"Local language" should be "English" in India

[contrapunctus-1]

I'm not sure whether or not this issue is related to #3411.

1. When adding the name of a feature (whether via name quests or via Places/Things overlays), StreetComplete has a language option called "(unspecified)". It's not clear to new users what this means.

2. In some quests, the description for the name field says "name as written in the local language". This misleads new users, who insert the name in their regional/state language as opposed to inserting the English name. (The name=* key in India is supposed to be English.) Mentors like me have to constantly clarify this to new users 🙂

Expected behaviour
If the "(unspecified)" option is for the name=* key, it should be called "English" when the user is editing in India.

Since that makes the English language option redundant, perhaps the "(unspecified)" option could be removed when editing in India, and the English name entered by the user could be applied to both name=* and name:en=* tags.

References to "local language" should be changed to English when the user is editing in India.

Versions affected
Android 15 (LineageOS 22.2), StreetComplete v63 from F-Droid.

[westnordost]

References to "local language" should be changed to English when the user is editing in India.

Why?

E.g. Wikipedia article for Haryana mentions Hindi as official language and Devangari as official script, then English and Punjabi as "also official".

Wikipedia article for Gujarat, for example, doesn't list English as official language at all, but Gujarati first, Hindi second.

I didn't click through all of the states, but it looks somewhat that the local language is the official language in each state, then English and/or Hindi as either also official or at least recognized as a trade language.

[contrapunctus-1]

@westnordost I forgot to mention that using the English name in the name=* tag is the long-standing convention of the Indian OpenStreetMap community.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/India#Naming_in_different_scripts_and_languages

For a rationale and discussion, see
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/localising-default-names-of-major-towns-and-cities/83723/12

[mnalis]

If the "(unspecified)" option is for the name=* key,

Yes, I believe it sets name=* tag.

it should be called "English" when the user is editing in India.

are you sure?

I forgot to mention that using the English name in the name=* tag is the long-standing convention of the Indian OpenStreetMap community.

Wiki does say that name is used for "Default official name in English (or romanized Hindi)".

So even according to that documented convention, it might be romanized Hindi, and not English.

Perhaps that (unspecified) (which I see how it can be confusing) might be renamed (default) (or maybe (common)) instead? Do you think that might work better generally (and specifically for Indian users) @contrapunctus-1 ?

[westnordost]

Wiki does say that name is used for "Default official name in English (or romanized Hindi)".

So even according to that documented convention, it might be romanized Hindi, and not English.

Let's not count peas here, everyone knows that the distinction is not taken too seriously and usually fuzzy anyway.

[mnalis]

Let's not count peas here

Sure; I was just trying to preventively point out that we should take care to avoid potentially creating even more confusion when there is both name and name:en in India; if SC referred to both of them as "English".

(there are some 65k occurances of that name+name:en combination in India, or about 3.68% of all names mapped there. I have not done more detailed analyses, e.g. how many are the same)