How do people name places on islands? Is toponymy in small island communities affected by degrees of connection to larger neighbours such as a mainland? Are island (contact) languages and mainland languages different in how they are used in naming places? How can we conceptualise the human-human… read more
Placenames (toponyms) give insight into relationships involving people, place, and language. An exemplary placename derived from long-term engagement within the sensitive linguistic ecology of Norfolk Island in the South Pacific is used to detail how a fusing of linguistic analysis, words, and… read more
We compare Pitkern-Norf’k and Palmerston narratives to each other and to narrative construction in other more well-known English dialects. This will demonstrate that narratives of these two beach community languages differ from the latter in many parallel ways. We discuss the narrative types… read more
This paper speculates about the possible existence of Pidgin English toponyms on the Melanesian Mission on Norfolk Island. The argument considers why modern historians and linguists studying the social and linguistic history of the Melanesian Mission missionaries, and why missionaries from… read more
Like other areas of linguistic study, toponymy as a domain of analysis does not present itself as being overly reflective of its own assumptions. I ask whether a sub-category or sub-analysis dedicated to toponymy is required at all if we analyse toponyms, landscape terms, and geographical names… read more
