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Old 7th May 2012, 13:31
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Anthony Appleyard
 
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Foreign-language adaptations of place names

When English-language placenames are referred to in languages that do not use the Roman alphabet, they are often transcribed, e.g. 'Heathrow' into Russian as 'Хитроу'.

But also, according to Wikipedia, some Roman-alphabet languages adapt foreign placenames, for example the Latvian Wikipedia refers to London Heathrow Airport as "Londonas Hītrovas Lidosta". If someone in Riga in Latvia was flying to London, which spelling (Hītrovas or Heathrow) is he likeliest to see on destination boards and notices?

A complication: Latvian and Lithuanian have cases like Latin, and change the ending with grammatical role, for example "to Heathrow" in Latvian becomes "uz Hītrovu".
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