[OSM-talk] Explicit tagging of name language

[Vincent Pottier]

Le 06/12/2010 11:22, MD a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> Ed Avis wrote:
> [...]
>    
>> I believe the answer, as so often, is to improve the tagging used so that
>> software has the information it needs.  In this case an explicit English-
>> language name should be added, so we have
>>
>>      name=Scotland
>>      name:en=Scotland
>>      name:fr=Ecosse
>>      name:es=Escocia
>>
>> (Another way to tag the same info would be to invent a new tag
>> 'language_of_main_name=en' but this seems cumbersome and would not be understood
>> by existing software.)
>>      
> This is also the solution I am using when tagging stuff in the German
> Community of Belgium, where many places, streets, etc have both german
> and french names. But this is indeed a problem in many areas - with
> special focus on countries with more than one official language. (But of
> course also - for example - in touristic places and elsewhere.)
> The only objection I have is that it introduces some sort of redundancy
> - even if small. I can't think of a better solution so far, though.
>
>    
>> In the new year I plan to write a small tool to help fix these, prompting a
>> human being to decide or at least verify the language of each name.  Then an
>> additional name:XX tag will be added to the object.  Sound sensible?
>>      
> Could be a solution, I think.
>
>    
A solution could be by adding a tag on boundaries with something like 
"language:name=nn" as 'default language' for the tags name=* inside the 
boundary, and maybe a cascade system for some places where the langage 
at country level is nn and at regionnal level is mm.
It gives less work for the mappers, no redundancy but more work for 
nominatim.

I have tryied something in that way with a 'default' relation :
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relations/Proposed/Defaults
--
FrViPofm