[OSM-talk] Label language on the Default stylesheet

[Elena ``of Valhalla'']

On 2017-11-01 at 14:28:12 +0100, Oleksiy Muzalyev wrote:
> There is a code for the Lingua Latina (Latin language) in the ISO 639-1,
> which is used at the OSM. It is "la" [1]. It is an ancient language so
> modern political controversies would not be reflected on it.
> [...]

This is the point where I believe that most people (me incuded) don't
agree: latin has ancient origins, but is still alive precisely because
it has remained in use up to modern times in a very specific part of the
world.

It may be a good neutral language between speakers of e.g. French and
German, but once you get outside of Europe + nations mostly inhabited by
europeans it's definitely not neutral, but the (scientific) language of
the old imperialist powers.

It is also much easier to understand for the speaker of some languages,
but utterly foreign to anybody from a culture where the common langage
of science was e.g. a variant of chinese or classical arabic, as those
two languages are to us europeans.

I can think of one language among the ones that I know of that would be
ancient and free from modern political controversies: ancient Sumerian,
which is really dead, a language isolate (and thus equally difficult for
everybody) and written in its own system (so that nobody is advantaged
here either). Of course, these precise reasons make it quite an
impractical choice for osm.
-- 
Elena ``of Valhalla''