[Tagging] Country names

[john at jfeldredge.com]

However, in countries that have more than one official language, or in areas that expect to have a lot of foreign visitors, you are likely to see more than one language on at least some of the signs.  In this case, what would you recommend, particularly if the signs are labeled in more than one character set?

-------Original Email-------
Subject :Re: [Tagging] Country names
From  :mailto:peterb at gatech.edu
Date  :Thu Oct 14 11:05:02 America/Chicago 2010


Noel David Torres Taño <envite at rolamasao.org> writes:

> That all is quite good for places with only one roman-script name. But I'm 
> thinking in this case:
>
> name:es=Cataluña (This is the name in Spain's official language, which is 
> official there since Catalonia is part of Spain)
> name:ca=Catalunya (This is the official name, it is in local language)
> name:en=Catalonia (This is the name in OSM's official language)
>
> How to tag name=* for that? How to render?
>
> An it can become more complicated, as in Basque Country most places have both 
> spanish and basque names as official:
>
> name:es=Vitoria (=name:en)
> name:eu=Gasteiz
>
> official name: Vitoria/Gasteiz
>
> and some places where both names are the same (like Barakaldo) so official 
> name is obviously not Barakaldo/Barakaldo
>
> or, just with one local and official name, but different names for people 
> which use that map a lot, like british and german tourists in Canary Islands:
>
> name:es=Islas Canarias
> name:en=Canary Islands
> name:de=Canarische Inseln

There's a problem in places like Hawaii, too.  Officially, Hawaiian uses
the kahakō and the ʻokina.  English does not.  However, there are
streets with names like "Kalākaua Avenue" and "Liliʻuokalani Avenue".

The name:en= tag should not contain kahakō or ʻokina.  However, the
name:haw= tag should not contain words like "street" or "avenue",
because these are English words!

The best solution, then (and I mean this for all places, not just
Hawaii) seems to be to tag name= with exactly what's written on the
signs.  If more than one language is used on signs, choose whichever is
larger/more prominent/on top.

This has added value in that you can give directions that tell the user
to "turn left on Liliʻuokalani Avenue" or "take the exit towards
München" and they'll be able to look for a sign that says exactly that,
without the router needing to know anything about what the local
language is.
-- 
Peter Budny  \
Georgia Tech  \
CS PhD student \

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