[Talk-us] Fwd: [OSM-talk] Using 'Kort' outside of Switzerland

[Minh Nguyen]

On 09:20 2014-01-19, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
>
> 2014/1/18 Peter Davies
> <peter.davies at crc-corp.com
> <mailto:peter.davies at crc-corp.com>>
>
>       Would it depend on (say) whether or not the street is actually
>     posted in Japanese as well as in English?  Or should another
>     criterion be suggested?
>
>
>
> the name tag is not only about street names. Think of famous monuments
> or important cities, they will more often have names in different
> languages. Outside of multilingual areas it will be very rare that a
> street or square has more than one name. There are also examples for the
> latter, like "St. Peter's Square" in the Vatican City, which is
> according to the posted sign called "Piazza San Pietro" (and there is no
> English name anywhere near or at that square that I am aware of, but I
> guess nonetheless nobody would doubt the validity of the English name.)
>
> Other examples where multiple names for streets do occur are former
> colonies, but one might argue that those are indeed multilingual areas.
>
> For transliterations of non-latin characters I'd suggest to use a
> dedicated tag and not the name:en etc. tags, but I'd use the name:en
> when the name is also posted in English.

For Chinese, Pinyin transliterations are often placed in a dedicated 
`name:zh_pinyin` tag as well as `int_name`. Not all languages use Pinyin 
for Chinese names -- Vietnamese uses a very different system -- but 
Pinyin transliterations are common on guide signs in China.

For the `name:en` tag, as a rule of thumb, ask yourself how an English 
speaker or publication would tend to refer to the street or monument. 
The answer will vary from case to case: "Tiananmen" is better than "Gate 
of Heavenly Peace", but as Peter mentioned, "Avenue des Champs-Élysées" 
is better than "Elysian Fields Avenue" (which is incidentally the name 
of a major street in New Orleans).

[1] http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/?key=name:zh_pinyin

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us