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ABSTRACT
The author uses Norf'k fishing ground names on Norfolk Island (South Pacific) to illustrate how toponyms can be exposed to geographic, anthropological, and linguistic scrutiny. The grammar of the names demonstrates how Norf'k, the language of the Pitcairn descendants, typifies an esoteric insider language because of its ecologically connected toponyms and pragmatic determinants. Norf'k fishing ground names vary in their linguistic form and hence in their geography and spatiality. The toponymic and linguistic landscape of Norfolk Island reveals several processes that are significant for understanding sea-based geographies and the intertwining of creole languages, other contact languages, and the environment.
EDITORS:
Acknowledgement
I thank Tom Sapienza for cartographical assistance.
Notes
1. The interested reader is referred to any of the numerous other descriptions of the events surrounding the development of the language and its usage on Norfolk Island today. Shirley Harrison (Citation1985) provides a good introduction to the social setting of Norfolk Island speech. In addition, I have dealt with similar issues involved in the social and ecological role of the Norf'k language and culture (Nash Citation2013).
2. The linguistic status of Norf'k remains a matter of debate, but it is a contact language that has received attention from language contact scholars and creolists. Since linguistically the language is neither pidgin nor creole, it may seem a misnomer to apply the expression creole spatiality when describing fishing ground names in Norf'k. I use the terms ‘creole’ and ‘creole spatiality’ in a more general sense and as a matter of convenience. My intention is that the expression can subsequently be applied to other contact languages more generally (i.e. languages that may not necessarily be classified as creole).