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Place names in Palestine have been the subject of much scholarship and contention, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The significance of place names in Palestine lies in their potential to legitimize the historical claims asserted by the involved parties, all of whom claim priority in chronology, and who use archaeology, map-making, and place names as their proofs.〔Kramer and Harman, 2008, pp. 1-2〕 The importance of toponymy, or geographical naming, was first recognized by the British organization, the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), who mounted geographical map-making expeditions in Palestine in the late 19th century. Shortly thereafter, the British Mandatory authorities set out to gather toponymic information from the local Arab population, who had been proven to have preserved knowledge of the ancient place names which could help identify archaeological sites.〔Benvenisti and Kaufman-Lacusta, 2000, p. 16.〕 Palestinian place names are generally Arabised forms of ancient Semitic names or newer Arabic language formations,〔Cheyne and Black, 1902, p. 3318.〕 though since the establishment of Israel, many place names have since been Hebraicised or are known officially by their Biblical names.〔 The cultural interchange fostered by the various successive empires to have ruled Palestine is apparent in its place names. Any particular place can be known by the different names used in the past, with each of these corresponding to a historical period.〔Miller and Hayes, 1986, p. 29.〕 For example, what is today known as Tzippori, was known under Hellenistic rule as ''Sepphoris'', under Roman rule as ''Diocaesarea'', and under Arab and Islamic rule as ''Saffuriya''. ==History== The preservation of place names in Palestine "with amazing consistency" is noted by Yohanan Aharoni in ''The Land of the Bible'' (1979).〔 He attributes this continuity to the common Semitic background of Palestine's local inhabitants throughout the ages, and the fact that place names tended to reflect extant agricultural features at the site in question.〔Cansdale, 1997, p. 111.〕 According to Uzi Leibner, this preservation of names is "a function of continuity of settlement at the site itself, or at least in the immediate region," and most of the sites in question were inhabited during the Byzantine and Middle Islamic periods.〔Leibner, 2009, pp. 395-396.〕 The indigenous population of Palestine used Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, Samaritan, Palestinian Syriac, Jewish Aramaic and Arabic, for thousands of years.〔Ellenblum, 2003, p. 256.〕 Almost all place names in Palestine have Semitic roots, with only a few place names being of Latin origin, and hardly any of Greek or Turkish origins.〔 The Semitic roots of the oldest names for places in Palestine continued to be used by the indigenous population, though during the period of classical antiquity in Palestine, many names underwent modifications due to the influence of local ruling elites well versed in Greek and Latin.〔 With the Arab expansion into Palestine, many of the preclassical Semitic names were revived, though often the spelling and pronunciation differed. Of course, for places where the old name had been lost or for new settlements established during this period, new Arabic names were coined.〔 In his 4th century work, the ''Onomasticon'', Eusebius of Caesarea provides a listing of the place names of Palestine with geographical and historical commentary, and his text was later translated into Latin and edited and corrected by Jerome.〔Richard, 2003, p. 442.〕 Though oft visited by European travellers in the centuries to follow, many of whom composed travel accounts describing its topography and demography, towards the end of Ottoman imperial rule, there was still much confusion over the place names in Palestine.〔Kramer and Harman, 2008, p. 128.〕 Existing Turkish transliterations of the Arabic and Arabicized names made identification and study into the etymology of the place names even more challenging.〔 Edward Robinson identified more than 100 biblical place names in Palestine, by pursuing his belief that linguistic analysis of the place names used by the Arab fellahin would reveal preserved traces of their ancient roots.〔Swedenburg, 2003, p. 49.〕〔Davis, 2004, p. 6.〕 The PEF's ''Names and Places in the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha, with their Modern Identifications'' (1895) lists more than 1,150 place names related to the Old Testament and 162 related to the New, most of which are located in Palestine.〔Macalister, 1977, p. 79.〕 These surveys by Robinson the PEF, and other Western biblical geographers in late 19th and early 20th centuries, also eventually contributed to the shape of the borders delineated for the British Mandate in Palestine, as proposed by the League of Nations.〔 With the establishment of Israel, in parts of Palestine, many place names have since been Hebraized or are referred to by their revived Biblical names.〔 Even sites with only Arabic names and no pre-existing ancient Hebrew names or associations have been given new Hebrew names.〔Swedenburg, 2003, p. 50.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Place names of Palestine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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