Loptuq perception of waterscapes

What is it about?

Toponyms and hydronyms encode important information about human perceptions of the environment in a specific context. This article discusses the Loptuq, a group of Turkic-speakers, who until the 1950s lived as fishers-foragers at the Lower Tarim River, Taklamakan desert. Their use of common reed (Phragmites australis) is an example of the close connection between language, culture, social relations, economic activities, and human perceptions about the surrounding environment. Operating in lakes and swamps for their economic activities (fishing, hunting, foraging, and occasional transport), exploring and observing vegetation and animal life, the Loptuq developed and transmitted information through naming their habitat.

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Photo by Rishabh Dharmani on Unsplash

Photo by Rishabh Dharmani on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Today both the habitat of the Lop Lake (Lop Nor) and the earlier knowledge of the Loptuq have disappeared, but the perceptions and uses of resources can at least partly be reconstructed through foreign explorers’ narratives and field notes. The naming of the waterscape environment helped the Loptuq to pinpoint, describe, and transmit information. The toponyms can today be seen as a history book and mental map of the Lop Nor area at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, seen through the eyes of the local inhabitants, the Loptuq. Important ecological, economic, and social information, crucial for a fishing-hunting-foraging culture subsisting on a waterscape, were embedded in the toponyms and hydronyms and other expressions for the environment. The abundance of different reed-related names reflected the importance of reed in Loptuq everyday life, culture, collective memory, and understanding and perception of their surroundings.

Perspectives