[OSM-talk] Persian/Arabian Gulf Tagging

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 6/29/21 21:35, Abdullah Abdulrhman wrote:
 > The English language is considered a secondary and semi-official
 > language in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the rest
 > of the Arab Gulf countries, and it is important that the name is not in
 > it according to the Persian point of view only.

Then again, the English language is a "secondary semi-offical" language 
in many places.

I am concerned that if we allow locals to dictate the "English name" it 
will not stop there. Currently, the majority of languages refer to the 
gulf as some variant of "Persian", for example in my mother tongue, 
German, it is "Persischer Golf" and certainly not "Arabischer Golf". It 
is speakers of German who have the right to name things in their 
language, however wrong this may be deemed by the local population.

I wonder if the English language is special in this regard, and it is 
not "speakers of English" as a whole who get to decide the English name 
of something, but instead only "local speakers of English". This would 
deviate from rules for other name:xx tags.

I could live with "int_name" having some A/B form - because we say it is 
an "international" name we can also be more inclusive there and try and 
accommodate different viewpoints. I am wary about using an A/B form in 
the name:en tag.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"