[Tagging] Draft Proposal: Default Langauge Format

[Christoph Hormann]

On Wednesday 26 September 2018, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> Isn't it so that the new system adds zero usefulness to countries or
> areas which have and use just one language, but is useful in regions
> that have more than one? Hence, why roll it out in, say, most parts
> of Germany *at all*, and just stick to parts where several languages
> are used?

Also in Germany we have features with no German name (most notably 
probably in regions with significant minority languages but also for 
example some English shop names, Italian restaurant names etc.) and 
features which have both a German and a different language name both in 
active use locally (so the name tag would contain a combination of 
both).

Examples:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/240045727
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/135310439
https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3903774975
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/90431650

The whole point of a concept like the one proposed here is to have a 
unified system that transparently covers all cases - both in terms of 
the geographic and cultural reality and in terms of use cases of the 
data.  Special casing countries which supposedly don't need this kind 
of defeats the whole purpose.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/