Bula Kafe in Florida Photo: Facebook / Bula Kafe

According to this article at Radio New Zealand, Pacific leaders meeting in New Zealand are outraged by the commonly-used Fijian greeting, “bula” being trademarked by a US businessman who runs and owns three businesses spread across Florida – Bula Kafe, Bula on the Beach and Bula Coco Beach. Many people have left negative reviews of the businesses on Facebook. The “bula” logo has appeared on many of products and advertising, from signage and bottle branding, to “bula babe shorts”. It is not the first time US businesses have been accused of cultural appropriation. For example, Illinois restaurant chain “Aloha Poke Company” has recently copped criticism for sending cease and desist letters to other restaurants using the word “aloha”. The New Zealand Minister for Pacific Peoples said: “This is a disturbing revelation and will be distressful not only to Fijians in New Zealand but to all Fijians throughout the world. It is unbelievable that a company from another country can trademark what belongs to another group of people.”

Together with the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University, the Institute for Language and Folklore will host the Sixth International conference on Names in the Economy in Uppsala, Sweden, on 3–5 June 2019. This conference will focus on the economy or the economic aspects that are hidden or evident in various types of names; how names can hold different values and how names can be used or mis-used to create values, how names are used in branding and how names can be means in a global world. More details in Swedish about this event can be found here: www.sprakochfolkminnen.se/NITE6.

The Welsh Place-Name Society‘s (Cymdeithas Enwau Lleoedd Cymru) autumn day conference will be held in conjunction with the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSBI), and will take place at Bangor University on Saturday 6 October 2018.

A PDF version of the day’s events can be downloaded here.

Announcing the Fifth International Conference on Onomastics Name and Naming: The event will be held September 3-5, 2019, in Baia Mare, Romania. It will focus on “Multiculturalism in Onomastics”. Further information about the conference can be found on the ICONN 5 website.

Multiculturalism is a more and more prominent topic in contemporary international public space, whether one considers it in relation to politics, religion, ethnicity or culture. In what onomastics is concerned, multiculturalism appears in all its subfields. In toponymy, for instance, in multi-ethnic areas there are names with etymologies from different languages; when analysed in diachrony, these names testify to the history and geography of the places in question. In anthroponymy, the multicultural element is associated with religion, ethnic belonging and the onomastic fashion of a certain age. In ergonymy, multiculturalism mirrors the configuration of the present-day world, in which globalisation determines the existence of an increasingly diverse landscape, as regards names of companies, brands and products.

The Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment at the University of the Free State (UFS), in partnership with the Joint IGU/ICA Commission on Toponymy, is pleased to announce the next biannual international symposium on place names. The 5th International Symposium on Place Names: Recognition, regulation, revitalisation: place names and indigenous languages will be held at Mont d’Or Hotel, Clarens, South Africa, 18-20 September 2019.

The toponymic landscape of any place is inscribed with names from different periods of human history. These place names are not only records of natural and social events, but also of indigenous languages and language contact. Very often, place names are all that remain of certain languages and even communities. However, place names are often not recorded in their original languages, but have been adapted or translated into other languages over time. Researching the etymology of place names is one way of uncovering this treasure of indigenous knowledge. ISPN 2019 aims to explore the
processes of researching, maintaining and restoring indigenous place names, as well as the preservation and promotion of the indigenous languages from which these place names originate.

Keynotes
Prof Charles Pfukwa (Bindura University of Science Education, Bindura, Zimbabwe)
Prof Peter Jordan (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria)

Potential subtopics

• Place names and indigenous languages
• Etymology of indigenous place names
• Regulation and standardisation of indigenous place names
• Indigenous place names and language development/maintenance/promotion/revitalisation
• Indigenous place names as artefacts of languages, cultures or historical events
• Other dimensions of indigenous place names: Administrative, commercial and/or economic, cultural and historical/commemorative, linguistic, physical, political

The first call for papers will go out in November 2018.

The announcement can be downloaded as a PDF here.

Registration is now open for Names and Identity in the Medieval World: The 2018 Medium Ævum Day Conference, to be held Oct. 27th, in Glasgow, Scotland, at the University of Glasgow. Medium Ævum is the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature.

Speakers include:

• John Hines (University of Cardiff)
• Kelly Kilpatrick (University of Wales)
• Dauvit Brown (University of Glasgow)
• John Baker (University of Nottingham)
• Carole Hough (University of Glasgow)

For the full program and registration, please visit the Medium Ævum website.