3.4.1 Sessame

This section details an example of how the step-by-step process outlined above might be applied in a real toponymic investigation. For this case study, we will analyse the place name of the small village of Sessame, located in the province of Asti, in the Italian region of Piedmont (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 Location of Sessame

(adapted from d-maps, 2021)

The first step of the analysis is to gather data of the place name. Studying written records of the toponym, Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco (2016a; Reference Perono Cacciafoco2016b) found only one form for this denomination, Sexamus, from an Italian toponymic dictionary (Reference Gasca Queirazza, Marcato, Pellegrini, Petracco Sicardi, Rossebastiano and PapaGasca Queirazza et al., 1999). The dictionary reports that the name was attested in the year 1127. Perono Cacciafoco then conducted a linguistic analysis on all previous research carried out on this toponym. These include what has been concluded about the possible roots and proto-forms of the place name and all the literature written by other scholars on the previous versions of the name and possible etymological elements of Sessame. For instance, Giovanni Martina interpreted the form Sexamus as deriving from the Latin expression (ad) sexagesimum lapidem. This would be a spatial and distal marker that indicates the distance of Sessame from Turin (il sessagesimo miglio dal capoluogo piemontese ‘the sixtieth mile from the Piedmontese administrative centre’, i.e., Turin) (Reference MartinaMartina, 1951, p. 122). Another scholar, Goffredo Casalis, noted that Sessame is located very close to where the two branches of the Bormida River converge, and that the actual place where the convergence happens is called ‘the unions’ (le giunte). He posited that Sessame could have come from the German expression sich sammeln, meaning ‘to gather’. It could also mean ‘junction’ (Reference CasalisCasalis, 1833–56, p. 10). In some ways, this gives us a clue about the fact that the original Sessame was located near or along the Bormida River, a fact which still remains valid today, as confirmed by Perono Cacciafoco after checking the maps of the area and making a fieldwork trip to the village. An explanation which tried to reconstruct the roots of the place name was carried out by Dante Olivieri in his Dizionario di toponomastica piemontese (Piedmontese Toponomastics’ Dictionary). Olivieri postulates that Sessame could derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *sal(s)- ‘salt’, or ‘brackish water’ (from which other words, like the Latin sāl, Italian sale, and Ancient Greek ἅλς [háls] derive), justifying this by noting the presence of sulphurous and salty springs in Sessame. He, therefore, links the possible root and meaning of Sessame to its hydro-geo-morphological features (Reference OlivieriOlivieri, 1965, p. 321).

All these hypotheses are incomplete or substantially questionable and require more research. The next step, therefore, involves a comprehensive extra-linguistic analysis of Sessame and its surrounding area. Through looking at maps of Sessame (and its nearby territories) and the names of its hamlets, and, as mentioned above, after a fieldwork trip in the area, Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco (2016a; Reference Perono Cacciafoco2016b) identified two toponyms that are particularly interesting: Gringàvoli, where the two branches of the Bormida River converge at the border with Bistagno (cf. Chapter 7), and Caldana, where a sulphurous spring is found. The finding of these two place names could give credibility to Olivieri’s explanation. Furthermore, as mentioned, maps also show that the Bormida River flows in Sessame’s territory and that the two branches of the watercourse do, in fact, ‘join’ where the town of Sessame is located. As we will explain in Chapter 7, we know that the river is named after the possibly Pre-Indo-European root *borm-, meaning ‘hot water’, or ‘warm water’, and might have gotten its name from the many hot springs found along its course.

However, evidence from paleo-anthropological research conducted in the area surrounding Sessame includes several prehistoric tools, such as stone axes, flint arrowheads and knives, and other Stone Age instruments that have been found all along the Bormida River course, including in the Acqui Terme (an ancient Roman spa town located in the nearby province of Alessandria) territory, where Sessame and Bistagno are ubicated. This probably means that, in prehistoric times (surely during the Neolithic, but, plausibly, as far back as the Upper Palaeolithic), stone-cutting and tool-making activities were carried out in the area (Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco, 2011). As mentioned, the tools found around Sessame date back at least to the Neolithic, making it possible to speculate that a village where the current Sessame is located has existed since the Stone Age. Apparently, the stone tools are not directly linked to the practice of agriculture, but they are connected with carpentry and hunting, as the most common tools used during the Neolithic era for agriculture were the scythe and the sickle, rather than the tools mentioned above (among them were also ritual axes that, because of their weight, were not usable in everyday life and were used only in rituals).

After gathering data of the earliest historical (written) attestations of Sessame, investigating possible explanations of the origins of the name (from the work of earlier scholars), as well as accounting for any extra-linguistic factors, that is, historical maps, names and features of its hamlets, the presence of the river that flows in the territory, and findings from Paleo-anthropology, Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco (2016a; Reference Perono Cacciafoco2016b) suggested two possible explanations for the etymology of Sessame. He proposes that the place name could have been derived from:

1. 1. the Proto-Indo-European root *sē̆k-, meaning ‘to cut’, or ‘section’, or ‘to dissect’ (Reference PokornyPokorny, 1969, pp. 895–6). This solution is linked to the paleo-anthropological findings from the area, like the above-mentioned axes and knives. If *sē̆k-, in Sessame, is interpreted as ‘cutting tool’, the toponym could have been linked to prehistoric stone axes and knives found in the area, and to the activity of cutting stone to produce tools. Those utensils, because of their nature and function, would be connected with woodworking and hunting (and, as mentioned earlier, not with agriculture). *sē̆k- would mean, in this case, ‘to cut stone (to produce tool)’, or ‘to cut (wood)’, or ‘woodworking’ (the stem generated words like the Latin verb sĕcāre ‘to cut’, or ‘to cut off’, Italian segare ‘to cut with a saw’, and the Ancient High German sah ‘knife’), which can show how the lexicon (and place names) of Indo-European languages embedded the notion of cutting stone to produce tools and to use those stone tools to chop wood or other objects.

2. 2. the Proto-Indo-European root *sag-, meaning ‘to seek’, or ‘to track’, or ‘trail’, or ‘to follow a scent’. This is in connection with the flint arrowheads and knives found in the area of the Bormida River near Sessame. *sag- is at the origins of a number of words such as the terms for ‘thunderbolt’ in Breton, saez or seaz, in Welsh, saeth, in Latin, sagitta, and in Italian, saetta. All these words mean or have clear links to ‘arrow’ (Reference PokornyPokorny, 1969, pp. 876–7). The root *sag- could also be the stem of the name of Sagunto, a historical town located in eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia.

This case study provides an example of how historical toponomastics might proceed through the collection of available data on a toponym using both written records or visual sources, like maps (whose dates of publication might give us a window on what the toponym was known as in the distant past), before combining linguistic and extra-linguistic analyses of a place name. The linguistic analysis involves studying the roots and proto-forms of the toponym and an in-depth literature review of how other scholars have explained the denomination and have tried to reconstruct its roots and proto-forms. Yet, it is imperative that we do not simply believe what other scholars, or even locals, state or write about a place name. What is important, besides the etymological study, is to look for extra-linguistic clues provided by the contexts of historical geography, landscape archaeology, and paleo-anthropology. These disciplines help the scholar to investigate the links between the linguistic aspects of a place name and the physical and/or human landscape. Simultaneously, the toponymist can investigate if, in the same area, there are any other places with the same possible root and if they can be part of a common toponymic system. Then all the information from linguistics, history, geography, landscape archaeology, and paleo-anthropology is pieced together before proposing a possible reconstruction or supporting elements of an existing hypothesis about the origins of the place name.

3.4.2 Squaneto

Another example of how a multidisciplinary approach leads to new ways of analysing the etymology of place names can be seen in the case study of Squaneto (cf. Chapter 1). Squaneto is a hamlet of the Spigno Monferrato village, located in northwest Italy, lower Piedmont, in the province of Alessandria (Figure 3.2). The reconstruction of this place name has proven to be somewhat problematic. Two possible etymological processes, based on the restitution of plausible historical-phonetic sequences, reconstruct the place name in a way that translates into ‘territory renowned for flowers’Footnote ¹ and ‘pasture of the flowers’ trail’Footnote ² (Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco, 2014).

Figure 3.2 Location of the Squaneto municipality

(sources: Comune di Spigno, 2004; d-maps, 2021)

At this point, it is important to highlight a very interesting aspect of naming that we need to keep in mind. If people need water, and the main feature of a particular area is water, these people will probably name the area using ‘water’ as the main part of the place name. This is, at least, what happened in prehistoric times, when the primary natural goods were indispensable to prehistoric peoples for their survival, and the place names were not only names, but represented ‘directions’ for the orientation and access to primary goods in the mental (unwritten and undrawn) map that those peoples had of their territories. This is because the priorities of the earliest settlers would have been to develop and give specific names to places with food, water, and other vital necessities. Such directional indicators enabled them to survive and orientate themselves to places with resources (i.e., places to go) and dangers (i.e., places to avoid), and would constitute what is known as one of the most important components of the original ‘naming process’ in prehistoric times (Reference Facchini, Beltrán and BroglioFacchini et al., 1993). In a second stage, when people are already organised in primordial societies and have relatively safe access to water and other primary goods, they may ‘intellectualise’ the landscape and produce ‘descriptive interpretations’ of places. What this means is that, because people’s basic needs have been met, they then choose a name that describes the (possible) beauty of a place or that highlights features that are not directly connected with the primary goods that are found in that locality. In this sense, place names given by prehistoric people within primordial organised societies are indicatively less ancient than place names given by prehistoric people from more remote times, when survival was the main, if not the only, aim.

The two reconstructions of Squaneto as ‘territory renowned for flowers’ and ‘pasture of the flowers’ trail’ appear to belong to the ‘second stage’ of the naming process; they describe the landscape in ‘poetic’ terms and highlight aesthetic features of the territory. This could mean that the toponym is ancient, but not connected with the first stage of the naming process, as it implies an ‘intellectualisation’ of the landscape, by describing the beauty and features of the place, and is not connected with the primary goods needed for survival. Thus, if we try to trace back a more ancient and original explanation for the name, the related reconstruction will most probably yield simpler lexical and conceptual referents linked to primary goods. The sequences reported above were carried out purely at an etymological level and did not take into account any analysis of the hydro-geo-morphology of the territory. A more comprehensive approach, as outlined in this chapter, would include a thorough examination of the physical morphology of the areas under investigation. This would allow us to link a place name to its landscape (see also the discussion of Borgomale, later in this chapter), and even to ascertain whether dramatic hydro-geo-physical changes, for example, a flood or an earthquake, occurred in the past (Reference Ucko and LaytonUcko & Layton, 2005).

Taking all this into account, we know that Squaneto is located on a ford of the Valla stream. The Valla stream, in turn, is a tributary of the Bormida River, flowing nearby. This ford has always played an important territorial role in the area, possibly already from the Upper Palaeolithic, as it allowed people (and goods) to cross from one side of the Valla (a stream which is difficult to cross elsewhere) to the other, an importance that would definitely have been valued in prehistoric times, when survival in a hostile environment was of the essence. The Valla creek was indispensable to the Stone Age inhabitants of the small valley, therefore, both because the watercourse was a source of good water and because the ford was a safe and strategic place to found a village. A plausible assumption deriving from these considerations would be to interpret the inhabited centre of Squaneto as a vicus ad aquam ‘water place’, and to hypothesise that the place was named after the notion of ‘water’, as this was the salient feature of the place in the ideal, mental map of the prehistoric people living in the area. This, indeed, would have been the case even before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans in Europe (see Chapter 4). This close connection with water, in turn, would be encased in the place name. Hence, another possible reconstruction, based on the assessment of the hydro-geo-morphological features of the place, in conjunction with an alternative etymological analysis, can be proposed.

The new etymological analysis begins with a parsing, or segmentation, of the toponym and an attempt to account for all its components: s-qua-n-eto.

The -n- can be interpreted as a euphonic particle inserted by the local speakers possibly to avoid the difficulty or ambiguity in pronunciation due to the proximity of two vowels producing a hiatus (Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco, 2014). This feature, with others, is representative of the complicated and multifaceted processes of language change, where the original form and meaning of a place name might be lost and local speakers add parts to the morphology of the toponym to relate it to other more ‘transparent’ names in their linguistic system, or ‘contemporary’ lexicon, or to better match the features of the local dialect(s). The suffix -eto is common in many Italian place names and indicates, semantically, a ‘place’ or a ‘village’. It comes from Latin -etum, referring to the notion of ‘place’. The Italian forms -eto and its Latin antecedent -etum are suffixes, productive for phytonymic ‘collectives’. They generally refer to ‘woods’. Over time, in Italian toponymy, -eto lost, semantically, the basic connection with ‘woods’ and started to indicate ‘place’ or ‘village’. At the level of semantic content, therefore, Latin -etum, does refer also to ‘grove’, but this is not common in Italian toponomastics for the derived suffix -eto. Indeed, there are many examples of Italian (< Latin) place names, such as Noceto (< Nocetum) or Pruneto / Prunet(t)o (< Prunetum), surely connected with trees, but that do not refer directly to ‘groves’. Noceto and Prunet(t)o have probably never represented ‘groves’, in their diachronic toponymic development, although they are connected with the notions of ‘walnut trees’ (Italian noce, masculine = ‘walnut tree’) or ‘plum trees’ (Italian pruno = ‘plum tree’, also ‘blackthorn’). Indeed, Nocetum > Noceto is not ‘walnut grove’, but ‘walnut village/place’ or ‘village of the walnut trees’, and Prunetum > Prunet(t)o is not ‘plum (or blackthorn) grove’, but ‘plum (or blackthorn) village/place’ or ‘village of the plum trees/village of the blackthorns’. Originally and at the ideal level, they may have been villages characterized by the presence of those trees. However, despite the presence of trees and the references to trees in the names, the suffix -eto (< -etum), means, in this context, ‘place’ or ‘village’. Therefore, throughout the manuscript, we utilise -etum > -eto to indicate ‘place’ in Italian place names, which is the widespread toponymic use of the suffix in Italian.

If we accept the argument made earlier, according to which the place was named after something connected with an indispensable natural resource, that is, water, then a possible derivation for the *-qua- component of the Squaneto denomination can be from one of the Proto-Indo-European stems for ‘water’, precisely, *akᵂ-. This is the root from which Latin aqua, Italian acqua, French eau, Spanish agua, among others, derive from.

If this is the case, accounting for the initial *s- of the place name constitutes the biggest morphological issue, because the consonant is in the ‘root position’, but, according to this reconstruction, it would not be part of the root. This problem has been and is a source of controversy in the field. It is possible to try to segment the root of the place name, *squa-, as *s-ak^w-(a)-, which seems to give a clear match with the Indo-European root *ak^w-(a)- and provides a simple and effective etymological explanation. However, the segmentation of the *squa- root as *s-ak^w-(a)- is not conventional and does not take into account, in this case, the importance of the consonant, *s-, which is in the root position. As a matter of fact, a root like *squa- should, conventionally, be analysed as if it were a single morphemic unit including its first element. It should, therefore, be segmented as *sakwa- (or *sak^wa-). However, separating the initial *s- and considering it as a ‘juxtaposed consonant’ allows us to hypothesise *ak^w-(a)- as the root of the toponym, which seems convincing and solves the issue of the etymological obscurity of the place name. Nonetheless, as mentioned, it is not conventional and is problematic at the historical-phonetic and historical-phonological levels. Indeed, an approach considering the possible historical-phonetic nature of the denomination would not ‘cut’ a consonant from the root, that is, *s-, and would consider the stem as *sakwa- (or *sak^wa-) and not as *s-ak^w-(a)-. To be clearer, the segmentation process allows the solving of many etymological issues, but it is risky (and sometimes arbitrary), in that it cannot provide accurate and plausible historical-phonetic and historical-phonological reconstructions. It is, therefore, by definition, an experimental method.

An explanation of *s-, which, as outlined above, is not universally accepted, is that it was possibly added by speakers in a time more recent than the original naming process and, therefore, it could be defined as a ‘juxtaposed consonant’, probably derived from linguistic ‘overlapping’ due to the misunderstanding of the original form and meaning of the place name by local speakers over time. The ‘overlapping’ is produced by the speakers themselves, in an attempt to link the name to the phonology or morphology of the local language/dialect in a specific moment in time, when locals need to explain the place name but have lost the direct knowledge of its origins. The explanation postulating a ‘juxtaposed consonant’ has a parallel in Italian etymology, with several examples of this phenomenon from the general lexicon of the Italian language. For instance, the Italian word for ‘sword’, spada, provides an example of a lexeme in which the apparent root consonant, *s-, is not properly the root consonant in itself. The Italian term spada (French épée, Provençal, Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish espada) comes from Latin spátha, equivalent to Ancient Greek σπάθη (spáthē) ~ Modern Greek σπαθί (spathí), possibly from proto-Ellenic *spátʰā. All these forms come, in turn, from the Indo-European proto-form *ph₂-dʰh₁-éh₂ ~ *(s)ph₂-dʰh₁-éh₂, which comes from the root *peh₂ ~ *(s)peh₂-, meaning ‘to draw’, plus *dʰeh₁-, ‘to put’, ‘to do’, plus a feminine ending, *-eh₂. The *s- component, in the original stem, is presumably not the root consonant, which, conversely, should be *p-, and does not directly constitute an original morphological element of the word. Nonetheless, over time, the same *s- component in the beginning of the forms for ‘sword’ has become widespread (and ‘accepted’ as a non-original root consonant) and has been used by speakers to pronounce the attested lexemes in the above-mentioned Indo-European languages (even in French, where its ‘absence’ can be easily explained) (Reference BeekesBeekes, 2010). The same etymological reconstruction can be applied to the Italian words for ‘spatula’, spatola, and ‘brush’, spazzola. Both derive from spáthula, a Latin derivative of spátha, and, as we discussed for ‘sword’, spada, above, the *s- component was added, in their morphology, at a much later time than their original roots in Proto-Indo-European. If, as argued above, Squaneto can be considered a vicus ad aquam, it is possible to postulate that the initial *s- of the place name could have had a similar origin.

A visual representation of the naming process could, therefore, be as follows:

The etymological connection of Squaneto with the Indo-European root *akᵂ- (which gave origin, among others, to the Latin form aqua) seems also to be corroborated by attested variants of the place name in Late/Medieval Latin. At those times, Squaneto was known as Exaquanetum (ex-aqua-n-etum) and Subaquanetum (sub-aqua-n-etum), showing a clear presence of aqua (< *akᵂ-), ‘water’, preceded by the prepositions ex- ‘from’ and sub- ‘under’, ‘beneath’, which could provide a morphological support for the initial *s- – *ex- > *(e)x- > *x- > (*cs-) > (*[c]s-) > *s- and/or *sub- > *su(b)- > *s(u)- > *s- of the Italian toponym, Squaneto, or which could represent a reinterpretation of the place name in Late Roman and/or Medieval times. Both forms, Exaquanetum and Subaquanetum, could be considered as two ex post explanations or paretymological attempts by speakers to connect, in the way they pronounced it, the place name with new phonological features of their changing language (possibly in the stage between Vernacular Latin and Archaic Italian) and could show how an *s- element (here represented by the addition of the prepositions ex and sub), which did not belong to the original root (*akᵂ-) or to the original proto-type in *aqua- of the place name (*aquanetum), was added to try to make sense of the toponym and/or to ‘make’ it closer to the ‘current’ (in those times) pronunciation. This change was implemented without completely losing the connection with the notion of ‘water’ (aqua), because the preposition ex indicates movement from one place (‘from’) and the preposition sub a position/location under/beneath something, in this case ‘from water’ or ‘under water’, or, specifically, ‘from the water place (ex-aquanetum)’ or ‘under the water place (sub-aquanetum)’, a possible reference to the ford and occasional floods. Therefore, both Latin forms would have been still connected with the notion of ‘water’ and the interpretation of the place as a vicus ad aquam. Two prepositions like these, in any case, are evidently not original parts of a possible root, but are used as ‘prefixes’ and are later and/or paretymological additions to a more original and more ancient form which, in the case of Squaneto, is closely linked to the notion of ‘water’ and to the Indo-European stem *akᵂ- (Reference BosioBosio, 1972).

It is also useful to highlight the fact that Squaneto is not the only Italian place name showing this possible phenomenon affecting the root. Squagiato and Saquana are the names of two villages located in the same geographical area. If we accept that they share the same possible etymology (outlined above), they form, with Squaneto, a local toponymic system (cf. Chapter 1). Saquana, in fact, could represent a sort of intermediate form in this possible ‘toponymic chain’, because it preserves, in its current, contemporary morphology, the type *(-)aqua-, ‘water’, preceded by *s-, which is, evidently, a ‘juxtaposed consonant’. The *s- is, in all probability, a late phonetic and morphological addition, and is not a ‘root consonant’. Saquana (s-aqua-na or s-aqua-n-a) is a sort of ‘fossil evidence’ of the fact that both Squaneto and Squagiato may originate etymologically from the proto-type *aqua- (< *akᵂ-), in forms which we can segment as s-(a)qua-n-eto and s-(a)qua-giato. Moreover, while the ending of Squaneto is clearly represented by -etum (> -eto, ‘place’, ‘village’), Squagiato’s ending should come from the root *h₂ag’-, ‘to lead’ ~ *h₁yah₂tu-s > Celtic *jaatus > Irish a:th, ‘ford’ (< root *h1yah_2/4-, ‘to go’), which would describe perfectly the nature of these villages, ‘water places’ located on a ford.

Moreover, this approach may also help to explain another problematic toponym from the same geographical area. Spigno is the name of a village located in northwest Italy, Piedmont, in the province of Alessandria, not far from Squaneto. There are claims according to which Spigno derives from Latin spineus ‘thorny’ (from Latin spina ‘thorn’), in reference to the possible existence of ‘thorny bushes’ dotting its territory. However, this is a false reconstruction, or a paretymological explanation, which connects the origins of the place name with a Latin linguistic layer and with an ‘easy’ referent, not taking into account the most ancient strata of the toponym. Spigno is a very ancient village (the settlement dates back at least to the Neolithic) located on the Bormida River, along which also Squaneto is situated, and, thus, should be considered a vicus ad aquam ‘water place’. An assessment and analysis of the hydro-geo-morphology of the territory could suggest, therefore, to connect the toponym with the Indo-European root *ang-/*-agn- ‘water’, or ‘flowing water’ (cf. Chapter 7). Similar to the challenge we highlighted with Squaneto, several issues need to be accounted for. If we segment Spigno as *s-p-agn, the ‘p’ could have been added for euphonic or paretymological reasons, that is, to avoid vocalic mispronunciation or to ‘model’ the place name on the late referents spineus and spina. The raising of the low and central vowel, /a/, in the possible root *-agn-, to a frontal and high vowel, /i/, as attested in Spigno, may be a result of the phonetic and phonological changes produced by the local speakers, to assimilate the form to their dialect. Finally, the operation of separating the initial *s- from the possible root and considering it, as we did for Squaneto, as a ‘juxtaposed consonant’ allows us to hypothesise *agn- as the main root. This etymological reconstruction is highly experimental and would need further evidence and discussion, but allows the restitution of a surely prehistoric name for a prehistoric village, to overcome the simplistic interpretation of the toponym as originally Latin.

All in all, these etymological reconstructions show not only how the place name Squaneto has undergone language change, but, perhaps more importantly, how an analysis of the hydro-geo-morphology of the territory, combined with the etymological reconstruction, might unveil, or at least suggest, Squaneto’s nature of vicus ad aquam and the importance of ‘water’ in its naming process. This reconstruction would match up both with linguistic requirements and with the analysis of the landscape and would also be consistent with the earliest stages of the naming process of places by humans, one which is connected with possibly the most important primary good for survival, ‘water’. However, this reconstruction also highlights some of the challenges facing us in the journey towards the achievement of the final etymological results, such as taking into account the possibility of the existence of ‘juxtaposed (root) consonants’, which would not have been an integral and original part of toponymic stems and are still the subject of heated debate.

The example used a historical-toponomastics lens to reconstruct the place name Squaneto and aimed to show that a more effective analytical strategy, in etymological reconstruction, involves the adoption of a multidisciplinary approach that is much more capable of shedding light on place names than the approaches relying on linguistic elements only. However, as pointed out, this is not without its challenges.

3.5.1 Franciacorta

The Italian place name Franciacorta, from Lombardy, north-central Italy, in the province of Brescia, provides a good example of how speakers, and even scholars, might misinterpret the etymology of a toponym. The popular belief on Franciacorta stems from its literal and transparent meaning. In Italian, Franciacorta literally means ‘short’ (from the Italian word corta) and France (Francia is the Italian name for the country of France). Its first attestation probably dates back to 1277, in the Statuta Communis Civitatis Brixiae (Reference OdoriciOdorici, 1856, pp. 258, 324; Reference ValentiniValentini, 1898, pp. 5, 98). However, the place is located in Italy, and, being a territory with a significant number of cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, the usage of ‘short’, as a spatial indicator, is not applicable. Speakers, therefore, after having lost the knowledge of the origins and original meaning of the denomination, were soon puzzled by the name, and sought to explain the denomination via linking it to either ‘short Frenchmen’ or to someone with ties to France having stayed in the area for a short time.

Researchers themselves produced scholarly paretymologies when they engaged in forced interpretations of the origins of Franciacorta and of its original meaning. One such explanation for Franciacorta was offered by Jacopo Malvezzi, a fifteenth-century doctor and historiographer from Brescia. Malvezzi proposed that the name Franciacorta was coined after a pseudo-historical event connected with Charles the Great,Footnote ³ the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who was also known as Charlemagne or Carlo Magno (Reference RampoldiRampoldi, 1833, pp. 117–18; Reference SabattiSabatti, 1807, pp. 73–6). In 774, Charles the Great and his Frankish army invaded Italy and entered Lombardy to fight against the Lombards. They then established a base at Rodengo Saiano, a village located within the territory of Franciacorta. According to the above-mentioned historian, on the eve of a Parisian religious festival, the feast day of St Denis, which Charles the Great had previously promised to spend in Paris, he proclaimed, ‘questa terra è una piccola Francia’ (‘This land is a small France’), so that he and his army could spend the festive day on ‘French’ soil. In this case, piccola ‘small’ would be the equivalent of corta ‘short’ and, hence, the ‘small France’ as proclaimed by Charles the Great would be the ‘short France’ that Franciacorta is parsed as. This paretymology, while sticking to a historical fact that Charles the Great and the Franks came to the Brescia territory, is speculative, because there are no historical sources attesting Charles the Great making this proclamation.

Another scholarly paretymology of Franciacorta involves Charles I of Anjou (Reference RampoldiRampoldi, 1833, pp. 117–18; Reference SacchiSacchi, 1852, pp. 115–17; Reference OdoriciOdorici, 1856, pp. 181–2). The Italian writer Gabriele Rosa reports that Charles I of Anjou and his French troops entered Italy and passed through Lombardy on the way to fight Manfred, king of Sicily, in 1265. The troops settled down and rested in the area of Rovato, a village in the Franciacorta area. Locals and scholars alike believe that the French upset the women of the surrounding villages, resulting in a riot by the local people (Reference OdoriciOdorici, 1856; Reference CocchettiCocchetti, 1859; Reference CantùCantù, 1858; Reference RacheliRacheli, 1894). The inhabitants of Rovato and its nearby villages, like Erbusco and Capriolo, rebelled against the soldiers of Charles of Anjou, shouting ‘Francese fuori! Qui la Francia sarà corta!’ (‘Out with the French! Here French rule will be short!’). Charles I of Anjou and his troops were driven out by the insurrection. The ‘short’ in this quote, and by extension the ‘short’ in ‘Short France’/Franciacorta, refers to the short period of occupation by the French of the Franciacorta territory and is directly attributed to the exclamation by the local insurrectionists. Like for the previous paretymology, there is no historical evidence to prove the credibility of this rebellion and of the French being driven out by a local popular insurrection.

While taking note of how locals and some scholars explain the meaning and origins of the place name, it is crucial to take into account only what can be historically and officially documented and only the records that are available to us. Even when these resources do not provide all the evidence necessary to completely solve the puzzle, nonetheless, they can offer to us verified elements, which help to shed light on all the different facts and perspectives. In the case of Franciacorta, historical maps and especially local official documents, such as notarial deeds, acts of donations to local abbeys, and historical chronicles that date back to the High Middle Ages (from 1000 to 1250 ce), provide us with a relatively clear picture of both the physical landscape and the human activities of the territory and its borders. An analysis of these records shows us that Franciacorta could actually derive from the expression curtes francae ‘carriage-free/duty free courts’ (Reference GuerriniGuerrini, 1969, pp. 814, 880; Reference Guerrini1986, p. 168). Indeed, around the eighth century, the Brescia area, where Franciacorta is located, was the residence of Benedictine and Cluniac monks. These monks had significant religious power and social prestige, and were responsible for overseeing and cultivating the surrounding lands. These lands were generally exempted from tax payments by the political rulers of Brescia. Franciacorta, as a territory, was part of these lands exempted from paying local taxes and it was, therefore, a franca curtis, a ‘duty-free court’. To explain the present-day morphology, we need to see that it is indeed a paretymology. In this case, the ‘use’ and ‘nature’ of franca curtis or curtis franca were lost to the local people and they no longer connected the place with a ‘duty-free court’, but with the commonly known country Francia ‘France’ and the adjective corta ‘short’. We also know that, in Italian, Franciacorta ‘sounds’ much better than *CortaFrancia. Therefore, for the local speakers, it was no longer franca curtis or curtis franca, but Franciacorta.

3.5.2 Borgomale

An analysis of the place name Borgomale, the denomination of a small village located in northwest Italy, southern Piedmont, in the Cuneo province (Figure 3.3), is a good example of how disciplines outside linguistics can be used to analyse not only the etymology of the name, but also the historical, cultural, and landscape changes that have happened over time in a territory. The place name Borgomale can be broken down, in Italian, into borgo ‘village’, or ‘hamlet’, and male ‘bad’, or ‘evil’. This is why the village is currently known as the ‘bad village’, or ‘village of evil’. Inhabitants of the village had difficulties to accept this ‘bad name’ and had to look for possible explanations for it. Some of them say that the denomination came about because, in the past, the villagers were evil and the village was punished by God. They try to provide a religious or historical reason connected with the ‘punishment by God’ by making reference to how the population in Borgomale almost disappeared during the different waves of the Black Death and has remained very small ever since. However, an investigation of records kept by the local churches (in Italy, churches normally preserve historical records of births and deaths in their localities, and this practice can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages) shows that the number of inhabitants in the village has, in fact, historically been stable and, in contrast to what the inhabitants believe, did not vary even during the various waves of the Black Death. It is, therefore, clear that despite the local speakers’ attempt to motivate it historically, this explanation for the name is a bona fide paretymology.

Figure 3.3 Position and coat of arms of the Borgomale municipality

(adapted from d-maps, 2021; Vale93b, 2019)

Taking a look at the emblem and/or coat of arms of Borgomale (which dates back to the Middle AgesFootnote ⁴) (see Figure 3.3), we see a row of trees on a hill. A more detailed scrutiny of historical records connected with the territory reveals that apple orchards have existed in Borgomale and the surrounding area since the Middle Ages and even in the Modern Age.Footnote ⁵ In relatively recent times, all the hills have been planted with grape vines, and the extensive change in the agricultural landscape has contributed to the loss of the memory that the apple trees and apple orchards were once cultivated locally. If we assume that, indeed, the trees depicted on the coat of arms of the village are apple trees, this gives us a more transparent reason for the place name, one which accounts for this fact, as well as the linguistic changes the name underwent (both in terms of its morphology and meaning).

Why is a village with apple trees called ‘bad village’, or ‘village of evil’? Surely, there is more to how the villagers explain the place name. The answer, after our analysis of the coat of arms and the historical records attesting apple trees in the area, can be found by looking at the linguistic elements of the toponym.

We can start by analysing the Latin and Italian forms of both borgo and male. The Italian borgo comes from the Latin burgus ‘village’, or ‘hamlet’, while the Italian male comes from the Latin mālum (genitive māli) ‘evil’. Further linguistic analysis, however, shows that the Italian male can be traced back to two forms of the Latin word malum, differentiated only by the length of the vowel /a/. One is the Latin word mălum (pronounced with the short vowel ă), which means ‘bad’, or ‘evil’. The corresponding Italian forms are male (noun, ‘evil’) and malo (adjective, ‘bad’). The other form is the Latin mālum (pronounced with the long vowel ā), and means ‘apple’, or ‘apple tree’. Its corresponding forms in Italian are mela ‘apple’, and melo ‘apple tree’. Therefore, in this case, in the passage between Late Latin and Vernacular Italian, the Latin /ă/ became the Italian /a/, mălum > male/malo, while the Latin /ā/ became the Italian /e/, mālum > melo/mela.

As mentioned above, the name Borgomale is traditionally (and wrongly) believed to have come from the Latin expression Burgus Mali ‘village of evil’. However, as we explained above, a study of historical documents, such as the emblem of the municipality and the church records, as well as an analysis of elements of the historical landscape, revealed the existence of apple orchards in Borgomale since the Middle Ages. This, together with an indispensable linguistic analysis of the name, allowed us to conclude that, since apple orchards were documented in Borgomale’s territory in the past, it can be proven that Borgomale came from the Latin Burgus Māli ‘village of the apple tree’, or ‘village of the apple’. The correct reconstructed form in modern Italian should, therefore, be *Borgomelo, or *Borgo Melo ‘the village of the apple tree’. The reason why it was re-coined by local speakers, in the passage between Late Latin and Vernacular Italian, as Borgomale ‘bad village’, or ‘village of evil’, is due to the fact that the local speakers had lost the quantitative nature of the vowels in Latin (Latin is a quantitative language, at the level of vowels, while Italian, despite being a neo-Latin language, is not appreciably quantitative in its vowels), in particular of the phoneme /a/, which, in the passage between Latin and Italian, as described above, was treated differently according to the quantitative length of the vowel itself. This ingenerated the process producing the Borgomale false etymology/toponymic paretymology.

To be even more precise, to explain the possible misconstruction of the meaning of Borgomale, we need to understand that in Latin pronunciation plays an important role in distinguishing the meaning of words such as malum. However, as mentioned, this linguistic aspect of Latin was lost when Latin started its vernacular phase towards the neo-Latin stages and eventually evolved into the Romance languages of Europe, like Italian, which is spoken by the villagers of Borgomale today. Given that these villagers do not know Latin, they are unable to differentiate or perceive this difference in pronunciation and are, thus, unaware of the actual origins of the toponym. Therefore, they try to explain the place name through their limited linguistic competence, unaware of the evolution of Latin and its transition to Italian. To asseverate the reasons of the name, they even went as far as inventing the story of the Black Death to justify the association of ‘bad’ with the village (Reference Perono Cacciafoco, Cavallaro and KratochvílPerono Cacciafoco, Cavallaro, & Kratochvíl, 2015).

Several themes emerge from the toponymic case study of Borgomale. The first shows an example of paretymology in historical toponomastics. The current villagers of Borgomale, in order to explain the place name, having lost the original link of the toponym to Latin mālum ‘apple’, or ‘apple tree’, reinterpreted its semantics and invented an oral-traditional story about the Black Death that nearly exterminated the entire village. This led the village to be known as the ‘bad village’, or ‘village of evil’. The second and more important insight from this example in historical toponomastics is how linguistics intersects with other disciplines to reconstruct the etymology of place names. Through historical-linguistic and historical-phonetic knowledge, we understand that Latin has different vocalic quantities than Italian, and this quantitative difference affects the meaning of words (Reference Perono CacciafocoPerono Cacciafoco, 2015a), a fact here witnessed by the two forms of malum, mălum (short vowel ă) and mālum (long vowel ā), which allowed the Latin speakers to distinguish the lexemes and their meanings. As the difference in vocalic quantity was lost in Italian, the two words were differentiated, always in Italian, by two independent vowels, /a/ and /e/, therefore male ‘bad’ or ‘evil’, and mela ‘apple’. Such a small vocalic change can produce dramatic etymological and linguistic consequences.

In studying the etymology of Borgomale, we have drawn upon the landscape features of the municipality, specifically investigating what trees/crops were grown and are growing there. At the same time historical aspects connected with the human settlement were also examined. This was done by searching through local historical records, such as church documents that recorded births and deaths in the community over time, and the coat of arms of Borgomale. All these steps were taken with the objective of correlating the relationship of the toponym and its meaning to the environmental and anthropic features of the territory of Borgomale. In the process, we have been able to linguistically correct the toponymic paretymology put forth by the speakers and, indeed, reconstruct an accurate etymology of the place name.

3.5.3 Bailu Zhou, ‘The Egret Island’

Sources and documentation in historical toponomastics can come in many forms. In this section, we see how ancient maps, and even ancient poems, can serve as visual and written attestations of place names in their oldest forms. The example draws from the research of Reference XuXu (2016), which illustrates the historical toponymy and historical topography of two river islands, an older island located in the Yangtze River and another with the same name currently found in the Qinhuai River, both in the territory of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, southeast China. At the same time, this serves as an excellent case study on historical toponomastics in a non-Indo-European context, and of how paretymologies are not always and purely linguistic in nature.

In the southern part of Nanjing, there is a garden called Bailu Zhou 白鹭. It surrounds a river island with the same name, that is, Bailu Zhou, situated in the Qinhuai River, which is a tributary of the Yangtze River. An analysis of available written records, as the first step in historical toponymic methodology, shows that the island was mentioned already in the eighth century, when the famous Chinese poet Li Bai (701–762 ce) wrote a poem entitled Deng Jin Ling Feng Huang Tai 登金陵凤凰台 ‘The Phoenix Bird Tower’. In this poem, Bailu Zhou appears, as evidenced in the verse: Er Shui Zhong Fen Bai Lu Zhou 二水中分白鷺洲 ‘And the river divides in two streams, holding the White Heron Island between’ (Reference ObataObata, 1928, p. 114). The White Heron Island (白鷺洲) could be Bailu Zhou, and was the site that inspired Li Bai to compose this poem. It is worth noting, however, that, despite Shingeyoshi Obata’s translation of bailu (Li, 1928) into ‘white heron’, a more accurate rendition of this Chinese word would be ‘white egret’ and, therefore, the place could be known as ‘The Egret Island’.

An extra-linguistic analysis of the place name (the second step in historical-toponomastic methodology), however, tells us that the current Bailu Zhou, with the garden, is not the one mentioned in the poem. The island from the poem was located outside the Jiang Dong Men 江东门 gate, in Nanjing. This gate is known as ‘The Gate at the East Side of the Yangtze River’. In other words, Bailu Zhou, in its most ancient form and location, was ubicated outside a gate of the Yangtze River rather than in the Qinhuai River, where the current Bailu Zhou is located. The extra-linguistic analysis, in this case, involved an in-depth search for and study of ancient maps, and Reference XuXu (2016) was able to find several such cartographic documents in Chen Yi’s book on the historical geography of Nanjing, Sunwu Du Jianye Tu 孙吴都建邺图. The book has a historical map (see Figure 3.4a) of the capital city of the Wu Kingdom (229–280 ce), Jianye, which is one of the ancient names of Nanjing (Reference ChenChen, 1516, p. 8). On this map, we find the earliest record of the ancient Bailu Zhou.

Figure 3.4 Historical maps showing the location of Bailu Zhou

(adapted from Reference ChenChen, 1516)

In a second historical map (Figure 3.4b) of Jiankang (another ancient name of Nanjing) in Dongjin Du Jiankang Tu 东晋都建康图, from the Sun Wu period (222–280 ce), the island appears to have expanded and is now very close to the riverbank (Reference ChenChen, 1516, p. 22). This is due to the erosion of river sands on the banks of the watercourse and the accumulation of debris on the bank located in front of Nanjing (Reference XuXu, 2016, pp. 48–9). Figure 3.4c shows that, in another map from the Song period (960–1279 ce), the islet was part of a much larger island right against the riverbank, and a new island had formed close to where Bailu Zhou used to be. In yet another map from the Ming period (1368–1644 ce), shown in Figure 3.4d, we see that even the name of Bailu Zhou had disappeared (Reference ChenChen, 1516, pp. 24–7).

The ancient Bailu Zhou remains more or less topographically constant until the South Tang Dynasty (937–976 ce), a conclusion that can, once again, be drawn through a study of historical maps. In the map representing Jiankang in the Song Dynasty (960–1279 ce), shown in Figure 3.4c, the island is divided into three constituents: Bailu Zhou, Ruzhou Xiang 汝州乡 ‘The Ruzhou County’,Footnote ⁶ and Shanyu Kou 鳝鱼口 ‘The Eel Port’ (Reference ChenChen, 1516, p. 20). Finally, in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 ce), because of the geological process of debris accumulation, the island joined the riverbank to become a peninsula and was no longer in its original shape or form (Reference ChenChen, 1516, p. 24) (see Figure 3.4d). In this map, the ancient Bailu Zhou is nowhere to be seen. The analysis of the historical maps of the area shows that Bailu Zhou, as stated in Li Bai’s poem, was actually at a different place from the current location.

Turning our discussion back to the garden and island of Bailu Zhou that is located on the Qinhuai River, historical records show that the garden may have been one of the private gardens of Xu Da (1332–1385 ce), a famous general who lived during the Ming Dynasty. His son, Xu Huizu (1368–1407 ce), expanded the garden and named it Dong Yuan ‘The East Garden’, which became a popular meeting place for intellectuals and celebrities (see, for instance, Reference WangWang, 1577/1773, pp. 2–3). A study of the physical landscape of the current Bailu Zhou on the Qinhuai River shows the growth of reeds in the shallows around the island. These reeds attract egrets in the autumn season, a particular that explains how the island and its garden became associated with egrets. Furthermore, a visual analysis of modern maps of the province where Bailu Zhou is located shows a propensity to name places after local ornithonyms (i.e., names of birds, from Ancient Greek órnis [ὄρνις] ‘bird’, and ónoma [ὄνομα] ‘name’). Examples of such toponyms are the oronym Yanzi Ji 燕子矶 ‘The Swallow’s Promontory’ on the Yangtze River, and a village in the western part of Nanjing called Bailu ‘Egret’.

Today, Bailu Zhou on the Qinhuai River constitutes a prestigious resort which is well known for its natural scenery and its rich history, and its physical landscape appears to mirror the literary descriptions of the historic Bailu Zhou on the Yangtze River. For this reason, people connect it with the Bailu Zhou in Li Bai’s poem. At the same time, locals and even the authorities behind the garden’s restoration believe that the name was taken from Li Bai’s poem. Evidence of this can be seen on signs from the 1930s found in the garden that state: Qi Ming Chu Tai Bai Yi Shi 其名出太白一诗 ‘The name comes from Li Bai’s poem’ (Reference Xie and XieXie & Xie, 2007, p. 221). We can guess, then, that the current island is not the original island, but was named by analogy and association with the Bailu Zhou islet on the Yangtze River in Li Bai’s poem.

Several methodological themes emerge from the Bailu Zhou case study. The first concerns the use of written and visual sources in gathering data of place names. Reference XuXu (2016) shows that even ancient poetry can contain information about the names of places, coupled with evidence from the material landscape – in this case, that of wooden signs found in the garden. Such evidence can be utilised to postulate the original (and current) forms of the place names, explanations for the naming process, and even possible reasons for the transfer of the name from one island to another. The second theme involves the linguistic analysis of the name, and it shows how the Bailu Zhou in Li Bai’s poem was explained as either a ‘White Heron Island’ or ‘The Egret Island’. This name is supported by the real presence of egrets around the island. This evidence could only have been provided by an extra-linguistic analysis of the actual place through a field trip to the current site of the islet. The extra-linguistic analysis forms, indeed, the third theme in this research. As well as the fieldwork, Xu’s study draws from Reference ChenChen (1516), which contains numerous historical maps, which were utilised as primary sources. To sum up, by studying these maps in the Sunwu Du Jianye Tu 孙吴都建邺图, Reference XuXu (2016), as mentioned, reached the conclusion that the Bailu Zhou mentioned in Li Bai’s poem was located outside Jiang Dong Men 江东门, a gate in Nanjing, whereas Bailu Zhou in its current form is located on the Qinhuai River.

We can consider this as an example of a particular type of toponymic paretymology. Normally, paretymology involves a ‘misunderstanding’, by contemporary speakers, of the original form and meaning of a place name. We saw this in the Borgomale and the Franciacorta case studies above. These examples are linguistic in nature. The case of Bailu Zhou, instead, stems from the speakers’ limited awareness of the hydro-geo-morphological processes and physical geography of the area and their misunderstanding inherent in the location of the original Bailu Zhou, which has since disappeared. Due to the flow of the river, soil erosion, and other hydro-geo-morphological processes, Bailu Zhou shifted, over time, towards the mouth of the watercourse. These changes can be inferred by studying historical maps such as those in Figure 3.4. Bailu Zhou eventually changed its shape and position, reaching a point where it joined with the riverbank, and the original shape and structure of the island is now no longer observable, leading speakers to confuse other islands that they can see for the island that they know through Li Bai’s ancient poem, and, thereby, mistakenly transferring the name of the ancient Bailu Zhou to an island on the Qinhuai River. In this sense, toponymic paretymology might not always be purely linguistic in nature, but it can be, as it were, ‘geographic’ and ‘geological’ as well. As previously mentioned, it is only through a holistic approach that accounts for not just the linguistic elements but also the historical geography and landscape archaeology of a territory that we are able to determine the accuracy of any reconstruction.

3.6.1 Step 1: Contact Scenario

In this step, we describe in detail the contact situation where words can be transferred from one language to another. This includes answering questions such as the following.

• What is the type of contact situation (e.g., borrowing, imposition, mixed language)?

• Why was a foreign word adopted by native speakers (e.g., factors of usefulness of the foreign language or privilege of the foreign group)?

• What is the relationship between the communities speaking the different languages (e.g., militarily or economically) dominant, dominated, or neither?

• What are the characteristics of the communities speaking the different languages (e.g., tight-knit or loose; open or closed)?

• What is the degree of bilingualism or multilingualism in the community?

Reference Mailhammer and MailhammerMailhammer (2013, pp. 19–20) believes that extra-linguistic evidence (e.g., archaeological, genetic evidence) of contact is not crucial in the reconstruction of the contact scenario, although it can help to support the contact etymology. He believes that a linguistic explanation ‘shows how that item was transferred from one language to the other’ (p. 20) and is more important. He also says that a detailed enough reconstruction demonstrating how a toponym shows influences from another language is enough proof of contact etymology.

3.6.2 Step 2: Contact Language

The next step is to find the possible language(s) that came into contact with the speakers of a locality. This task is not easy and sometimes we may only have an indication of the language family or what the language is not. The important thing here is not to be vague. Reference Mailhammer and MailhammerMailhammer (2013, p. 20) warns that ‘Vague statements, such as “a non-Indo-European language” or the name of a language family, or simply “unknown substratum”, can sometimes be all that can be said about a word, but it is obvious that this can hardly be called an etymology.’ Insufficient data frequently hinder the identification of the contact language, and we can only ascribe the features identified in the word to a hypothesised language (Reference Mailhammer and MailhammerMailhammer, 2013, p. 21). The contact language can be speculated by the analysis of features of the word in question. The word may exhibit characteristics that are uncommon in the recipient language. We might then hypothesise that this feature is borrowing or another influence from the contact language. When such a situation arises, it is useful to find languages and/or language families in which this feature is prominent.

3.6.3 Step 3: Contact Structure

After the two steps of establishing a contact scenario and a contact language, we then locate the contact structure. Under this process, we first identify the source word or feature and explain the changes that have occurred in the linguistic contact between the contact language and the recipient language. Working out the linguistic changes involves considering the social and linguistic contact situation, for instance, whether the borrowing or imposition of the foreign word retained its phonology from the contact language (perhaps due to prestige factors), or if it was incorporated into the linguistic system of the recipient language and its original sounds were changed. Mailhammer makes a distinction between contact and ‘conventional’ etymology.

A simple example of this is the English word cockroach. It is thought to have been borrowed from the Spanish cucaracha, and its initial English form was cacarootch. In this case, contact etymology concerns itself with the original meaning of the lexeme and how the language contact enabled the word to come into the English language. The study of ‘the modern form is handled by conventional etymology’ (Reference Mailhammer and MailhammerMailhammer, 2013, p. 22).

In the toponymic context, an emblematic example is provided by multilingual place names from southern Africa (Reference MöllerMöller, 2019), which:

One instance of this is connected with the common practice, by speakers of different languages, to name places after the cries of local animals. This can be observed in the different names for ‘lion’ in southern Africa. One of the denominations of the animal in the /Xam and Hie languages is hou:m, which is an onomatopoeic form that appears in the name of the Houms River. In the /Nu//en and !O!kung languages, ‘lion’ is xam, or gam. In Afrikaans, the animal is called leeu. All these languages belong to different language families and contexts and are spoken in a relatively large geographical area. They have been interacting for centuries and have produced interesting contact-linguistic phenomena. One illustration of this is how the Khoikhoi hydronym Gamka ‘lion river’, was translated into Afrikaans, as Leeuwenrivier, keeping the same meaning of ‘lion river’. One other example is the place name Leeu-Gamka, which consists of the Afrikaans word for ‘lion’, leeu, and the Khoikhoi term for ‘lion river’, gamka, making it a tautological toponym, as it literally translates as ‘lion-lion river’. Reference Raper, Möller and Du PlessisRaper, Möller, and Du Plessis (2014) state that the town got its name from being located where the Leeu (‘Lion’) River flows into the Gamka (‘Lion River’). This is a good example of marked language contact in toponymic context, with a possibly connected etymological/semantic misunderstanding (Reference MöllerMöller, 2019, pp. 8–9).

Reference MöllerMöller (2019, p. 5) states that, while analysing a place name in a specific language, it is not always easy to identify what has been borrowed from unrelated languages. She cites the example of the Bushman word for the hyena, goaan, which has been borrowed from the /Xam language. The zoonym (from Ancient Greek ζῷον [zô[i]on] ‘animal’, and ὄνομα [ónoma] ‘name’) has, subsequently, been adapted in other linguistic contexts and can be identified in a number of hybrid Nama/Afrikaans place names, such as Guaapvlakte ‘Guaap Flats’ and Gwaapseberg ‘Gwaap Mountain’ (Reference Raper, Möller and Du PlessisRaper et al., 2014). Reference MöllerMöller (2019, p. 5) also says that the appellative ‘hyena’ was the motivation for the hydronym Wolf River (with an apparent substitution between animals). In addition, the name for the call that hippopotami emit is, in some Bushman languages, kubu or nguvu. This term was adapted to imvubu in Zulu and can be seen in the hydronym Umzimvubu, and, in Venda, gave origin to the connected place name Levubu.

These toponyms display the different linguistic and cultural contexts from which they were generated and are evidence of a prolonged language contact among speakers. Indeed, contact phenomena led to the assimilation and reuse of lexemes which, then, triggered the naming processes for these local place names. Contact etymology can explain which languages participated in the generation, establishment, and acceptance of these place names among the related communities over time.