OpenStreetMap English (en_OSM) vs localization in regional English dialects

[ezekielf (Zeke Farwell)]

Forking the discussion from Acknowledging provinces in website search results, where some interesting points about localization are raised:

@lonvia

@Minh_Nguyen

How should we solve the issue of mislabeled provinces when searching?

I object to calling them mislabeled.

To reiterate what was already said in the discussion on Americanisation of the website: the words used in our tagging schemas only happen to look like English. They have in the meantime developed a meaning of their own. As Andrew Harvey just put it so nicely, we are speaking Openstreetmaplish (en_OSM) here.

Most of the words in OSM tags are English (en_GB specifically) and I wouldn’t say they just happen to be by chance. It is intentional. That said, the full set of words in our tagging schema does not match any particular regional dialect of English, and it even includes some words borrowed from other languages. Further, the point is well taken that the meaning of some OSM tags have deviated from that of the original British English words. I call the resulting dialect OpenStreetMap English (en_OSM). The portmanteau “Openstreetmaplish” is fun, but it would seem to suggest an entirely separate language from English. I don’t think we have deviated that far yet!

@lonvia

I have reservations pushing again more towards one or more of the national English dialects. For one thing, as you correctly state, it has real political implications and the push towards American/Canadian/British/Australian terminology leaves us vulnerable to serious edit warring. For another, it poses problems in understanding for those who only speak and understand Openstreetmaplish.

I have mixed feelings about this. Those of us with many years of engagement with the project know OpenStreetMap English well and it can bolster cross cultural communication as a lingua franca of sorts. However, for less engaged mappers from English speaking regions it can easily be a source of confusion and conflict because they do not realize the differences between their regional dialect and OpenStreetMap English (or indeed that en_OSM even exists). Localization into regional English dialects should help here, but it is tricky. On the other hand, such localization can hinder cross cultural communication if mappers don’t have to contend with the real en_OSM tag values, only localized strings in their particular en_* dialect.

When localizing into non-English languages, it is generally clear if you are looking at English or your local language. “Straße” is clearly German and “Road” is clearly English. Of course this isn’t always the case. “Tag” could be English or German and means a rather different thing in each case. This same thing can happen between English dialects.

The term “camp site” has a different meaning in American English than it does in British English (and in en_OSM). An American English speaker can easily make the mistake of tagging camp_site where the correct tag is camp_pitch because of this subtle difference in meaning. An en_US localization labelling camp_site as “campground” and camp_pitch as “camp site” would help prevent incorrect data entry by unaware American English speakers. However, if such a localization were to completely hide the underlying en_OSM tag values then communication between those that speak American English and those who speak a different dialect would be confusing:

en_US mapper: “I added a camp site to this campground”
en_GB mapper: “Are you sure? It looks to me like you added a camp pitch”
en_US mapper: “No, I definitely added a camp site”.
… both mappers unaware of the localization and the different meanings of the term in their respective dialects

To me it seems clear that when it comes to English dialects, neither strict localization or strict adherence to en_OSM are good options. I think an ideal English dialect localization would be something like this:

• Stick as close as possible to en_OSM while ensuring terms will be well understood
• Change a term if it will be misunderstood or confusing in the regional en_* dialect
• Where a term differs between the regional dialect and en_OSM, always display the en_OSM term as well. For example an en_US UI might display:
  • Campground ^{(en_OSM: camp site)}
  • Campsite ^{(en_OSM: camp pitch)}

This obviously would require more UI design consideration than a typical localization, but it’s the only way I can think of to work against cross-dialect misunderstanding and incorrect data entry.

[SomeoneElse (Andy Townsend)]

Does this mean I’ll be able to get OSM localised into Yorkshire ?

[ezekielf (Zeke Farwell)]

Sure, and I’ll take a Western New England localization . We might be waiting a while for more detailed locale codes beyond US and GB to become standardized though…

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@ezekielf

I have mixed feelings about this. Those of us with many years of engagement with the project know OpenStreetMap English well and it can bolster cross cultural communication as a lingua franca of sorts. However, for less engaged mappers from English speaking regions it can easily be a source of confusion and conflict because they do not realize the differences between their regional dialect and OpenStreetMap English (or indeed that en_OSM even exists). Localization into regional English dialects should help here, but it is tricky. On the other hand, such localization can hinder cross cultural communication if mappers don’t have to contend with the real en_OSM tag values, only localized strings in their particular en_* dialect.

As I see it, openstreetmap-website (and its Nominatim integration) is essentially a special kind of data consumer whose audience, in theory, is mostly mappers rather than laypeople trying to go about their day. For most data consumers in a similar position, like Overpass turbo and taginfo, the stakes are quite low, but openstreetmap-website is the face of OSM, so naturally people take its presentation of OSM data to have more of an air of authority. Even those of us who live and breathe OSM don’t check our lived experiences at the door, which is why the website is available in multiple localizations in the first place.

@ezekielf

To me it seems clear that when it comes to English dialects, neither strict localization or strict adherence to en_OSM are good options.

The base localization’s use of British English terms is causing a world of confusion. For example, shop=alcohol is “Off License”, because establishments in the UK are licensed to sell alcohol for offsite consumption. Translators lacking this context have variously turned it into 政府许可酒类店 in Chinese (“government-licensed liquor store”), Án vínveitingaleyfis in Icelandic (“lacking a wine license”), Kedai Arak Tanpa Lesen in Malaysian (“unlicensed liquor shop”), and Wala sa Lisensiya in Tagalog (“not found in the license”).

The problem with “Off License” is not that it’s spelled according to British English or that it’s British English vocabulary. Rather, the problem is that the term doesn’t make sense in jurisdictions outside the UK, or it only makes sense by analogy to the UK, even though the shop=alcohol tag isn’t tied to UK law in any way. Switching the base localization to American English wouldn’t necessarily solve this problem across the board. After all, a highly colloquial Americanism like “Pony Keg” for shop=convenience could similarly cause translators to mistake it for a beer container of a certain size. So this is not an argument for favoring one dialect over another; it’s an argument for avoiding colloquialisms or legal jargon that don’t fit the tag very well.

Even so, there are unfortunate situations where no neutral, intuitive term exists. Probably no English-speaking mapper under the age of 90 knew of “Filling Station” as a word for shop=fuel amenity=fuel before joining OSM, but we’re using that term because “Gas Station” sounds too American, “Petrol Station” sounds too British, and the Canadian alternative of “Gas Bar” sounds to me like a pub serving ginger ale. The truly neutral option would be simply “Fuel”, but it risks confusion with shop=fuel, where the fuel is only sold for offsite consumption. Would the latter be an “Off License”?

Switching the website to another language allows us to think more clearly about this issue. There’s no question that a Chinese-speaking user should see shop=alcohol labeled as something that means shop=alcohol in their language. They might not even be able to read Latin text. We only seem to have this controversy when suggesting that American English speakers should be able to identify a shop=alcohol without asking what the heck an “Off License” refers to. The counterargument is that it would be unfair to give American English a localization of its own, versus the status quo that gives British English two different localizations, at least nominally. Part of me wonders how much of this pushback is coming from British English speakers, versus speakers of other languages who are simply accustomed to what the website has been calling it.

@ezekielf

Where a term differs between the regional dialect and en_OSM, always display the en_OSM term as well.

I’d support the idea of annotating any localized terms with their raw tagging equivalents. It already has similar tooltips in other parts of the UI, since icons and color swatches aren’t always especially intuitive. On the other hand, if any label in the UI intentionally eschews the local language in favor of OSM terminology, it could be rendered as monospaced text to make that clear to less experienced users.

[SomeoneElse (Andy Townsend)]

@Minh_Nguyen

The problem with “Off License” is not that it’s spelled according to British English or that it’s British English vocabulary. Rather, the problem is that the term doesn’t make sense in jurisdictions outside the UK, or it only makes sense by analogy to the UK

I’d absolutely agree that here “Alcohol shop” would make more sense to people speaking OSMese rather than British English (and would be perfectly understood in British English too), but controlled sale of alcohol in some way is pretty common around the world. The rules may be different around the world, but people will be familiar with the concept - a level of state control like Systembolaget in Sweden, Alko in Finland, bottle shops licenced similarly to UK ones in Australia, and I seem to remember some very odd scandi-like restrictions in Massachusetts many years ago? Surely it’s the actual words used rather than the concept that’s the problem, and you could get that with any base translation?

@Minh_Nguyen

I’d support the idea of annotating any localized terms with their raw tagging equivalents.

I’d agree - we’ve seen plenty of cases where a tag has “gone rogue” because it got misconstrued in a different language, sometimes by a “false friend” in that language.

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@SomeoneElse

Surely it’s the actual words used rather than the concept that’s the problem, and you could get that with any base translation?

Yes. Translators lacking the necessary context is a hard problem in general, regardless of the base language or dialect. Mappers like @maro21 have added a lot of helpful contextual hints in Translatewiki.net, but we’ll always have to be vigilant about issues like landuse=mine being translated as the first-person singular pronoun “mine”.

That said, enough open source projects use American English as a development language that most translators and their tools assume this dialect. For example, in Translatewiki.net and any other modern translation management system, one of the main translation aids is machine translation results from Google, DeepL, or the like.^[1] These services are configured to assume American English, and I’m unsure if there’s any way to change that to British English, let alone some concept of OSM English that no translation service supports as a source language. Translators are supposed to double-check that the suggested translation matches the contextual hint or rely on their familiarity with the software, but unfortunately not everyone exercises that level of care.

On the bright side, Translatewiki.net also shows translators the equivalent translation in another language they speak. So ideally getting a translation right in one language will give translators in other languages a heads-up that they need to take the machine translations with a grain of salt.

---

1. The absence of this functionality is one of the main complaints about JOSM’s translation setup. ↩︎

[hoserab]

@Minh_Nguyen

Probably no English-speaking mapper under the age of 90 knew of “Filling Station” as a word for shop=fuel before joining OSM,

amenity=fuel, no? And where else would one fill up with petroleum distillate and have their tires re-vulcanized?

@Minh_Nguyen

[…] we’re using that term because “Gas Station” sounds too American, “Petrol Station” sounds too British, and the Canadian alternative of “Gas Bar” sounds to me like a pub serving ginger ale.

Huh. I was today years old when I learned that “gas bar” is a Canadianism. It’s a bit ye olde fashioned, used to distinguish between fuel stations that had no other amenities except the fuel pumps and fuel stations that also had a service garage (“service stations”). Nowadays it tends to be used to mean more specifically the part of a fuel station where the pumps reside. Some retailers still refer to their stations as “gas bars”, e.g. Co-op (Federated Co-operatives Ltd.), but this is more of an anachronistic holdover than anything.

Anyway, personally I think the ideal solution is to use the “least regional” terminology that most people will understand despite their regional dialect, and I think that’s already pretty much the case with most things. For example, I wouldn’t insist on what I call a parkade being tagged as such in OSM, and am perfectly fine deferring to “parking garage” and amenity=parking, parking=multi-storey. Trying to plan for every eventuality in every dialect of English is a bit of a fool’s errand.

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@hoserab

@Minh_Nguyen

Probably no English-speaking mapper under the age of 90 knew of “Filling Station” as a word for shop=fuel before joining OSM,

amenity=fuel, no? And where else would one fill up with petroleum distillate and have their tires re-vulcanized?

Drats, I have a tendency to typo my best arguments, but at least it gave you an opening. Fixed.

@hoserab

Anyway, personally I think the ideal solution is to use the “least regional” terminology that most people will understand despite their regional dialect, and I think that’s already pretty much the case with most things. For example, I wouldn’t insist on what I call a parkade being tagged as such in OSM, and am perfectly fine deferring to “parking garage” and amenity=parking, parking=multi-storey. Trying to plan for every eventuality in every dialect of English is a bit of a fool’s errand.

This discussion is not about tagging but rather about how the tags are presented in a UI. My point there was that sometimes there is no such option. Another example off the top of my head is shop=chemist: the Americans think “chemist shop” is a scientific laboratory, while the British probably think of “drugstore” as a place of vice.

[clay_c (Clay Smalley)]

(Somewhat off-topic)

I’ve been fascinated reading through this thread. I wonder if “OpenStreetMap English” is a living, developing example of koineization.

[hoserab]

@Minh_Nguyen

This discussion is not about tagging but rather about how the tags are presented in a UI.

Right, I shouldn’t have written ‘tagged’, as I did mean ‘how they’re presented in a UI’.

@Minh_Nguyen

Another example off the top of my head is shop=chemist: the Americans think “chemist shop” is a scientific laboratory, while the British probably think of “drugstore” as a place of vice.

Solution: ‘pharmacy’, like we say in Canada.

[Jarek]

A “chemist” is the non-licensed part of a Canadian pharmacy, so stuff like sunscreens and shampoos. In parts of the world they’re separate stores.

[ezekielf (Zeke Farwell)]

@hoserab

Solution: ‘pharmacy’, like we say in Canada.

We say ‘pharmacy’ in the US too, but that’s amenity=pharmacy, not shop=chemist.

[trigpoint]

Chemist is really an old name for a pharmacy in the UK. When I was growing up you went to the chemist for your prescription medicines but at some point, I think in the 90s, they all rebranded as pharmacies. Boots the Chemist became Boots Pharmacy.

I first learned the word pharmacy as pharmacie when I was learning french shops at school.

It is still common to refer to them as chemists despite what it saying pharmacy on the sign.

[hoserab]

@Jarek

A “chemist” is the non-licensed part of a Canadian pharmacy, so stuff like sunscreens and shampoos. In parts of the world they’re separate stores.

That’s, just, like… a “general store”, to me. If they don’t dispense drugs, they’re not a pharmacy.

@trigpoint

I first learned the word pharmacy as pharmacie when I was learning french shops at school.

Pharmacie, oh-là-là, pantalons fancie.

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@hoserab

That’s, just, like… a “general store”, to me. If they don’t dispense drugs, they’re not a pharmacy.

This is stirring up fun memories of old mailing list and iD GitHub discussions… Anyways, the tag exists, is common, and needs to be distinguished from amenity=pharmacy, which for better or worse has come to refer to just the pharmacy counter in the back of a shop=chemist or shop=supermarket.

[NeatNit]

@hoserab

That’s, just, like… a “general store”, to me.

Is there such a thing? Candy is also something I’d expect to find in a “general store” but there are still candy shops. Nowadays you can find mobile phone accessories in nearly every shop and supermarket, but there are still shops that specialize in mobile phones (usually coupled with a repair shop).

But even the most “general” shop has to fall into some category, e.g. a grocery shop if it mostly sells food items.

[Jarek]

@hoserab

That’s, just, like… a “general store”, to me. If they don’t dispense drugs, they’re not a pharmacy.

There’s all sorts of strangeness in the world. I’m sure many find the idea of a store that sells only beer to be strange, but here we are.

(My understanding based on some personal experience is that at least in Germany, shop=chemist (Drogerie) is the same retail idea as Canadian “pharmacies” (London Drugs, Shoppers, etc) except they don’t have the pharmacist because by law pharmacists aren’t allowed to operate within store chains. It doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable considering the effects of centralization of Canadian retail market cough Loblaws)

[osmuser63783]

@SomeoneElse

d absolutely agree that here “Alcohol shop” would make more sense to people speaking OSMese rather than British English

Question to British English speakers, is “Off Licence” even a good label for shop=alcohol in British English? Where I am, most shop=alcohol are specialist beer, whisky or wine shops that people generally wouldn’t call “an off licence” even if they technically hold an off licence (same as the supermarket). The actual “offies” (that are called that in real life, by non-OSMers) tend to be tagged shop=convenience.

[trigpoint]

@osmuser63783

Question to British English speakers, is “Off Licence” even a good label for shop=alcohol in British English?

In the 21st century not really.

When I was growing up off-licences could open on a Sunday whereas the sale of food stuff was prohibited. Some shops had a separate door for the off-licence and the food section was blocked off on a Sunday.

The relaxation of Sunday trading laws meant this was no longer necessary.

Off-licence is really a legal term meaning they can sell alcohol for consumption off the premises whereas pubs, bars and restaurants are licensed to sell alcohol for consumption on the premises (most are also licensed as off-licences).

Since the end of Sunday trading laws most have expanded what the sell and have morphed into convenience shops (although still licensed as off-licences, as are supermarkets).

Most shop=alcohol that remain are now much more specialised and are wine merchants or specialise in things such as whisky. Personally for think shop=wine or shop=whisky would describe these better.

[SomeoneElse (Andy Townsend)]

@osmuser63783

The actual “offies” (that are called that in real life, by non-OSMers) tend to be tagged shop=convenience.

(offtopic diversion from site localisation)

There are some genuine non-convenience “offies” left in the UK; from memory this is one, and there were similar ones in similar areas south of Manchester, complete with late-night anti-theft hatch. You’re absolutely right that there are many fewer of them than there were.

Australia has “Bottle Shops” (colloquially “bottle-os”). A quick overpass search suggests that they’re still pretty prevalent - they’re similar in concept to an English offy, major on booze rather than other convenience store stuff and aren’t “posh” wine or whisky shops.