La investigación y estandarización de los topónimos boyash en Hungría

Abstract

The establishment and registration of official geographic names in national minority languages are laid down in a 2007 Hungarian government decree, but such names have not been established or registered at the level of public administration since its publication. This paper argues that place names must first be collected to establish the official geographic names of Boyash communities, but this is still in its initial stage and previous sporadic collections are of poor quality. If codification precedes exploration, normative provisions may create tensions between Roma National Governments and local residents, those who have received institutional education and those who have not, and even an interethnic conflict between Roma groups. Finally, the paper analyses the factors that may help to choose the most appropriate, linguistically correct and historically authentic forms of names for local use, making sure the linguistic landscape reflects real ethnic conditions.