7 ms·

Maybe you can explain one of my long-burning questions: why are non-English tracks handled so inconsistently? I'll sometimes see an English translation, sometim

by fivre 5y ago

Maybe you can explain one of my long-burning questions: why are non-English tracks handled so inconsistently? I'll sometimes see an English translation, sometimes a transliteration (for non-Latin scripts), and sometimes the original language. It's not consistent which gets used even for a single artist, and sometimes changes to a different one. The albums Ангедония (https://open.spotify.com/album/1HxmgR8wpc1ySplYCTNwaW https://open.spotify.com/album/1HxmgR8wpc1ySplYCTNwaW or https://i.imgur.com/ndOXsgL.png https://i.imgur.com/ndOXsgL.png) and Продано! (https://open.spotify.com/album/5kp7j9B4TDA3VfhaXz9XcJ https://open.spotify.com/album/5kp7j9B4TDA3VfhaXz9XcJ or https://i.imgur.com/QJNjXc1.png https://i.imgur.com/QJNjXc1.png), for example, both contain a version of the track "Рижская". The former uses the original Russian while the latter uses Rigas', which is a sort-of translation (it's an adjectival version of "Riga", which doesn't really exist in English). https://help.apple.com/itc/musicstyleguide/en.lproj/static.html#itce7b765579 https://help.apple.com/itc/musicstyleguide/en.lproj/static.h... indicates that there are separate fields for each of the original, the translation, and the transliteration, but it doesn't seem like anyone actually _uses_ these, and instead just picks one arbitrarily to stuff into the main/native field. I'm not sure if Spotify even has a way to display the alternates--I can't recall ever seeing a toggle for it, though idk if I've ever actually encountered a track that includes the variants, since you can't see raw metadata on Spotify. Is it just that music labels do a lackluster job of handling metadata? I expect this is probably the case, since classical music is similarly messy--it's a crapshoot whether the composer or performer gets used as the artist. For that I've at least seen the composer metadata field populated sometimes, but internationalization fields don't seem to be used ever.

stavros 5y ago
It's really hard finding Greek songs on Spotify for this reason. There are many ways to transliterate (eg "ευχή" can be "efhi", "euxi", and all the combinations thereof, and that's just with two ambiguous letters) and no names are in Greek, so it's basically a game of trying to guess the transliteration for the track you want.
- notimetorelax 5y ago
  I’d say software should handle this issue - you type in Greek and it should match all possible transliterations.
  - stavros 5y ago
    That's very hard, there are too many combinations. A better solution would be to just use the original Greek name.
    - YawningAngel 5y ago
      That's a good solution for Greek speakers, but a terrible solution for non-Greek speakers, who _can_ learn a "canonical" transliteration but can't write Greek
      - stavros 5y ago
        There is no canonical transliteration, though. Also it doesn't make sense to learn Greek like that, and nobody does in practice.
        wolverine876 5y ago
        While I don't doubt your knowledge, note that many aspects of European language, including English, and including the European alphabets, are in a sense transliterations of Greek.
        stavros 5y ago
        Certainly, and there isn't a canonical transliteration there either. There is some consistency, but the primary goal was that the words look good in the target language, which isn't a concern for me when I want to type my language in a keyboard that doesn't have Greek letters. For that case, multiple transliterations per letter exist, including some that use numbers (e.g. θέλω = thelo, thelw, 8elv, and any combination of those).
bobuk 5y ago
quick upvote for examples from Yanka. I thought that I'm the only one who still listening her.
maxbendick 5y ago
This is an area that many parties handle differently. Streaming services, artists, labels, and distributors don't all handle translation metadata consistently. There are specs in DDEX for this, but it's a matter of support and doing the translation work AFAIK.

by fivre 5y ago

stavros 5y ago

It's really hard finding Greek songs on Spotify for this reason. There are many ways to transliterate (eg "ευχή" can be "efhi", "euxi", and all the combinations thereof, and that's just with two ambiguous letters) and no names are in Greek, so it's basically a game of trying to guess the transliteration for the track you want.

notimetorelax 5y ago
I’d say software should handle this issue - you type in Greek and it should match all possible transliterations.
- stavros 5y ago
  That's very hard, there are too many combinations. A better solution would be to just use the original Greek name.
  - YawningAngel 5y ago
    That's a good solution for Greek speakers, but a terrible solution for non-Greek speakers, who _can_ learn a "canonical" transliteration but can't write Greek
    - stavros 5y ago
      There is no canonical transliteration, though. Also it doesn't make sense to learn Greek like that, and nobody does in practice.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        While I don't doubt your knowledge, note that many aspects of European language, including English, and including the European alphabets, are in a sense transliterations of Greek.
        stavros 5y ago
        Certainly, and there isn't a canonical transliteration there either. There is some consistency, but the primary goal was that the words look good in the target language, which isn't a concern for me when I want to type my language in a keyboard that doesn't have Greek letters. For that case, multiple transliterations per letter exist, including some that use numbers (e.g. θέλω = thelo, thelw, 8elv, and any combination of those).

bobuk 5y ago

quick upvote for examples from Yanka. I thought that I'm the only one who still listening her.

maxbendick 5y ago

This is an area that many parties handle differently. Streaming services, artists, labels, and distributors don't all handle translation metadata consistently. There are specs in DDEX for this, but it's a matter of support and doing the translation work AFAIK.