Entre nomes e territórios: a toponímia dos acidentes humanos rurais da Região Geográfica Intermediária de Dourados/MS

Abstract

Toponymy, a branch of Onomastics that studies toponyms, has as its object of study the proper names of places, considering linguistic and extralinguistic motivations. To this end, it is assumed that the naming of places can record both facts of the “human spirit” (Dick, 1992), as well as characteristic elements of the “physical or social environment” (Sapir, 1969), in which the denominator is inserted. This Thesis has as its object of research the toponymy of rural human accidents (farms, smallholdings, small farms, ranches, settlements) of the Intermediate Geographic Region of Dourados/MS (IBGE, 2017). The research corpus consists of 2,874 toponyms extracted from the official IBGE maps (2019), with a scale of 1:100,000, belonging to the 34 municipalities that make up the investigated area. The research aims to analyze the toponyms that name rural human accidents in the selected region, considering the motivation, morphological structure and linguistic basis of the specific term of the toponymic syntagm. To this end, the research seeks answers to two hypotheses: i) the border situation with the country of Paraguay, which is based on the Spanish language, and the significant presence of indigenous peoples contribute to the configuration of regional toponymy; ii) the choice of toponyms in border regions reflects the cultural and linguistic origins of the migratory groups that participated in the colonization process, evidencing the sociocultural dynamics of these movements. The research was fundamentally guided by the theoretical-methodological contributions of Dauzat (1926), Leite de Vasconcellos (1928), Stewart (1954), Backheuser (1949-1950), Sapir (1969), Dick (1990; 1992; 1998; 1999, 2004, 2010), Ananias (2018) and Isquerdo and Dargel (2020). In addition, the data were compared with results obtained by Dick (1990; 1992), Tavares (2004), Cazarotto (2019), Ananias (2018) and Oliveira (2023), to search for answers to the second hypothesis established for the research. The results of the research indicate a higher frequency of toponyms of an anthropocultural nature, with 66.25% of records, classified according to the following toponymic taxes (Dick, 1992): hagiotoponyms (24.74%), with the most frequent being São José, Santo Antônio, São João, Santa Maria; euphoric animotoponyms (11.55%) such as Boa Vista, Esperança and Paraíso; and anthropotoponyms (9.64%), with family nicknames such as Garcia, Martins and Silva standing out. On the other hand, toponyms of a physical nature reached 31.45%, with the highest frequency index being phytotoponyms (9.53%), such as Capão, Palmeira and Floresta; hydrotoponyms with 5.78%, with the most frequent being Água, Lagoa and Cabeceira; and zootoponyms with 5.05%, such as Sucuri and Vacaria. Unclassified toponyms: 2.30%. Compound toponyms predominate among the data (54.98%), followed by those with simple structures (40.98%), in addition to 4.04% unclassified, mostly indigenous-based. Toponyms formed by complex lexical units were identified, such as Vai-quem-quer, Passa frio and Olho d’água. Furthermore, the toponymy studied referendum the presence of the Lusitanian heritage in the naming of places, as well as influences from regional reality and migratory movements, which confirms the presence of linguistic-cultural hybridization in regional toponymy. In this sense, traces of influence from migratory groups originating from different parts of the Brazilian territory were identified in the toponymy studied, such as in the farms Santa Fé do Sul and Arroio Corá, which refer to linguistic elements characteristic of the southern regions of the country; toponyms such as Barretos, Aparecida do Norte, Copacabana and Mundo Novo, which show homages to locations in the Center-West and Southeast of Brazil. Another aspect observed was the historical-social influence of border regions on toponymy, in toponyms such as Rincão, Cerrito and Padilha-Cuê that attest to the presence of the official languages of Paraguay in the toponymy examined. In the five immediate regions that make up the selected region, the strong influence of historical events was evident, such as the Paraguayan War, whose memory crystallized in names such as Cadete-Cuê and Marquês-Cuê, Tereré. In addition to the aspects mentioned, the toponymy also refers to colonization processes that occurred in the region, such as that triggered by the “March to the West” colonization project in the southern region of the state, including border areas. The hypotheses established for this thesis were confirmed. The first, which suggested that the border situation with Paraguay and the significant presence of indigenous peoples contribute to the configuration of regional toponymy, was confirmed by the significant incidence of indigenous toponyms associated with languages that are official in several countries. The second confirmed hypothesis predicted that the choice of toponyms in border regions reflects the cultural and linguistic origins of the migratory groups that participated in the colonization process, a hypothesis also corroborated by the research. Keywords: Onomastics; Toponymy; Rural human accidents; Intermediate Region of Dourados/MS.; History.