This guide is written for members of indigenous communities who are interested in local place-names (toponyms) and would like to document them in order to preserve their cultural heritage.  

A toponym is the name of a place or some kind of geographical feature (such as hills, rivers, areas of tundra, plains, etc.). Research among native peoples has shown that indigenous beliefs (i.e. those pertaining to native cultures) about geographic object and how they are labelled can differ markedly from how these features are systematized in scientific classification schemes and how they are marked on official maps. For example, there is a tradition among the Ewenkis of giving names to high (steep) river banks or bluffs – something which is not encountered in Western/European toponymic systems.  

The following steps should help you while gathering basic information about place-names: 

1. It is important to understand which geographic features are named in your community and what their main characteristics are. For example, individual hills may have separate names. It is important to establish which part of the hill (whether slope, peak or foothill) is named. The same applies to other objects (rivers and their sections, including their banks, source and mouth, as well as areas of tundra, plains, swamps, etc.).  
2. If possible, record the local name for the type of geographical feature (landscape term). For example, the Ewenki language has various different names for the concept of “mountain”: ure, yang, ngeku, chuwakan and others. All of them denote elevations of varying shape, position and height.
3. What other local names do you have in your area for things apart from geographical features? (Examples could include different parts of the village etc.).  
4. Some indigenous place-names (toponyms) are difficult to translate unambiguously into other languages. It is important that not only the local name of a particular object be recorded, but also that additional information be collected too, including explanations obtained from several members of the community as to why the object was named that way and what the name means. Some names may have more than one interpretation, for example. It is important to note down all possible explanations for the origin and use of these names.  
5. Place-names occasionally indicate certain specific human activities: what exactly do members of your community do in this place? Is it possible to understand this from the name? For example, the River Ollomakit translates from Ewenki as “fishy place”, which traditionally means a good place for fishing.  
6. Names of places, particularly those of the most significant geographical features, are often associated with some story about what happened at this place in the past, or a myth that explains the origins of the name. These stories should be written down (preferably in the original language and accompanied by a translation).  
7. Place-names are known to change over time. As such, all formerly used names should be recorded wherever possible.  
8. If people in your community speak several languages (e.g. both Ewenki and Yakut), then you could investigate whether different names are used in these different languages for the same place, and record both with their translations.  
9. If possible, it would be helpful to mark the place-names you have collected on a map or ask community members who know these places to draw them on a sketch map with approximate coordinates. 

Materials collected in this way can be added to the platform by following the instructions. We can help you add data if required (send us an email or write us a message on WhatsApp or Telegram).  

Materials used when writing this guide:  

Bohnemeyer, J., Burenhult, N., Enfield, N.J., & Levinson, S.C., “Landscape terms and place names elicitation guide”, in A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual, Volume 9 (Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2004), pp75-79. URL: Landscape terms and place names elicitation guide: MPG.PuRe