Minutes of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)
Norden Division (ND) meeting, United Nations Vienna Office, 3. April 2006


Present:

Bente Holmberg, Denmark
John Jensen, Denmark
Teemu Leskinen, Finland
Sirkka Paikkala, Finland
Ari Páll Kristinsson, Iceland
Botolv Helleland, Norway
Leif Nilsson, Sweden
Staffan Nyström, Sweden
Annette Torensjö, Sweden

Minutes:

1. Sirkka Paikkala, the Chair of the Norden Division, opened the meeting and welcomed the participants, especially Ari Páll Kristinsson, since this was the first time for Iceland to participate. Sirkka also thanked the experts for their activity in the ongoing UNGEGN meeting. The agenda for the division meeting was adopted without changes.

2. After a short round of introduction, Ari Páll Kristinsson, the Chairman of the Icelandic Place Name Committee, addressed the meeting and expressed his gratitude to the Norden Division Chair and other Nordic colleagues for their good will and assistance in preparing his participation at the cur-rent UNGEGN meeting. He also forwarded Mr. Svavar Sigmundsson’s regards to all Nordic friends in the division.

Ari Páll briefly told about the current situation in Iceland with regard to geographic names and their standardisation [see also Appendix 1 of the UNGEGN Working Paper No. 47, Report of the Norden Division. The current Place Name Institute of Iceland, directed by Svavar Sigmundsson, was established in 1998. The main role of the institution is to collect Icelandic place names from all times. From September 1, 2006, the Place Name Institute will most probably be united, under a different name, with four other Icelandic institutes that deal with language and cultural heritage.

The Icelandic Place Name Committee is the national place name authority. It was established in 1935, and its duties were revised in 1953 in the Act of Names and Settlements. This Act was revised in 1998. The Place Name Committee has supervisory duties when it comes to deciding on names for new settlements and the way in which they are written. The committee also stresses the importance of preserving place names as a part of the nation’s cultural heritage. It also decides, in the case of disagreement, on the spelling of names on the maps produced by Landmælingar Íslands, the national mapping authority. The committee shall also evaluate the validity of suggestions for new municipal names.

3. Annette Torensjö told that the Toponymic guidelines for map editors and other editors, Sweden, will be published in English and probably in Swedish, too, prior to the 9. Conference on the Stan-dardization on Geographical Names in 2007. It was strongly recommended, and also foreseen by all experts present, that every Nordic country could be able to introduce an updated version of their guidelines at the ninth conference.

4. The pronunciation of place names in Nordic countries was discussed. Botolv Helleland told that in Norway this matter is often a touchy one and strict rules are often difficult to give. Teemu Leskinen noted that in Finland the pronunciation of Finnish place names is straightforward and the rules are available in the Toponymic guidelines of Finland.
Leif Nilsson reported that Radio Sweden (Sveriges Radio), since about ten years, has got an Intranet service, where the pronunciation of all about 3000 place names in the publication Svenska ortnamn - uttal och stavning is available on Real Audio for their announcers, reporters etc. on radio and television. The sound files are played via a web reader and the pronunciation is also shown on a web page with both a phonetic and a "common" alphabet. Hopefully this will within a year or two also be accessible on the Internet.

5. Regarding the indigenous and minority group place names it was noted that the state governments world-wide will, prior to the ninth conference, receive a questionnaire by the UNGEGN on the situation and status of indigenous and minority language place names in their countries. The report of this survey/inventory will be prepared for the conference by the UNGEGN Working Group on the Promotion of Indigenous and Minority Group Names.

With regard to a possible joint Saami place names file/database/service discussed in earlier ND meetings Teemu told that he had had a short discussion with Mr. Pier-Giorgio Zaccheddu of the EuroGeoNames project. Zaccheddu could not see any reason, for their part, why all Saami names in the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish mapping authorities’ names databases could not be included in the future EGN service – regardless of the nominal or general “map scale” or density of the names in other geographic/linguistic areas. So, upon realisation, the EGN might meet many of the needs for an international Saami place names Internet service in a few years.

6. As to the preparations for the 9th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names and the joint 24th UNGEGN meeting in 2007 the ND meeting decided that a report of the division would be submitted. Finland will be responsible for gathering of material for the report and putting it together. In the conferences each country is represented individually and responsible for its conference papers and possible voting.

7. Whether the Norden Division would meet prior to the ninth conference was left undecided. It was commonly agreed that after the comprehensive and successful meeting in Norway in 2005 there might not be a need for a meeting, in case the preparation for the conference could be carried out by e-mail and other means of communication.

8. Sirkka Paikkala reminded that Finland would chair the ND until the ninth conference. She also kindly asked the other Nordic countries to consider who would take the task after Finland. The change of chairmanship would take place in autumn 2007, during the ninth conference.

9. The experts brought up no other matters.

10. Sirkka Paikkala thanked everybody, closed the Norden Division meeting and wished a pleasant continuation to the UNGEGN meeting.

Teemu Leskinen
Keeper of Minutes