The Term “Bayou” in the United States: A study in the Geography of Place Names

Abstract

N astonishing volume of material has been published on place names in the A6 United States. But when one examines this abundance one is impressed by the fact that practically all of the serious place-name studies have been done by philologists from a linguistic point of view; few of these studies have been done by geographers, or from a geographic point of view.1 Place names may be considered as significant in the cultural landscape as are house types, field patterns, or modes of transport. From this point of view, the classification and distribution of place names is as much in the field of geography as the etymology of these terms is in the field of philology. Moreover, place names are persistent cultural traits, the character and distribution of which may indicate the spread of people and ideas at various times. It is well known that European geographers and historians have long employed place names as aids in tracing human migrations and even in reconstructing the former vegetation cover of certain areas.2 For the geographer and historian one of the most significant aspects of placename study involves the origin, spread, and present distribution of the generic parts of toponyms. Generic terms dealing with physical features in the United States, such as brook, run, butte, and hollow, are generally the more meaningful parts of geographic names, for they are durable language forms, originally associated with definite culture groups. The same can be said for generic terms that deal