> On Sep 24, 2015, at 11:56 AM, Dave Swarthout <daveswarth...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Here in Thailand there are many nationalities beside English speakers that 
> make use of these offices, among them are large numbers of  Burmese, 
> Cambodians, Germans, and Japanese.


here in Japan it would be mostly non-english speakers as well (Brazillians, 
Chinese, Koreans, and then English speakers) - but English is the common 
language we all have studied, so all the signs (like most throughout Japan) are 
printed in Japanese and English. I’m pretty sure the common language between 
all those people you listed (besides Thai) would be English as well. 

Support for mulit-language rendering in general is severely lacking.  Most 
signage in Japan is shown in Japanese and English (every single tollway sign, 
road sign and train station - hundreds of thousands of signs), so the default 
-carto render should render both as well, but doesn't.  In this case, -carto 
renders the map with less detail than real life. A JA version of the map can be 
JA only, but for scripts that can’t be parsed by english speakers (like most 
asian scripts), -carto should render their EN tag below the name=* label - as 
that would properly reflect “the ground truth” 

This lack of being able to properly reflect the ground truth led to the JA(EN) 
tag issue in Japan, as Foreign resident mappers who use English attempted to 
show this duality in the real life signs in the name tag field [ name=Japanese 
(English) ], but ultimately is is not good data policy for the name=* tag, so 
it is banned.  But  nothing is done to render both languages (currently), 
creating a crappy situation for the default -carto there. 

Which is why, for a building almost exclusively used by foreigners, in a place 
where the native script is hard to read, I suggest the name field be something 
parsable ****to those foreigners****, whatever common language that is. 

Javbw
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