 2019–2020. Melting polar ice caps contribute to higher sea levels and tides, and, combined with more frequent extreme weather events, lead to coastal flooding, shoreline erosion, and damaged infrastructure. The science of climate change may provide the facts of global warming, but it is humans who must communicate the message and try and fix it; since all are contributors to the problem and are experiencing the results, humans no longer have the luxury of leaving the problem for scientists to deal with. This challenge faces artists, too. In the face of the existential threat of climate change, artists around the world are using the language of art to tell stories of climate change. After all, “Science is one lens, creative arts another. Do we not see more deeply through two lenses?” (Richardson 2002, p. 888). This chapter explores how artists around the globe are using their creative practices to deliver the message of the dire straits in which humankind finds itself, ranging from despair through to hope, from the practical to the profane. It focuses on two artists from Prince Edward Island, a tiny island of 157,000 on Canada’s Atlantic coast, who are using their art to show how climate change is affecting their home. Rilla Marshall and Brenda Whiteway use the language of art as a clarion cry, waking audiences up to the global existential threat that is Anthropogenic climate change.

Disseminating the Message Science and art have been often seen as two separate disciplines. Science, generally associated with the brain, gives us hard facts, knowledge, and logic; while art is experienced as coming from the heart, expressing feelings, emotions, and aesthetics. Sometimes art is used as a kind of therapy – bringing the artist some kind of catharsis that makes them feel better – to get something off one’s chest or to heal. But writers also write, and painters also paint to tease out ideas: to toy with concepts and feelings and make them into something that elicits an “AHA!” moment similar to a scientist’s discovery. At its most successful, a piece of art touches emotions as well as logic, and evokes a certain memory or emotion in the reader to give them that “AHA!” moment, too. As Susan Cochrane (2010, p. 93) writes, “The capacity of artists to imagine and visualize core issues empowers community participation and acts as a catalyst for social change.” Art can also be used to document for posterity or to tell a story. As early as 2009, artists in Queensland, Australia, created an exhibition on the subject of climate change called Floating Land – Rising Sea: Arts and Minds on Climate Change in order to bring the plight of South Pacific islanders to the rest of the world. Curators at the Noosa Gallery in Queensland brought together artists from Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Papua New Guinea who created art installations that addressed how their islands and others in the Pacific such as the Maldives, Kiribati, and Tuvalu are suffering the effects of encroaching seas: “Rapidly rising sea-levels and massive king tides are encroaching on their villages and salt is affecting arable land. The mass

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migration of entire island communities is imminent. It is crucial that the rest of the world becomes aware of these Islanders’ predicament” (Cochrane, 2009, p. 93). Sometimes art finds itself in the legal sphere. Peter von Tiesenhausen (tiesenhausen.net), a sculptor, painter, and video/installation artist based in Demmitt, Alberta, Canada, has kept pipeline developers off his land for nearly three decades through a combination of art and legal acrobatics (Keefe 2014). In 1996, Peter claimed legal copyright over his land as a work of art, forcing pipeline developers to do expensive rerouting around it ever since. About the piece of fence on his property, he said in an interview, “I had not intended for it to be a political piece, it was just a piece, an idea the follow-through of which at some point became poetic, you go, “Wait a minute the fence actually stopped them!” But the fence doesn’t actually enclose anything. It’s just a straight line. And it’s marking something that’s actually unmarkable, which is time” (Keefe 2014). Art can also be used to disseminate information or a message. Aesthetics are part of it: after all, bringing beauty into the world is something to which we all should aspire. But using one’s art to impart information, address social issues, or effect change are some additional reasons for producing art. In Tasmania, an island state off the southern coast of Australia, an iconic photo played a role in the birth of the Green Party: a full-page advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald prior to the 1983 federal election displayed Peter Dombrovkis’ iconic photograph, Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River, Tasmania, 1979 (http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj147221112), with the caption: “Would you vote for a party that would destroy this?” (Bonyhady 2004). As Bonyhady (2004) notes: “Such photography has proved vital to environmental campaigns because most of us have not visited the places in dispute or seen the species in jeopardy. The photographs address a need for information in a way words cannot do. They show us what is at stake.” Continuing with the fight to save the environment from big business, in 2007, Tasmanian artist Allana Beltran created The Weld Angel, 2007, Weld Valley, Tasmania, Australia (Fig. 2), a “sculptural site-specific performance art piece marrying together art and activism (artivism)” (allanabeltran.com), in an attempt to halt clearfelling of old-growth forest in the Weld Valley. Dressed in an angel costume complete with wings made of cockatoo feathers, Beltran sat on a wooden tripod for nearly 10 h, stopping the loggers from working. She was subsequently sued by Forestry Tasmania and the Tasmanian Police, making international headlines, but the case was eventually dropped (Lesser 2008). The image of the Weld Angel by Matthew Newton (matthewnewton.com.au) went on to become a symbol for the environmental movement throughout Australia and around the world. Other Tasmanian and mainland Australian artists take these actions to heart, expressing through art the pain they feel when faced with unfettered greed, destruction of natural habitat, and the privileging of human over the nonhuman world. In 2013, a project and resulting publication called The Skullbone Experiment: A Paradigm of Art and Nature drew attention to a pristine wilderness area that was saved from the fate of being logged and converted to plantation. Hosted by the Tasmanian Land Conservancy in February 2013, the wilderness residency brought together eleven Australian artists who immersed themselves in the ancient, remote

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Fig. 2 The Weld Angel, 2007, Weld Valley, Tasmania, Australia. (Photo copyright © by Matthew Newton; used with permission of the photographer (www.matthewnewton.com.au | www. rummin.com))

landscape of Skullbone Plains, inviting artists into an “engagement with the charged landscape of a potent place, one not conventionally beautiful, yet extraordinary, emotionally overwhelming” (Hay 2014, p. 8), then sponsoring an exhibition with a companion book (Fig. 3). The Land Conservancy continues its fight to preserve the beauty of Tasmania through the emotionally charged language of art, and what environmentalist and philanthropist Robert Purves (2014, p. 3) calls “one of the greatest connectors between people and nature.” In academia, the use of artistic forms to disseminate one’s qualitative research findings in ways other than standard academic prose is a “viable method for seeing beyond social scientific conventions and discursive practices” (Richardson 2002, p. 877). Re-imagining academic research through the creative lens offers contextual understanding and insight, and has the potential for accessing and sharing research material and conclusions (such as emotionally charged content or deeply personal stories) in ways that might not be possible through purely academic avenues. By disseminating findings through the language of art – poetry readings, art and photography exhibits, music concerts and film festivals – researchers can use creative formats as bridges between academic and nonacademic audiences, between hard science and the general populace. Geographer Harriet Hawkins (Hawkins 2011, p. 467) writes about the potential of art to be “constitutive of dynamic processes of belonging and experiencing place, landscape and subjectivity.” Susie Gablik (1991, p. 93) notes that artists have the

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Fig. 3 Cover of The Skullbone Experiment. (Image copyright © by Joel Crosswell), published by the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, 2014

potential “to reconfigure our intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual orientation to the world.” Finally, art can be used to help in the fight against climate change for some of the most vulnerable areas on the planet: islands. This is the focus of the next section.

Disappearing Islands Often called the “canary in the coalmine,” islands are at the forefront of climate change, viz.: what happens on the planet often happens to islands first. On islands, with their close proximity to the sea, the effects of climate change are particularly noticeable. This point became clear in the negotiations of the Paris Agreement; limiting global warming to 1.5
C “was requested by the parties most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as small island developing states, whose physical survival could depend on this 0.5
C difference” (CIGI 2018). Islands are a microcosm of the planet, which we came to realize in a big way when images of Earth from space (Fig. 4) made their way to us. Jean Arnold (2002, p. 32) compares it to an island, calling it a “small spherical island Earth set in an endless ocean of space.” She goes on to write, “This island-like image has emerged as one of the most powerful of all in determining our own cultural ideologies and discourses.” Too many examples exist of islands being severely damaged by cyclones and hurricanes: Vanuatu experienced Cyclone Pam in 2016; Puerto Rico, Sint Maarten/St

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Fig. 4 Earth from space. NASA/GSFC/Reto Stöckli, Nazmi El Saleous, and Marit Jentoft-Nilsen. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Martin, Dominica and other islands in the Caribbean suffered the wrath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017; and the Bahamas were hit by Dorian in 2019. All resulted in losses of life and damage to property that will take decades to repair. In the South Pacific, the citizens of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Maldives are now labeled climate change refugees as the sea takes over their islands. Artists are like islands: they, too, are often the harbinger or bellwether of change, the seers or visionaries; they are the creators of art that Marshall McLuhan (1964, p. 69) calls in his oft-quoted phrase “a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.” Artists are the bards or the court jesters; they are the conscience of what is happening at any given point in time. As noted previously, artists will go to great lengths to protest the ways in which humans ravage the environment – and to demonstrate the results. This is hardly new: for centuries writers and artists have been producing works that bring social issues to the fore. Sometimes what they create reaches audiences at the intellectual level, but more often it grabs people emotionally. At the same time, artists are acutely attached to their landscapes, their islands, and wish to tend what writer Edward Relph (1976,

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p. 38) calls “fields of care,” that is, the places they call home, documenting them before they change irrevocably or disappear altogether. To illustrate these ideas further, following are examples of two artists from Prince Edward Island, an island off the east coast of Canada that is feeling the effects of climate change first hand, through sea-level rise, coastline erosion, and damage from increasingly frequent extreme weather events. These are their stories.

Hand-Weaving Vulnerable Coastlines Rilla Marshall lives and works out of her home and studio in a renovated century-old schoolhouse in Belfast, PEI. Her solo exhibition Home Terrain, exhibited at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in 2009–2010, explored changes to population and land use in the Atlantic provinces through the woven interpretation of statistics and graphs. In 2011, with a Creation Grant from the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture, and Heritage, she began a new body of work, The Liminal Project, where she explores the changing shoreline geography of Atlantic Canada through textiles and mapping. Through the craft medium of hand-weaving, Rilla’s work explores changes to population and place in the Atlantic provinces. Using statistical and geographical data as raw source materials (see, for example, Fig. 5, Walking Map: Halliday Road, 2019), she is interested in the translation of factual information into tangible object by physically linking several spheres of knowledge with warp and weft. In a

Fig. 5 Detail: Walking Map: Halliday Road, 2019. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

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Canadian east coast culture, whose identity is largely shaped by a sense of geographical place, her work charts the lay of the land generated by information about changes to the terrain and to the lives of those who live here. Her work relies on the grid of handwoven cloth as an organizational system for communication and as a tool for the re-interpretation of technical data from other fields of study. Handweaving is a way of re-claiming this information, making it tangible through the process of weaving itself as well as through the narrative nature of cloth.

Background Rilla first learned to weave as a teenager after convincing a friend’s mother to give her lessons in her home weaving studio. Later, as a student at art college, she discovered the Textiles Program. She had initially thought she would study painting, but once she started taking courses in Textiles, specifically hand-weaving, she realized she had been exploring and loving textiles her entire life. The freedom within the methodical process gave her limitless possibilities to explore. The complex structure and pattern created by texture and color made expressive sense to her. The warm material quality of the handwoven cloth was rich with potential meanings. The technical challenges of a hand-weaving practice were deeply rewarding. She graduated from NSCAD University in 2004 with a BFA in Craft with a Major in Textiles. Since 2004, she has developed a weaving practice that includes both an art practice and a small production weaving business.

Process Rilla uses both a four-harness and an eight-harness floor loom in her weaving practice. The way she threads her loom with her warp and ties the harnesses to the foot pedals determines the pattern and structure of the cloth she is weaving. By pressing the foot pedals in different orders, she is able to weave different patterns on the same loom set-up (see, for example, Fig. 6, This Town is Small and Close to the Water, 2011–2015). By using tapestry tools with different weft yarns, she is able to manually create shapes of different patterns and colors while weaving, building the image/composition one woven line at a time. It is a technique called supplementary weft inlay, but she has adapted it to overshot patterning. Her work is often mistaken for tapestry, but the yarns creating the imagery in woven tapestries are essential to the structure of the cloth and without them one would just have a pile of string. In her work, if one were to remove the colored yarns that compose the imagery, one would still be left with an underlying plain weave cloth structure. Rilla has always done sketches and color studies for her weavings before she starts as well as choosing the woven patterns she will use. While weaving, she has almost always used a drawing on paper as visual reference for the composition. Lately, she has drawn the composition the same scale as the weaving and used it as a “cartoon,” positioning it under her warp threads to guide the color blocks of the

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Fig. 6 Process detail: This Town is Small and Close to the Water, 2011–2015. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

woven piece with more accuracy. Once the piece is woven and removed from the loom, she embroiders geographical details such as roads, paths, and coast profiles (see, for example, Fig. 7, Greenwich Peninsula, 2015–16).

The Liminal Project (2010–2016) The Liminal Project is a body of work created between 2010 and 2016 and is still fodder for the themes and subjects she is currently exploring in her art practice. Exhibited as solo exhibitions in 2015 in St. John’s NL, and in 2016 in Halifax, NS, The Liminal Project explores the transitional space where land meets sea. Aerial images, mapping techniques, and geographical data about the changing shorelines of Canada’s East Coast are translated through the process of hand-weaving, embroidery, and crochet to create a collection of textile wall-hangings and a diorama of miniature islands (Fig. 8: Archipelago, 2010–2016). The woven structure is essentially a grid and lends itself well to geometry and graphs. Through the interpretation of aerial maps and cartography, The Liminal Project explores the transitional space of the shoreline to investigate memory, change, and geography. Hand-woven and embroidered wall-hangings as well as three-dimensional crocheted sculpture depict changes to coastline profiles, predicted

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Fig. 7 Process detail: Greenwich Peninsula, PEI, 2015–16. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

effects of potential sea-level rise, as well as personal maps of her own contact with various Atlantic shorelines (see, for example, Fig. 9, When the Tide Goes out, 2010– 2014). This body of textile work strives to translate technical information about the surrounding landscape into tangible textiles, bringing the lay of the land back to human scale while investigating the potential vulnerability of coastal communities. Having grown up and lived in three of the four Atlantic Canadian provinces, Rilla has always had an awareness and respect for coastal life. The physicality of the shoreline is constantly being reshaped, year after year, season by season – and Prince Edward Island, made of sand and sandstone, provides many stark examples of these changes (see, for example, Fig. 10, Greenwich Peninsula, PEI, 2011–2016). These transformations are the result of many things: human activity, erosion, industrialization, and sea level rise. Rilla believes the shifting terrain of this liminal space existing between land and water can provide insight into cultural narratives and the potential influence of climate change on coastal life. The choice to explore themes of geographical and coastal changes through the traditional craft medium of textiles and hand-weaving is a deliberate one. Incorporating overshot patterning (a woven structure and pattern popular in traditional blanket weaving in the Maritime provinces), embroidery, and hand-spun wool, she builds imagery in cloth that examines the past and the future of coastal

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Fig. 8 Archipelago, 2010– 2016. Crocheted. Hand-dyed, handspun wool. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

environments. The techniques employed to make this work are specific to the weaving and textile heritage of the Atlantic region and explore cultural legacy of hand-crafted objects of necessity and comfort. Through the very “old tech” craft of hand-weaving, Rilla interprets the data created through new technology, providing an intimate, accessible perspective on vulnerable shorelines.

Artworks Rilla spent ages 10 to 16 living with her family in Rice Point, on the south shore of Prince Edward Island (for location, see Fig. 11). Just offshore, there is a small island called St. Peter’s Island. At low tide, many sandbars and tide pools appear and if it is timed just right, one can walk out to St. Peter’s Island. Rilla’s family did this only once: she remembers that as soon as they got to the island, they were swarmed by mosquitoes and had to turn around to walk back in order to beat the tide. (For aerial view showing the “land bridge,” see Fig. 12.)

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Fig. 9 Detail: When the Tide Goes Out, 2010–2014. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

Fig. 10 Detail: Greenwich Peninsula, PEI, 2011–2016. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

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Fig. 11 Map depicting the location of St. Peter’s Island, which, at low tide, is connected by a land bridge to Rice Point

When the Tide Goes Out, 2010–2014 (Fig. 13) depicts an aerial view of St. Peter’s Island and Rice Point. The patterned area with the red chevron embroidery depicts the “land bridge” connecting the point to the island created by sand bars at low tide. In the southwest corner of Prince Edward Island is West Point (for location, see Fig. 14). The piece, West Point, PEI, 1959–2000 (Fig. 15), depicts its drastically altered shoreline. Referencing aerial photographs taken by the PEI government going back to 1959 (and available to the public online at http://www.gov.pe.ca/ aerialsurvey/), this piece maps the shifting sands of that particular area. The four vertical squares depict the profile of West Point at four different points in time. After weaving, Rilla embroidered the coastal profiles of both 1959 and 2000 onto each square, in an effort to show where land has been lost to the sea and where sediment has been deposited to create “new” shoreline (for embroidery detail, see Fig. 16). During the summer months on Prince Edward Island, Rilla is a seasonal worker with the PEI National Park. She has been fortunate to be the supervisor and interpreter for two seasons at Greenwich, the newest and easternmost part of the PEI National Park (see location, Fig. 17). Rilla is fascinated by the Greenwich peninsula: its ecology, cultural history, isolation, dramatic parabolic sand dunes, and exposure to the wild weather of the Gulf of St. Lawrence make it a beguiling landscape. The woven interpretation

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Fig. 12 Aerial photo showing the “land bridge” joining Rice Point to St. Peter’s Island in 1990 (http://www.gov.pe.ca/aerialsurvey/)

of the aerial view of the Greenwich Peninsula is based on current satellite images of the area, as well as a knowledge of the trail system at Greenwich (see Fig. 18, Greenwich Peninsula, PEI, 2016). Rilla is interested in the contrast between the north and south sides of the peninsula: the exposed northern shoreline is backed by massive primary and secondary dunes composed of “white” light-colored sand (including the rare parabolic dune) sculpted each season by wind and waves, while the protected southern shoreline made up of red sandstone and red sand is part of St. Peter’s Bay, one of the longest deepest bays on PEI (perfect for cultivating mussels). Rilla has walked the trails at Greenwich many times, as a tour guide and as a visitor. She has also walked the tip of the Greenwich Peninsula, a vast wind-scoured expanse of sand – a place she often thinks about during the Island’s harsh winter storms. Living on an island like Prince Edward Island (see location, Fig. 19), which is particularly vulnerable to erosion because of its soft sandstone bedrock and low

Exploring Climate Change Through the Language of Art Fig. 13 When the Tide Goes Out, 2010–14. 2900 x 3000 . Handwoven and embroidered. Cotton, wool. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

Fig. 14 Map depicting location of West Point, PEI

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Fig. 15 West Point, PEI, 1959–2000, 2011. 8000  24.500 . Handwoven and embroidered, cotton. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

topography, Rilla is often aware of the fragile nature of towns and cities. A good friend of hers works for the Nova Scotia government as a climate change adaptation policy specialist (and often has access to information about the other Maritime provinces as well). She provided a map and study of the future of the Charlottetown waterfront if sea levels continue to rise as predicted. In Rilla’s interpretation of this map, she wove all the areas of land which will be under water in the future as red (see Fig. 20, This Town is Small and Close to the Water, 2011–2015). The areas that will become wet marshy land are woven in yellow

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Fig. 16 Detail: West Point, PEI, 1959–2000. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

Fig. 17 Map depicting location of Greenwich, PEI

and purple (in fact, the areas in yellow and purple would simply be returning to their “natural” state, a part of Charlottetown that was once called the Bog before the wet areas were filled in for development).

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Fig. 18 Greenwich Peninsula, PEI, 2016. 1600 x 3400 . Handwoven and embroidered. Handspun wool and cotton. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

Fig. 19 Map showing location of Charlottetown, PEI

Charlottetown is a place she knows very well and she feels it was important to include all the streets in this weaving so as to provide a way to “locate” one’s own experience within this future version of the city.

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Fig. 20 This Town is Small and Close to the Water, 2011–2015. 28.500  38.500 . Handwoven and embroidered. Cotton, wool, silk. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

In 2014, Rilla participated in Charlottetown’s outdoor art festival, Art in the Open. A snaking line of blue stakes illuminated at night with LED lights charts the future shoreline of Victoria Park, Charlottetown’s largest municipal park. Based on the most severe predictions of sea level rises over the next 90 years, the stakes map the park’s future coastline with the prediction of impending sea level rise. Drawing connections between the physical boundaries within public spaces, Future Shoreline, 2014 (Fig. 21), suggests alterations to the existing environment brought about by climate change. Using textiles to make artwork about climate change has a ring of hope in it. Part of that hope lies in people’s intimate relationship to textiles. Textiles reference the body, and the domestic, so some of that hope lies in the ability of the medium itself to make this information a little more personal to people, and a little more tangible and engaging on a sensory level. It is often difficult to make people connect and engage with this information when it is depicted as cold hard facts, an abstraction somewhat removed from daily lives. But one would hope that people are able to potentially look at the pieces and recognize coastlines and cities that are familiar to them and start thinking about where we live, and how we live, in relation to the ocean – mapping the climate emergency on an intimate scale.

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Fig. 21 Future Shoreline, 2014. Dimensions variable. Wooden stakes, paint, LED lights. Victoria Park, Charlottetown PEI. Art in the Open 2014. (Copyright © by Rilla Marshall)

Shifting Sands: Capturing Climatic and Cultural Change Through Art Brenda Whiteway is a visual artist, specializing in painting, who lives and works on Prince Edward Island. Art-making for Brenda is a way to find pattern amid chaos. While not always comfortable, art can be an oasis for contemplation and creation in a time that can feel frenetic and rife with sensory overload of discordant images, dissonant news reports, and social media bombardment. Brenda’s art enables her to communicate ideas and convey a sense of the world around her. From conception of an idea, through the struggle of creating something from that idea, art-making is a process that provides her with sense and purpose. Brenda’s current work explores the passage of time – particularly as it relates to rural life, past and present – and the effects of urbanization and technology on traditional ways of life. Her Shifting Sands project is a further exploration of these themes

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through paintings, drawings, photographs, and mixed-media of a small coastal area in White Sands, at the eastern end of Prince Edward Island, which has personal significance but resonates on a universal scale. The site originally belonged to her maternal grandparents who had a subsistence farm and fished off the Northumberland Strait close to Pictou Island. Brenda has been observing, recording, and researching the area’s weather patterns, light, tidal shifts, flora and fauna, history, and cultural ecology. For her, this is a metaphoric petri dish through which cultural and climatic shifts may be viewed on an intimate scale and expressed creatively. Capturing the elusive qualities of the seasons through various art mediums while plants bloom and fade, tides shift, earth freezes and thaws, and the sky reveals its many moods is an attempt to capture the genius loci of an area the artist holds dear (see Fig. 22, Self-portrait [Sketching at White Sands]). The community of White Sands is located in the southeastern area of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and borders the Northumberland Strait. Brenda’s maternal grandparents, Laura and Herman, once lived there, raising and supporting their family through the hard work of small-scale farming and seasonal fishing. Their lifestyle was characteristic of many people who resided in the rural, coastal parts of PEI during the early to late 1900s. From their property, during the months of the year when there was no ice in the Strait, they could look to the west and see the ferry boat making its way back and forth between Wood Islands, PEI, and Pictou, Nova Scotia. During the time he was a fisher, her grandfather would go to his fishing grounds off Pictou Island, while her grandmother tended the farm and looked after the children.

Fig. 22 Self-portrait (Sketching at White Sands) (Watercolor on Paper). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

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Fig. 23 Brenda’s grandfather’s netting needle pictured with some of her textile artwork. (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway. Photo by B. Whiteway)

Their lives required a great deal of resilience and resourcefulness. Depending on the conditions during the spring fishing season, there might still have been ice floating in the Strait which would have made crossing over to Pictou Island quite dangerous for her grandfather in his small wooden boat. Since smartphones hadn’t yet been invented her grandfather would “message” her grandmother by lighting a bonfire at night on the shore of Pictou Island so that she would know he had arrived safely. On board his small vessel there would not have been any computerized gadgetry or electronic depth-sounding equipment to help with navigation or in locating fish. He would have lobster traps and fishing nets that he’d prepared during the winter months along with food supplies and warm clothing. The nets were made by hand using a “netting needle” (Fig. 23) he had carved from hardwood which Brenda now has and is using in the creation of some of the artwork for the Shifting Sands project. The twine he would have used for his nets would most likely have been of cotton, manila or hemp. On the farm each morning, there would be chores for the kids to do, including Brenda’s mother, before walking to the one-room schoolhouse just down the road (Fig. 24). She and Brenda’s uncle would arrive early to school during the colder months to light a fire in the stove that heated the building. Also down the road there was a boat-building shop owned and operated by a skilled boat builder, Nelson Bell.

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Fig. 24 Years Passing / Years Beginning (Oil on Canvas). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

During research for the Shifting Sands project Brenda met a fisher, Craig Bell, who inherited a wooden fishing boat from his grandfather that was made by Nelson Bell in his shop. Most fishing boats are now made from fiberglass which is a manufactured material. Through the Shifting Sands project, Brenda hopes to capture aspects of the genius loci present in White Sands. Using art as a magnifying lens, she is looking at the effects of coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and technology and change on a small coastal area. Her goal is to try and understand what these global issues mean on a human scale, better enabling her to personally comprehend, as well as communicate and express, what she sees and feels.

Project’s Structure, Approach, and Process The structure of the project is based on a time period of over a year and follows the seasons, beginning with winter then extending through spring, summer, and finally autumn. This is relevant because Brenda wishes to base the timeline around the

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area’s traditional livelihoods of farming and fishing, in addition to following the seasonal shifts in nature (see Figs. 25 and 26). While she is most at home using traditional materials such as paint, canvas, pen, pencil, and paper, the Shifting Sands project has encouraged Brenda to experiment with various non-traditional materials, many of which have been gathered, sustainably, in the local environment. Island red clay as pigment, Irish moss seaweed, wild dye plants, and butternuts for ink are some examples of the nontraditional materials she is using. In addition, Brenda has been utilizing flax from a crop that she grew several years ago (Fig. 27). The flax was harvested and processed, and then spun into linen thread, some of which was dyed using madder and woad grown in her garden. The dyed linen thread will be incorporated into two of the project’s artworks (Fig. 28). A major component of the Shifting Sands project will be the completion of a collection of botanical paintings (see, for example, Figs. 29 and 30). The botanicals will reflect some of the many species of the land and sea flora present in the White Sands ecosystem. With the change to climate, and resulting shifts in seasonal weather patterns, Brenda is concerned about the survival of shore-area flora and Fig. 25 Freeze/Thaw (Oil on Canvas, detail). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

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Fig. 26 Coastline in Winter (Oil on Canvas). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

Fig. 27 Flax crop at four different stages. (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway. Photo by B. Whiteway)

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Fig. 28 Flax spun into linen thread then dyed with goldenrod, madder and woad. (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway. Photo by B. Whiteway)

sees the visual documentation as a reminder of the beauty and diversity of plants often overlooked or taken for granted. When doing onsite research for Shifting Sands, Brenda was delighted one day, while sketching at White Sands, to see bank swallows (Riparia riparia) darting in and out of their cliff-wall nests, encountering the natural beauty of the habitat of these threatened migratory birds, which arrive at the area in spring to nest and mate before leaving for warmer climes. The magnificence and fragility of these nests and the way environmental and climate change affect these small insectivores, added to her thinking and artwork about the project, and she painted what must have been a similar sight to that of her grandparents while going about their lives and livelihoods in coastal White Sands. Viewing the coastal habitat and activities of these seasonal avian residents connected to her concern for other bird species as well as other fauna at risk in the area (Fig. 31). Water in the Northumberland Strait is home to many species of sea life that are in peril from warming sea temperatures. Climate warming could also reduce the amounts of ice formation, leaving the shoreline without the buffering protection it offers against storm waves, therefore increasing erosion of the coastline. Rising sea

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Fig. 29 Sea Colander Kelp (Agara cribrosum) (Watercolor on Paper). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

levels pose many difficulties for those who live along the shore. Interviews with fishers and others who live and work in the community is also a part of her focus (for example, see Figs. 32 and 33).

Island as microcosm This is the most significant and ambitious project Brenda has undertaken during her life as an artist. The writer, feminist, art critic, and activist Lucy R. Lippard (1997, p. 7) describes eloquently what she endeavors to reach the heart of artistically through the Shifting Sands project:

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Fig. 30 Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) (Acrylic on Board). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

Inherent in the local is the concept of place – a portion of land/town/cityscape seen from the inside, the resonance of a specific location that is known and familiar. Most often place applies to our own “local” – entwined with personal memory, known or unknown histories, marks made in the land that provoke and evoke. Place is latitudinal and longitudinal within the map of a person’s life. It is temporal and spatial, personal and political. A layered location replete with human histories and memories, place has width as well as depth. It is about connections, what surrounds it, what formed it, what happened there, what will happen there.

To Brenda, an island at its heart is a balance of relationships: people to the land and water, history interwoven with community, family, and culture. An island can be viewed as a microcosm (of the human and natural world) and as a metaphor (of the human experience). Viewed figuratively, the Earth, too, could be thought of as an island in the ocean of the universe, the universe an island in the mind of the Divine. The idea of incorporating the image of a life ring into an artwork was a result of thinking about climate change in relationship to islands physically and metaphorically, of islands threatened and islands flourishing (Fig. 34). In 2014, Prince Edward Island musician Todd E. MacLean published A Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet. Over a period of 4 years, MacLean

Exploring Climate Change Through the Language of Art Fig. 31 Bank Swallow Nests (Island red clay & woad on Paper). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

Fig. 32 Sounding Lines (Watercolor Sketch on Paper). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

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Fig. 33 Relic Box with Fish (Mixed Media on Paper). (Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway)

collected the words of 365 people from around the world who speak out about the perils humankind face with climate change and how individuals might deal with it. The voices come from many disciplines including the arts. Scientists, an astronaut, poets, musicians, parents, professors, activists, and those from a broad range of backgrounds lend their profound and moving insights to the book. Words that recur throughout the book are “hope” and “action”. The chorus grows louder. Artists on PEI and from around the world have been adding their voices and actions. Invariably some of the voices are louder and more powerful than others but all add to the waves of sound and change. Images and words can be a powerful call to action. In 1893, Edvard Munch painted what is known as The Scream. His intended title was actually The Scream of Nature. This compelling image has entered popular culture and is iconic. While some of its power has been diminished by overuse and commercial exploitation, the image continues to resonate with a world gripped by fears and anxiety over climate change. Humans can no longer ignore the scream.

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Fig. 34 Life Ring (Mixed Media on Paper). Copyright © by Brenda Whiteway

Concluding Remarks Art from the peripheral parts of the planet offers, as Fogo Island’s Zita Cobb (2012) says, “some resistance to the kind of flattening of the world. Artists have a way of seeing and a way of knowing what we really need as a society.” Often one can glean a deeper understanding of cultural resistance, which can lead to cultural resilience, by considering the language and geographies of art and the ways in which they represent intangibles such as place and landscape, experience and emotions, or identity and belonging. As Pete Hay (1994, p. 12) has written, the “very essence of attachment to place is emotional – as art has always recognised.” At times humans better understand the nuances of culture only through the critical distance provided by art – in mirroring ourselves back to ourselves through literature, poetry, music, visual art. In 2020, as humankind faces the existential threat of the millennium, it will take efforts of scientists, artists, and the general population – speaking ALL languages – to ensure another millennium of life on this little island called Island Earth.

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References Arnold, J. (2002). Mapping island mindscapes: The literary and cultural uses of a geographical formation. In J. Tallmadge & H. Harrington (Eds.), Reading under the sign of nature: New essays in ecocriticism (pp. 24–35). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Bonyhady, T. (2004). When a picture packs punch. Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/09/1086749774796.html CACE. (2019). History of climate emergency action by councils. Retrieved from https://www. caceonline.org/history.html Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). (2018). The IPCC Report will have profound effects on climate governance. Retrieved from https://www.cigionline.org/articles/ ipcc-report-will-have-profound-effects-climate-governance Cobb, Z. (2012). Personal interview, Shoal Bay, Fogo Island, NL: 17 February. Cochrane, S. (2010). Floating land – Rising sea: Arts and minds on climate change. LINQ, 37, 93– 103. Gablik, S. (1991). The reenchantment of art. New York: Thames and Hudson. Guardian. (2019). ‘Climate strike’ named 2019 word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/07/climate-strike-named-2019-word-ofthe-year-by-collins-dictionary Hawkins, H. (2011). Dialogues and doings: Sketching the relationships between geography and art. Geography Compass, 5(7), 464–478. Hay, P. (1994). Introduction. In J. De Gryse & A. Sant (Eds.), Our common ground, a celebration of art, place and environment (pp. 11–15). Hobart: The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (Tasmania) and The Centre for Environmental Studies (University of Tasmania). Hay, P. (2014). Nature, culture: Merging principles on Skullbone Plains. In The Skullbone experiment (pp. 6–8). Hobart: Tasmanian Land Conservancy. Keefe, S. (2014). This Canadian artist halted pipeline development by copyrighting his land as a work of art. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/5gk4jz/this-canadian-artisthalted-pipeline-development-by-copyrighting-his-land-as-a-work-of-art-983 Lesser, D. (2008). They arrest angels in Tasmania. Tasmanian Times, 27 February. Retrieved from http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/they-arrest-angels-in-tasmania/ Lippard, L. R. (1997). The lure of the local. New York: The New Press. MacLean, T. E. (2014). A global chorus. Calgary: Rocky Mountain Books. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Toronto: McGraw-Hill. Parra, A., & Jordans, F. (2019). UN chief warns global warming ‘point of no return’ is hurtling toward us. Retrieved from https://www.sciencealert.com/un-chief-warns-global-warming-spoint-of-no-return-is-hurtling-toward-us Purves, R. (2014). Foreword. In The Skullbone experiment (p. 3). Hobart: Tasmanian Land Conservancy. Relph, E. (1976). Place and placelessness. London: Pion. Richardson, L. (2002). Poetic representation of interviews. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research context and method (pp. 877–891). Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Time. (2019). Time 2019 person of the year Greta Thunberg. Retrieved from https://time.com/ person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/

Part 3 The Functions of Language on a Local and a Global Scale

Preservation of Magahi Language in India: Contemporary Developments Ram Nandan Prasad Sinha

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Origin and Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Decline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rejuvenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Magahi is a language with a glorious past, a subdued intermediate period, a vigorous present, and a promising future. It is the language of the people of Magah, formerly known as Magadha which emerged as a small kingdom around its capital Girivraja (now Rajgir) in central Bihar. Magadha gradually expanded to be one of the world’s largest empires of the time (third to fourth century BC), extending from the Bay of Bengal in the east to the Hindukush Mountains and Afghanistan in the northwest, and the River Cavery in the south. Subsequently, Magah reduced to its present form between River Ganga in the North, River Sone in the west, the escarpment of the Chhotanagpur Plateau (of Jharkhand State) in R. N. P. Sinha (*) Formere Head, Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India Working President, Bihar Magahi Mandal, Patna, Bihar, India Founding General Secretary, The Center For Geosheelitic Studies, Patna, Bihar, India e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Language, Society and the State in a Changing World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18146-7_11

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the south, and the Kharagpur Hills in the east. Magahi, in its older form, expanded as the official language of the empire (though not as the spoken language) as is evident from the presence of Ashokan rock edicts over the territory. Contemporary Magahi is now confined more or less to the original Magah. This Magahi is believed to have evolved from Vedic Sanskrit following the path: Sanskrit