6 ms·

What I would love to see in OpenStreetMaps are translated or transcripted place names. And since place names are extremely political, this should also be mentio

by tehabe 8y ago

What I would love to see in OpenStreetMaps are translated or transcripted place names. And since place names are extremely political, this should also be mentioned that a place has several names in different languages and cultures.

Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
Here's exactly that in action: - https://openmaptiles.org/languages/native/#0.88/0/0 https://openmaptiles.org/languages/native/#0.88/0/0 - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/06/28/interactive-maps-now-in-your-language/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/06/28/interactive-maps-now-i...
timthorn 8y ago
That exists. This blog post explains how to add Welsh names: http://cardiff.theodi.org/2018/02/23/mapio-eich-milltir-sgwar/ http://cardiff.theodi.org/2018/02/23/mapio-eich-milltir-sgwa...
- maxerickson 8y ago
  There's quite some resistance to adding translations and transcriptions, as they aren't really names as such. An example would be small towns in the US. They probably don't have a Welsh name, even if there happens to be a direct translation into Welsh.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Cymraeg users often have a strong hatred of English language use, and users, and want to deny that Welsh counties were annexed in to England and want to try and hold back the tide wrt English language use in preference to Cymraeg. We get silly things in Wales like Cymraeg mono-lingual government announcements/adverts on the radio (accessible to about 7% [1] of the population vs c.100% if they were in English), motorway signs that are only in Cwmraeg for half the people passing them (they change over, useless if you passed already), travel announcements in Cymraeg first. Heck, if you ring 999 in an emergency you have to wait for the Cymraeg speaker to finish their 20s message before you start your call. Welsh people use British-English language predominantly; the Welsh name is the name in English, the Cymraeg name sometimes differs. [1] roughly: ~15% of the adult population say they know any Cymraeg, half of those are fluent (self reported). FWIW half of those fluent say they prefer to use English. So one could argue you're catering to <4% of the population.
    - gerdesj 8y ago
      Cymraeg users often have a strong hatred of English language use, and users, Not my experience (English - Somerset based - with quite a lot of work and friends the other side of the bridges). If you show some respect towards others, I generally find it returned. They are also not users but speakers. The only time I find dual language to be a bit of a pain is in lifts: being told the doors are closing in two languages is bloody stupid. and want to deny that Welsh counties were annexed in to England and want to try and hold back the tide wrt English language use in preference to Cymraeg. You might want to reread your history books and concentrate around 1066. The Norsemen didn't really give a shit whether you were "welsh" or "english" (neither of which, as we now know them, really existed as such at the time). You were probably a vassel, whatever language you spoke. I can't remember or even be bothered to look up when the concept of county was created. I think we still had hides and hundreds back then.
      - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
        'A county is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount...When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term [county] with them. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires; many county names derive from the name of the county town (county seat) with the word "shire" added on: for example, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.' [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County ]
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Harold put a vassal in place in Gwynedd in 1063. But IIRC they were already ruling and had originally taken Gwynedd by force with an Irish & Danish army. Re counties, there were established principalities in the West of the British mainland -- Gwynedd managed to subdue many of these other counties (ie independently governed areas), whilst paying fealty/homage to the English Crown, once Gwynedd had subdued Deheubarth and Powys and such, they (Llewellyn The Last) stopped paying the Crown. At which point Gwynedd was put down, handing their recent won territories over to be annexed to the "English" King's territories (Edward I). I don't think the Welsh counties in general were divided in to hundreds until Henry Tudor (who also issued a writ demanding use of English across his whole territory). Hides and hundreds, like the words, are Anglo-Saxon I think? AFAICT Gwynedd grew strong (post-Romans) by earlier conquest by Vikings and Irish-Scots. You're right, the Norse, like the Romans before them didn't care what tribe you hung with, Wales is called that because it's the bit the Romans hadn't conquered yet (cf Walloons, Wallachia (? in Romania)); which is down to physical geography. Same with the Norse AFAICT. And the same in the other direction with why Gwynedd was able to conquer the principalities but not subdue the Marches or Pembrokeshire.
  - kxkfkkf 8y ago
    Then dont add a translation for a small town and you have 0 problems.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      That would work. If this were a task of some central authority, and not literally anyone who happens to come by with Maps.Me installed. (Adding translations becomes a lesser problem, compared with "I know, I'll replace the local names with my mistranslations and personal scribbles like 'I left my car here'." Surprisingly, even discounting this, the crowdsourced POIs are quite accurate.)
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I don't really understand the approach to names which takes them and translates them: Pen-Y-Bont and Bridge-end are translations, but the name is one or the other. Transliteration seems fine to me, Caerdydd <=> Cardiff, but we shouldn't say it's "name" in English is Diffcastle (or perhaps Taffcastle if you take an etymological approach). /rant
  - DanBC 8y ago
    What do you call Germany? Germany, or Deutschland? Why is the one you use more correct than the other?
    - dominotw 8y ago
      Germany is more correct because they write " made in Germany" on German products.
      - JetSpiegel 8y ago
        But that was mandated by the British because the zeitgeist was that German products were shoddy crap.
      - kalleboo 8y ago
        So since the Japanese write 日本製 on their products you agree all maps should write it 日本 then?
        dominotw 8y ago
        I bought a zojirushi rice cooker last year, It said 'made in Japan'. Not quite sure what those characters are in your comment or what you are trying to say.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      Yes. In other words, both are correct. Choosing the one that's appropriate in a specific context...is a tricky problem.
  - 8y ago

by tehabe 8y ago

Doctor_Fegg 8y ago

Here's exactly that in action: - https://openmaptiles.org/languages/native/#0.88/0/0 https://openmaptiles.org/languages/native/#0.88/0/0 - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/06/28/interactive-maps-now-in-your-language/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/06/28/interactive-maps-now-i...

timthorn 8y ago

That exists. This blog post explains how to add Welsh names: http://cardiff.theodi.org/2018/02/23/mapio-eich-milltir-sgwar/ http://cardiff.theodi.org/2018/02/23/mapio-eich-milltir-sgwa...

maxerickson 8y ago
There's quite some resistance to adding translations and transcriptions, as they aren't really names as such. An example would be small towns in the US. They probably don't have a Welsh name, even if there happens to be a direct translation into Welsh.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Cymraeg users often have a strong hatred of English language use, and users, and want to deny that Welsh counties were annexed in to England and want to try and hold back the tide wrt English language use in preference to Cymraeg. We get silly things in Wales like Cymraeg mono-lingual government announcements/adverts on the radio (accessible to about 7% [1] of the population vs c.100% if they were in English), motorway signs that are only in Cwmraeg for half the people passing them (they change over, useless if you passed already), travel announcements in Cymraeg first. Heck, if you ring 999 in an emergency you have to wait for the Cymraeg speaker to finish their 20s message before you start your call. Welsh people use British-English language predominantly; the Welsh name is the name in English, the Cymraeg name sometimes differs. [1] roughly: ~15% of the adult population say they know any Cymraeg, half of those are fluent (self reported). FWIW half of those fluent say they prefer to use English. So one could argue you're catering to <4% of the population.
  - gerdesj 8y ago
    Cymraeg users often have a strong hatred of English language use, and users, Not my experience (English - Somerset based - with quite a lot of work and friends the other side of the bridges). If you show some respect towards others, I generally find it returned. They are also not users but speakers. The only time I find dual language to be a bit of a pain is in lifts: being told the doors are closing in two languages is bloody stupid. and want to deny that Welsh counties were annexed in to England and want to try and hold back the tide wrt English language use in preference to Cymraeg. You might want to reread your history books and concentrate around 1066. The Norsemen didn't really give a shit whether you were "welsh" or "english" (neither of which, as we now know them, really existed as such at the time). You were probably a vassel, whatever language you spoke. I can't remember or even be bothered to look up when the concept of county was created. I think we still had hides and hundreds back then.
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      'A county is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount...When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term [county] with them. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires; many county names derive from the name of the county town (county seat) with the word "shire" added on: for example, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.' [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County ]
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Harold put a vassal in place in Gwynedd in 1063. But IIRC they were already ruling and had originally taken Gwynedd by force with an Irish & Danish army. Re counties, there were established principalities in the West of the British mainland -- Gwynedd managed to subdue many of these other counties (ie independently governed areas), whilst paying fealty/homage to the English Crown, once Gwynedd had subdued Deheubarth and Powys and such, they (Llewellyn The Last) stopped paying the Crown. At which point Gwynedd was put down, handing their recent won territories over to be annexed to the "English" King's territories (Edward I). I don't think the Welsh counties in general were divided in to hundreds until Henry Tudor (who also issued a writ demanding use of English across his whole territory). Hides and hundreds, like the words, are Anglo-Saxon I think? AFAICT Gwynedd grew strong (post-Romans) by earlier conquest by Vikings and Irish-Scots. You're right, the Norse, like the Romans before them didn't care what tribe you hung with, Wales is called that because it's the bit the Romans hadn't conquered yet (cf Walloons, Wallachia (? in Romania)); which is down to physical geography. Same with the Norse AFAICT. And the same in the other direction with why Gwynedd was able to conquer the principalities but not subdue the Marches or Pembrokeshire.
- kxkfkkf 8y ago
  Then dont add a translation for a small town and you have 0 problems.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    That would work. If this were a task of some central authority, and not literally anyone who happens to come by with Maps.Me installed. (Adding translations becomes a lesser problem, compared with "I know, I'll replace the local names with my mistranslations and personal scribbles like 'I left my car here'." Surprisingly, even discounting this, the crowdsourced POIs are quite accurate.)
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
I don't really understand the approach to names which takes them and translates them: Pen-Y-Bont and Bridge-end are translations, but the name is one or the other. Transliteration seems fine to me, Caerdydd <=> Cardiff, but we shouldn't say it's "name" in English is Diffcastle (or perhaps Taffcastle if you take an etymological approach). /rant
- DanBC 8y ago
  What do you call Germany? Germany, or Deutschland? Why is the one you use more correct than the other?
  - dominotw 8y ago
    Germany is more correct because they write " made in Germany" on German products.
    - JetSpiegel 8y ago
      But that was mandated by the British because the zeitgeist was that German products were shoddy crap.
    - kalleboo 8y ago
      So since the Japanese write 日本製 on their products you agree all maps should write it 日本 then?
      - dominotw 8y ago
        I bought a zojirushi rice cooker last year, It said 'made in Japan'. Not quite sure what those characters are in your comment or what you are trying to say.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    Yes. In other words, both are correct. Choosing the one that's appropriate in a specific context...is a tricky problem.
- 8y ago