We make sense of the spatial world around us by dividing it into smaller units with distinguishable names. If a group exercises more power over another in the region, they may replace these placenames by those in their language. Erased from official records and maps overnight, where do former placenames go? The Directory of Placenames Unforgotten (DOPU) aims to create an online, collaborative platform where the linguistic heritage of underrepresented groups can be preserved. Focusing on former placenames in endangered languages of the Black Sea, this project collects placename submissions and presents its collection in an easily manageable way that benefits those who may be interested in the general or specific findings of this project. All features and findings of this project will be accessible via the DOPU website. These features include submission forms that allow for single or multiple entries at once; a sortable and searchable collection where each entry is described in over 20 categories; and a series of static and dynamic maps that visualize these placename changes by density, origin language, target language, and timeframe overall and in smaller demarcations. The expected number for the initial set of entries is 2000, extracted from over 600 primary sources I accumulated in my former research and fieldwork, which can be visualized in as many maps as necessary. This project does not offer conclusions of its own but functions as a source for those tracing the increasing monolingualism of Black Sea-states and erasure of linguistic minority heritage from nationalist landscapes.

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