Full Title: Eighth International Symposium on Place Names 2025
Short Title: ISPN 2025

Date: 26-Nov-2025 - 29-Nov-2025
Location: Clarens, South Africa
Contact Person: Chrismi Loth
Meeting Email: [email protected]

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 18-Apr-2025

EXTENSION of deadline for submission of abstracts to 18 April 2025.

Eighth International Symposium on Place Names 2025
Harmonising toponymic heritage: balancing standardisation and local diversity
26-29 November 2025
Clarens, South Africa (face-to-face event)
[email protected]

The Department of South African Sign Language and Deaf Studies at the University of the Free State (RSA), in partnership with the Joint ICA/IGU Commission on Toponymy as well as the ICOS Working Group on Toponymy, is pleased to announce the next biennial international symposium on place names – ISPN 2025.
Place names serve a dual purpose. On the one hand, they are geospatial indicators of physical locations and geographical features. On the other hand, place names are artefacts of cultural heritage and serve to connect people to places. This two-fold function creates tension from a place-names management perspective. Standardisation is required for effective public communication and record-keeping. However, standardisation inherently requires a selection of one or limited forms of names. This is in contrast to the reality of most societies, whereby multiple names are assigned to one location by different socio-lingual-cultural groups. The challenge is to create an internationally-recognised standardisation system, while retaining the colourful local diversity. With the theme for this symposium, we wish to explore issues around standardisation and toponymic diversity. We need to consider the symbolic importance of place names, and examine the challenges of developing best practices for research and management that are sensitive to local diversity. Papers with a focus on minority and indigenous names, including sign languages, are encouraged in particular.

Theme: Harmonising toponymic heritage: balancing standardisation and local diversity
Dates: 26-29 November, 2025

Submit abstracts (250 words) by 18 April to [email protected].