[OSM-talk] naming an item in multiple languages

Andrew Errington a.errington at lancaster.ac.uk
Tue May 31 08:19:53 BST 2011


On Tue, May 31, 2011 09:30, Robin Paulson wrote:
> i live in nz, a country with two (three if you count sign langauge)
> government-approved languages: english and maori.

Your own conclusions are fine and sensible.

In Korea we have this [1]:

name:ko = Korean name in Hangul (Korean characters)
name:en = English or Romanised name
name = Hangul (English)

We also have name:ko_rm=* which is the Romanised version of Korean
syllables.  There is a similar scheme in Japan.  Note that English is not
an official language here, but all of the roadsigns are in Korean and
English or Romanised English.

How it appears depends on the renderer, especially if the renderer can
render localised maps based on the user's language choice.  There was some
discussion a while back about a multi-layered language renderer, which did
exactly the Right Thing IMHO.  You *should* have something in name=*
because that is the 'fall-back' if no other language can be found for the
renderer to make a label.  Conversely, if there are no other variations in
any other language you only need name=*.  Finally, you are not limited to
just the 'official' languages, e.g. you could add name:fr=* for a French
label if there was one.

For your examples (IMHO):
name:en=Mount Eden
name:mi=Maungawhau
name=Mount Eden or name=Mount Eden (Maungawhau)

name:mi=Te Araroa
name:en=The Long Path
name=Te Araroa

name=Pukekohe

> we also have Auckland, which sits in an area known as "Tamaki"

If Tamaki can't be defined as a point or area it cannot be mapped.  Define
it and you can.

HTH,

Andrew

[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Korea_Naming_Convention




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