[OSM-talk] Transcription and 'internationalization' in place names

[Andrew Errington]

On Tue, April 17, 2012 10:31, Stephan Knauss wrote:
> Andrew Errington writes:
>
>
>> In fact, I think that if name:ko=* is present, then it doesn't actually
>> matter what is in name=*.  The definition of name=* then becomes subtly
>> altered to mean "The label we use if no language is specified."  Then we
>> can argue what goes into that label...
>
> IMHO the definition of the name tag is fine. It says it's the name the
> *local* people call it. If the local people want some mixed spelling in
> that tag then, -well- it's their problem when doing other things with the
> data besides rendering a map.
>
> So the standard rendering should be a help for the *local* mappers and
> thus display their local name.
>
> If for tourists or other special cases a different rendering is required
> then it should be on a specialized map.
>
> For Thailand we do it like this. The local people can read the names on
> the map as a lot of expats who map here can do.
>
> For those who want to have latin script names we have a special
> rendering.
>
> As Mapquest does already provide a fallback to English, why not adapt the
>  label on the main site to read "MapQuest open (bilingual)" to make it
> easier to find?

Ok, well I think it would make sense to always include a tag with the name
in the local language even if it is redundant with the name=* tag.  And in
fact that's exactly what we do in Korea and Japan.

Alternatively, is there a mechanism to link name=* and name:xx=*?

i.e. name:ko -> name  (or name -> name:ko)?

Then we only have to enter the information once, but we can answer the
question "What is the name of Seoul in Korean?" unambiguously.

Best wishes,

Andrew