The town of Nikkaluokta outside Kiruna is printed on the new passports. However, the town name is misspelled, something that linguist Jussi Karlgren reacted to when he received his new passport.
There are several different spelling options for the place name. In Northern Sami it is spelled Nihkkáluokta, and in Meänkieli it is spelled Nikkulahti, but neither of these are the ones the police have used – instead they have written NikkalOukta. The correct spelling is NikkalUokta.
Linguist Jussi Karlgren is the one who discovered the misspelling in the passport. He thinks the police should put more effort into spelling correctly.
– When I was flipping through my new passport, I noticed that the place Nikkaluokta was misspelled. It's a bit funny that government officials who decorate their printed materials with place names can't bear to check how they are spelled, he tells Kulturnyheterna.
Police: Correction will take a year
Police press secretary Stefan Marcopoulos writes in an email to Kulturnyheterna that the Police Authority does not want to be interviewed about the incident, but regrets the spelling error and that it is due to a mistake in proofreading.
The misspelled passports are still valid. According to the Police, the error will be corrected eventually, but it is a process that could take up to a year.
– It's more than legitimately embarrassing. The police need to get some Tipp-Ex. This can be resolved more quickly, says linguist Jussi Karlgren.
Source: SVT
