Presence and Persistence of Basque Toponymy in Catalan Pyrenees: Some Geographical Questions

• Autores: Joan Tort i Donada
• Localización: Onoma: Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, ISSN 0078-463X, Nº. 46, 2011 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Names and minorities), págs. 97-125
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen

  • The existence of Basque place names extending across the Pyrenees from west to east (from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea, and some three hundred kilometres beyond the political boundary of the Basque Country) is one of the most interesting questions being examined today in the historical onomastics of the Iberian Peninsula. Given the exceptional nature of the Basque language on the linguistic map of Europe (in particular, its non-Indo-European origin), the presence and persistence of Basque toponymy (place names that can be described as being 'Basque' or having a linguistic root that might historically be related to this language) throughout the Pyrenees mountain range raises important questions associated with the ancient settlement pattern of all this region (in terms of its Human Geography). In this context, the article undertakes a study of a selection of Basque and proto-Basque toponyms in the western sector of the Catalan Pyrenees, specifically, in the region of Ribagorza (generally considered the most conservative, linguistically speaking, in the whole of Catalonia). Against this background, the article focuses on those toponyms that are most closely related to the geography. In particular, it raises the question of the persistence of toponyms of this type over the ages (and, even, across different language systems). Special consideration is given to aspects associated with the original 'spatial meaning' of toponyms, and with the geographical link between �names� and 'places' (in terms, for instance, of location: cross-roads, fords of rivers, high-mountain grazing areas, etc.).