Socio-Semantic Analysis of Place Names in Chagga-Uru

Place names have been studied mainly under linguistic field by several scholars who argue that place names have meaning though they differ in the way they are formed in each society. This study sought to scrutinize socio-semantic analysis of place names in Chagga-Uru, specifically, to identify place names found in Chagga-Uru, to examine the meanings of those place names and lastly to find out how Chagga-Uru place names relate to their socio-cultural background. The study employed qualitative method guided by causal theory of names and referential theory of meaning. The study employed explanatory research design with data collected using unstructured interviews and focus group discussions where 24 native speakers were consulted. Chagga-Uru place names are either villages, hamlets, names of farms, names of streams of water, names of ritual performing places and names of meeting places. The findings also show that Chagga-Uru place names have meanings derived from several aspects such as names of people, clan names, mountains, hills, economic activities, water sources, traditional food, wars, trees, farms and beliefs. Furthermore, the findings revealed that some place names describe the culture of the society such as traditions, norms and beliefs in natural power. We recommend that other studies should be conducted on place names in different Bantu and non Bantu languages focusing on linguistic fields such as morpho-semantics, sociolinguistics, mopho-syntax and phonology.