Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige
Encyclopedia
The Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige (Reference Work of Place Names in Alto Adige) is a list of Italianized toponyms
for mostly German
place names in South Tyrol
which was published in 1916 by the Royal Italian Geographic Society (Reale Società Geografica Italiana). The list was called the Prontuario in short and later formed an important part of the Italianization campaign initiated by the fascist regime
, as it became the basis for the official place and district names in the Italian-annexed southern part of the County of Tyrol
.
It has often been criticized by the German-speaking population of the province on the grounds that the new names have little historical relevance and that many have been entirely invented.
founded a nationalist magazine "The Italian Nation", and in 1906 the "Archivio per l'Alto Adige". His intention was to create the impression that South Tyrol had originally been an Italian territory, that the German history
of South Tyrol was merely a short interruption and that as a consequence the land rightfully belonged to Italy
.
Toponomy played a major part in Tolomei's struggle right from the beginning. In the articles he wrote for The Italian Nation he already used Italianized names, although these early attempts lacked the method and purpose of his later activities. In those days he would use the name Alto Trentino for South Tyrol, not having yet come upon and revived the Napoleonic creation Alto Adige
, which would become the official Italian designation for the province after World War I and up to this day. Likewise, he used to call the Brenner Pass
"Pirene", which in his later publications would become "Brennero". His work became more systematical with the founding of the Archivio per l' Alto Adige, through which he began to propose Italianized names for villages and geographical features in South Tyrol. In 1916, a year after Italy, instigated by Allied promises and its own nationalist tendencies, entered the First World War
, a commission was set up to find Italian names for places in the "soon to be conquered territory". The commission (composed of Tolomei himself, the Professor of Botany and Chemistry Ettore De Toni as well as the librarian Vittorio Baroncelli) reported almost 12,000 Italian place and district names on the basis of Tolomei's studies. In June 1916, this list was published as Volume XV, Part II of Memorie of the Reale Società Geografica Italiana as well as in the Archivio per l'Alto Adige.
This methodology was however not applied in a uniform, consistent manner, so that often the choice of name seems to have been arbitrary, thus increasing the perception of imposition. While the aim of Tolomeis toponymy was that of bringing the Latin history back to the surface, more often than not it managed to bury the romanic roots of historically grown names even deeper, partly due to the linguistic incompetence of Tolomei and his team. This can be exemplified by the name of the village Lana
, which probably goes back to a roman landholder named Leo, whose territory was called (praedium) Leonianum. In the High Middle Ages the name was pronounced Lounan. In the bavarian dialect the vocal ou changed to a in the 12th century, leading to Lanan, which became today's Lana in German. Contrary to his stated methodology Tolomei kept the name Lana, probably because it sounded Italian and in Italian "lana" means "wool". The correct Italianisation would have been "Leoniano". The same applies to German Trens and Terenten
, derived from Latin torrens (stream), which were Italianized as Trens and Terento, not recognizing the Romanic roots still present in the German name.
Apart from the frequent mistakes and inconsistencies of Tolomei's toponymy, its main fault is the loss of historical information contained in the historically grown geographical names, an effect which was fully intended by Tolomei. Instead of bringing back Alpine Romanity which spoke a Rhaeto-Romance language, he superimposed the "Tuscan
" language on which modern Italian is based on the local Romanic traditions. A case in point is the name Vipiteno, derived from Latin Vipitenum. Tolomei preferred this Latin name to Sterzen, the name commonly used by Italians at that time. In doing so, however, he unwittingly chose an already Germanified name. The original Alpine-Romanic name would have been Vibidina. The German sound change
in the 8th century changed this into Wipitina. As such it was first mentioned in the medieval Latin manuscripts, and in the more recent ones it was further Latinized into Vipitenum, a name which sounded as if it could have been of ancient Roman origin and thus was chosen by Tolomei.
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
for mostly German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
place names in South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
which was published in 1916 by the Royal Italian Geographic Society (Reale Società Geografica Italiana). The list was called the Prontuario in short and later formed an important part of the Italianization campaign initiated by the fascist regime
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
, as it became the basis for the official place and district names in the Italian-annexed southern part of the County of Tyrol
County of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...
.
It has often been criticized by the German-speaking population of the province on the grounds that the new names have little historical relevance and that many have been entirely invented.
Development
In the 1890s Ettore TolomeiEttore Tolomei
Ettore Tolomei was an Italian nationalist and fascist. He was designated a Member of the Italian Senate in 1923, and ennobled in 1937.- Pre-World War I activism :...
founded a nationalist magazine "The Italian Nation", and in 1906 the "Archivio per l'Alto Adige". His intention was to create the impression that South Tyrol had originally been an Italian territory, that the German history
History of South Tyrol
The modern-day South Tyrol, an autonomous Italian province created in 1948, was originally part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Tyrol until 1918 . Its area was annexed by Italy following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I...
of South Tyrol was merely a short interruption and that as a consequence the land rightfully belonged to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Toponomy played a major part in Tolomei's struggle right from the beginning. In the articles he wrote for The Italian Nation he already used Italianized names, although these early attempts lacked the method and purpose of his later activities. In those days he would use the name Alto Trentino for South Tyrol, not having yet come upon and revived the Napoleonic creation Alto Adige
Adige
The Adige is a river with its source in the Alpine province of South Tyrol near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland. At in length, it is the second longest river in Italy, after the River Po with ....
, which would become the official Italian designation for the province after World War I and up to this day. Likewise, he used to call the Brenner Pass
Brenner Pass
- Roadways :The motorway E45 leading from Innsbruck via Bolzano to Verona and Modena uses this pass, and is one of the most important north-south connections in Europe...
"Pirene", which in his later publications would become "Brennero". His work became more systematical with the founding of the Archivio per l' Alto Adige, through which he began to propose Italianized names for villages and geographical features in South Tyrol. In 1916, a year after Italy, instigated by Allied promises and its own nationalist tendencies, entered the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, a commission was set up to find Italian names for places in the "soon to be conquered territory". The commission (composed of Tolomei himself, the Professor of Botany and Chemistry Ettore De Toni as well as the librarian Vittorio Baroncelli) reported almost 12,000 Italian place and district names on the basis of Tolomei's studies. In June 1916, this list was published as Volume XV, Part II of Memorie of the Reale Società Geografica Italiana as well as in the Archivio per l'Alto Adige.
Methodology
Tolomei explained the methodology for creating Italian names in his introduction to the Prontuario. The main principles are:- LadinLadinLadin is a language consisting of a group of dialects spoken in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy in the border regions of the provinces Trentino, South Tyrol and Belluno...
names would be adapted to the current Italian pronunciation; - Pre-existing Italian names: e.g. (Bozen/Bolzano, Meran/Merano) were not changed, though there are exceptions;
- Names of pre-Romanic, RhaeticRaetic languageRaetic is an extinct language spoken in the ancient region of Raetia in the Eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by a limited number of short inscriptions in two variants of the Etruscan alphabet...
origin were not changed when adopted by the RomanicRomance languagesThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
population. Germanized Rhaetic names were replaced by the original version or by a historic LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
ized form. The same method was applied in the case of names with a Celtic origin; - German names going back to a Romanic form were to be returned to their Latin antecedent;
- Irreducibly German names were translated into Italian or substituted with Italian names. This was done by phonetic reduction, where the name was simply Italianized (normally by adding a vowelVowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
to the end of the name): e.g. Brenner/Brennero, Moos/MosoMoos in PasseierMoos in Passeier is a comune in the Passeier Valley, in South Tyrol in the Northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol...
. Or by direct translation, e.g. Lago Verde (green lake) for Grünsee; this was a frequent source of mistakes, as Linsberg was translated with Monte Luigi, a name also used as the translation of Luisberg; Blumau was wrongly interpreted as flower valley, and translated to meadow Prato all'Isarco. Alternatively, the name of the patron saintPatron saintA patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
of the town was used, e.g. Innichen/San CandidoInnichenInnichen is a market town and comune in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol.It is located in the Puster Valley on the Drava river, about 120 km northeast of Trento and about 80 km northeast of Bolzano , on Italy's border with Austria.As November 2010, it had a...
, or the Italian name was inspired by geographical derivations: e.g. Colle Isarco (Hill-upon-IsarcoEisackThe Eisack is a river in Northern Italy, the second largest river in South Tyrol. Its source is near the Brenner Pass, at an altitude of about 1990 m above sea level. The river draws water from an area of about 4,200 km². After about 96 km, it joins the Adige river south of Bolzano. At first the...
) for Gossensaß.
This methodology was however not applied in a uniform, consistent manner, so that often the choice of name seems to have been arbitrary, thus increasing the perception of imposition. While the aim of Tolomeis toponymy was that of bringing the Latin history back to the surface, more often than not it managed to bury the romanic roots of historically grown names even deeper, partly due to the linguistic incompetence of Tolomei and his team. This can be exemplified by the name of the village Lana
Lana
Lana \l-na\ is a female given name, pronounced LAN-ah, LAW-NA, or LAHN-ah.Although a name in itself it may be short for Svetlana, Ruslana, Allana, Elana or Ilana....
, which probably goes back to a roman landholder named Leo, whose territory was called (praedium) Leonianum. In the High Middle Ages the name was pronounced Lounan. In the bavarian dialect the vocal ou changed to a in the 12th century, leading to Lanan, which became today's Lana in German. Contrary to his stated methodology Tolomei kept the name Lana, probably because it sounded Italian and in Italian "lana" means "wool". The correct Italianisation would have been "Leoniano". The same applies to German Trens and Terenten
Terenten
Terenten is a comune in South Tyrol, in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 100 km northeast of Trento and about 50 km northeast of Bolzano .-Geography:...
, derived from Latin torrens (stream), which were Italianized as Trens and Terento, not recognizing the Romanic roots still present in the German name.
Apart from the frequent mistakes and inconsistencies of Tolomei's toponymy, its main fault is the loss of historical information contained in the historically grown geographical names, an effect which was fully intended by Tolomei. Instead of bringing back Alpine Romanity which spoke a Rhaeto-Romance language, he superimposed the "Tuscan
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
" language on which modern Italian is based on the local Romanic traditions. A case in point is the name Vipiteno, derived from Latin Vipitenum. Tolomei preferred this Latin name to Sterzen, the name commonly used by Italians at that time. In doing so, however, he unwittingly chose an already Germanified name. The original Alpine-Romanic name would have been Vibidina. The German sound change
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
in the 8th century changed this into Wipitina. As such it was first mentioned in the medieval Latin manuscripts, and in the more recent ones it was further Latinized into Vipitenum, a name which sounded as if it could have been of ancient Roman origin and thus was chosen by Tolomei.
See also
- German as a minority languageGerman as a minority languageGerman-speaking minorities live in many countries and on all six inhabited continents: the countries of the former Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Latin America, Namibia, South Africa, Israel, and Australia...
- History of South TyrolHistory of South TyrolThe modern-day South Tyrol, an autonomous Italian province created in 1948, was originally part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Tyrol until 1918 . Its area was annexed by Italy following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I...
- Former toponyms of Greek placesFormer toponyms of Greek placesMany settlements in Greece had Greek and non-Greek forms. Most of those names were in use during the multinational environment of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the forms were identifiably of Greek origin, others of Slavic, yet others of Turkish, Vlach or Albanian origin...
Further reading
- Finsterwalder, Karl: Tiroler Ortsnamenkunde - gesammelte Aufsätze und Arbeiten, 3 Vol., Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner 1990, ISBN 3-7030-0222-0
- Kühebacher, Egon: Die Ortsnamen Südtirols und ihre Geschichte, 3 Vol., Bozen: Verlagsanstalt Athesia 1995-2000, ISBN 88-7014-634-0 (1: Die geschichtlich gewachsenen Namen der Gemeinden, Fraktionen und Weiler), ISBN 88-7014-827-0 (2: Die geschichtlich gewachsenen Namen der Täler, Flüsse, Bäche und Seen) and ISBN 88-8266-018-4 (3: Die Namen der Gebirgszüge, Gipfelgruppen und Einzelgipfel Südtirols. Gesamtregister) (reference work)
See also
- Commission for the Determination of Place NamesCommission for the Determination of Place NamesThe Commission for the Determination of Place Names was a commission of the Polish Department of Public Administration, founded in January 1946...
in the territories annexed by Poland after World War II - Former toponyms in Greece
External links
- Online version of the Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige. (Digitalised by Edoardo Mori; the Prontuario is available as a PDF file at the link of the same name, including a preface by Eduardo Mori and the original introduction by Tolomei)
- Tolomei's 32 points for the Italianization of southern Tyrol (german)