Toponymy on Norfolk Island, South Pacific: The Microcosm of Nepean Island

Norfolk Island, South Pacific provides linguists a near laboratory case study in naming, language contact and environmental management. The two languages spoken on the island, Norf’k – the language of the descendents of the Pitcairners – and English, are both used in placenaming. This study analyses the toponyms of Nepean Island, a small uninhabitable island 800 metres south of Norfolk, and poses the question of whether Nepean is a microcosm of naming behaviour for the rest of the Norfolk macrocosm. For its size Nepean Island offers a large number of toponyms and suggests a toponymic template applicable to the Norfolk archipelago as a whole. This analysis offers some results one is likely to get from doing toponymic research on uninhabited island environments.