Toponomastics in South Tyrol

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The toponomics in South Tyrol has been the cause of political disputes for decades. A peculiarity of the South Tyrolean toponomics is stated that a dictatorial regime imposed a foreign language layer of names over the historically grown names and was not reversed after the return to a democratic system.

Today, there are according to the three South Tyrolean language groups (German, Ladin and Italian), for a large part of the local and field names two or three languages.

prehistory

The historically grown place and field names in South Tyrol are the result of a process that has been going on since pre-Roman times. Many of today's names go back to the settlement by Rhaetian and Italian tribes and were later adopted by the immigrating Bavarians and integrated into their German dialects; others were created by them from their own language. The place names in the Ladin-speaking valleys also go back to a large extent to older language levels and have been integrated into today's dialects over time.

Before 1918 there were two largely closed language areas in what is now South Tyrol, one German and one Ladin. In official parlance, the principle of local custom was followed for place names. After the annexation of South Tyrol by Italy in 1920, this changed fundamentally.

Italianization of place and field names

In order to underpin Italy's claim to South Tyrol , around 12,000 German and Ladin place and field names were transferred into Italian from 1890 onwards by a commission under the leadership of the nationalist Ettore Tolomei . This work was recorded in the reference work Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige . In three naming decrees in 1923, 1940 and 1942 these new Italian place and field names were established as the official designations of fascist-ruled Italy .

The linguist Cristian Kollmann , who was the "toponomist" of the South Tyrolean Provincial Archives and is a language expert for the South Tyrolean Freedom Party , examined the "historical soundness" of the official Italian place and field names as part of a study. He considered names to be "historically sound" that met the following criteria:

  1. Continuity of the name since Romanesque times due to the contact with settlements (e.g. Salorno , Cauria , Egna , Vadena ).
  2. Proximity of the named object to the Italian language border and consequently language contact (e.g. Stelvio , Venosta , San Candido , Pusteria ).
  3. High market value of the name due to the relevance of the named object for the Italian-speaking area (e.g. Bolzano , Merano , Bressanone , Sterzen ).

According to Kollmann, of the total of 116 South Tyrolean community names, only 55 can be considered "historically founded", whereby in individual cases the ancestral exonym does not match the current official Italian name (e.g. Corné instead of Cornedo , Nova Tedesca instead of Nova Ponente , Sterzen instead of Vipiteno , Oltemo instead of Ultimo ). According to the study, the total number of “historically well-founded” Italian place and field names is around 200. With over 10,000 official Italian toponyms, this corresponds to a proportion of less than 2% when expressed in relative numbers.

Trilingual signpost

Legal status of bilingual or trilingual place and field names

In South Tyrol there is officially nationwide German-Italian bilingualism and regional (Val Gardena, Gadertal) Ladin-German-Italian trilingualism. This bilingual or trilingualism is also reflected in the official names of places and fields. The official status of the toponyms shows gradual gradations: the official status of most Italian names is legally secured. It is based on the three aforementioned naming decrees from the time of Italian fascism. The German and Ladin toponyms have not been confirmed de iure, as they do not appear in any decree regulating the South Tyrolean toponomastics. De facto , however, these names are “semi-official”, especially since they are on a par with the Italian names at the state level (i.e. within the area of ​​today's South Tyrol).

In order to end the place name dispute, a new toponomics law was passed in 2012 by the South Tyrolean provincial government and the South Tyrolean state parliament . This should legalize German and Ladin names and abolish a few Italian names. However, the hoped-for pacification of the political camps was not achieved. Parties like Süd-Tiroler Freiheit or BürgerUnion für Südtirol criticize the fact that the Toponomastik-Gesetz maintains a large number of place names invented by Tolomei. The law has not yet become final because it has been challenged by the Italian government before the Constitutional Court.

Perception of the official toponomics and demand for a solution

The described situation of the official naming of places and fields is controversial in South Tyrol and causes discontent among parts of the population, especially those who speak German and Ladin. On the part of the Italian-speaking ethnic group, however, it is often argued for the preservation of all Italian place names, otherwise the “Italian fellow citizens could not identify themselves as Italians in Italian South Tyrol” ( Alessandro Urzì ).

Demands for the “full-time” recognition of the German and Ladin toponyms have so far not caught on in politics. Often there is another requirement, namely the abolition of those Italian place and field names that were constructed in the period immediately before and during Italian fascism or were reconstructed on the basis of medieval evidence.

In the same light, parts of today's South Tyrolean population perceive the constructed or reconstructed names for the individual South Tyrolean places and corridors. Terms like “Tolomian-fascist”, “fascistically charged” or “pseudo-Italian” names are in circulation. This choice of words serves to distinguish it from the "real" Italian names that have been handed down before Tolomei and outside of the fascist naming decrees. Both the population and bipartisan consensus exists about the acceptance of these names.

literature

  • Karl Finsterwalder : Tyrolean toponymy - collected essays and works. 3 vols. Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner 1990, ISBN 3-7030-0222-0
  • Egon Kühebacher : The place names of South Tyrol and their history. 3 Bde. Bozen: Verlagsanstalt Athesia 1995–2000, ISBN 88-7014-634-0 (1:  The historically grown names of the communities, parliamentary groups and hamlets ), ISBN 88-7014-827-0 (2:  The historically grown names of the Valleys, rivers, streams and lakes ) and ISBN 88-8266-018-4 (3:  The names of the mountain ranges, summit groups and individual peaks of South Tyrol. Complete index ) (reference work)
  • Naturmuseum Südtirol (Ed.): The field names of South Tyrol: collection, cartography, database - Inoms di posć de Südtirol: increscida, cartografia, banca dac. (Publications of the South Tyrol Museum of Nature 10). Bolzano: Naturmuseum Südtirol 2016. ISBN 978-88-87108-07-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b landtag-bz.org: Final report of the expert commission 1990
  2. ↑ Regio decreto No. 800 of March 29, 1923.
  3. ↑ Decreto ministeriale No. 147 of July 10, 1940
  4. ↑ Regio decreto No. 6767 of March 9, 1942.
  5. ↑ Süd-Tiroler Freiheit, Bolzano: Parents' regional advisory councils want to let South Tyroleans degenerate into identityless Altoates! • South Tyrolean freedom . In: South Tyrolean Freedom . August 31, 2017 ( suedtiroler-freiheit.com [accessed September 19, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Kollmann, Cristian: Toponomastik: Which solution for South Tyrol? Supplement to the magazine "Südtirol in Wort und Bild", 2004, 3.
  7. ↑ Kollmann, Cristian: Historically multilingual geographical name in South Tyrol. In: SOKO Tatort "Alto Adige", September 2, 2015.
  8. ^ A b Francesco Palermo : Riflessioni giuridiche sulla disciplina della toponomastica nella Provincia autonoma di Bolzano . In: Hannes Obermair u. a. (Ed.): Regional civil society in motion. Festschrift for Hans Heiss (=  Cittadini innanzi tutto ). Folio Verlag, Vienna-Bozen 2012, ISBN 978-3-85256-618-4 , p. 341-352 .
  9. ↑ a b Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 11, 2013: The place names stir the minds
  10. ^ Toponomastics law challenged by the government ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Südtirol Online (stol.it), November 16, 2012, accessed on May 9, 2015.
  11. ↑ Report on State Bill No. 2/08. Website of the South Tyrolean Parliament (landtag.bz.org), accessed on May 9, 2015.
  12. ↑ Kollmann, Cristian: Tolomei is dead - his spirit is alive! The South Tyrolean gravedigger died 80 years ago - the story of a forgery. In: Dolomites , 25./26. May 2002, p. 21; ders .: 80 years of fascist naming in South Tyrol. An error threatens to become "truth" - Ettore Tolomei, the inventor of the "Alto Adige", sends his regards. In: Dolomites, 29./30. March 2003, p. 12.