Lithuanian linguists about original spelling of surnames

As we wrote before, on Thursday Constitutional Court declared that after receiving the proposal from linguists the Parliament can change current regulations, which state that in identity documents of Lithuanian citizens names and surnames should be written only in Lithuanian language.

Constitutional Court declared that while working on acts regulating the spelling of names and surnames, the Parliament should become acquainted with clearly expressed opinion of linguists in that matter, with their specific proposals and, as the court emphasized, it cannot disregard them.

On Friday the vice president of Commission of the Lithuanian Language Daiva Vaišnienė emphasized, that the Commission had presented their position in this case back in 1991, and it did not change since then. At the time the Commission stated that in certain cases names and surnames in documents can be written in languages other than Lithuanian.

‘I would like to draw attention to the third point of the resolution (resolution of the Supreme Court from 1991 – editor), which states that a citizen of foreign country, after becoming a Lithuanian citizen, can keep his name by rewriting it into identity documents of the citizen of Lithuania. It means that people who became citizens of Lithuania, or their citizenship had been restored to them, have a right to have their surname rewritten with letters of the Latin alphabet in the original form. It was the original position of the Commission, which did not change,’ said Daiva Vaišnienė on Friday.

Asked if it means that there can be non-Lithuanian letters in passports, she said ‘yes’.

Based on Žinių radijas.

Source: http://l24.lt/pl/spoleczenstwo/item/28278-litewscy-jezykoznawcy-o-oryginalnej-pisowni-nazwisk

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