REPORT OF THE UNITED STATES GEOGRAPHIC BOARD. 17 



those most in use and represent the most prominent features of the 

 earth; for instance, we call Deutschland Germany, Espana Spain, 

 Livorno Leghorn. In many cases we translate the foreign name, if 

 it is capable of translation, into English words. Other countries, 

 m turn, treat the names of this country in a similar manner. In- 

 deed, most non-English-speaking people translate the name of this 

 country into their own tongue, forgetting that geographic names, 

 like personal names, should not be translated. 



It is unquestionably desirable and proper that local usage should 

 be followed in these cases as well as in others, i. e., that the home 

 names should be the ones universally used; but in most of these 

 cases it is obviously impracticable to introduce this reform, at least 

 at present. The people of the United States can not be induced to 

 change from Germany to Deutschland, or even from Italy to Italia, 

 or The Hague to 's Gravenhage. It is a reform, however, to which 

 we may look forward and work toward and which may be attained 

 in the future. 



It is understood by the Board that our charts of the coasts of 

 foreign countries using Eoman characters, made for the use of our 

 Navy and merchant marine, generally require the use of the local 

 forms of these names, while on the other hand popular usage in this 

 country, especially in our atlases and textbooks, requires the angli- 

 cized form. The Board practically leaves this matter on the same 

 footing as heretofore, approving the use of local spelling of foreign 

 names upon our charts and the anglicized forms upon maps de- 

 signed for use in this country. It hopes, however, that the way may 

 be open in the near future to the adoption throughout of the local 

 and the rejection of the anglicized forms. In such specific cases as 

 have been brought to its attention it has decided uniformly in favor 

 of the local forms. 



Most of the nations of Europe, either through national boards or 

 geographic societies, are engaged in the regulation of the orthog- 

 raphy of geographic names. Their attention has been particularly 

 directed toward producing uniformity in the transliteration of 

 aboriginal names written in characters other than Roman. These 

 nations have practically agreed upon a system of transliteration, 

 which, with one or two exceptions, has been adopted by this Board, 

 thus coming into practical agreement in this matter with the rest of 

 the civilized world. 



PRINCIPLES. 



Under the Executive order of January 23, 1906, the United States 

 Geographic Board was given jurisdiction over the establishment of 



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