On 4 June 2015 at 23:40, John Willis <jo...@mac.com> wrote: > > In Japan, every single road sign - hundreds of thousands - is in Japanese > and English. That sign 40km up in the mountains, where no tourist would > drive on a rural tertiary road - English is there. Every single exit sign > on the motorway system is in Japanese and English. Train stations are > signed are in Japanese Kanji, the phonetic alphabet Hiragana, and English - > because even Japanese tourists may not know how to read name Kanji of > unfamiliar places. > > Because of the prevalence of English on signs, English Speaking Mappers > would tag things with name=日本語 (English) + name:ja=日本語 + name:en=English. > Having > the english in parens was deemed to be a bad thing, but because it is still > common on the map, new mappers add it back on to name tags (as i did when i > first started). > > Mappers do this because: > > - OSM's font sizes and strokes are optimized for Roman scripts (and ones > of similar characters) the intricate Kanji are difficult to read, but the > English in parens is very easy to read. > > - OSM doesn't support multi-language labels. Someone commented that > Japanese people wouldn't appreciate English on the map, but in real life, > Japan is slathered in English because of the total incomprehensibility of > Kanji for any visitor (and almost all place names are very difficult kanji) > , along with English being Japan's national "hobby". > > > That's very interesting John - it must be difficult for Japan to balance its own language with something more easily comprehended. It is perhaps a useful indication of the problems OSM faces with historic ways changing to be more accommodating.
-- Mike. @millomweb <https://sites.google.com/site/millomweb/index/introduction> - For all your info on Millom and South Copeland via *the area's premier website - * *currently unavailable due to ongoing harassment of me, my family, property & pets* T&Cs <https://sites.google.com/site/pmailkeey/e-mail>
_______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
