Principles of use of international place names to be debated in Tallinn

Press release no. 157

From 9 to 13 October place name experts from the United Nations will be meeting in Tallinn, led by the Ministry of the Interior and the Institute of the Estonian Language, to discuss the coordination of place names in international use. "The coordination of place names is something every country is responsible for, but in international communication there needs to be clarity and consensus, which is very important in terms of avoiding misunderstandings," said Peeter Päll, a division manager from the Institute of the Estonian Language.
On 9 and 10 October a Latinisation systems working group of United Nations place name experts will be meeting in Estonia for the first time to debate how place names in languages that do not use the Latin alphabet should be written in international use. The objective of the meeting is to prepare positions regarding the transcription of Ukrainian and Belarussian place names. These positions will then be presented to the United Nations conference on place name coordination in 2007. To this point the Latinisation systems of 28 languages have been given international approval, thanks to which the likes of Chinese, Thai and Iranian place names are used all over the world in the same form.

On 12 and 13 October the 10th Baltic session of the group of United Nations place name experts will be held at the Ministry of the Interior. Topics for discussion during the session will include the legislation and databases that deal with place names and the principles of writing names.

"Estonia will be presenting its Place Names Act to other countries, and it is one which is worthy of international attention, as the legislation deals not only with authority in designating place names but also the requirements that a place name must meet," explained Aule Kikas, the Deputy Chairman of the Baltic group of United Nations place name experts and the chief specialist with the Ministry of the Interior. "Estonia's experience of coordinating place names has already been used by a number of countries."
Experts from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Algeria, Israel, France, the United Kingdom and the United States will be taking part in the working group's session.