Топонимика Марианских островов: отражение колониального прошлого и современные тенденции развития

Abstract

Toponymy of the Mariana islands is far from being thoroughly investigated yet: at present, the authors of scientific articles and monographs studying the colonial past of the region do not pay due attention to the geographical names of the islands; there is not a single toponymic dictionary of the archipelago; the web pages of the cities and towns contain very little information about the etymology of the names, or do not say anything about it at all. This article deals with the peculiarities of formation, development and modern functioning of the Mariana Islands toponyms with the accent on the Spanish language toponymic nomenclature. The aim of the article is to single out the typical features of formation of the toponymic vocabulary of the region, to study the influence of historical events on the changes in geographical nomenclature and to carry out a linguo-pragmatic analysis of the toponymic units identified. For the first time, the article provides a quan-titative ratio of English and Spanish toponyms to indigenous names. The author gives numerous examples and poses hypoth-eses with reference to the origin of some toponyms of the region.

Статья посвящена особенностям формирования, развития и современного функционирования топонимии Марианских островов с акцентом на испаноязычный топонимический пласт.