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Geographic Names Standardization Policy for the Marshall Islands

United States Board on Geographic Names

Foreign Names Committee

March 2019

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1. Introduction This geographic names standardization policy has been prepared as an aid to those geographic names experts who are the working staff for the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) in the standardization of the geographic names of the Marshall Islands for United States Government use. The BGN and its staff work to effect consistent treatment of geographic name spellings in US Government databases, publications, maps, and charts. The country policies are intended to satisfy, in part, the statutory requirements levied upon the BGN in Public Law USC 80-242 to develop principles, policies and procedures for geographic names standardization, and to promulgate decisions with respect to the principles of geographic nomenclature and orthography.

2. Languages and Language Policy

a. Demographics As of 2011, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a country of 29 atolls – themselves comprised of about 1,225 islets – and five isolated islands, has a population of 53,158, 73.8 percent of whom live on Majuro (pop. 27,797) and Kwajalein (pop. 11,408). Twenty-two of the atolls and four of the islands are uninhabited. Combined, the Marshall Islands occupy 181.3km² (70mi², about the size of Washington, DC). A total of 3,250 foreign-born persons live on the islands, 43.6 percent from the United States (22.1 percent, mainland; 21.5 percent, Hawaii), 16.5 percent from the Philippines, 9.6 percent from China, 8.4 percent from Kiribati, 7.4 percent from the Federated States of Micronesia, and the rest from other Pacific islands, Asia, and non-Asian countries.1 The country is named after William Marshall, a British naval commander who visited the islands in 1788.

b. Language Marshallese (ISO-693-3 code ‘mah’; variant: Ebon; Marshallese: Kajin ṂajeỊ) and English are the official languages of the Marshall Islands.2 An Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family, Marshallese has two mutually intelligible dialects, Rālik and Ratak, named after the western and eastern island chains where they are spoken. For the purposes of this policy, these dialects differ only in the pronunciation of a few archaic place names.

1 Republic of the Marshall Islands 2011 Census Report, published by the Economic Policy, Planning and Statistics Office, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Statistics for Development Programme, Noumea, New Caledonia, 2012. Economic Policy, Planning and Statistics Office (EPPSO): Republic of the Marshall Islands. English. <prism.spc.int/images/census_reports/Marshall_Islands_Census_2011-Full.pdf> Accessed November 15, 2018. 2 The Customary Law and Language Commission Act of 2004 created the Customary Law and Language Commission, whose duties include encouraging the ‘preservation, development and use of the Marshallese language,’ as well as recommending action ‘to be taken by the Government of the Marshall Islands or by any other person, organization or authority for the preservation, development and use of the Marshallese language.’ Nitijela: The Parliament of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, ‘Principal and Amending Acts Passed in the Year 2005.’ English. <rmiparliament.org/cms/> November 15, 2018.

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c. Geographic Names Standardization No Marshallese government entity is responsible for standardizing place names; however, an extensive appendix to the Marshallese-English Dictionary (MED), the official lexicon of the Marshallese language, contains over three thousand toponyms analyzed for phonemic accuracy and grammatical meaning. The spelling of these names should be considered standard. All of the names and their meanings cited in this policy come from the MED. Appendix E describes the history of Marshallese orthography and the role of the Dictionary therein.

3. Toponymic Policies

a. Orthography The Marshallese alphabet consists of the following Latin letters and diacritical characters:

A a, Ā ā, B b, D d, E e, I i, J j, K k, L l, L l, M m, M m, N n, N n, N� n, O o, O o, Ō ō, U u, Ū ū, W w

A complex system of rules governs Marshallese pronunciation.3 Several Marshallese phonemes are foreign to English.4 For example, English has single phonemes for l and r, whereas Marshallese has three each. The MED, the Marshallese Online Dictionary (MOD, the regularly updated electronic version of the MED), and the Marshallese Reference Grammar (MRG) include phonemic transcriptions of words and place names, based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, in addition to the standard spelling made official by the Marshallese Language Orthography (Standard Spelling) Act of 2010.5

The original Committee on Spelling Marshallese (COSM), a group of linguists and native Marshallese speakers, recommended that some mark, not necessarily a cedilla ( ¸ ), distinguish heavy consonants (pronounced with the tongue raised to the soft palette) and the back rounded o (uttered with the tongue at the back of the mouth and rounded lips).6 In the MED, a cedilla serves this purpose; in the MOD, a sub-dot ( . ) does. Further, N� n appear in the MED and the MOD with a tilde ( ~ ). For consistency, the BGN recommends the sub-dot and macron in place of the cedilla and the tilde.

3 For a full discussion of Marshallese pronunciation, see chapter 2, ‘The Sound System of Marshallese’ (pp. 17-114), of the Marshallese Reference Grammar (MRG). 4 Phonemes are those sounds in a language that distinguish one word from another. For example, /b/ and /p/ are separate phonemes in the English words bit and pit. 5 The Marshallese Language Orthography (Standard Spelling) Act of 2010 was passed to ‘declare the correct way of writing Marshallese words and phrases with the proper letters, usages and spelling,’ and to ‘ensure spelling used in written publication conforms to the standardized orthography.’ The Act stipulates that ‘[a]ny government body, agency or any private institution or organization that engages in publishing of Marshallese materials as a mode of learning or communication shall conform with the Standardized Spelling Rule as set out in the Marshallese English Dictionary published by the University Press of Hawaii, as amended.’ Nitijela: The Parliament of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. English. <rmiparliament.org/cms/> Accessed November 15, 2018. 6 Byron W. Bender, ‘Special characters for producing Marshallese text available in new Unicode fonts.’ See MOD, footnote 3.

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b. Romanization Marshallese does not require romanization.

c. Diacritics The following diacritics are found in Marshallese geographic names. Note that Unicode values do not exist for every Marshallese letter:

Character Name Character Unicode Value Alternative Code A with macron, Latin capital letter Ā 0100

A with macron, Latin small letter ā 0101

L with sub-dot, Latin capital letter L 0323+AltX

L with sub-dot, Latin small letter l 0323+AltX

M with sub-dot, Latin capital letter M 0323+AltX

M with sub-dot, Latin small letter m 0323+AltX

N with sub-dot, Latin capital letter N 0323+AltX

N with sub-dot, Latin small letter n 0323+AltX

N with macron, Latin capital letter N� 0304+AltX

N with macron, Latin small letter n 0304+AltX

O with sub-dot, Latin capital letter O 0323+AltX

O with sub-dot, Latin small letter o 0323+AltX

O with macron, Latin capital letter Ō 014C

O with macron, Latin small letter ō 014D

U with macron, Latin capital letter Ū 016A

U with macron, Latin small letter ū 016B

d. Generic Terms A generic term describes a geographic feature (e.g., ‘river,’ ‘hill,’ ‘lake’). If the term does not identify the actual feature, it should be considered a false generic and not be added to the generic field of the Geographic Names Database (GNDB). Generic terms are not collected for populated places in the Marshall Islands. Appendix A contains a reference of Marshallese generic terms that may be seen in approved names.

e. Hyphenation, Capitalization, and Spelling Hyphenation Perhaps more than half of Marshallese place names contain hyphens, sometimes several. A hyphen must connect separate parts of a name:

• Bat-kan (Majuro tract) • Jipkōn-ak-en (Namorik tract)

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• Lo-bok-en-rālik (Jaluit tract) • Aeto-in-aelōn-jab-en (Kwajalein tract) Capitalization Capitalize the first letter of all Marshallese place names. Elements following should be in lower case (see examples above), unless they are proper nouns. Hence:

• Bōrā-jojoon (Majuro tract), where jojoon means ‘to pile up,’ an infinitive verb, but • Bōrā-Lōbo (Ailinglapalap islet), where Lōbo is a personal name

Likewise:

• Bok-Lemjān (Erikub islet), where Lemjān is the name of a legendary woman • Mōn-Bukdol (Arno tract), where Bukdol is a variety of breadfruit • To-Lowakanle (variant: To-Lowakalle; Arno channel), where Lowakanle is the name of a

man eaten by sharks ca. 1880 as he tried to swim the pass that now bears his name The prefix ri- induces a handful of exceptions to the capitalization rules. When attached to a place name, ri- indicates ‘a person from.’ Hence, ri-Amedka is ‘a person from America’ (i.e., an American). In the Marshall Islands, where birthplace often determined genealogy, the combination without hyphen becomes a matrilineal clan name: • RiEpatōn, a clan from Epatōn (Kwajalein islet) • RiKuwajleen, a clan from Kuwajleen (atoll) • RiPikaarej, a clan from Pikaarej (Arno islet) Similarly, the adjective Pit means ‘Gilbertese,’ ri-Pit signifies ‘a person from Kiribati,’ and RiPit is a clan name. When preceded by a generic, however, the clan name becomes a place name. A hyphen separates the generic from the proper noun, while ri appears again in lower case: • Bokwā-riPit (Wotje islet), where bokwā is the archaic construct form (see Appendix A) of

bok (current construct form, bokwan), ‘sandspit’ • Toon-riPit (Wotje channel), where toon is the current construct form of to, ‘channel’

Spelling: Reduplication As in other languages of Oceania, reduplication — repetition of all or part of a morpheme, the smallest grammatical unit in a language, to intensify or pluralize — occurs in Marshallese:

• Āne-kūbwebwe (Bikini tract), where āne = ‘islet’ and kūbwebwe = ‘much feces’ (from kūbwe, ‘feces’)

• Bok-dikdik (Arno islet; Mili islet; Mili tract), where bok = ‘sandbar’ and dikdik = ‘very small’ (from dik, ‘small’)

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• Kiden-laplap (Rongelap tract), where kiden = ‘beach borage’7 and laplap = ‘very large’ (from lap, ‘large’)

Spelling: Generic Terms Generic terms may appear in one of three forms: original, current construct, or archaic construct. For example, em (original form) means ‘house.’ When combined with other elements in a place name, em may become mōn (current construct) or appear as mwe (archaic construct) in older maps. The following tract names contain some form of the Marshallese generic for ‘house’ (emphasis added):

• Em-maan-en (Likiep tract), ‘pandanus leaf house’ • Mōn-lu-ni (Ujae tract), ‘house at the coconut tree’ • Mwe-dekā (Majuro tract), ‘house of stones’

Em has also undergone further distortion over time:

• Mūtwelōn (Majuro tract), ‘house of (lightning-)damaged (tree) tops’ • Mwi-rōkin-ut (Majuro tract), ‘house south of the flowers’ • Mwin-ijo (Utrik tract; Wotje tract; Maloelap tract; Maloelap household; Arno tract; Mili

tract), ‘house of good soil’ Other generics possess their own construct forms, which can change in unpredictable ways (see Appendix A).

Spelling: The Locative Particle, Lo The prefix, Lo, which may have been part of a word whose meaning has been lost, attaches to nouns to signify ‘at’ or ‘in.’ Dozens of Marshallese place names begin with this locative:

• Lo-bōl (Kwajalein tract), ‘at the taro pit’ • Lo-jiādel (Ailinglapalap tract), ‘at the chief’s bath’ • Lo-mejādik (Ailinglapalap tract), ‘at the small (dik) gash (mejā) in the reef’ • Lo-u (Kwajalein tract), ‘at the fish trap’ Lo may also appear as the preposition Lo:

• Lo-kālōklōk (Lae tract), ‘at the thorny tree’ • Lo-nen-ko (Mejit tract), ‘at the nen trees’ • Lo-ran (Kwajalein tract), ‘on top of it’ Spelling: The Demonstrative, -en The third person singular demonstrative, -en (‘that’), is appended to the end of many place names:

7 A flowering plant

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• Aelōn-jab-en (Kwajalein district), ‘that atoll’ • Jul-en (Arno islet), ‘that sprout’ • Lo-mwe-en (Majuro tract), ‘at that place of brown fronds’

f. Long and Short Forms The only long-form Marshallese geographic name seems to be that of the independent political entity (PCLI) itself:

• Long form: Republic of the Marshall Islands Short form: Marshall Islands

Short forms of geographic names may appear on maps and lists. Long and short forms of names of populated places are approved when supported by official evidence. In most instances, the short name should be ranked as the primary one.

g. Abbreviations Abbreviations do not occur in Marshallese geographic names.

h. Numbers Marshallese geographic names containing cardinal or ordinal numbers are very rare. When collected, append the former to the end of the place name. Spelling of the number may require modification from the dictionary form:

• Āne-ruo (Kwajalein tract) = ‘two islets,’ from āne (‘islet,’ ‘island’) + ruo (‘two’), but o Mājro = māj (‘openings’) + ro (from ruo, ‘two’)

• Lo-alitōk (Wotho tract; Wotje tract) = lo (locative particle ‘at’?) + alitōk (from ruwalitōk, ‘eight’)

• Ele-jibukwi (Ailuk tract) = ‘one hundred on the fish string,’ from ele (variant of ile, ‘wire for stringing fish’) + jibukwi (‘one hundred’)

Ordinal numbers or numbers as quantities may appear prepositioned or postpositioned and in modified form. For example, matol means ‘a third’ and appears in the following place names (emphasis added): • Lo-Matol (Mejit tract) = ‘at the third’ • Matlan (Aur tract) = ‘a third of it’ • Matol-ej (Majuro tract) = ‘third part’ • Metlanel (Ebon tract) = ‘third part of the nest’ When in doubt regarding any of the above orthographic principles, the analyst is advised to consult the gazetteer section of the MED or the MOD for the definitive spelling of a given place name.

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4. Political Geography Policy

a. Country Name English short form Marshall Islands English long form Republic of the Marshall Islands Local form Aolepān Aorōkin Majel

b. Capital Name English Majuro Marshallese Mājro

c. First-order Administrative Divisions (ADM1) The Nitijela, or legislature, of the Marshall Islands consists of 33 members elected from the following electoral districts, which also serve as ADM1s and are the only inhabited atolls: English Marshallese GENC GEC

1. Ailinglaplap (Ailinglapalap) Aelōnlaplap MH-ALL RM01 2. Ailuk Aelok MH-ALK RM02 3. Arno Arno MH-ARN RM03 4. Aur Aur MH-AUR RM04 5. Ebon Epoon MH-EBO RM06 6. Enewetak & Ujelang Ānewetak & Wūjlan MH-ENI RM07 7. Jabat Jebat MH-JAB RM08 8. Jaluit Jālwōj MH-JAL RM09 9. Bikini & Kili Pikinni & Kōle MH-KIL RM05

10. Kwajalein Kuwajleen MH-KWA RM10 11. Lae Lae MH-LAE RM11 12. Lib Ellep MH-LIB RM12 13. Likiep Likiep MH-LIK RM13 14. Majuro Mājro MH-MAJ RM14 15. Maloelap Maloelap MH-MAL RM15 16. Mejit Mājej MH-MEJ RM16 17. Mili Mile MH-MIL RM17 18. Namdrik Namdik MH-NMK RM18 19. Namu Namo MH-NMU RM19 20. Rongelap Ronlap MH-RON RM20 21. Ujae Ujae MH-UJA RM21 22. Utrik (Utirik) Utrok MH-UTI RM22 23. Wotho Wotto MH-WTH RM23 24. Wotje Wojjā MH-WTJ RM24

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d. Conventional Names The Marshall Islands country file in the GNDB contains no Conventional names. To remove or add Conventional names, BGN approval is required.

e. Unique Geopolitical Situations For the latest country-specific boundary dispute information, consult the US Department of State Office of the Geographer and Global Issues.

Wake Island Wake Island (Marshallese: Ānen-kio; variants: Eneen-kio or Enen-kio; also known as Wake Atoll) is an unorganized, unincorporated United States territory consisting of three coral islets (Peale, Wake, and Wilkes) lying ~1,440km/895mi north of Majuro. The Republic of the Marshall Islands claims Wake Island. 8

8 See Wake Island National Historical Landmark [HALS No. UM-1 (May 2011)], a report by the Historic American Landscapes Survey, National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior.

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Base map: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Nautical Chart 81664, Edition 7 (detail). <www.charts.noaa.gov/PDFs/81664.pdf> Inset (lower left): Maps of the World, ‘Maps of Australia and Oceania.’ <www.maps-of-the-world.net> Inset (upper right): The University of Texas at Austin, ‘Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection-Maps of Australia and the Pacific’ <legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/australia/west_pacific_islands98.jpg> All accessed November 15, 2018.

5. Source Material

Maps Operational Navigational Chart (ONC), 1:1,000,000 Scale

ONC L-16 Marshall Islands; Republic of Kiribati. U.S. Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center, compiled 1975, revised 1984.

Tactical Pilotage Charts (TPC), 1:500,000 Scale:

TPC K-15C. U.S. Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center, compiled 1982, revised 1996. TPC K-15D. U.S. Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center, compiled 1982. TPC L-16A. U.S. Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center, compiled 1992.

Available via the University of Texas at Austin, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. <http://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/onc/> and <http://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/tpc/> Abo, Takaji, Byron W. Bender, Alfred Capelle, Tony Debrum. Marshallese Online Dictionary (MOD). For relative location, consult the virtual map on the webpage, ‘Place Names of the Marshall Islands – Atoll/Island Locator Index.’ Hovering the cursor over the outline of an atoll reveals the place name, while left-clicking takes one to alphabetical lists of names on the atoll, arranged by feature (e.g., channel, district, islet, tract). Hovering over place names in columns to the right and left causes a pop-up label to appear on the map over the respective feature. <http://www.trussel2.com/mod/locator.htm>

Place Names Abo, Takaji, Byron W. Bender, Alfred Capelle, Tony Debrum (1976). Marshallese-English Dictionary (MED). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i. The MED and MOD contain over 3,000 place names of the Marshall Islands, more than two-thirds of them belonging to tracts (wāto) and households (eoonlā), the customary divisions of land. The remaining names include islets, shoals, sandbars, corals, rocks, channels, districts (bukwōn), and atolls. See ‘Place Names of the Marshall Islands,’ pp. 503-589. The MOD is available via: <http://www.trussel2.com/mod/medintro5.htm>

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Bender, Byron W., Alfred Capelle, Louise Pagotto (2016). Marshallese Reference Grammar. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i. Discusses atoll environment, origins of the Marshallese language, differences between the Rālik and Ratak dialects, and place name construction.

Studies Bender, Byron W. (1963). A Linguistic Analysis of the Place-Names of the Marshall Islands. Unpublished dissertation. Indiana University. The scholarly foundation for the exhaustive, definitive gazetteers in the MED and the MOD. Bender’s analysis and use of phonemic transcription, all informed by native speakers of Marshallese, will be of particular interest to linguists. The Pacific Collection of the Hamilton Library at the University of Hawai‘i has a hard copy available for in-house perusal. Also available for a fee via <www.proquest.com/products-services/dissertations>, publication #6400445. LaBriola, Monica C. (2013). Likiep Kapin Iep: Land, Power, and History on a Marshallese Atoll. Unpublished dissertation. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. See pp. 275-284 for a discussion of land tract ownership, transfer, and partition on Likiep atoll. Spennemann, Dirk H.R. (1993). Ennaanin Etto: Essays on the Marshallese Past. Majuro: RMI Ministry of Internal Affairs, Historic Preservation Office. See the essay, ‘Traditional Land Management in the Marshall Islands,’ for a clear, illustrated discussion of wāto zonation patterns over time. Also available on the website Marshalls: Digital Micronesia, ‘Essays on the Marshallese Past.’ <http://marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/essays/es-tslm-2.html>

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Appendix A: Glossary of Generic Terms Emeritus Professor of Linguistics Byron W. Bender (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa) spent six years on the Marshall Islands collecting all of the local place names and analyzing them for grammatical meaning.9 Though many derivations have been lost due to the lack of historical records, Bender identified numerous generic terms, along with their current construct and archaic forms, found in Marshallese place names. These generics are gathered in the table below. Note that ‘Feature Designation Code’ refers to the generic term itself, not necessarily to the specific place name. For example, Mōn-aitwe-en means ‘that house of conflict’ but designates a land tract on Maloelap, not a house (HSE) or a building (BLDG).

Generic Current Form

Archaic Form Examples Feature

Designation Code aba10 — — HBR

aelōn aelōnin aelōni Aelōnlaplap,Aelōnin-ae ATOL ISL

ajjuur — — HUT āne āneen — Āne-moon,Ānen-emmaan ISL ar arōn are Arjaltok,Arōn-pako-ean BCH11 atake — — GDN12 bar bōran bōrā Barlap,Bōran-aelōn-en,Bōrā-jojoon RK bat batin bati Bati-dān-maaj,Bat-doulul,Batin-orlap HLL bok bokwan bokwā Bok-jā-ej,Bokwan-ilel,Bokwā-jine SAND bōke būkien būkie Bōke-juwalōnlōn,Būkien-kālōn CAPE bukwōn — — Bukwōn-en-iolap PPL em mōn mwe Mōn-aitwe-en,Mwe-diktak HSE

ial — — TRL RD

jiki- jikin — Jikin-jerbal,Jikin-wa-iōn LCTY jukjuk13 — — PPL kina — kina Kina-jon SHOL

lōb — — GRVE PND

lam — — Lam-en BAY

lārooj — — Ḷārooj ATOL ISL

lomalo — — LGN

9 A remarkable feat of toponymy, as Bender notes: ‘Compared with many other linguistic studies in which one must attempt to sum up in a finite statement a corpus of infinite size, our study is distinctive in having a finite corpus which is at the same time exhaustive. And it is rare in placename studies to find that one can treat all the names of one ethnic or political unit and language within the scope of one monograph’ (1963, p. 246). 10 From English ‘harbor’ 11 ‘Lagoon beach,’ as opposed to ‘coastal beach’ 12 From Japanese ハタケ (hatake, ‘garden’) 13 Strictly, a district; however, on the Marshall Islands, the distinction between a village and the island upon which it is built blurs, the former traditionally taking the name of the latter.

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Generic Current Form

Archaic Form Examples Feature

Designation Code makūt14 — — Makūt MKT malo — — Malo-elap LGN mej(je) — — Mej-en,Mejje-en CHN mōn jar — — CH mōn jikuul — — SCH mōn kweilok — — BLDG15 muriniej — — ANS nam nam — Nam-ke,Nam-olar LGN na naan — Na-kan-ej,Na-rur-en,Naan-merā SHOL pedped — — RF pelaak — — Pelaak AREA pelak — — Pelak HUT penak — penak Penak BAY pi(e)o — pieo Pienmen,Piole-en LCTY ron ron — Ronron,Ronōnnōbban CAVE tarkijet — — BCH to to,toon — To-lap,Toon-Komle,Toon-wōd CHN to to — To-en,To-lokmaan PND tol tol — Tol-en-rālik,Tol-en-reeaar HLL

wab16 wab — Wab-en DCK WHRF

wāto wātuon wātue Wāto-aidikdik,Wātuon,Wātoon-pel, Wātuwe-lōn

AREA CULT

wōd wōden wōde Wōd-jebwā,Wōden-katolok,Wōde-na RFC wōja wōjaan wōjā Wōja-armej,Wōjaan-kōtak, HUT wūliej — — Wūleej CMTY wūn wūnin wūni Wūni-na,Wūnin-ekjab,Wūnoon-kan AREA

Appendix B: Directions in Marshallese Place Names

Marshallese English Example ean north Ean-bok-en (‘north of the sandspit’) jabar ‘lagoon side of’ liki(n) ‘ocean side of’ Likin-lolinmak (‘ocean side of the shape of a needlefish’) rak south Raki-jāār (‘south of where we beach’) rālik west Tol-en-rālik (‘the mountain, west section’) reeaar east Tol-en-reeaar (‘the mountain, east section’) rōk south Aerōk (‘southern current’)

14 From English ‘market’ 15 A townhouse or village meeting house 16 From English ‘wharf’

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Appendix C: First-Order Administrative Division (ADM1) Map of the Marshall Islands

Base map: Australian National University: Maps Online: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, ‘Marshall Islands base.’ English. <asiapacific.anu.edu.au/mapsonline/base-maps/marshall-islands-base> Inset: Maps of the World, ‘Maps of Australia and Oceania.’ English. <www.maps-of-the-world.net>

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Appendix D: The Wāto, or Land Tract The MED and the MOD contain more than 2,000 names of land tracts (wāto) and households (eoonlā), a subdivision thereof. A wāto, one to five acres in expanse, traditionally runs from lagoon to ocean shore. This division provides inhabitants access to several geographic features necessary for life on the islands: fresh and sea water, soil (if sometimes barely tillable), and natural vegetation (e.g., coconut, breadfruit, pandanus).17 The image below shows a diagrammatic cross-section of an early zonation scheme: Source: Dirk H.R. Spennemann. Marshalls: Digital Micronesia, ‘Traditional Land Management in the Marshall Islands.’ English. <marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/essays/es-tslm-2.html> As population increased, families and clans subdivided tracts, so that some no longer bordered a lagoon or the ocean. Place names reflect such historical subdivisions. For example, Eoon-maaj is a wāto on Majuro that was divided to accommodate the needs of inheritance or land transfer. The new tract formed therefrom is called Likin-Eoon-maaj, where Likin means ‘on the ocean side of.’18 Colonial practices also affected the landscape. Germans, for example, who occupied the Marshall Islands from 1885 to 1914, exploited the land for copra, dried coconut meat from which oil is extracted, transforming many tracts into plantations. One can still see unnaturally dense concentrations of coconut palms on the islands. The following image shows a diagrammatic cross-section of an atoll from the colonial era. Note the density of coconut palms in areas previously given to taro patches and breadfruit trees, traditional but less profitable agricultural products. Though the Germans departed over a century ago, copra remains the Marshall Islands’ most important commercial export.

17 If the atoll upon which a wāto lies be exceptionally wide, the tract may be divided transversely into two or more individual lots called eeonlā. 18 Special thanks to Byron Bender for providing this example and explanation. Similar cases may be surmised: Bōreo and Likin-Bōreo, Ekalur and Likin-Ekalur, Malok, and Likin-Malok, etc.

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Source: Spennemann, op cit. Despite the national traumas of colonial exploitation, epidemic disease, ethnic cleansing, mass relocation, world war, and nuclear testing, the wāto system continues on the atolls. Families and clans keep informal maps of subdivisions, but these are few, difficult to come by, and usually of limited use to the cartographer who requires precise feature coordinates: Map and detail (undated) showing wāto ownership on Likiep atoll. Capital letters signify tract names. Personal names belong to beneficiaries of landowners Anton De Brum and Adolf Capelle. Source: LaBriola, p. 281.

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U.S.C.C. map and detail of Arno atoll, enhanced with place name data showing wāto ownership. Note the phonemic transcriptions throughout, necessary because Marshallese orthography had not been standardized at the time of data collection. Source: Bender 1963, p. 143.

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Appendix E: History of Marshallese Orthography Marshallese was an oral language until Christian missionaries George Pierson, M.D., Edward Topping Doane, and Hezekiah Aea arrived on Ebon in December 1857.19 Within three years, Doane and Aea published a Marshallese primer and hymnal using a Latin-based alphabet. By August 1861, they distributed among their congregation a Marshallese translation of the gospel of Matthew. Pierson, Doane, and Aea completed a translation of the New Testament in 1885. Portions of the Old Testament followed over the decades, the entire Bible (Jeje Ko Rekwōjarjar) appearing in 1982.

The influence the Bible has exerted over Marshallese cannot be overstated.20 The orthography therein served many years as the de facto standard for public and private use. Newspapers, signs, and social media still employ this original (‘old’) spelling scheme. The missionaries devised a system to suit their pressing evangelical needs. Nevertheless, Pierson and Doane, though versant in Latin, New Testament Greek, and Biblical Hebrew, and Hawaiian-born Aea, fluent in his native language and in English, were not trained linguists. Orthographic and phonetic inconsistencies eventually became evident. Geopolitical events overtook their analysis and correction.

The Marshall Islands became a German protectorate in 1885 after purchase from Spain, which had claimed the atolls since 1592. Japan occupied Micronesia at the beginning of the First World War, driving out the Germans. In 1920, the League of Nations created the South Pacific Mandate from the islands and other territories of the former German empire. Japan governed the mandate islands as a colony, vastly increasing the regional population through Japanese settlement. On January 31, 1944, U.S. Marines and Army troops landed on Kwajalein, wresting control of the islands from the Japanese four days later. The Second World War, however, was merely a prelude to even greater devastation. The United States assumed trusteeship of the islands and between 1946 and 1958 conducted 67 nuclear tests on several of the atolls, many of which remain uninhabitable because of radioactivity.

During this time, the various administrative, colonial, and liberating powers carried out little scholarly investigation of the Marshallese language.21 Spain, Germany, and Japan provided limited education to the local populace, and then only in Spanish, German and English, and Japanese, respectively. Indeed, the latter became the lingua franca of Micronesia during the Japanese colonial period. When Americans captured the Marshall Islands in 1944, communication took place mainly through American-born children of Japanese immigrants

19 The Missionary Herald, containing the Proceedings of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions with a View of Other Benevolent Operations for the Year 1859. Vol. LV. Boston: T.R. Marvin and Son, 1859: p. 33. Wives Nancy, Sarah, and Deborah, respectively, accompanied these missionaries. 20 As Byron Bender observes, ‘[T]he Marshallese translation of the Bible constitutes the main portion of Marshallese literature. Many people know large portions of it by heart and it is often quoted or alluded to in daily idiom. The student who hopes to get at all close to Marshallese life and thought is advised to learn some of this language.’ Spoken Marshallese: An Intensive Language Course with Grammatical Notes and Glossary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1969: p. 96. 21 Which had implications for toponymy. As Bender states in his dissertation, ‘…we have no direct knowledge of the names of the Marshall Islands beyond the middle of the last [nineteenth] century, and what evidence we have since then and up until the time of this study is perhaps more revealing of how Marshallese names strike the ears of German, Japanese, or English speakers than any real variations within Marshallese’ (1963, p. 14).

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(nisei) serving in the military. During the 1960s, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI, administered by the United States 1947-1986) established an ‘English-only’ policy in Micronesia.22

Finally, in 1957, Byron W. Bender, then Language Adviser to the Director of Education of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and two of his native-Marshallese students collected the names of over 3,000 islets, land tracts, and other geographic features on the Marshall Islands. Bender gathered the names systematicaly, drawing upon the geographic, linguistic, and cultural expertise of native informants on each of the atolls and islands.23 Over the next six years, he analyzed these names to determine if they possessed grammatic meaning beyond their toponymic significance. He presented the results in his dissertation, A Linguistic Analysis of the Place-Names of the Marshall Islands. Because Marshallese orthography had not yet been standardized, Bender used a phonemic transcription based on the International Phonetic Alphabet:

Map of the Marshall Islands with names in phonemic transcription. Source: Bender 1963, p. 3 (appendix)

22 See Donald M. Topping, ‘Review of U.S. Language Policy in TTPI,’ in History of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Karen Knudsen (ed.). Honolulu: Center for Asia and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, 1985: pp. 105-132. 23 As Bender states: ‘The scope and purpose of this study [dissertation] is to present as completely and correctly as possible the names the Marshallese people have in their oral tradition for the places in their habitat they deem worthy of naming, and to indicate the relation of these names to other elements and the systems and patterns of their language, and secondarily, to their culture’ (1963, p. viii; see pages 31-35 for a full description of the methodology used to collect the names).

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In 1976, he and several colleagues published the Marshallese-English Dictionary, which became the definitive lexicon of the language.24 The Dictionary includes an appendix with the names from Bender’s dissertation, updated with what would become the standardized (‘new’) spelling. This list is the most extensive and authoritative gazetteer of Marshallese place names and will likely remain so. A Marshall Islands Land Office does exist, but records reside primarily within the memories of the extended families and clans that live on or have rights or claims to the wāto.

Appendix F: Marshallese Foreign Place Names The table below contains Marshallese place names based on foreign loan words. Cells without a feature designation code signify wāto, or tracts. Though often populated (PPL), tracts may also serve as farms (FRM), cultivated areas (CULT), or agricultural colonies (AGRC).

Marshallese Translation/ Transcription

Feature Designation Code

Location Etymology

Alajka Alaska Arno English Antonia Antonia Mili German Āne-Kōrea Kuria Atoll ATOL Kuria Gilbertese Bat-Itōn Eden Bikini,Kili Biblical Hebrew

Bok-tan bakudan Ailinglapalap Japanese for ‘bomb’ (爆弾)

Boon-alen Bonin Islands Ebon English Butaritari Butaritari Mejit Gilbertese Eika-en acre Ailinglapalap English Epe-ean Abaiang Arno Gilbertese

Iakjo yakusho BLDG Ujelang Japanese for ‘local government office’ (役所)

Intiia India Arno English Inlen England Arno English Itōbana ISL Jaluit Japanese(?) Janai Shanghai Bikini,Namo English Jāina China Ebon,Mili English Jāoon Zion ADMD Namorik Biblical Hebrew Jāmne Germany Wotje English

Jedko Jericho ISL Ujelang,Maloelap,Arno Biblical Hebrew Mejit,Likiep

24 See footnote 5. For an epistolary history of the effort to develop a consistent grammar and script for the Marshallese language, see Alfred Capelle and Byron W. Bender, ‘Dealing with the ABCs of Marshallese over Twenty Years.’ Pacific Languages in Education. France Mugler and John Lynch (eds.). Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies, 1996: pp. 36-75.

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Marshallese Translation/ Transcription

Feature Designation Code

Location Etymology

Jelo ‘Sail ho!’ Mejit English Jemene Germany Mejit English Jepaan Japan Jaluit English Jerea Syria ISL Ailinginae Biblical Hebrew Jidiia Mili Biblical Hebrew Jikako Chicago Lae English

Jiloon Ceylon ISL Arno,Jaluit English Arno,Lae Jinai Sinai ADMD Namorik Biblical Hebrew Jintao Qingtao Maloelap Chinese

Jipein Spain ISL Mili English Likiep

Jitni Sydney HSE Maloelap,Utirik

English ISL Mili Jaluit,Majuro

Joba sofa Wotje English Jotōm Sodom Ailinglapalap,Namo Biblical Hebrew Jurujilem Jerusalem Namorik Biblical Hebrew

Kakko gakkō Namo Japanese for ‘school’ (学校)

Kalboonea California Mejit English Kalele Galilee ISL Arno Biblical Hebrew Kaloonia Kolonia Arno German

Kamome kamome ISL Taongi Japanese for ‘seagull’ (鴎)

Kilbōt Gilbert Likiep English for Gilbert (Islands); today known as Kiribati

Kiole Namdik Spanish(?) Kioto Kyoto Arno,Namo,Wōjjā Japanese (京都) Kuria Kuria Arno,Mile Gilbertese (Kuria Atoll)

Kwōmijen commission Ujae English; possibly from Marshallese mijen, ‘you get sick from it’

Lantōn London Wōjjā English ISL Mile Mail mile Mājej English

Majel Marshall Wūjlan English district Namdik

Makin Makin Epoon,Jālwōj Gilbertese ISL Arno

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Marshallese Translation/ Transcription

Feature Designation Code

Location Etymology

Mālila Manila Jālwōj Tagalog

Melōke Mel ke Mile Ponapean for ‘Is it true?’

Merake Marakei (Atoll) Mile Gilbertese Merraki Pikinni Metwe Midway (Island) Likiep English Mōn-Katlik Catholic Arno English or German Mōn-kwōpej garbage(?) Lae English

Mwin-kude tokkuri(?) Nadikdik Japanese for ‘sake flask’ (德利)

Nauweej northeast Household Epoon English ISL Aelōn laplap Nawōdo Nawōdo ISL Aelōnlaplap Loan word (‘Nauru’) Nonmeea Nanumea Jālwōj Ellice Nonmeea Epoon,Mājro Nōnouj Nonouti (Atoll) Wōjjā Gilbertese Nuklāilāi Nukulaelae Aelōnlaplap Ellice

Nukne New Guinea ISL Kuwajleen

English Mājej,Namo,Utrōk Numakūt New Market Arno English Nupidkōn New Britain Arno English Nuwe Niue Mājro Niuean Nuwiook New York Wōjjā English Pāāllin-ean Berlin Aelok German Pāāllin-rak Patleem Bethlehem Mājej Biblical Hebrew

Pedi-Kalōle pād-Galilee Mājej Marshallese, Biblical Hebrew for ‘stay in Galilee’

Pejio Betio (Islet) Wōjjā Gilbertese Peljem Belgium Mājej English Perake Merake(?) ISL Maloelap Gilbertese Petōl Bethel District Namdik Biblical Hebrew Pijeto potato Mājej English Piji Fiji Arno Fijian Ruujia Russia Ānewetak English Taiti Tahiti Wōjjā

Toorwa Tawara

Arno

Gilbertese loan word Epoon Jālwōj Mile

Tōrwa ISL Maloelap

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Marshallese Translation/ Transcription

Feature Designation Code

Location Etymology

Waikiki Waikiki Jālwōj Hawaiian loan word

Wōtmwā Whitmer Aur From Captain Whitmer, member of the Jaluit Gesellschaft25

Wūntō window Mājej English Mājro Source: Abo et al (1976).

25 A colonial trade and administrative company active in the Pacific from 1887 to 1914.