The Management of Onomastics in Algeria during the French Colonisation and after Independence: A Critical Study of Legal Texts

The study of legal texts related to the management of onomastics in Algeria constitutes a compelling research topic. It will allow us to understand, on the one hand, the rationale and objectives behind the policies that generated these texts, and on the other, the impact they have had on the evolution of the naming of places and people.

We will focus on two pivotal periods in Algerian history that were decisive for the development of the national naming system:

The colonial period, during which the colonial administration systematically sought to rename or reassign names to people and places according to its sociocultural paradigms.The post-independence period, during which the Algerian state endeavoured to reclaim its national constants.

To this end, laws, decrees, and ordinances were enacted (for example, the Warnier Law of 1873, the Civil Status Law of 23 March 1882, and the 1962 law on toponymic designation).

Thus, the naming system in Algeria has undergone various evolutionary phases throughout its history (O. Yermeche, 2008). Successive colonial authorities disrupted the national onomastic system by attempting to impose their civilisational values and naming codes through successive operations of renaming places and assigning names to individuals.

This project aims to systematically analyse all legislative texts produced for this purpose during the two aforementioned periods. The research seeks to address the following questions:

According to what procedures was onomastic management carried out?How and in what forms were the legal texts governing (and still governing) onomastics in Algeria drafted during these two historical periods?What were the contexts in which these legal texts were produced?On what ideological and political assumptions were they based?What effects did these legal texts have on the management of onomastics in Algeria?

The project will focus on:

An exhaustive inventory of legal texts relating to onomastics (both toponymic and anthroponymic) during the two periods mentioned above.A critical and detailed analysis of these legal texts in order to identify the underlying assumptions that guided their formulation.Highlighting the impact of these texts on the management of proper names of places and individuals in Algeria.