The aim of the master’s thesis is to determine how the spelling of ten selected city names in the Atlas of the World for Primary and Secondary Schools has changed from 1979 to the present, and to what extent these changes have been influenced by the Slovene Orthography and the resolutions of the United Nations. The cities examined are Venice, Vienna, Pula, Rijeka, Rome, Udine, Budapest, Milan, Graz, and Villach.
The theoretical part presents the institutions and reference works that influence the spelling of geographical names in atlases. In the empirical part, I used the comparative method to analyze the spelling of the ten cities in different editions of atlases on maps of Europe, Central Europe, and the Mediterranean, and compared them with the rules of Slovene Orthography and UN resolutions. In addition, I conducted a survey to examine how teachers of geography, Slovene, and history write and use the above-mentioned city names in the educational process.
I formulated three hypotheses. The first hypothesis—that the naming of geographical names of neighboring countries in reprints of the Atlas for Primary and Secondary Schools from 1979 to the present would differ—was confirmed. In the 1979 atlas, only Slovene exonyms are used on the map of Europe, whereas from 2002 onwards both the original and the adapted forms are provided.
The second hypothesis, that the use of adapted (Slovene) forms of geographical names was established in one of the reprints of the Atlas for Primary and Secondary Schools, was also confirmed. Since 2002, the adapted form has been primary, with the original form given in parentheses.
The third hypothesis, that UN resolutions influence the spelling of geographical names in the Atlas for Primary and Secondary Schools, was likewise confirmed. In the 2002 edition of the atlas, in the chapter On the Adaptation of Foreign Place Names, it is stated that the atlas follows UN resolutions. At the same time, the recommendations acknowledge exceptions for exonyms that represent traditional Slovene names and form part of the Slovene linguistic heritage and worldview.
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