Hi Ben, Have been lurking in the background of GB-Talk for a little while and just learning the ropes with OSM at the moment. But I have done a bit of reading around the GB-Talk archives on this subject because it's really hard to know what to do with English / Welsh names in some cases.
I come from a background of land management in North Wales where place names are becoming an increasingly hot topic. I'm sure you're already aware of this but for those who are new to the subject this video has been doing the rounds on social media for the past couple of years and broadly outlines people's concerns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLQ6XlG0MQ4. The ability to include an :en or :cy tag name field is really helpful for this but it's unfortunate that ultimately we have to choose a single name tag for each place name - giving the impression that one language has precedence over another. The crux of the topic for me is that maps are never just standalone representations of the physical / political world, they can also influence the world that they represent - they can project influence or take it away. It's perhaps a bit of a naive viewpoint to think that we're just recording what's there without recognising the power that maps have to set in place and increase usage of some place names while eliminating or significantly reducing the use of others. With that in mind, and admittedly polemicising the debate a little. If we accept the premise that the native language of Wales is Welsh and that OSM is a community mapping project where we have an opportunity to respect native communities in a way that past colonial mapmakers didn't. Could we take this as an opportunity to prioritise authentic Welsh place names where that's possible? I understand that there will be objections to this, but I'm not sure we can disregard it completely as an option? One other way to settle this would be to seek guidance from an external body. Does the Welsh Government have a position on place names that we can refer to? I notice that the Welsh Language Commissioner provides a recommended list of standardised place names for Wales which is licensed under OGL 3.0: http://www.comisiynyddygymraeg.cymru/english/commissioner/placenames/Pages/Search.aspx All of the above is written with the big caveat that I'm new to OSM and not a Welsh language or place name expert in any way, I wouldn't go against the group decision on this and have been quite conservative with my edits so far because I know it's a huge topic to get into. Overall I think you should be congratulated for broaching the subject and trying to pin down a policy on it as it really does stir up a lot of strong sentiment in this part of the world! All the best, Gruff On Mon, 12 Oct 2020 at 14:06, Ben Proctor <b...@benproctor.co.uk> wrote: > Hi everyone > > I'd like to open up the currently unresolved question of multilingual > tagging in Wales. > > In the Mapio Cymru project we've been exploring Welsh language mapping > https://openstreetmap.cymru/ and we've done some thinking about how Welsh > and English naming works in parts of Wales. We plan to organise some > (online) workshops in November to encourage people to add Welsh language > tags to the map. Those workshops will initially be delivered through the > medium of Welsh but we hope also to run some in English at a later date. > > The wiki entry for Wales in Multilingual Names highlights that this has > been an area of discussion. > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Multilingual_names#Wales > > The current entry is short and so I'll reproduce it here in full. > > > > > > > *[starts/---]In Wales, the name tag should be used for whatever the local > population uses.name:en and name:cy can be used to give English and Welsh > names where such names exist but are not the name used by the local > population. (cy is the two letter ISO639-1 language code for the Welsh > language.)The percentage of Welsh speakers varies very significantly across > the country and visiting mappers should be aware of local usage.* > *[---/ends]* > > From a Mapio Cymru perspective we'd like to propose, for discussion, > replacing this text with the following (reasoning follows): > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *[starts/---]In Wales the name tag should be used for the name by which > the place is widely known in Wales. This could be English or Welsh but not > both. So name: Wales or name: Cymru would be acceptable but not name: > Wales/Cymru.name:en should be used to give the name by which the place or > feature is known in English.name:cy should be used to give the name by > which the place or feature is known in WelshEven though this will lead to > apparent duplication. For example:name: Swanseaname:en Swanseaname:cy > AbertaweThis allows places and features to be named unambiguously and so > rather than duplication is conveying useful new information.* > *[---/ends]* > > *Our Reasoning* > Wales is a bilingual country and many places have different names in Welsh > and English. Many other places have the same name in Welsh and English. It > is not possible to infer from the Name tag whether the contents are in > Welsh or English. > > We believe that the only unambiguous way to name places and features in > Wales is to use the name:en and name:cy tags. > > The "name" tag does not fit the Wales context well but we recognise its > importance within the wider OSM community. Though in some bilingual > countries the name tag contains both versions of a name and notably in the > Basque country this seemingly reflects the official state policy of > designating the official name of a town as its two names delimited by a > hyphen. We believe in the Wales context this would be better achieved by > processing name:en and name:cy tags. > > We're really happy to get some feedback, questions or comments on this > proposal. Especially highlighting things we might have missed or > misconstrued. > > Cheers > > Ben > -- > Mapio Cymru <https://mapio.cymru/> > OpenStreetMap.Cymru > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb >
_______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
