UNGEGN Toponymic Guidelines

UNGEGN Toponymic Guidelines ( toponymic guidelines of UNGEGN, full title: Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors, for international use, toponymic guidelines for publishers of atlases and other publications for international use ) are the Expert Group of the United Nations on Geographical Names (United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, short UNGEGN ) initiated and coordinated standardized onomastic country information. They serve the purpose namenkundlich ( toponomastisch ) relevant information about a particular state to compile, mainly from the perspective of names standardization.

Formation

At the third Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names of the United Nations ( UNGEGN ), which took place in Athens in August / September 1977, the issue of compilation and dissemination toponomastischer information was discussed in detail. Due to the different approach of the individual states of the subject, suggested Josef Breu, elected at this same conference as chairman of the UNGEGN, a compilation of more or less standardized guidelines to toponymischer. He worked at the Austrian example of a model for this and presented under the title " Toponymic Guidelines for International Cartography / Austria" as a working paper No. 5 on the 8th meeting of the UNGEGN, which was held in New York in February / March 1979.

UN resolutions related to UNGEGN Toponymic Guidelines

The response to Breus foray was very positive. In the following years, several UN resolutions were adopted, which supported the creation of Toponymic Guidelines. Thus, for example, in the adopted at the 4th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in Geneva in August / September 1982, Resolution 4 a kind of grid on the content of Toponymic Guidelines presents .. It is also on the orientations of Breu Austrian Guidelines referred to as a role model and encouraged the establishment of a coordinator for these policies.

At the 5th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in Montreal, in August 1987, two the Toponymic Guidelines relevant resolutions were also adopted: Resolution No. 11 recommends that should be clearly distinguished on official maps works between toponyms and other text elements typographically. This distinction will be described in typographical each Toponymic Guidelines.

The Resolution No. 14 of the same Conference recommends that the individual States should be encouraged to update Toponymic Guidelines and to publish. The UN Secretariat is to assist in the publication and dissemination of guidelines.

The title of Toponymic Guidelines was slightly modified two times. While Breu published his Austrian model guidelines as Toponymic Guidelines for International Cartography, using the above- mentioned Resolution No. 4 of 1982 already the title Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors. 1986 was resolved at the Twelfth Session of the UNGEGN to install the additional for international use.

Content

In the above-mentioned Resolution No. 4, which was adopted at the 4th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (1982 ), there is also a list of the points above, the Toponymic guidelines should include, among other things, namely:

  • In multilingual countries: distribution areas of languages ​​, legal status of geographical names in the respective languages ​​;
  • Alphabets of the respective languages ​​spoken in a country language (s), and - for non- lateinschriftigen languages ​​- the respective official transliteration key;
  • Pronunciation rules and aids for geographical names;
  • Information on relevant linguistic substrata, unless they are the cartographers of benefits;
  • Relationship between dialects and standard language (s);
  • Dialectal peculiarities and dialectal division;
  • Name authorities and their activities;
  • Toponymisch ELEVANT sources;
  • Glossary for better understanding of cards;
  • Abbreviations used in the official cartography;
  • Administrative divisions.

List of States that have already been published Toponymic Guidelines

So far, 41 states Toponymic Guidelines ( or at least drafts of such ) prepared (as of March 2012; non-existent states are marked with an asterisk; forms of names for the list of country names of the Standing Committee on Geographical Names, short StAGN ):

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