On the Result of Toponyms Normalization in the Russian Federation in 2011-2013

Abstract

Purpose: The main purpose of the article is to analyze normalized forms of Russian place names within the creation of the State Catalogue of Place Names in 2011-2013. Methods: Since 2011 the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography has been creating the State Catalogue of Place Names on basis of the Place Names Registers of all Russian federal subjects. Every register must be approved by executive and legislative authorities. Comparison of place names registers of twenty regions of the Russian Federation before and after approval makes it possible to detect spelling variants of names and features of their normalization. Results: The analysis of the Place Names Registers revealed orthographic, phonetic, morphological, syntactic and lexical variants of place names. The orthographic variants are caused by variation of unstressed vowels in word stems; vowels after hushing sounds; use of letter ё ; joined-up, hyphenated and separate writing of place names; use of capital and lower case letters; writing of ordinal numerals in word-groups. The normalized forms of the place names described in the article reveal the cases of non-observance of the Russian orthographic rules which may be caused by ignorance of the rules, institutionalized traditional writing of place names, and use of orthographic rules of languages used in Russia. Discussion: The place names normalization needs an integrated approach taking into account observance and delimitation of the orthographic rules of the Russian and other languages spoken in Russia, traditional use of place names by local population, features of place names such as proper names and specifics of regional toponymic systems.