[talk-ph] Usability of translating Wikidata world places to Tagalog/Filipino

[Ronny Ager-Wick]

I agree with Eugene, if you choose specifically to display the map in Tagalog, 
you should get whatever name for the place that is correct Tagalog.
Same way if you specifically choose Chinese, you should see the Chinese names 
of Filipino places, if available.

The question is though, how would apply the other way?
If we're looking at a map of the Philippines without selecting language, would 
it then be displayed in Tagalog? I'm just wondering, because not all of the 
Philippines is Tagalog area? Bulacan is written with a C and Angeles City is 
not "Lungsod ng Angeles" to the locals, and pretty much anyone else.
In fact, in case of Angeles City, it's actually "Lakanbalen ning Angeles", but 
does OSM support languages on regions, not just countries? If so, how do we 
deal with multilingual areas?
You might look how it is done in Belgium and Switzerland, both countries with 
multiple official languages generally divided by area. Or India, I believe 
they have 20-something official languages.

Will adding Tagalog names for places result in that becoming the default 
language for place names in the Philippines when viewing a map without 
actively selecting a language?
If that's the case, I think it's a bad idea - simply because Tagalog is not 
the only language in the Philippines - there are more than a hundred of them!
That would be undermining the linguistic diversity of the country.

If the default will be the English (or "international") names, and you only 
get Tagalog names by actively selecting Tagalog language, then it makes good 
sense.

If you get the place names written in Kapampangan, Visayan, Ilocano, etc. as 
default in the areas where they are spoken (and English/International as a 
backup in case the local language is not avaiable), then it sounds like a good 
idea to use the various Filipino languages as default, otherwise it makes 
sense to use the other official language of the Philippines - English as the 
default.

If you can differentiate the language used when actively selecting "Tagalog" 
as your language from the default language for a country, you may consider 
creating a fictive language "Filipino languages" to use as default for the 
Philippines, based on current default (English) and replacing the default with 
Tagalog names for those areas. This way you'll get "Maynila", but not "Lungsod 
ng whatever" in non-Tagalog areas.

(Yes I know we shouldn't use prefixes like "Lungsod ng" on the map, but I 
couldn't come up with a better example off the top of my head. It's the 
principle, not the particulars that matter here.)

Ronny.


On 2017-05-05 08:27, Jim Morgan wrote:
> maning sambale wrote on Thursday, 04 May, 2017 06:55 PM:
>> Our team at Mapbox is pushing for completing Wikidata places
>> translation to several languages [0] including Filipino/Tagalog.  The
>> aim is to connect the two projects and leverage from the data that
>> both project have (location in OSM, translations in Wikidata). [1]
>
> So, for me, the ideal situation is this: the map allows you to select a language preference. If I'm looking at a map of China and I select English, the english name should display if available, but if not, then the default Chinese name should appear.
>
> Applying this to your comment about Germany, the map would appear initially in German. If you selected Tagalog, any place names with a tagalog translation would display, but otherwise the name would appear in German. This would allow people to flip between several languages as they desired. Places with vastly different alphabets (Thailand, China, Russia etc) would definitely benefit from this arrangement.
>
> Jim
>
>
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