The Act on the Spelling of Names is not needed as a separate legal act. It would be enough just to amend already existing acts. This is the position of the Commission of Lithuanian Language. The validation of the spelling of non-Lithuanian names was discussed during a Parliament session of Law and Order Committee

“If it is only about diacritic marks, I do not know if those two Acts (alternative projects of the spelling of names were submitted by conservatists and social democrats – editorial note) are necessary. If Seimas chose the one which states that names should be written only in Lithuanian language version, it would be enough to add one sentence in the Act on Passports and Identification Cards. In the case of the project of social democrats it would probably also be enough to add something,” said the Deputy Chair of the Commission of Lithuanian Language Jūratė Palionytė.

In Seimas, two alternative projects of the Act on the Spelling of Names wait to be discussed. One is prepared by the representatives of co-ruling social democratic party. Another one was prepared by conservatists. The project of social democrats Gediminas Kirkilas and Irena Šiaulienė includes the possibility to write non-Lithuanian names with Latin symbols. Conservatists propose writing non-Lithuanian names in the original for on the further pages of passports.

In the opinion of Jūratė Palionytė, the representative of the Commission of Lithuanian Language, there are more important problems than the spelling of names. “The names of Poles living in Lithuania have covered the sun for decades and that is why we cannot accept any good act. The names and surnames of Lithuanians are in danger. If the range of meaning of “citizenship” will be wider, there will be people with double citizenship. Then in accordance with European practice, a citizen of Lithuania living in Portugal will has his name written according to the rules in this country. We should not expect that we will preserve only Lithuanian letters,” said Jūratė Palionytė.

In the opinion of Lituanist, if there was the decision of the permission to write non-Lithuanian names with Latin symbols, Lithuanian alphabet would not suffer. She gave Estonian, Portuguese and Slovakian alphabet as an example and what is more, the letters “w”, “q”, “x” no longer exist in Lithuanian registers.

The conservatist Valentinas Stundys, one of the authors of the bill on the spelling of names, says that if Seimas agreed for using Latin symbols, Lithuanian alphabet would have 150 symbols more than now.

Based on: BNS