Urban Toponymy in South African Sign Language (SASL): Patterns and Variations
by Sara Siyavoshi and Patrick Sibanda

Onomastics, a field within the humanities, focuses on the study of proper names. It is closely intertwined with various broader disciplines, including linguistics, ethnography, philology, history, philosophy, and others. Names are “special words used to identify a person, an animal, a place, or a thing, each carrying significance. In many instances, this significance may be obscured within the name’s history, while in others, it remains apparent” (Redmonds 2007, IX). One subfield of onomastics is toponomy, which is the study of place names in language. Place names, or toponyms, serve as geographical markers in all languages. They are also artifacts of cultures and languages intimately tied to the human conceptualization of spaces.
The study of onomastics in sign languages has consistently been an aspect of both sign linguistics and deaf studies. This sustained interest arises from the unique system of personal naming through visual-gestural attributes, operating independently of conventional written and spoken names, and consistently drawing the attention of scholars. In this study, we specifically investigate the toponymic system, focusing on urban place names in South African Sign Language (SASL). Our analysis is based on data collected from SASL signers residing in the city of Bloemfontein in Free State province.