Norfolk Island Toponymy: The Microcosm of Nepean Island

Abstract

<p>Norfolk Island, a remote isolated island archipelago and external territory of Australia in the southwest Pacific Ocean 1700 km east of the Australian mainland, provides toponymists and linguists with a laboratory case study in naming, toponymy, and language change and contact. This article looks at the toponyms of Nepean Island, a small uninhabited island 800 metres to the south of Norfolk Island's administrative centre Kingston (Figure 1), and questions whether Nepean is a microcosm of naming behaviour, which is representative of the rest of the Norfolk macrocosm. What makes Norfolk Island interesting for linguists is its diglossic language situation; Norf 'k–the language of the descendents of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian counterparts–and English, are both spoken on the island and both are used in place-naming.</p>