Semestrale di Studi e Ricerche
di
Geografia
Semestrale di Studi e Ricerche di Geografia
Roma, XXV, Fascicolo 2, luglio – dicembre 2013
Gino De Vecchis
The joint IGU/ICA Commission/Working Group on
Toponymy. A short introduction
Peter Jordan
Features of toponyms forming of Alakol basin of Kazakhstan
Particolarità della formazione dei toponimi del bacino del
lago Alakol del Kazakistan
Caractéristiques de la formation des toponymes de la piscine
du lac Alakol qui se trouve dans le sud-est du Kazakhstan
Stanislav Yerdavletov, Abdreeva Sholpan, Aizholova Gulzhan
Naming methods of folk agricultural plot names in
Japanese villages: a connection between geography and
cognitive linguistics
I metodi di denominazione di piccoli appezzamenti nei
villagi rurali giapponesi: un collegamento tra la geografia e
la linguistica cognitiva
Méthode de nommage des noms folkloriques des parcelles
agricoles dans des villages japonais – connexion entre la
géographie et la linguistique cognitive
Satoshi Imazato
7
11
17
27
Is exonym an appropriate term for names of features
beyond any sovereignty?
Esonimo è un termine appropriato per i toponimi utilizzati in contesti extraterritoriali?
Exonyme est-il un terme approprié pour les noms des caractéristiques au-delà de toute souveraineté?
Peter Jordan
41
The Changing Toponymy: The Place Names and their Vitality
I cambiamenti della toponimia. I nomi di luogo e la loro
vitalità
Les changements de noms de lieux: les noms des lieux et
leur vitalité
Cosimo Palagiano
55
Degrees of precision in toponyms containing compass points
Livelli di precisione in toponimi contenenti i punti cardinali
Degrés de précision en toponymes qui contiennent des
points cardinaux et intercardinaux
Riemer Reinsma
73
Travelling through place-names. A Methodological approach
for the development of a geo-atlas of toponyms
Viaggio attraverso toponimi. Un approccio metodologico per
lo sviluppo di un geo-atlante dei toponimi
Voyage à travers les toponymes. Une approche méthodologique
pour le développement d’un geo-atlas des toponymes
Silvia Siniscalchi
91
Standardisation of Place Names in Countries Influenced
by the Chinese Writing System
Standardizzazione dei nomi delle località nei Paesi
influenzati dal sistema di scrittura cinese
Standardisation des Noms de Lieux dans les Pays influencés
par le Système à écrire Caractère chinois
Hiroshi Tanabe, Kohei Watanabe
115
A study of the toponyms of places and areas in relation to
the physical characteristics of the terrain of the province
of Cuenca, Spain
I toponimi di luoghi e di aree in relazione alle caratteristiche
fisiche del terreno della provincia di Cuenca, in Spagna.
Étude des toponymes en rapport à la nature du sol. Le cas
de l’expression de “bourbier”, “marais” dans la province de
Cuenca (Espagne)
Emilio Nieto Ballester, José A. Rodríguez Esteban,
Pilar Lacasta Reoyo
123
GEOFRAME
a cura di Marco Maggioli
Roma: visione o pre-visione sinottica?
Sandra Leonardi
141
DIARIO
a cura di Riccardo Morri
I Bisogni Educativi Speciali. Verso una Geografia inclusiva
Angela Caruso
147
La Sicilia nell’assetto dello spazio euromediterraneo
Liberata Nicoletti
151
La Dichiarazione di Roma sull’educazione geografica in
Europa. Una road map per la geografia
Cristiano Giorda
155
Rome Declaration on Geographical Education in Europe.
IV EUGEO Congress 2013
157
LO SCAFFALE
a cura di Riccardo Morri
C. LOMBARDI-DIOP AND C. ROMEO (a cura di), Postcolonial Italy.
Challenging National Homogeneity (R. Noel Welch)
161
P. BONORA (a cura di), Atlante del consumo di suolo, per un
progetto di città metropolitana (A. Mengozzi)
163
The Authors
Gli autori
Les auteurs
165
A study of the toponyms of places
and areas in relation to the physical
characteristics of the terrain of
the province of Cuenca, Spain
Emilio Nieto Ballester*, José A. Rodríguez Esteban**, Pilar Lacasta
Reoyo***
1. Introduction
The physiographical characteristics of land and its geological composition
have given rise to numerous toponyms in the different linguistic
frameworks that have arisen in Spain. Although the existence of toponyms
that describe the characteristics of the land does not seem to require
any further explanation, a detailed look into these tends to bring more
questions to the fore than certainties. The linguistic evolution of these
words, on the one hand, and the changes that the land itself undergoes
due to natural causes or because of changes made by farming the land,
on the other, can distance the original reason behind a specific toponym
from the place it names. Other unknown causes may also affect this link,
such as whether these toponyms have been moved from their original
location on different maps.
If we pay close attention to the linguistic characteristics of each toponym
and the geography of the terrain, it is possible to re-establish these
relationships. The aim of the present article is therefore to analyse a series
of toponyms and their meanings in the province of Cuenca in relation to the
characteristics of the land. We will analyse them from different viewpoints,
comparing them with the locations in which they are found elsewhere in
Spain. Our study has been carried out as part of a research Project financed
by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (FFI2010).
In what follows, we look at the methodology adopted before giving
a brief summary of the linguistic framework of our study and a general
description of the characteristics of the terrain in question, before ending
with some specific examples.
*
Madrid, Classics Department, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
Madrid, Geogaphy Department, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
***
Madrid, Education in Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
**
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2. Methodology
Toponymic studies tend to be multidisciplinary in nature. The
methodology that we have adopted for the present analysis is largely based
on gathering as much data as possible on the toponyms of a particular area
to then compare and analyse them with those of other areas. Toponymy
is a science that is essentially linguistic in nature because it requires an
understanding of the phonetic history of the languages of toponyms, as
well as information on dialectology and lexis (etymological and historical
dictionaries, dictionaries of local languages), etc. However, it also relies
heavily on the information that other sciences provide. It is a known fact
that the words susceptible of becoming toponyms in any language cover
a wide semantic range, from names of people, references to settlements,
zoonyms, phytonyms, hydronyms, oronyms or, more generally, names
related to the nature of the terrain.
Toponymy undergoes a process of contant change and renewal, often
because the reality referred to by toponyms undergoes change and renewal
itself, amongst other reasons. However, there are some toponymic semantic
fields in which such changes are less frequent or may even be inexistent.
Thus, the information that geographical studies can provide are of great
importance, since at least some of the details that toponimists can glean
from such studies refer to the natural features of land that cannot change
(oronyms, for example). In other branches of geographical study, however,
the relationships that exist between linguistic and geographical data are
much more complex, since we can identify changes to nature that have
occurred over a long period in history, from hundreds of years to millennia.
Such is the case, for example, of toponyms that refer to springs or lakes
that no longer exist or species of trees whose current distribution does not
coincide with the extension of toponyms used to designate that particular
species (as has been noted in recent work by Carrillo López, et al., 2010).
In the present study we have focused our attention on a group of
toponyms closely linked to the idea of hollows in the terrain and the
accumulation of water, that we can exemplify with the noun charco
“pond”, which is the most common word from this group found in Spanishspeaking land. Alongside this term, we have also come across others that
are less common but whose meaning seems to be very similar to that of
charco “pond”: chabarco, abanco, tollo, colocha, nava, etc1.
1
A good summary of the history of each of these terms can be found in the Diccionario
crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (DCECH, 1980-1983) and in the Diccionari etimologic i
complementan de la llengua catalana (DECLC, 1988-1991) along with detailed bibliography. When
it comes to toponyms in Catalan-speaking areas, in particular the terms toll and clotxa, it is
particularly interesting to look up the group OC (1989-1997).
The term charco, which is standard in Spanish, poses serious etymological problems,
since it is only found in Castilian Spanish and Portuguese. It is likely that the word shares a
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Now that we have identified the terms to be studied, we will look at their
location on different maps: the National Topographical Map 1:25,000,
geological map 1:200,000, Corine Land Cover maps, Google Earth satellite
maps and photographs from the Ministry of Environment.
As well as examining the above maps visually, we have also carried out
a digital analysis using different geoprocesses in the ArcGIS Geographical
Information Systems programme, with the aim of framing and linking
each toponym selected with the orography of its location, as well as the
geomorphology of the land and its known uses.
Some of the toponyms have been examined in person, with a view to
understanding the geographical characteristics of the area in detail and
comparing the information with those who live there. Indeed, speaking to
the inhabitants of the areas studied has been a source of great interest. We
also sent questionnaires to various regional government offices on such
matters. When it comes to the most important toponyms, we have looked
at their use in the rest of Spain in order to compare the relationships
that they share with orography, geology and land use, paying particular
attention to their location in large geological areas and regions.
All of the above has brought to light tendencies and relationships in
terms of the location of these toponyms that may provide information on
the reasons behind their proliferation, absence and relationships with the
physical aspects of their surroundings and human activity. Although our
work is on-going, a series of examples can serve as a sample of the above.
3. The linguistic framework
Toponymy is a true reflection of the linguistic history of a particular
geographical location and, through this linguistic history, it also is an
accurate reflection of history in general. The linguistic history of Spain
is complex and multifaceted, making Spanish toponymy an extremely
challenging area of research.
Although in truth we know very little about the languages spoken in
the Iberian Peninsula before the arrival of the Romans at the end of the
third century BC, we can be certain that both Indoeuropean and nonIndoeuropean languages were spoken there. An early and thorough
Romanisation then wiped out these languages completely, with the
exception of the Basque language, which still thrives today and is spoken
in a small area of Spain.
The Germanic invasions that occurred at the end of the Roman Empire
relationship with chabarco/chavarco but this is by no means certain. Both tollo and colocha (and
their different variants) are also of obscure origin, but are also found in Catalan-Aragonese
territory and may well trace back to Latin. Finally, the origins of abanco and nava are also
difficult to pinpoint and it is usually thought that they are pre-Roman.
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did not bring about any linguistic substitution in any way. In fact, the new
invaders, themselves a linguistic and social minority in a sea of HispanoRomance, adapted to the existing language, which was still Latin at that time.
The Arabic invasion in the eighth century did have an impact however,
since alongside the new religion (Islam), the Arabic language (to a lesser
extent, Berber) was absorbed in wide areas of the peninsula and the Balearic
Islands. We can thus affirm that in large areas, the population changed the
language they spoke gradually and, in fact, Latin came to disappear.
It was only at a later date, during the long period in which the Christian
kings of the north reconquered and re-populated the south from the
tenth to fifteenth centuries, that these territories were “re-latinised” again.
However, this time it was not Latin that they began to speak, but rather
the different languages into which Latin had by that time evolved. Thus,
from east to west, Galician-Portuguese, Leonese, Castilian, Aragonese and
Catalan spread throughout the Peninsula and the islands.
4. The toponomy of Spain
As we have already mentioned, Spain’s toponymy is a reflection of the
country’s multifaceted and complex past. Naturally, when we speak of
“Spanish toponymy” we are making a wide-sweeping generalisation since
each area of Spain has its own history, sometimes very different from
that of the rest of the country. The current status of studies on Spain’s
toponymy is very uneven, since although some areas have been studied
in great detail, others have hardly been studied at all. The province of
Cuenca, on which the present study is based, is, in our opinion, an area
that has been studied very little.
Located in the central-eastern area of Spain, Cuenca is Castilianspeaking as a result of the reconquest that took place there in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries by the kingdom of Castile. The toponyms found
there that are posterior to these dates are therefore mainly Castilian, or
Spanish, in nature. However, we should also bear in mind the definite
existence of previous layers, that is of toponyms that are completely Arabic,
Latin or Mozarab in nature (Late Latin toponyms that were adopted
and used first by the Latin-speaking population and then by the Arabicspeaking population during the centuries following the Arabic conquest
and the subsequent “castilianisation”). Finally, it is important to bear in
mind the surprisingly strange existence of some toponyms that could be
traced back to before the gradual Romanisation of the area that must have
taken place from the second century B.C. onwards and that was have most
probably complete with the change in era.
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5. Geography
The Iberian Peninsula, made up of both Portugal and Spain (92,000 and
493,000 km2 respectively), is located between 36 and 43 degrees latitude
north and between 3E and 9W longitude. It is surrounded by the Atlantic
to the north and west, and by the Mediterranean to the east and south.
It is linked to France and the rest of Europe via the Pyrenean mountain
range (with 7 peaks over 3,000 metres above sea level) and separated from
Africa (and the Arab Maghreb in particular) by a narrow stretch of sea
just 14km wide known as the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Atlantic meets
the Mediterranean. It was via this narrow stretch of water that the Arabic
influences previously mentioned arrived in the Peninsula.
The most noteworthy physiographical feature of the Peninsula is its vast
and high plateau (Fig. 1), standing at more than 600 m above sea level.
It is located in the centre of the Peninsula and covers an area of 240,000
km2, that is, half of Spain. It is also the greatest unit of relief and the oldest
in the Iberian Peninsula, its origins tracing back to the Hesperic Massif
arising as a result of the Hercynian orogenic movement.
Fig. 1 – Hypsometric map of the Iberian Peninsula, with the vast Meseta
(plateau) in the centre in a darker colour. The Meseta has an average height
of 600m and is traversed by the Duero River to the north and the Guardiana
to the south, surrounded by mountainous terrain (darker colours).
Source: Adaptation by the authors of a general map.
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The Alpine orogenesis broke up the Hesperic Massif, separating the
plateaux with the so-called Cordillera Central or Cordillera Carpetana,
with the north sub-plateau the highest and widest. Its edges were
compressed giving rise to a belt of various mountain systems; of particular
significance in the area studied are the Sistema Ibérico and the Serranía
de Cuenca. The latter of these is an elevated area with sudden peaks and
intricate geological formations, although it is not a mountainous region as
its name would imply, and for the most part it is covered with pines. Due
to its characteristics, the central area was made a hunting reserve from
early on (1973-2007), meaning that its flora and fauna has been preserved
to the present day and it is currently known as the Serranía de Cuenca
National Park.
Going back to the general features of the Iberian Peninsula's orography,
three large units have been identified in relation to the materials that
make up its soil (Fig. 2): siliceous land (the initial Hesperic base referred
to above); limestone, the result of accumulations of sea and shallow areas
of water that during the secondary era surrounded the eastern side of
Hesperic formations and, when compressed by the Alpine push, formed
mountainous systems that border the plateau in a ‘z' formation; and the
clay-soil area of Spain that arose as a result of the quaternary sediments
that accumulated in the two plateaux.
Fig. 2 – Geological features of the Hispanic Peninsula. The siliceous land
is shown in dark grey, whilst limestone areas are in black and an inverted
Z formation. Clay-soil areas (the north and south sub-plateaux and the
depressions of the Ebro and Guadalquivir rivers) are in light grey.
Source: Prepared by the authors using the Geological Map of Spain
1:1,000,000, IGME, 1994.
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6. Geographical features of the Province of Cuenca
The province of Cuenca, where the main focus of our research lies, is
located in central Spain, in the east of the Castile‐La Mancha autonomous
region. It covers 17,061 km².
In terms of relief, the province of Cuenca shows a marked difference
between the north and east (a mountainous area covered with the sierras
of the Sistema Ibérico) and the south and west, a basin of sediment where
the diversity of the geological substrate means that there are various types
of plain.
6.1. The Iberian System or Sistema Ibérico – The Sistema Ibérico is found
in the mountainous areas of the north and east and is made up of a
group of reliefs that stand out to a greater or lesser extent in a northeastsoutheast direction. Its peaks are levelled out due to the erosion that took
place after the Alpine orogeny, giving rise to a landscape of high and
extended páramos with deep and narrow valleys carved out by the rivers
Tajo and Júcar and their tributaries. There, where the vastness and purity
of the limestone allows it and the structural conditions needed are met, we
come across an important karstic landscape with both external (sinkholes,
ravines, emergences, etc.) and internal features (chasms, underground
tunnels, etc.) (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3 – Cuenca: Torcal de la Laguna, Cañada del Hoyo, Torcal de Palancares,
Serranía de Cuenca, Hoces de la Serranía de Cuenca, Cañada del Hoyo and
Torcal de la Laguna Seca.
Source: Photographs from the Castile-La Mancha Tourist Office, OTCM, 2013.
6.2. Serranía de Cuenca – The Serranía de Cuenca lies to the north and
east of the province. It is a vast range and the most extensive of the Sistema
Ibérico. Although its peaks are not extremely high (around 1,800m above
sea level), the erosion that occurred to its limestone in the Secondary
and Tertiary inferior periods, mostly marine in origin, created spectacular
karstic formations. Of these, the deep “ravines” carved by rivers and the
“enchanted cities” stand out in particular. Although the dominant rocks
are calcareous (limestone and dolomite) they are not exclusive and other
softer rocks are also found (sandstone, clay, gypsum) where erosion has
led to wide peripheral hollows and intramountainous furrows.
The geological formation of the area begins in the Lower Tertiary or
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Paleogene (Eocene and Oligocene) when lake sediments (marlstone and
gypsum) settle first, followed by river detritus (in the Alpine orogenesis).
With the Alpine Orogency (Middle Tertiary period), the bordering
regions of Hercynic bedrock, in which large quantities of sediment
including rocks had accumulated in the Secondary and Lower Tertiary
periods, some of the softer rocks (clay, marlstone, gypsum, etc.) and
other not so soft ones (sandstone, limestone, conglomerates, etc.) became
deformed by folding, giving rise to the reliefs of the Sistema Ibérico.
The terrain of the Serranía de Cuenca folded easily with a succession of
anticlines and synclines.
6.3. The sediment basin – The reliefs of the south and west of the province
of Cuenca – plateaux, páramos and plains – are characterised by their
elevation of between 600 and 700 metres. In their morphology, original
flat forms are predominant, some due to erosion and others supported
by structures and horizontal layers of sediment. Generally speaking, these
elevated plains are interrupted and delimited by deep and incised valleys,
carved into the land by rivers.
The hollow nature of the basins and the fact that they are surrounded
by mountains led to their siltation and filling up during the Upper Tertiary
Era (Neogene) with sedimentary layers that tend to adopt an appreciably
horizontal or sub-horizontal disposition. On the sides of the basin, detritic
materials tend to accumulate (rocks, stones, conglomerates, sandstones,
arkose and clay layers), whilst in its centre chemical sediments are found
in systems of large lakes (gypsum, limestone, etc.). In this area, we can
identify the following places:
La Alcarria. Located in the northeast of the province, La Alcarria
is made up of perfect plains named ‘páramos' or ‘alcarrias' that, at an
elevation of between 700 and 1,000 metres above sea level, have remained
elevated against the bottoms of the valleys, giving a tabular relief. The
main cause of erosion here is the River Tajo and its tributaries. La Alcarria
is split into two by the Sierra de Altomira, a straight and far-reaching line
that extends from north to south for 125km, with peaks that reach 1,179
metres in height. Its geological structure in the form of an anticline is
made up of limestone rocks from the Cretaceous period, and its sides are
extremely asymmetric, with a steeply-inclined western side and a gentlysloping eastern side.
La Mancha. Located to the east and south of the province, La Mancha
is made up of a wide plain of heights of between 700 and 900m, through
which tributaries of the Guadiana river flow without settling in a fixed
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spot, so deep valleys have not been carved into the landscape. The main
geological material towards the west of the formation is Miocene detritic
sediment (sand, clay, etc.) scored with Jurassic and Cretaceous furrows that
offer a continuation of the sierras of Altomira and Santa Quiteria to the
south. In the eastern area of La Mancha, however, predominant materials
are mainly chalky, marly and of gypsum in nature from the Paleogene.
Of particular interest is the band of quaternary alluvial materials (mud,
sands, clays) in the south (San Clemente).
La Manchuela. This is the name given to the area between the Júcar
and Cabriel rivers, to the south of the province. It is a plain of 700 metres
in height where the mainly detritic materials (clay, sand, gypsum), from
the Neogene (Miocene) and Paleocene eras, are marked by a series of
seasonal streams.
7. Relationship between toponyms and the nature of the land
The toponyms chosen (those that may mean charco, which we can define
as a “cavity that fills with water on a more or less permanent basis”) can
appear throughout the province, given the abundance of lithic material
susceptible of forming waterlogged areas: clays, marlstone, gypsums and
limestone (in the Serranía de Cuenca “poljes” are referred to as “navas”).
However, a first look at the location of such toponyms shows a strong
concentration of the toponyms charco, chabarco, chavarco, tollo, hoyo,
reoyo, lavajo, etc. in the Manchuela area (Fig. 4). These toponyms always
refer to places that are located mainly on clay soils, from both the tertiary
and the quaternary eras (Fig. 5). The use of the same toponyms in other
areas of the province is very sporadic and not very representative, even in
the lower grounds to the south of the Mancha Baja, where endorrheism is
spatially very important, as is demonstrated by the number of lakes there.
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E. Nieto Ballester, J.A. Rodríguez Esteban, P. Lacasta Reoyo
Fig. 4 – Location of five toponyms in the province of Cuenca that are used
to refer to areas related to the idea of hollows and water-logging. The %
symbol indicates that a search has been carried out for each toponym in a
total of 33,128 registrers that include this root in some part of the name.
Source: Prepared by the authors.
Fig. 5 – Example of the location of the toponym chabarco on a Digital
Globe satellite image with MTN toponyms superimposed 1:25,000.
Source: Prepared by the authors.
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It is interesting to note that, despite the logical formation of pools in
Cuenca as a result of the geological structure mentioned, a search of the
Spanish Nomenclator from 2006 (the most up-to-date version at the time
of writing) for all words beginning with Char*, shows 1,456 listings (the
majority of which are small ponds or ponds plus a second name referring
to a saint). These are located in siliceous areas of Spain and there is a
significant number between Cuenca and Valencia, as we can see on the
map (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6 – Toponyms that include the component Char* (Charco de… ,
Charcón…).
Source: Prepared by the authors from the Spanish Nomenclator, IGN,
2006.
The strong concentration of toponyms in the provinces of Salamanca
(Fig. 7) and Caceres is related to endorrheism, since many streams find no
exit-route and become blocked, and livestock farming, since the presence
of ponds is of great value for the keeping of animals.
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E. Nieto Ballester, J.A. Rodríguez Esteban, P. Lacasta Reoyo
Fig. 7 – Types of charco in the livestock farming province of Salamanca.
Source: Prepared by the authors on the Digital Globe satellite image, 2006.
Note: We would like to thank the IGN in Spain for allowing us to access
maps and toponymic data resources in Nomenclator.
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Semestrale di Studi e Ricerche di
GEOGRAFIA
E. Nieto Ballester, J.A. Rodríguez Esteban, P. Lacasta Reoyo
A study of the toponyms of places and areas...
Riassunto - I toponimi di luoghi e di aree in relazione
alle caratteristiche fisiche del terreno della provincia
di Cuenca, in Spagna
In Spagna la normalizzazione linguistica delle regioni (comunidades
autónomas) con lingua propria diversa dallo spagnolo (fondamentalmente
basco, catalano e galiziano) ha favorito, sin dalla costituzione dello stato
democratico nel 1978, il recupero e la regolarizzazione dei nomi di luogo
e delle loro diverse varianti; invece, le regioni in cui si parla esclusivamente
il castigliano, come Cuenca, sono spesso prive di un corpus o di un
repertorio di toponimi esaustivo e affidabile.
In questo contesto si affronta uno studio toponimico, partendo
dalla Linguistica e dalla Geografia, di una serie di vocaboli riportati
nella cartografia di base della Spagna (Mappa Topografica Nazionale,
1:25.000), fra i quali si presta particolare attenzione ai nomi dei luoghi/
località legati alle caratteristiche fisiche del territorio – substrato calcareo
con abbondanza di terre argillose – come il toponimo charca (stagno),
che fa riferimento a un accumulo d'acqua più o meno temporaneo e che
si presenta in varie forme nella zona studiata: charco, chabarco, abanco,
tollo, colocha, nava, poza, cenagal, ecc. Lo studio linguistico della
variazione sinonimica di questi toponimi, insieme alla loro distribuzione
geografica mediante il trattamento in un Sistema d'Informazione
Geografica, consente di stabilire una serie di regole sul comportamento
toponimico all'interno della Spagna.
Résumé - Étude des toponymes en rapport à la nature
du sol. Le cas de l’expression de “bourbier”, “marais”
dans la province de Cuenca (Espagne)
En Espagne l'ainsi-dite “normalisation linguistique” des zones avec une
langue propre autre que l'espagnol (le basque, le catalan et le galicien)
a donné lieu à une étude attentive des noms de lieux de ces endroits.
Par contre, la toponymie des régions de l'Espagne où l'on parle castillan
a été souvent négligée. C'est le cas de la province de Cuenca, dans la
communauté actuelle de Castilla-La Mancha, au centre de l'Espagne.
C'est dans ce contexte que notre recherche (qui forme partie d'un
projet de recherche plus vaste) vise à brosser une étude toponymique à
l'aide de la Toponymie et de la Géographie, sur des séries de toponymes
trouvés dans la cartographie basique de l'Espagne (Mapa Topográfico
Nacional, 1:25.000). Cette étude ne prétend nullement être exhaustive
et se borne seulement aux noms de lieux (communes, hameaux, écarts,
lieux-dits, etc.) appartenant à un champ sémantique inséparable
136
Semestrale di Studi e Ricerche di Geografia
Roma - XXV, Fascicolo 2, luglio-dicembre 2013
des caractéristiques physiques du sol, bref un substrat calcaire avec
abondance de terres argileuses, qui est la cause de l'emmagasinage
des eaux de façon plus ou moins permanente. On trouve, en effet, de
nombreux noms pour la description des lieux avec ces caractéristiques.
Quelques-uns d'entre eux sont bien connus, comme charco, poza,
cenagal, etc., mais d'autres sont à peu près aujourd'hui disparus de
la langue vivante, comme chabarco, clocha, tollo, nava, etc. L'étude
linguistique des variations para-synonymiques de ces toponymes étayée
avec l'examen de leur distribution grâce à un Système d'Information
Géographique nous permet d'établir à grands traits un tableau de
quelques règles sur ce champ toponymique dans la province de Cuenca
et ailleurs.
137