English translations of Hungarian lake names

Abstract

English translations of Hungarian lake names  

Recently prestigious local publishing houses have been publishing a growing number of geographical descriptions of Hungary in English. While these publications are of outstanding design, the authors do not use the names of geographical objects in Hungary in a standardized manner. As a result, the foreign reader may find distinct variants of the same name within the same book. This can encumber the interpretation of information, and the identification of certain geographical features on maps. The author examines the peculiarities of naming lakes in Hungarian and in English while exploring the spelling rules behind the name forms in both languages. The author then compares several examples taken from Hungary with the names of lakes in English-speaking countries. Finally, the author proposes that the English standardized equivalents of the Hungarian names for lakes should be used more consistently.