Another starting point: there's a play called Translations by Brian Friel. It is basically an extended, passionate debate between a village priest in Ireland and the leader of an English survey team that has been traversing the countryside, mapping it carefully, and - more important - changing the names of the places, from Gaelic to English. Both men are aware of what is at stake: when you want to subjugate a people - to erase their sense of themselves as separate and distinctive - one place to start (and it is often enough) is with their language and names. Names link to history, and we need a sense of history to define ourselves.
-- Guy Gavriel Kay, Afterword to Tigana
-- Guy Gavriel Kay, Afterword to Tigana