[OSM-talk] Tag translation

[Simon Hewison]

Dubravko Penezic wrote:
> Hi Mike,
> 
> I dont suggest translating word to another language.
> 
> Mostly word corespond to sentence meaning, not to word to word tranlating.
> 
> Also, in diferent country "same" word may be use for very different things.
> 
> Better way is to set generic code for each map element, and then do
> translation list.

Alternatively, since "Map_Features" is already quite well-defined and 
used, any internationalization functions can merely translate from the 
"English" key/value tags to something similar to a local language. 
Especially since much of that would be presented in an editing 
application with a user-interface like a drop-down list, it doesn't 
actually matter _what_ gets displayed in the drop-down, so long as what 
goes into the actual API and database is internationally consistent.

If you compare with what is used for TPEG broadcasts, that schema was 
designed from the outset with internationalization and localization in 
mind (which uses very large and detailed lookup tables for value to 
natural language meanings)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/tpeg/

Since we already have a API that isn't tied down to formally defined 
key/value pairs, and lots of entries in the existing format, it's not 
hugely feasible to change every editor / renderer / reformatter of the 
database to use numeric key/value pairs and lookup tables.

-- 
Simon Hewison