See Miles' answer below. Basically the same, yet more detailed answer you apparently missed on your first 'read'.
Carthage
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See Miles' answer below. Basically the same, yet more detailed answer you apparently missed on your first 'read'.
I just asked my wife what her village was called and got a blank look followed by "village"? Now I'm sure there's an administrative name floating around somewhere. But that, I believe, groups a group of villages together. The nearest other village being perhaps 500 metres down a steep hill, connected with fields and a smattering of houses while the furtherest is perhaps a kilometre and a half away with a decent gap between that and the other village already mentioned due to the presence of a rather steep hill used for growing timber. I've also asked what those are called and also got a blank look. (Major towns do have names and some larger villages do as well). I've also posed a few questions about the clusters of housing one finds the length of major roads... and got more confused looks. Those aren't villages in the conventional sense and nobody including Indonesia colleagues of mine have much of an idea what to call them or how to treat them.
Yeah, that's fine. People can be quite quick to pick up on and use place names. But that doesn't mean they used them in the past. You've actually alluded to this in your response:
MilesGregarius said:
Yeah, that's fine. People can be quite quick to pick up on and use place names. But that doesn't mean they used them in the past. You've actually alluded to this in your response:
MilesGregarius said:
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
That may be the case in Indonesia. I wouldn't presume to question your knowledge of the area. Why do you insist on doubting my knowledge of Thailand and Lao? What do Indonesian cultural practices have to do with Thai or Lao ones?
I've been visiting the same villages for more than twenty years in Thailand, more than a dozen years in Lao, so I can assure that the Thai and Lao most definitely name their villages - to the point of posting signs with they're names at village entrances. Not one town that I have visited in that time has changed its name except, as mentioned previously, in very specific circumstances. Even if names do change, what of it? Does the fact that New York once was New Amsterdam mean New York is nameless?
And a 500 meter separation would not constitute a separate village in most situations with which I am familiar. Quite a few villages with which I am familiar have fairly large gaps in them. I spent a good deal of 1995 in a Lahu village of less than a dozen families that involved a good ten-minute uphill climb from one half to the other. Asking what "that" village's name was wouldn't have gotten you an odd look because they found village names unusual, but because it's the same village.
The second point refers to non-Thai minorities in Thailand. Naming villages after headmen is not a Thai or Lao tradition. Again, their cultural practices neither predict nor preclude the Thai and Lao from having completely different practices.
I've been visiting the same villages for more than twenty years in Thailand, more than a dozen years in Lao, so I can assure that the Thai and Lao most definitely name their villages - to the point of posting signs with they're names at village entrances. Not one town that I have visited in that time has changed its name except, as mentioned previously, in very specific circumstances. Even if names do change, what of it? Does the fact that New York once was New Amsterdam mean New York is nameless?
And a 500 meter separation would not constitute a separate village in most situations with which I am familiar. Quite a few villages with which I am familiar have fairly large gaps in them. I spent a good deal of 1995 in a Lahu village of less than a dozen families that involved a good ten-minute uphill climb from one half to the other. Asking what "that" village's name was wouldn't have gotten you an odd look because they found village names unusual, but because it's the same village.
The second point refers to non-Thai minorities in Thailand. Naming villages after headmen is not a Thai or Lao tradition. Again, their cultural practices neither predict nor preclude the Thai and Lao from having completely different practices.
Huh? I suggested that the use of names in the present isn't fixed in stone and that names don't have to have a long provenance to be in use. For example, I live in a suburb that was only built and named in the 1960s. I said nothing about current naming practices, except to note that you've provided support for the process of government's 'fixing' names among contemporary hilltribes. A process I'm interested in.
You seem to be suggesting that I have serious communication issues with my wife. I don't. Her English is fluent.
MilesGregarius said:
You seem to be suggesting that I have serious communication issues with my wife. I don't. Her English is fluent.
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
Not to hijack this thread, but the following link to the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency Topographic Center's Lao Official Standard Names from 1973 shows 178 straight pages (at around 66 entries per page) of Populated Place (PPL) names - and that's only Ban (Villages). I can not say whether any or all of these names have changed, but the fact remains, both the Lao and U.S. governments acknowledged upwards of 11,000 named villages in Lao over 40 years ago. With an estimated 1973 population under 3 million, this list must include some very tiny villages. Even if names have changed, how does this invalidate their existence and use?
There is also this study: Comparative Tai Toponymic Analysis: Lao Village Names in Laos showing that Lao, Thai, and other Tai peoples have consistent enough village naming practices to warrant academic study.
There is also this study: Comparative Tai Toponymic Analysis: Lao Village Names in Laos showing that Lao, Thai, and other Tai peoples have consistent enough village naming practices to warrant academic study.
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
I am doing no such thing, simply pointing out that among my Thai, Lao, and Lahu friends any source of confusion would come from a different source.
Please point to where I've said that.
Now I'm starting to think you're being disingenuous. You mentioned the impermanence of names as precluding there validity in the section quoted above before it was edited.
Confusion in this case would suggest there was a communication issue.MilesGregarius said:
I do think names change. But that doesn't lessen their importance. In actual fact, places names are one of the few historical sources we have in spades. That makes understanding why place names change really important. As you are well aware, city names were often derived from the name of the ruling dynasty. That's a useful insight. But it can be misleading because new rulers sometimes decided to found new courts and adopt new names. Mistaking a name change for a dynastic change (the one being usually more bloody than the other) has at various times seriously messed up how we interpret events. One example can be found in the confusion surrounding Raden Wijaya who was the last king of Singahasari and the first king of Majapahit. For a while it was thought that the interregnum between Wijaya being deposed as king of Singahasari and Majapahit being founded was somewhat longer than it was. To get around this, scholars pushed back the foundation of Singahasari, simply inserted a new king to found Majapahit or supposed that another dynasty might have arisen and that it had decided to claim kinship with Singahasari as a means of legitimising its own rule. That's why I'm interested in names.MilesGregarius said:
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
The first two bolded bits seem to fairly strongly imply someone was confused. In the third, you yourself state there was confusion.
True enough for larger population centers, particularly capitals or former capitals, but hardly relevant in regard to our point of contention - whether small villages do or don't have names.
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
A discussion in my thread, so exciting!
I hope Masada and myself are furthering your understanding of ancient Carthage and its culture.
TheLastOne36
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The only confusion in this thread I've had so far is realizing we are talking about Miles the member and not Miles the author of Carthage Must Be Destroyed.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Yeah, that's confused me every single time 
MilesGregarius said:
She was confused as to why I'd ask stupid questions when I know the answer.
That's not accurate. Small places names are arguably more valuable because they are often one of the few things we have that tell us a bit about how things such as the language being spoken in a region, it's 'ethnic' composition and differences between vernacular and aristocratic modes of speech among other things.MilesGregarius said:
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
Just as my Lahu friends would have been confused why one couldn't see both clusters of houses were the same village They would not have been confused about village names.
I didn't say they were unimportant. Your discussion about name changes to capitals has no relevance in a discussion about naming conventions of small villages because the founder of a new dynasty is highly unlikely to alter the names of settlements other than the capital and, possibly, the former capital, neither of which are likely to be one of the small villages that you assert are without name in Southeast Asia.
MilesGregarius said:
That's a sizable distance given that you don't have to go more than a few kilometers before you hit starting hitting villages who speak a different dialect. Proximity is also no guarantee of anything. My wife's village isn't related to the other villages in the immediate area Their relations are from another area somewhat further away. There's also considerable resentment because two of the other villages in the area are related and use that to leverage all the development funding.
I was just providing an example of why names matter. You asked how that example was relevant to small villages. I provided a more relevant example.MilesGregarius said:
taillesskangaru said:
There's a long history of writing about broad regional similarities a tradition which still survives.
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