Sociolinguistic patterns and names

A variationist study of changes in personal names among Indian South Africans

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7902115
AutoresRajend Mesthrie (0000-0001-6338-6076, University of Cape Town, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen50
Número1
Páginas7-28
Fecha de publicación2021-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguage in Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0047-4045 • E-ISSN: 1469-8013
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047404520000652
OpenAlexW3080806689
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas17

This article unlocks the complex indexicalities pertaining to names in a multilayered diasporic field, one in which descendants from different ancestral areas of a former homeland (India) have merged loosely into a new community (in South Africa). The focus falls on large-scale innovations in officially registered personal names over a period of 150 years. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis of over 2,300 names shows the influence of social variables like religion, class, and subethnic affiliations via different ancestral languages. These result in different choices in retaining traditional names, modernising them, or adopting Western ones. There is also evidence of asymmetric accommodations as names flow from one subgroup to another, but not vice versa. A novel pattern in Indo-Dravidian studies is presented, that harnesses rhyme (or consonant mutation) and ablaut (or vowel mutation) to generate new names, carrying the indexicalities ‘Indian South African’, but also ‘modern’ and ‘globally oriented’. (Socio-onomastics, name changes, Indian South Africans, Indian languages, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, asymmetric accommodations

Genealogy · Geography · Hindi · Hinduism · Homeland · Linguistics · Onomastics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · History · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism