The Place has a Name and a Surname: The Investigation of the Continuous Existence of African and Traditional Nam es over the Modern Ones in South Africa.

DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L318.05

Authors: Thato Mabolaeng Monyakane

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to extract nuances and complexities in the naming of places in South Africa. The preliminary observation of the study is that there are three categories of how the names come about in the new South Africa. Some names have not changed, other names are a new creation and sometimes the society resorts to the original names of the places before the missionaries and the colonial introduction of the Western names. The indigenous name for Johannesburg has always been Gauteng/ Khauteng. But after 1994, the government elevated the name to include other urbanised places around Johannesburg and their outskirts and the name Gauteng has been taken from Johannesburg and been given the province status. Tshwane reverted to its original name and Pretoria has been subsumed. Pretoria contemporarily refers only to the city. Ekhuruleni and Nelson Mandela municipalities have not been there before, as names of places, they are a new creation. The study will use the theory of intertextuality to analyse the naming of places in South Africa. Intertextuality means that every name has an underlying story which relates to the social, political or cultural aspects within the society. The name is not just the signifier which corresponds to the object it signifies. Hence the need to improve on de Saussure’s linguistic theory by adding the theory of intertextuality.

Keywords: Place names, South Africa, double barrel name, indigenous/modern, post-apartheid