I wish to voice my strong support for the recent letters by Jan Taits and L. Plavina (TBT #448, 452) on the subject of correct spelling of proper names.
Two or three times during the years your newspaper has been in existence, I have written in myself with the same complaint, but to no avail. I am well aware of the Latvian practice of altering the spelling of foreign proper names to suit Latvian phonetics, and therefore I suppose that Latvians may think nothing of also altering Estonian names to "improve" their appearance for the benefit of native English speakers.
This is no service to us Estonians or to your English or American readers. They may not know any better and accept the distorted names they read in TBT as genuine. Please do desist from this inconsiderate and irritant practice.
Leo Kaagjarv
Tartu
