Working Group recommendations for the government and the original name spelling of double naming streets

The working group presented recommendations in case of the governments national minorities. Group proposed a validation of the original spelling of names and naming double streets, but did not set a minimum percentage of minority residents, of which the law takes effect.

In the application presented to the Strategic Committee proposes the legitimacy of the original spelling of the names in the documents. For the personal request of the name could be written using non-Lithuanian letters, but on the basis of the Latin alphabet.

As the group quoted the argument that “the personal names are not concepts and have no lexical meaning, one language, personal names are not the property of another, using them, the language, and therefore should not be deformed.”

“It is proposed that, at the request of the owner of the document  first name (first names) and the last name (last names) of documents should be written using symbols and diacritics language, which is based on the  Latin alphabet ” – written in the recommendations.

Proposal to validate the original spelling of family names of working groups not only justifies the position of minorities, but also “increase in emigration and euro integration”.

One of the points of the Law on National Minorities is the possibility of double naming in the villages ‘traditional and densely’ populated by ethnic minorities.

“It is proposed that the name of the village, streets and other topographic objects written in a minority language (next to the name of Lithuania) in towns and densely populated traditionally by persons belonging to national minorities” – written in the recommendations.

“We tried to set a minimum percentage of national minorities in the village. There were proposals to 25 percent or 10 percent. Eventually we came to the conclusion that the decision should take the Strategic Committee “- said Edward Trusewicz, Deputy Minister of Culture and chairman of the working group.

The working group of experts worked with Ministry of Culture, Justice, Education and Science and Foreign Affairs.

Source: http://pl.delfi.lt/aktualia/litwa/rekomendacje-grupy-roboczej-dla-rzadu.d?id=60835929

Tłumaczenie Katarzyna Dąbrowska w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Katarzyna Dąbrowska the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.