World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 595

When History ceases, place name speaks
The history of onomastics is so ancient that no one knows the beginning of it. Since written history began as for back as oral source reaches, people had had names. Thus, the study of onomastics, or place name and person name, has a very important role to play in pursuing historical research at micro level. Hence, it is said that where history keeps silence, place name does speak. What is Onomastics ?
Onomastics literally means a study of ONOMA/ONOMATOS i.e. name or nominal word but by convention it is restricted to the study of proper names. The onoma>nomen>name is identical with speech itself. Onomastics is a recognised science that studies names, their origin and their history. It is divided into two streams : One, Anthroponomastics - a science that studies personal names and two, Toponomastics - a science that studies names of places. Here, we are concorned only with Toponomy or Toponomastics or Toponomatology. Utility of Studying place names
Onomastics or a study of place names is fraught with enormous probabilities for a proper understanding of the cultural history of our country. This is particularly true of ancient place names as they threw light on a period for which we have comparatively fewer documents, for names are just not jumbles of meaningless words. Thus, place names of a region speak about its geographical pecularities and historical as well as cultural activities of a people.
Thus the utility of the study of place names is the reconstruction of the cultural history of any region in the given period can hardly by over-emphasised; for every place has its own personality. It has its own language and grammer. Its way of communication is all together different. Place names study is universal
Place name is a silent spectator of the events taking place in different periods and tell us about the reasons behind its names, causes of its existence, changes caused during its Lifespan, the time-factor involved in its continuity and change it any etc. Hence, historical cultural and linguistic studies cannot be said to be complete without the application of the results of place name studies. Thus, it is an expression of the intellectual genius and cultural tendencies of the people. We must thus know that names of the places are as old as human beings. So to
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