Landscape unbounded: space, place, and orientation in 5Akhoe Hai//om and beyond

Even before it became a common place to assume that ‘‘the Eskimo have a hundred words for snow’’ the languages of hunting and gathering people have played an important role in debates about linguistic relativity concerning geographical ontologies. Evidence from languages of huntergatherers has been used in radical relativist challenges to the overall notion of a comparative typology of generic natural forms and landscapes as terms of reference. It has been invoked to emphasize a personalized relationship between humans and the non-human world. It is against this background that this contribution discusses the landscape terminology of5Akhoe Hai//om, a Khoisan language spoken by ‘‘Bushmen’’ in Namibia. Landscape vocabulary is ubiquitous in 5Akhoe Hai//om due to the fact that the landscape plays a critical role in directionals and other forms of ‘‘topographical gossip’’ and due to merges between landscape and group terminology. This system of landscapecum-group terminology is outlined and related to the use of place names in the area. 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.