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National Geographic : 1890 Aug
Contents
GeographicNomenclature. APPENDIX. RULES FOR THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF GEOGRAPHIC NAMES. CONTRIBUTED BY MR. HERRLE. British System-French System- German System-Alphabets, Russian-English; English-Russian. BRITISH SYSTEM. Rules adopted in 1885, by the Royal Geographical Society at London, for the Orthography of Native Names of Places. Taking into consideration the present want of a system of geographical orthography, and the consequent confusion and variety that exist in the mode of spelling in English maps, the Council of the Royal Geographical Society have adopted the following rules for such geographical names as are not, in the countries to which they belong, written in the Roman character. These rules are identical with those adopted for the Admiralty charts, and will henceforth be used in all publications of the Society. 1. No change will be made in the orthography of foreign names in countries which use Roman letters : thus Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, etc., names will be spelt as by the respective nations. 2. Neither will any change be made in the spelling of such names in languages which are not written in Roman character as have become by long usage familiar to English readers : thus Calcutta, Cutch, Celebes, Mecca, etc., will be retained in their present form. 3. The true sound of the word as locally pronounced will be taken as the basis of the spelling. 4. An approximation, however, to the sound is alone aimed at. A system which would attempt to represent the more delicate inflections of sound and accent would be so complicated as only to defeat itself. Those who desire a more accurate pronunciation of the written name must learn it on the spot by a study of local accent and peculiarities. 5. The broad features of the system are that vowels are pro nounced as in Italian and consonants as in English. 6. One accent only is used, the acute, to denote the syllable on which stress is laid. This is very important, as the sounds of 279
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