Abui

The aim of this paper is to propose and to provide a new experimental methodology in the study of endangered and/or undocumented languages starting from toponymy and applying to this field innovative diachronic toponomastics criteria partly adopted from Indo-European linguistics. This new convergent methodology provides an all-embracing analysis of toponyms, hydronyms, and oronyms of a specific area not only through the lens of 'pure' etymology and historical phonetics, but also through a systematic and extensive examination of collected data by other scientific disciplines, such as historical geography, landscape archaeology, geo-archaeology, analytical archaeology, historical cartography, historical topography, paleo-anthropology, genetics, and historical semantics. This convergent and experimental application of diachronic toponomastics criteria to the toponymy of endangered and/or undocumented languages allows for the reconstruction not only of the 'remote stratigraphy' of place names, hydronyms, and oronyms, but also of the speakers' interpretation and description of the environment, of their visual representation of the landscape and territory, and of their (spiritual and pragmatic) relationships with the geographical space. This methodology allows us to highlight the ancient origins of the languages under investigation and, by crossing linguistic data with data from other disciplines, to go back in time maybe until the prehistory of a population and, moreover, of a culture and/or a civilization. This method also provides valuable information about people’s movements and settlement dynamics over time. The first part of the paper outlines a theoretical description of the methodology; the second part provides two analytical (and systemic) examples of the application of this method from / on Abui (a language belonging to the Alor-Pantar family of Papuan languages spoken on the islands of the Alor archipelago near Timor, in Southern Indonesia), in order to set and to propose an initial pattern related to this experimental hermeneutic and epistemological approach.

Abui is a Papuan language spoken in Alor Island, South-East Indonesia. Although there are rich studies on the Abui language and its structure, research on Abui toponymy, which aids the understanding of language, culture, and society, deserves greater attention. This paper analyzes features of Abui society through Abui toponyms collected using Field Linguistics and Language Documentation methods. It finds that, because place names communicate valuable information on peoples and territories, Abui toponyms reflect the agrarian lifestyle of Abui speakers and, more broadly, the close relationship that the people have with their landscape. Furthermore, Abui toponyms express positive traits in the Abui culture like kinship ties and bravery. Notwithstanding, like other pre-literate and indigenous societies, oral stories are commonly used to explain how places are named. This paper augments the existing Abui toponymic studies on the connection between names and the places they name and provides a deeper understanding of the Abui language, culture, and society.

Have you ever wondered how cultural identity is constructed among various groups of people? How do people living pre-literate and indigenous societies, with the absence of an established writing system, note their history, ideas, traditions, and rituals – crucial aspects of any culture? In fact, they rely heavily on oral culture. These traditional stories are passed from one generation to another and create a sense of identity and belonging! This is a trend we will see in our story on the Abui people.

This paper reconstructs a number of Abui (Papuan) place names and micro-toponyms from the coastal area of Alor (South-East Indonesia) through the analysis of a legend centered on two gods from the Abui traditional religion, ending with the replacement of the first deity with the second one. The myth appears as diachronically 'multi-layered', from ancestral times to the arrival of Christianity in Alor, with the consequent identification of the 'bad' (or 'weaker') god as a demon and, then, as the devil. The story allows the etymological explanation of the meaning of around eight place names (toponyms and micro-toponyms), drawing a map of that 'mythological' space and landscape that is real and still attested, existing, known, and recognized by Abui native-speakers. The etymological and historical / diachronic analysis of place names, in this context, is fruitful not only in the reconstruction of their origins and in map-tracking, but it also involves an anthropological study of cultural aspects of oral tradition in the Abui religion. The story documented in this paper is considered true and not a legend by the Abui people and all the place names in this story known and accepted by the Abui people according to the parts they play in the legend. These place names and micro-toponyms, therefore, have a relevance that goes beyond their etymological reconstruction, allowing important insights into the fields of anthropology and history of culture and a close association between diachronic toponomastics and anthropological linguistics.

Link, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024384116301784