An 1826 Plan for Rational Place Naming
/
A discussion yesterday with a student reminded me of a utopian proposal from the early nineteenth century, to create place names from cosmographical coordinates of latitude and longitude: Stedman Whitwell’s “New Nomenclature Suggested for Communities, etc.,” The New-Harmony Gazette 1, no. 29 (12 April 1826): 226–27. Whitwell thought to replace the digits of latitude and longitude with either consonants or vowels to produce place names that completely lacked both the cultural resonances of established toponyms and the subordination of toponyms within political hierarchies. The scheme would establish a single stratum of unique and unambiguous place names that denied the authority of politically defined territory.
In the search process, we found several recent online commentaries, all of which are wrong because they all relied on a confused secondary source. This post corrects the record, transcribes the proposal in full, and provides some contextual commentary.
Nineteenth-Century Utopianism
New Harmony, or Ipba-Vemul in Whitewell’s scheme, was founded in 1814, at almost the very south-western tip of Indiana, by the Harmony Society, a group of pietists who had left Germany after persecution by the Lutheran Church. They sought a new communal life on the American frontier, first in Pennsylvania and then in Indiana. In 1824, they decided to return to Pennsylvania (where they went on to found Economy) and in 1825 they sold the 20,000-acre Indiana lands to the Welsh-born industrialist and social reformer, Robert Owen, who had built the textile mills in New Lanark, Scotland. Owen had a vision of a “New Moral World” and bought the ready-made site to establish a socialist community. A wide variety of reasons—including the propensity of many residents to do “little else than to evolve fantastic schemes,” such as Whitwell’s toponymic proposal (Lockwood 1905, 114)—meant that the community had essentially failed by 1827 and it gave way in 1828 to individualism. It was formally dissolved in 1829. The history of New Harmony has been told in many academic and popular books and articles: go look them up; it’s a fascinating story!
This brief narrative captures the core elements of the early nineteenth-century utopian movement. The same dissatisfaction and energy that drove the religious movement called the Second Great Awakening produced a variety of free-love, communist (i.e., commune-ist), spiritualist, and theosophist groups who all sought to create ideal communities in which to live the good life. The movement reacted to the harsh conditions of early industrialization—think of William Blake’s Jerusalem, with its desire to build a new Jerusalem among the “dark, Satanic Mills” and to restore “Englands green & pleasant Land”—and sought to return to the land in small communities that aimed to recreate the lost equalities of pre-industrial human societies.
A British architect, Stedman Whitwell (1784–1840) worked closely with Owen to design a grand building to house the new community; he toured with Owen and a scale model in order to attract funding and new residents. He apparently grew disillusioned when funding for the building failed to materialize, and he left the community later in 1826 and returned to Britain. But not before he had worked up his toponymic scheme and it had been used to name one of the community’s offshoots, Feiba Peveli. (Working back from Whitwell’s code, as he encouraged, Feiba Peveli produces 38°11′N 87°53′W, or a remote spot in New Baltimore, Indiana, about five miles northeast of New Harmony.)
Although Whitwell began his proposal by suggesting that the reform was necessary to make things easier for the postal system, his fundamental reason was quite utopian in intent. He began, in fine form, by reacting to the practice by which the same names had been given to counties, townships, and cities across the still young USA, suggesting that it led to fundamental problems for the US post office and contributed to the mounting piles of undeliverable mail. The chaotic repetition of place names seems to have insulted his British sense of order. His opening diatribe about the proliferation of “Washington” is amusing in its own right.
At a more fundamental level, Whitwell sought to remove all “associations” that toponyms might possess. An educated Briton (a “man of taste”), he rather sneered at the practice of naming frontier towns after the great sites of antiquity, whether real (Athens) or mythical (Ithaca), and wondered if such names were appropriate. (Whitwell did not say why he objected to such naming practices, but his utopian sensibilities might have been offended by people in a republic naming their homes after places associated with militarism and slavery.) Whitwell’s system would also remove all the culturally redolent meanings that toponyms carry about the places they label.
Moreover, he noted that by adopting this completely abstract system, every place in the USA and indeed the world could receive a unique identifier unconnected to established political hierarchies: it would no longer “be necessary” when naming a place, to make any “addition of country, state, county, or township.” Places would no longer be functionally subservient to specific states and their political systems. Renaming Canton (at 23°7′N, 113°2′E) as Efoun-Abite extracts it from the Chinese empire and from Chinese culture as well. Freed of existing connections, the world could be made anew as a single stratum of communities.
And so utopianism once again slips into a benevolent tyranny: a Western educated man creates a system that he hopes/expects everyone else in the world will follow. If adopted then everyone would have to follow the system regardless of their cultural practices. Whitwell’s system was a system of Western “rationalism” that was manifestly superior to non-Western irrationalism that he references by means of a supposedly real native American figure to whom he gives a name so unwieldy—“Occoneocogecococachecachecodungo”—it stands for complete irrationality (for how can one think about something one cannot name?). The implications of the whole process seem to presume as thoroughly an anarchic system as that of the planet Anarres, with its artificially constructed language, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974).
Implementing Whitwell’s Scheme
The core of Whitwell’s concept was to replace digits with letters in such a way as to create unique, abstract names. His algorithm is not deterministic and leaves plenty of room for interpretation. In that respect, it was carefully thought out to provide options. Each digit in a value of latitude or longitude, expressed in whole degrees and minutes, could be replaced by either a vowel or consonant—as in the table reproduced at the head of this post—with the addition of an ‘s’ or a ‘v’ for south latitudes and west longitudes, respectively; it was up to the user to combine them in a manner that could be pronounced. The allocation of letters to digits is not completely random: there’s some cute wordplay to match the digits 7, 8, 9, and 0 with the vowels found in “seven,” “eight,” “nine,” and “nought.”
For example, I live in Freeport, Maine. According to Google’s overly precise location of this town, Freeport is at 43.8570°N, 70.1031°W, or 43°52′N,70°06′W. According to the table in Whitwell’s proposal, 4352 7006 equates to:
4 3 5 2 7 0 0 6
either o i u e ee ou ou y plus ‘v’ for west longitude
or k f l d n t t m
Eliminating the plainly unpronounceable permutations (e.g., Kfld-Nttm) 4352 produces Kild, Kile, Ofud, Ofue, Ofle (pronounced as “offal”?), or Oild, while 7006 produces eetty+v, eetoum+v, or nouty+v. Of these, my personal preference is for Oild-Veetty.
However, in his mocking summary of Whitwell’s scheme, the historian of New Harmony, George Lockwood butchered the scheme and turned it into a deterministic system in which digits in latitude and longitude values are converted to specific letters:
Detail from Lockwood (1905, 114) that got the table WRONG !!! Compare with Whitman’s own table at the head of the post.
According to Lockwood, Freeport, Maine would be Oiue-Nttm. How would one pronounce that?
Unfortunately, recent commentators (here and here) simply reproduced Lockwood’s table. Another commentator pondered the problems presented with Lockwood’s table at length; an update to that post blames the problems on OCR and textual errors, and quite misses Lockwood’s big mistake! Finally, a coder implemented the conversion and offered code at GitHub; my sense is that this implementation uses Lockwood’s deterministic model rather than Whitwell’s flexible system requiring human intervention.
Cartographic Implications
The idea that one can eliminate complexity of place naming by replacing toponyms with latitude and longitude coordinates was not unique to Whitwell. In British India, the engineer and surveyor Colin Mackenzie had thought in 1817 that the names of the myriad smaller settlements in India might be rationalized by mathematical coordinates and their administration made that much more efficient (Edney 1997, 115).
To my mind, Whitwell’s scheme stems from geographers’ triumphal claim that they were able to accommodate all spatial information within their networks of meridians and parallels. After all, latitude and longitude were infinitely precise; one just needed to be able to measure them accurately to a sufficient number of decimal degrees. As some geographers like Aaron Arrowsmith were doing, maps could be physically enlarged to permit ever more detailed surveys to be incorporated into them. Such claims underpinned the emergent idealization that maps were graphic expressions of archives of spatial information (the ontological preconception of the ideal of cartography: Edney 2019, 55–58)
In practice, however, the privileged nature of cosmographical coordinates was being undermined by the kinds of systematic surveys being undertaken by Mackenize in southern India and by others in Europe. It was not, in fact, possible to incorporate detailed surveys into cosmographical frameworks because the technologies of determining latitude and longitude were themselves insufficiently precise to provide adequate control; each location was also separately undertaken. By contrast, Mackenzie undertook triangulation-based topographical surveys: the vertices of the triangles were not only more numerous than locations with well-determined observations of latitude and longitude, their positions were all defined with respect to each other. As Western mapping practices increasingly emphasized triangulation surveys, if only for the sheer density of control points they generated, then the primacy of latitude and longitude were undermined as those coordinates were calculated from the triangulations.
Whitwell’s scheme can thus be read as a last gasp of the eighteenth-century’s quantifying spirit, or esprit géométrique (Frängsmyr, Heilbron and Rider 1990) as it helped lay the foundations for the modern ideal of cartography, before being itself obscured and overwritten by the territorial survey’s superior claims to observed and measured truth.
Transcription
COMMUNICATIONS.
For the New-Harmony Gazette.
NEW NOMENCLATURE
Suggested for Communities, etc.
The confusion, uncertainty, and error, which are the result of the present capricious mode of giving names to new scites, is hourly felt all over the United States. What can be more inconvenient than to have the same word express, as it does, a county of Maine—a county of Rhode Island—a county of Vermont—a county of New-York—a county of Pennsylvania, of Maryland, of Virginia, of Mississippi, of North-Carolina, of Kentucky, of Tennessee, of Ohio, of Indiana, of Illinois, of Missouri, of Georgia, of Alabama, of Louisiana, of the District of Columbia:—a township in Vermont, two townships in Massachusetts, two in New-York, one in Connecticut, one in Ohio;—a parish in Virginia;—a town in New-Hampshire, a town in Connecticut, a town in Vermont, a town in New-York, a town in New-Jersey, three towns in Pennsylvania, a town in Virginia, a town in North-Carolina, a town in Georgia, two towns in Ohio, a town in Indiana, a town in Kentucky, a town in Tennessee, a town in Mississippi, two towns in Alabama, and one in the District of Columbia,—the metropolis of the United States! To increase the embarrassment, there are, without enumerating counties and townships, 18 Monroes, 16 Columbias, 15 Miltons, 15 Centrevilles, 15 Salems, 15 Richmonds, 15 Greenvilles, 14 Lexingtons, 12 Franklins, 13 Jeffersons, 12 Manchesters, 12 Lebanons, &c.—there are also 9 Palmyras, 8 Paris’s, 9 Oxfords, 7 Athens’s, 4 Perus, 3 Romes, 8 Petersburghs, 6 Spartas, 3 Swedens, 3 Philadelphias, 6 Harmonies, cum multis aliis. Letters and other communications from the extensive territory of the United States, and from all foreign countries, to these places, are conveyed by the same post-office establishment; and if we add to this fruitful source of mistake, the inaccuracies which are perpetually occurring, from the haste, the negligence, and the ignorance of letter-writers,—the enormous quantity of letters monthly advertised throughout the Union, as lying unclaimed in the different offices, need no longer surprise us as to the cause. The aggregate amount of loss, disappointment and inconvenience, cannot, of course, be ascertained; but it is easy to perceive that it must be immense.
The man of taste will also complain of the absurdity of the appellations of Memphis, Greece, Utica, Etna, Ithaca, Delphi, Athens, Rome, Carthage, and similar names, rich in associations, when applied as they usually have been, in the United States.
Beyond expressing the respect which the first settlers had for a great man or name, not one good result is produced to balance the mischief and bad taste of the mode which has been adopted.
In lieu of it, it is proposed to give a distinct appellation to each new scite, (or to substitute one for each old one) which shall be different from all the others, varying in its form according to the geographical position of the place, and which shall always express its latitude and longitude in degrees and minutes.
If this were generally understood and adopted, the situation of any place would be instantly known as soon as its name only, was seen or mentioned.—No addition of country, state, county, or township, would be necessary; and as it is impossible for two places to have the same latitude and longitude, so no two places could have the same name. The value of such a nomenclature is at once evident, and it is supposed that the principle of the “Memoria Technica” might be so improved and modified, in the following manner, as to produce it.
The letters proposed as substitutes for the numerals would be as follow:
Numerals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
Vowel substitutes a e i o u y ee ei ie ou
Consonant substitutes b d f k l m n p r t
GENERAL RULE.—In forming a word which is to express any given number, we substitute the letter a or b, at pleasure, for the numeral 1; c [i.e., e] or d for 2; i or f, for 3, &c.
EXCEPTION—Those combinations of the single vowels should be avoided which produce the four double ones, ee, ei, ie, ou, these represent 7, 8, 9, 0, and never 22, 23, 32, 45, as they might otherwise have done.
The double series of vowels and consonants gives facility to the production of words, and affords a choice which is convenient for avoiding a rude and barbarous combination; and for producing a variety in the names of places which have nearly the same latitude, or the same longitude.
Thus, 1 2 3 4 may be expressed by bdfk, adio, befo, adfo, adik. The first of these cannot be pronounced, and the last might not be thought such an agreeable and explicit combination as the three others. But for the exception to the rule, the combinations aeio and beio would have also expressed the series.
To express degrees & minutes of latitude, more than four figures or their representative letters, are unnecessary; but beyond 99°59′ of longitude, five figures or letters are required. The whole word, therefore, may consist either of 8 or 9 letters; and to preserve a uniformity in this respect, when the original numbers of latitude or longitude do not consist of four figures, cyphers must be added to complete them, thus 8°7′ must be expressed 08 07; 1°—01 00; 1′—00 01, &c.
In every word, therefore, formed for this purpose, the four first letters always express the latitude, and the others the longitude, of the place; of these four latitude-letters, the two first express the degrees, the two others the minutes; of the longitude-letters, the two last always express the minutes; the others (2 or 3, as the case may be) are the degrees.
North and South Latitude, and East and West Longitude are distinguished in the following manner:—
When the letter S, (which has no numerical significance) is attached to, or inserted among the latitude-letters, it denotes South Latitude; when it is absent, North Latitude is understood. When the letter V, (which has also no numeral signification) is found in a similar manner among the longitude-letters, it denotes West, and its absence expresses East, Longitude.
To produce accuracy and uniformity in pronunciation, the consonants which have ambiguous, obscure, or double sounds, have been rejected; and the vowels should always be pronounced separately, and in the following manner:
The a as in all
e bey
i divorce
o blow
u lucre
y my
The letter V has been substituted for W to express West Longitude, from its combining more easily and distinctively than W.
The order of the vowel sounds will be easily recollected by observing that after the single vowels in their usual order; the double vowel ee, which represents 7, is formed by the vowels in the word seven; ei, which represent 8, are in the word eight; ie are in the word nine; and ou in the word nought.
The consonants follow in their alphabetical order.
The double vowels should be used only when necessary. They are also to be pronounced separately.
EXAMPLES
Present Names. | Lat. | Long. | Names representative of geographical position.
New-Harmony | 38.11,N. | 87.55,W. | Ipba-Vemul.
Maclurin, one of the Communities formed Feb. 1826, in this neighborhood | 38.12,N. | 87.52W. | Ipad-Evinle.
Another, formed March, 1826 | 38.11,N. | 87.53,W. | Feiba-Peveli.
Yellow-Spring Com’ty. Greene Country, Ohio | 39.48,N. | 83.52,W. | Irop-Evide.
Valley-Forge community, near Philadelphia | 40.7,N. | 75.24,W. | Otoun-Eveldo.
Orbiston Community, in Scotland, Gt. Britain | 55.31,N. | 4.3,W. | Ulio-Ovuoti.
Pittsburgh, | 40.35,N. | 80.,8,W | Otfu-Veitoup.
Washington, | 38.53,N | 76.55,W. | Feili-Nyvul.
Philadelphia, | 39.56,N. | 75. 8,W. | Fielm-Nutevi.
Baltimore, | 39.21,N. | 77.48,W. | Irda-Evenop.
New-York, | 40.42,N. | 74. 9,W. | Otke-Notive.
Charleston, | 32.44,N. | 80.39,W. | Feku-Veitir.
Liverpool, | 53.53,N. | 8.52,W. | Lilf-Tevile.
London, | 51.31,N. | — 5,W. | Lafa-Tovutu.
Paris, | 48.50,N. | 2.20,E. | Oput-Tedou.
Constantinople, | 41. 1,N. | 28.59,E. | Kata-Deilie.
Canton, | 23. 7,N. | 113. 2,E | Efoun-Abite.
C. of Good Hope, | 34.29,S. | 18.23,E. | Siker-Beidi.
Port Jackson, | 33.50,S. | 151.28,E. | Filts-Bubep.
Cape Horn, | 55.58,S. | 67.21,W. | Lulesi-Meeda.
The proposed change may, at first sight, excite the aversion which is peculiarly the fate of novelties in orthography; but it is certain that a little familiarity will prove that the words are quite as euphonious as three fourths of those already adopted in the world, particularly if we happen to be studying the geography of Russia, of Turkey, or Germany, of Scotland, or of Ireland. An American who has succeeded in pronouncing Occoneocogecococachecachecodungo, (an actual name of an Indian chief) intelligibly, will find them more “oily eloquence.”
In conversation and on most other occasions, that part of the word expressive of the latitude, will be found to be quite sufficient.
STEDMAN WHITWELL
New-Harmony, March, 1826
References
Edney, Matthew H. 1997. Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765–1843. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 2019. Cartography: The Ideal and Its History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Frängsmyr, Tore, J. L. Heilbron, and Robin E. Rider, eds. 1990. The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lockwood, George B. 1905. The New Harmony Movement. New York: D. Appleton & Co. The salient passage was also included in the same author’s The New Harmony Communities (1902). Available online at archive.org.
Whitwell, Stedman. New Nomenclature Suggested for Communities, etc. The New-Harmony Gazette 1, no. 29 (12 April 1826): 226–27.
