If I display for example the Ukrainian map, the cities names are written with the Ukrainian alphabet.
Kiev (in french) is written Київ and more cryptic, Odessa is written Одеса !
You could understand that for a foreigner who only understand the Latin alphabet, OSM is useless when he scrolls to the east or south of Europe.
Since when I connect to OSM, the map is centered on France, the server knows that I am connecting from France. So, it could, as a default, at least subtitle all the names outside France in french.
I agree that the default map on the OSM website should be doing that. It’s mostly the fault of our difficulties with organizing effective software development on our website. We’re aware of that problem, but it really should have been implemented 5 years ago. Sorry for the bad service.
The good news is that the openness of OSM means that you’re not limited to the OSM website (which was really built more as a quick example of what can be done with OSM rather than a polished consumer-friendly application). People can build maps from OSM data themselves, and as a result, there are maps with names in French or in multiple languages, such as the ones linked by Spiekerooger. Even on the OSM website, you can switch between different maps, some of which prefer names in Latin characters. So I hope you find a map in the OSM ecosystem that works for you.
Thanks.
I was surprised (when following the links provided by Spiekerooger) that what I was looking for did exist.
So, is there a button on the main page www.openstreetmap.org that would allow the selection of subtitles in different languages ?
