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Sociolinguistic patterns and names: A variationist study of changes in personal names among Indian South Africans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2020

Rajend Mesthrie Open the ORCID record for Rajend Mesthrie [Opens in a new window]
Rajend Mesthrie*
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town, South Africa
*
Address for correspondence: Rajend Mesthrie Linguistics Section School of African & Gender Studies, Anthropology & Linguistics University of Cape Townrajend.mesthrie@uct.ac.za
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Abstract

This article unlocks the complex indexicalities pertaining to names in a multilayered diasporic field, one in which descendants from different ancestral areas of a former homeland (India) have merged loosely into a new community (in South Africa). The focus falls on large-scale innovations in officially registered personal names over a period of 150 years. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis of over 2,300 names shows the influence of social variables like religion, class, and subethnic affiliations via different ancestral languages. These result in different choices in retaining traditional names, modernising them, or adopting Western ones. There is also evidence of asymmetric accommodations as names flow from one subgroup to another, but not vice versa. A novel pattern in Indo-Dravidian studies is presented, that harnesses rhyme (or consonant mutation) and ablaut (or vowel mutation) to generate new names, carrying the indexicalities ‘Indian South African’, but also ‘modern’ and ‘globally oriented’. (Socio-onomastics, name changes, Indian South Africans, Indian languages, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, asymmetric accommodations)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 7 - 28
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

Funding for this research comes from the National Research Foundation (NRF) SARCHI grant no. 64805 as well as the National Institute of the Humanities (NIHSS) & Indian Social Science Research Council (ICSSR) grant no. 201514, who declare their independence from the findings of this research. I am grateful to the Documentation Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Westville campus) for background materials. I am also grateful to the following persons for additional data: Vidia Misthry, Bisram Rambilass, Rajish Luchman, Bull Arumugam, V. Latchanna, Ramanik Juta, and the religious and cultural societies they serve. For discussions and perceptions, I am grateful to Premilla Mungal, Satish Dhupelia, Guru Krishna, Krishnanadhan Sanasy, Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi, Vinu and Mrunal Chavda, and above all Ruta Paradkar. For research support I thank Alida Chevalier, Yolandi Klein, Isobel Harry, Alicia Kamaldien, Elizabeth Horn, and Fatima Sadan. Thanks are also due to Jenny Cheshire and four referees: the article is the better for streamlining arising from referees’ comments and suggestions.

References

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