Hello, Yes, it is potentially a minefield. I clearly indicated so previously. Well, I guess what matters is what you are going to do with the data. Someone earlier raised the very valid point that most of the problem could actually be solved by using the rendering in Mapnik by specifying the language you want the results in. Maybe I am worrying for no reason but I could see cases where it would be useful for geocoding and routing. I could be wrong, but if someone sends you an address, it is going to be most likely in the "native" language of the person. The way I see things is that the order would only apply to one named field. I don't see it as a replacement for an entire country. In the initial email by Nick Black, he asked what was the convention for the street in Kiev. He was using both addr:en and addr:ua apparently omitting the default addr. Personally, I would prefer to have the local language than English. I also saw that problem with the problem we had with Lithuania where people realized it was an import of Teleatlas because the language was using the old Russian names. As for your example for the Basque people, I think it is the same example as the Catalan one. I have seen how Castellano has been removed from signs over the past few years. Anyway, to some extent, the fact that we are using only name:Rue du moulin rouge is an implicit admission that we are using a native language. I just thought that in some countries it could result in having clearer result.
Emilie Laffray Joe Richards wrote: >> I like the idea of the language element. I would like to add an extra >> precision in this case. I think the order of language should be by >> importance. >> Unfortunately, in this case namely the country, it is something highly >> political to even consider an order. But, in the case of a town located >> in the French speaking part, it would be logical to put something like >> fr;nl;da instead of nl;fr;da. The reverse would be true. >> Belgium is one interesting place to look at; Spain might be an other >> place to look at. The area around Barcelona is likely to be named in >> Catalan nowadays rather than Castellano. >> The order of language is likely to be a minefield because we are talking >> about something highly political, but it would allow to support the >> concept of native language, which I believe is very important. >> Things like different alphabet might be also interesting to look at even >> if it is likely that it can be subsumed under translation. >> > > I don't think the relatively peaceful and stable country of Belgium is at all > the only example where ranking the languages would be quite political and/or > controversial. > > What about in New Zealand where a treaty between the Queen and the tribes of > New Zealand established the Maori tribes as equals, and their language, > culture and courts as equals - yet only a small percentage of the population > speaks it? What order do you put the languages? There would be a political > uproar if the government of NZ tried to suggest a ranking. > > Or in Tibet, where before the 1950's invasion by the communists everyone > speaks Tibetan, but now gradually more and more people are shipped in who > speak Mandarin Chinese and will probably vastly outnumber the Tibetans in > their homeland within our lifetime? > > People in the Basque country might be a little horrified if you put > Castillian in front of Basque (and some might even object to it being in the > list). > > Regions of India have many languages and subdialects, sometimes switching in > a borderless fashion within a small region/space. > > Lastly what actual value would ranking the languages spoken in region by > importance give the project - ie could it be shown on a map, or interpreted > in any device that would be meaningful? > > I'm just curious and playing devil's advocate - happy to be convinced that > there is true benefit to a proposal like this... > > > > >
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