Out of curiosity, why don’t map librarians use the Soundex system for placenames? As an adjunct to regular search methods?

---Sue H, not a librarian

From: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Virginia R Hetrick PhD
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 1:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bulgarian place names

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One of the things we used to try in the Map Division when I was a student assistant there long, long ago, was to try systematically to vary and/or omit the vowels and to substitute Latin-1 characters for "equivalent sounding" Cyrillic consonants.  I used to do it as a list on a tablet to be sure I had all the possibilities before I started searching for the place name in the Office of Geography's gazetteers.  In my 2 years there, I resolved about 25 of them. 

In the case of Lunedovo, I'd get started by substituting for the "e" only, then for the terminal "o" only.  Then, I'd try the combination of the "e" and the terminal "o" simultaneously. If that didn't work, I'd make up the complete substitution lists for all the vowels.  In my time doing this kind of search, I found that often "e" and "a" get substituted for each other and sometimes for or by other vowels.  I'd also try including "i" and "y" if the "a"/"e" swap doesn't work.  Finally, you might want to try "u" for the first "o".

Hope this helps.

virginia

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Virginia R. Hetrick, here in sunny California
Email:  [log in to unmask]
"There is always hope."
My fave:  http://www.washington.edu/cambots/camera1_l.jpg
There's no place like:  34N 8' 25.38", 117W 58' 5.16"
if you can't be at:  48N 7' 4.54" 122W 45' 50.95"
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can't foul it up like they can GPS.
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