Historical Aspects of Domestic Standardization of Foreign Geographical Names

Abstract

Standardization of foreign geographical name, adapted to Slovene language, has been documented for at least two centuries. At first inconsistent and without any clear orthographic rules, it started to appear in newspaper articles at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, and later became standard in textbooks. Občni zemljepis (General Geography) by Janez Jesenko presented a solid foundation for the use of standardized foreign geographical names in Matej Cigale’s Atlant, the first Slovene atlas (1869-1877). Although it contained a number of good solutions, even from the contemporary point of view, the atlas gradually faded into oblivion. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century it was succeeded by an atlas for schools with Slovene as the teaching language, prepared by Fran Orožen; this atlas contained foreign geographical names that had been much less adapted to Slovene linguistic characteristics. The following Slovene atlas of the world, written for high school students, had not been published until the first year of the Italian occupation. Valter Bohinec, who was in charge of domestic standardization, had been clearly forbidden to use Slovene names for Italian towns and rivers, but not for regions and elevations. Each of these atlases reflects characteristical phases of domestic standardization of foreign names: first Panslavism, then influences of German, Serbo-Croatian, and Italian languages.