[OSM-talk] handling street names in speech

[Greg Troxel]

Rory McCann <rory at technomancy.org> writes:

> I don't think this counts as “tagging for the renderer”, which is more
> about adding false data to “make the map look like what you want”
> (e.g. “I want a blue line here, like the `route=ferry` line, so I'll
> use that”).
>
> I think it could be very helpful for place names which aren't
> pronounced the way you pronounce regular English words. e.g. in
> Ireland: “Dun Laoghaire” [dun leary], “Tallaght” [tala], “Youghal”
> [yal], “Portlaoise” [port leash]. This could be a problem even in
> England with places like “Reading”, “Worchester”, “Cirencester”.

I was about to start off by suggesting that the name->IPA database be
separate as it was not clearly geospatial.  After congratuluating myself
for knowing how to pronounce Portlaoise, I came to "Worchester".  In New
England, we have a "Worcester" and "Marlborough" as well, but they are
pronounced quite differently, "w[oo-shwaish] stah'", and the first R in
marlboro is mostly dropped, boston style.  It definitely sounds funny
when pronounced in straight standard English, and I had already
considered extending osmand to have boston pronunciations.