Challenges in updating the Hungarian terminology for geographical names standardization

Abstract

This paper outlines the reasons why and the conditions under which a team of Hungarian experts in terminology at Károli Gáspár University decided to edit the Hungarian version of the UNGEGN document entitled Glossary of Terms for the Standardization of Geographical Names and its Addendum. During the work, the experts had to eliminate several discrepancies between the existing and the required new Hungarian terminology for geographical names standardization. Whilst the traditional Hungarian toponomastic terminology consists primarily of terms of Hungarian origin, recent literature in Hungarian seems to give preference to internationally recognized terms. With respect to language theory, the principles of Cognitive Linguistics have become widely adopted also in the discipline of terminology, which influences the identification or the establishment of equivalent terms. In the modern Hungarian glossary, term gaps had to be filled in accordance with the dominant trends in today’s term formation, and term changes also had to be treated appropriately. Definitions reflecting the latest results in distinct professional fields (e.g. linguistics, geography, cartography, computer science) had to be worded adequately, but in an easily intelligible way — a task requiring a vast amount of background knowledge even in the case of translation. Depending on the phenomenon described in the definition and the nature of the illustrative toponyms, examples had to be translated, explained, completed with or changed into relevant Hungarian name forms. Formally, the Hungarian glossary should be compatible with the UNGEGN lists; it also has to be easy to use on its own. All these factors, discussed in detail in the paper, were taken into consideration when the experts prepared the Hungarian version of the UNGEGN Glossary, with the aim of updating the Hungarian terminology for geographical names standardization.