Geographic Nomenclature. 279 
APSE EN: DIX: 
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. 
8. 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 
