School Names in Selected Districts in Southern Province of Zambia: A Critical Toponymies Perspective

Studies have exposed place names as embodiments of the history, identity, culture, and language of their bestowers. Whilst this is true, some place naming practices reflect hegemonic tendencies that have not received adequate scholarly attention, especially in Zambia. This study examines school names in four districts in the Southern Province of Zambia and exposes the hegemonic slant inherent in place naming. The names examined in this study were collected from the Provincial Educational Offices. The names fall into two categories; government and private school names. These names were couched on Critical Toponymies Theory, a theory which politicises place naming and place names. The study found out that there is a toponymic hegemony in both categories of school names. The study argues that toponymic hegemony, as is shown in the study sample, is a manifestation of the dominance of the history, culture, world view, and identity or at least of the interests of the people who named the schools. It is concluded that place names, mundane as they may appear, are embroiled in the (re)production of unequal social power balance.


Introduction
This study examines school names in four districts in the Southern Province of Zambia; Kazungula, Livingstone, Namwala and Siavonga. The names studied showed that they are biased towards the aspirations and/or interests of their bestowers and, hence play a role in the (re)production of unequal social power balance. The biased nature of place names is an insignia denoting that at their core is hegemony of various kinds. This study brings out the biased nature of place names by exposing the toponymic hegemony which characterise the school names in the concerned districts. The informing philosophy in the study is that individually or collectively, people are never in equal positions to name places; not everyone has an opportunity to give names to places This suggests that names of any given geographical area are more likely to display some hegemony, culturally, economically, historically, and linguistically, among others.
The term hegemony is generally used to refer to the predominance of one thing over others. Hegemony is defined as "the power or dominance that one social group holds over others" [1]. In this sense, hegemony could be thought to be accompanied or motivated by differences between social classes within any given community whereby the more powerful group dominates and controls the weaker one (s). There are various types of hegemony, some of which include political, cultural, linguistic, and toponymic hegemony [cf 2, 3, 4 & 5]. This study is concerned with toponymic hegemony which has a very close relationship with cultural hegemony (the predominance of one culture over others), political hegemony (the predominance of one political grouping/ideology over others), and linguistic hegemony (the predominance of one language over others) given that place names reflect culture, political interests, and the language of their namers. In this study, toponymic hegemony is defined as the dominion of one group of people over others' history, culture, language, identity, world view etc through place

Zambia: A Geo-linguistic Overview
This section provides an overview of Zambia's linguistic ecology. This is done in order to give the reader an appreciation of the language situation in the country and the region under study. The key source of the information provided in this section is from the 2010 Census of Population and Housing.
English is Zambia's official language. As such, in relation to the other languages spoken in Zambia, English has a higher status in the country. In Zambia, there are are eightythree local language spoken (15). However, they do not indicate the places in which each of the eighty-three languages is spoken in the country. On the other hand, there are seventy-two languages in the country, and seven of these are identified as major languages: Bemba, Kaonde, Lozi, Lunda, Luvale, Nyanja, and Tonga. It further indicates that out of the seventy-languages, Bemba and Nyanja are the widely spoken languages in the country [13]. These so-called major languages are sometimes referred to as national languages or Regional Official Languages (ROLs). The 'region' corresponds to political demarcations at provincial and/or district levels. Thus, there is a ROL in each province in Zambia [17].
Zambia is composed of ten provinces. These are Central, Copperbelt, Eastern, Luapula, Lusaka, Muchinga, Northern, North-Western, Western, and Southern provinces, Nyanja is the ROL for Central Province; Bemba for Copperbelt, Luapula, Muchinga and Northern Provinces; Nyanja for Eastern and Lusaka Province; Lozi for Western Province, Kaonde, Lunda and Luvale for North-Western Province; and Tonga for Southern Province and rural parts of Central Province [17].
The 2010 Census of Population and Housing shows that the Tonga people account for 74.4% of the total population of Southern Province, which stands at 1,338,649. The report shows that in addition to Tonga, the following languages are found in the province: Toka, Leya, Ila, Lozi, Nyanja, English and Bemba. The report further shows that Lozi is the main language in Western Province; Bemba is the main language in Northern, Luapula, and Copperbelt Provinces; while Nyanja is the main language in Eastern Province. However, it is highly probable that some of the speakers of these languages are actually native Tonga speakers who are bilingual. The few native speakers of Bemba, Nyanja and Lozi found in Southern Province, may not claim that their languages are domiciled in the province as the Ila, Leya and Toka speakers will do, guided by census report, whose languages are not known to be spoken in other provinces.

Methods
As earlier noted, the data for this study was collected from the Southern Province's Provincial Educational Offices in Choma, Zambia. The study used documentary analysis. This is a data collection method in qualitative research whereby the researcher interprets documents in order to elicit meaning from the data in the documents. Documentary analysis, the researcher examines and interprets the data to "elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge" [18]. The documents examined in this study are lists of school names for each of the four districts. The school names were grouped according to the characteristics they portrayed. Two groups were identified: English and Tonga school names. This made it easy for the study to address toponymic hegemony in the school names.
For data analysis, the study predominantly relied on the extensive toponymy approach. Extensive toponymy is based on corpora of place names that can be extracted from many sources [19]. In other words, this approach is concerned with big volumes of place names. In extensive toponymy, the researcher usually groups the names according to the characteristics they display. Intensive toponymy, on the other hand, is a kind of grass-root place names research whereby the researcher reaches out to a respondent for every name collected. Tent notes that this kind of place-names study is not the best when a researcher is dealing with many place names because, it would need more time and could be strenuous to the research budget. In extensive toponymy, the meaning of the names may not be explicitly touched upon. Since the collected names for this study were 354, it became prudent to predominantly use extensive toponymy because it would be difficult to find time and resources to reach to respondents for each school name. In this study, we use insights from both extensive and intensive toponymy.

Critical Toponymies Theory
This study uses Critical Toponymies Theory (CTT), a theory that views place naming as a contested process because different groups of people aspire to use place names to inscribe their lived experiences, worldview and aspirations in the social space through place names. Therefore, place names are not neutral intangible heritages. They are biased because they reflect the 'side of the story' of their bestowers. To appreciate the biased nature of place names, an appreciation that human beings have different aspirations, perceptions of the world, and cultural and linguistic identities is a prerequisite. This diversity so permeates place naming that if different individuals or groups of people were allowed to rename a given geographical area, chances are high that totally different kinds of names would be used to name the places, projecting totally different aspirations, perceptions and linguistic and cultural identities from that which was projected by the earlier names.
Literature on critical place names studies is pervaded by five major themes which combine to form CTT; place (name) commodification, banality and governmentality, symbolic resistance, scalar naming, and linguistic hegemony. This study utilises scalar naming and linguistic hegemony in its analysis.
With no specific reference to place names, scalar or scale has to do with size and position within a hierarchy [20]. Therefore, one can talk of scale in society while specifically referring to the position an individual or group of people occupy within a given social hierarchy. The position can be in relation to power, wealth and education. Any given scale has to be understood in relation to its interconnection and interaction with other scales [21]. As a result, social groups, governments and corporations tend to concurrently create diverse identities at different scalar levels using exactly the same elements. Scalar naming theme focuses on power dynamics arising from status and different positions that different things that are associated with place naming and place names, including people, occupy in society.
In place names, scale can be viewed from different perspectives such as the location of a place relative to key places and/or features, and the naming language for places [cf 22]. Regardless of the perspective, status takes the centre stage, whereby it is seen to have a strong bearing on the name selected for a place. Taking the factor of location as an example, politicians may have so much interest in places located in urban areas to a point that the names they select for such places are well thought-out in such a way that they leverage their interests. Equally, the rural folk may be so concerned with the names assigned to their rural places that the names they assign to their places become a narrative of their social, historical and cultural narratives. This explains the reason why place names are not neutral even when they appear so at face value. In addition, scale naming can be in relation to whether a place name or naming practice is viewed from a district, provincial, national or international perspective. The assumption is that depending on the scale (local scale, national or international scale) a place's significance may vary, thereby each scale determining the suitable name for the place.
In this study scale naming is used in relation to status accorded to the naming languages at national level. The school names are examined to identify whether there is a scale naming penchant towards any language. The assumption is that since the names are collected from the geographical areas where Tonga is the ROL, most of the school names will be in Tonga. Equally, it is expected that there are names in other local languages spoken in the areas where the names were collected. Against these expectations, the study examines the names to see whether there is a departure from this norm. Where such a departure is observed, the category of school names displaying it is identified and discussed accordingly.
The linguistic hegemony theme addresses the aspect of unequal distribution of place names among the languages spoken in a given region. Indigenous languages are disappearing at a faster rate due to the global domination of English such that about 3,500 languages are likely to be extinct by the year 2100 because some languages are absent in the toponymic landscape [23]. In other words, some ways of naming places, such as using one language to name places of any given geographical area where other languages are spoken, may lead to language death.
The present study's focus is toponymic hegemony, and linguistic hegemony is one of the forms of hegemony reflected in place names. Toponymic hegemony, in this study, is used to expose the extent to which place names can be used by one group of people to dominate other groups' culture, language and history and how such dominion is retrogressive to the well-being of those that are dominated.

Findings and Discussion
One of the findings of the study is that the examined school names show that there is toponymic hegemony in the districts where they were collected. The other finding is that private schools names are selected with an agenda of highstatus making for these schools. Although the second finding is closely related to toponymic hegemony, we deliberately separated it from toponymic hegemony in an attempt to foreground the biased nature of place names even when they may appear to be passive designators.

Toponymic Hegemony and Its Implications
The school names studied showed that there is a case of toponymic hegemony in government school names where Tonga names tend to dominate (there are more government schools named in Tonga than there are in other languages represented in the list of the examined school names). This implies that the Tonga people's culture, history, identity, and language dominate in the districts. A full list of the school names examined is presented in Table A1 which has 7 columns as follows: serial number, school name, language, district, and ward in which the school is found, a column showing whether the school is in urban or rural area and finally, a column indicating whether the school is a government or private school. Table 1 presents a summary of  Table A1.  Language  Total  Bemba  English  Ila  Lozi  Tonga  X  Government  0  23  36  10  238  5  312  Private  1  33  0  0  4  4  42  Total  1  56  36  10  242  9  354 Key. X: The naming language is not known.

Type of School
As can be seen from Table 1, the languages of naming are Bemba, English, Ila, Lozi, and Tonga. It can also be noted that there are school names whose naming languages were not identified at the time of research. Out of the 354 school names, 242 are Tonga, 56 are English, 36 are Ila names, 10 are Lozi while only one school is named in the Bemba. The naming language (s) for the remaining 9 could not be established. From the examined corpus of school names, it is conspicuous that the Tonga school names dominate in each district. This can be attributed to the fact that, as stated already, Tonga is the ROL in the Southern Province where the districts from which the names were collected are found. In other words, Tonga is the dominant language in the districts.
Toponymic hegemony in the in the area studied is not only found in school names as it is also present in many other categories of place names in the districts. For example, Table  1 (items 109, 198, 124, 118/122 & 161/165) indicates that the name of a school is also the name of a ward in some cases. It is suspected that an examination of the corpus of school names in the whole province would more vividly bring out this trend in the toponymic landscape of the province. A cursory survey of the list of school names in the province shows cases of toponymic replication, that is, cases where the name of a school in one district is also the name of schools in one or two other districts (see items 78/79 & 15/16). This observation was corroborated by the study participants. The respondents also noted that in most cases, the name of a school is also the name given to other components of the built and natural environment places in the vicinity of the school such as dams, streams, hills, churches, villages, towns, streets, important buildings, clinics, agricultural extension areas, and grazing fields. Many place-name studies such as have revealed that names are part of language, suggesting that toponymic hegemony whereby one language dominates the toponymic landscape of a given geographical area entails linguistic hegemony. On the relationship between naming and language, it can be noted that: "the disappearance of indigenous languages is accelerating dramatically under the weight of the global dominance of English and other major world languages. It is estimated that half of the world's 7,000 languages are expected to be extinct by 2100, which will have a direct impact on the presence of competing ways of naming and hence knowing places" [23].
The hegemony is not only discussable where the so-called world languages are involved, but also between local languages as the case is with Tonga versus the other local languages in the Southern Province of Zambia. As such, the danger of language death noted by Rose-Redwood and Alderman due to the hegemony of the so-called world languages may also be cause for concern even in situations where there is hegemony between and among local languages. To have a glimpse into the hegemony of Tonga over the other languages in the light of the examined school names, let us have a closer look at Table 1: a cursory look at the school names in table shows that Ila is lucidly visible in Namwala district where the Ila people are found while Toka and Leya are completely absent in the toponymic landscape of Kazungula and Livingstone districts were the Leya and Toka people are found. Considering Rose-Redwood and Alderman's argument, this erratic visibility of the languages may be attributed to the dominance of the Tonga language in the region, which over time may result in the death of the dominated languages. As noted earlier in this study, the relationship between language and culture, history, and world view is so close that it is hardly possible to comprehensively talk about one without making reference to the other.
We have earlier noted that place names are historical records, identity markers, cultural bearers, and power emblems. Thus, an argument can be made that the toponymic hegemony noted in the study is a manifestation of the dominance of the Tonga people's culture, history, language, and identity in the studied districts. Since there are other ethnic groups that live in the districts in addition to the Tonga people, it can be argued further that the history, culture, language, and identity of these ethnic groups are dominated by that of the Tonga people. This status quo, however, is expected given that Tonga is the ROL of the province and districts under study and that, according to the census report, there are more Tonga people in the Southern Province. That notwithstanding, our view is that the history, culture, identity, and language of few people is as important as that of many people.
To better understand the effects of having one's culture, history and identity over-shadowed or dominated, there is need to know the importance of these social aspects to any group of people. The culture/tradition and history of any group of people is invaluably important to a point that its destabilisation becomes a ruthless assault on the humanhood of that group [26]. The term humanhood in this context is used to refer to anything that makes a group of people live a dignified life socially, economically, culturally and religiously, among others. Similalry, opines that "if a race [or group of people] has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition... it stands in danger of being exterminated..." It follows then that the dominance of the Tonga people's culture, history and identity through the dominance of Tonga place names, has the potential to dehumanize, exterminate, and dislocate the Ila, Leya and Toka people socially, economically and religiously.

Scale in School Naming
The data studied also showed that there is a striking difference between private and government school names. Private school names are predominantly given in the English language while government school names are predominantly in Tonga. The list of school names examined in this study comprises 42 private schools. Out of the 42 private schools names, 33 are in English, 4 in Tonga while 1 is in Bemba. The language in which the remaining 4 are named was not identified. Looking at the combination of their morphemes, we can only speculate that some of them are bastardized forms of English names.
One of the plausible explanations, which was corroborated by three proprietors of private schools, for this state of affairs is that the goal of namers of private schools is to imbue high status on their schools. The rationale behind this philosophy is that English occupies a top notch on the language scale in Zambia because it is the official language of the country. For that reason, bestowing English names would be reflective of the high status that the schools should be viewed.
Three owners of private schools noted that the goal for most parents who send their children to private schools is so that they can speak and write good English. As such, one of the ways to attract them is to select an English name for the school. The respondents opined that a well thought out name; an English name, can easily pull parents to bring their children to the school. This is consistent with the observation that sometimes place names are selected on account of the status they command [cf 28]. When asked why it was important to imbue high status on private schools, the respondents argued that private schools are principally business entities; they are run on a profit-making basis. As a result, high status for these schools is invaluable if the schools are to compete favourably with government schools. A selection of place names driven by financial gain as the result is known as commodification in critical topomymies literature.

Conclusion
This study has used school names to argue that even seemingly banal place names are drawn in social power struggle, thereby making them poised toward the interests of their bestowers. It has also been shown that the dominance of Tonga government school names (re) produces, legitimizes and brings into mundane existence the Tonga people's worldview, history, and culture while denigrating that of the Ila, Toka, and Leya. This conclusion finds justification from the assertion that: "place naming represents a means of claiming the landscape, materially and symbolically, and using its power to privilege one's world view over another.
[This is so because] toponyms are not simply evidence of history... but part of the ideologically driven process of visibly grounding the past into the present and framing these historical meanings as legitimate [28].
Thus, toponymic hegemony is an insignia of victory by the bestowers. On the other hand, this victory comes with a heavy price on those whose culture, identity, culture, and language is over-shadowed in the sense that it entails that the nucleus of their existence is threatened.
It has been shown in this study that government school names (which are predominantly named in Tonga) which appear innocent on account that they name schools in areas predominantly inhabited by the Tonga are not innocent; they perpetuate unequal social power balance in most of the social aspects that are projected in place names, especially that there are other ethnic groups that co-exist with the Tonga people in the concerned districts. On the other hand, the study shows how private school names are handy in leveraging the interests of those who own them. In other words, this study has contributed to a body of literature which argues that place names are key agents in social contestations. The outstanding feature of this study is that it exposes the non-prosaic temperament of place naming and place names using data drawn from both rural and urban areas.
The study recommends a study which examines all the school names in the Southern Province. Such a study may underscore toponymic hegemony and toponymic replication which may enhance the arguments advanced in this paper.