Language of names field in geonames table

[sethx1138]

Hello,

Is there a way to determine the language of the name field in the
geonames table? Some names seem to be given in English, others in the
national language of the corresponding country, and others are
transliterated to another language.

For instance, the country of Russia is given in English as "Russian
Federation", the state of Jalisco in Mexico is given in Spanish as
"Estado de Jalisco", and the Osaka Prefecture in Japan is given
transliterated to Rōmaji as "Ōsaka-fu".

In the first case, I should look in the alternateNames table for the
Russian name of Russia. However in the second case, the Spanish name
is already available and a search for Spanish names in the
alternateNames table would give inconsistent results. Finally, most
Japanese can read and write Rōmaji so the geonames name field is
sufficient, although I'm surprised that Kanji names aren't available
for any of the prefectures.

Thanks,

Seth

[Marc]

Hi Seth

> Is there a way to determine the language of the name field in the
> geonames table? Some names seem to be given in English, others in the
> national language of the corresponding country, and others are
> transliterated to another language.
>

The goal is to have an international (English) name as the main name and
names in other languages as alternate names. Internally we have a flag
to mark alternate names as 'official names', though this flag is not yet
editable on the user interface.
For most names we don't have the information which language it is. If we
have the information then there is an additional entry in the alternate
names table with the corresponding language code.

> In the first case, I should look in the alternateNames table for the
> Russian name of Russia. However in the second case, the Spanish name
> is already available and a search for Spanish names in the
> alternateNames table would give inconsistent results. Finally, most
> Japanese can read and write Rōmaji so the geonames name field is
> sufficient, although I'm surprised that Kanji names aren't available
> for any of the prefectures.
>

It is the goal to have Kanji names in the alternate names table . You
can help us by it either using the geonames interface or if you know an
official free data set you can help us integrate it. There are still a
lot of fantastic, free official data sets we have not yet integrated
just because we don't know about their existence.

Cheers

Marc

[dewi...@gmail.com]

Marc,

I would like to propose an evolution :

In the wiki interface, is it possible to add a check box to mention if
the alternate name is a translation with language code.

Actually it could be 'Translation' or 'Name Variant' and we cannot be
sure to take the right translation.

The goal would be to have only one translation for a language and
several 'Name variant'

My favourite example for Paris in France ;-) :

1565722 2988507 fr Lutece
1592124 2988507 fr Paris <= the translation
1565723 2988507 fr Ville-Lumiére
1649323 2988507 fr Paname
1649324 2988507 fr Pantruche

What do you think about that ?

Thx a lot

Richard

[Marc]

Hi Richard

I am glad you raise this point. The geonames database internally already
has a column 'isOfficialName' in the alternatenames table. I think this
is about what you propose. It is not yet exposed in the userinterface
since we mainly use if for batch updates if we have an official source
with a lot of names. It is also used by the search engine if the lang
paramter has been passed to display the officialName and not another one
: http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=paris&country=&lang=fr
I was not sure whether we need a more flexible solution like 'is short
name', 'is long name', 'is colloquial name', ... What do you think?
Should we go with this checkbox?

Cheers

Marc

[dewi...@gmail.com]

Yes I think we should ;)

The NGA data seems provide the local name for only few places. Most of
them are in english language. Do you already have with your official
Name in database all the locals names (and may be another officials
translations) ?

If the answer is no, have you an idea of the percentage of data to be
tagged ?

Best regards,

Richard

> > Richard- Masquer le texte des messages précédents -
>
> - Afficher le texte des messages précédents -

[Marc]

Hi Richard

The checkbox 'isOfficialName' is implemented on the webinterface. Only a
tiny fraction of all names is already tagged with this flag :
ca 2150 are flagged = 0.12% of all alternate names or 0.036% of all names.

Best regards,

Marc

[dewi...@gmail.com]

That's sound great !

I will check some flags.
Could you add this column in the alternatenames dump to see if I can
do a massive update ?

Thx,

Richard

On 11 fév, 11:03, Marc <m...@geonames.org> wrote:
> Hi Richard
>

> >> - Afficher le texte des messages précédents -- Masquer le texte des messages précédents -

[Marc]

Hi Richard

Adding the flag to the update is a small change in the dump function. Changing the file structure will break some existing code of users reading the daily modification files. I am wondering whether we should combine several changes and change them the same day or whether we should change the file structure in several steps.

Here the changes we want to do :
1. add 'isOfficialName' flag to alternateNames
2. add adminCode2 to the main file
3. change fips to iso codes for many countries

Point 3. (iso codes) is a large update on the server side and needs some more preparation. 1. and 2. are small changes for me and can be done anytime.
Any comments?

Cheers

Marc

[ma...@geonames.org]

The flag 'isOfficialName' will be in the daily export file for the
alternate names starting from tomorrow.

Marc

[Max Jaramillo]

Marc:

Love the project.

May I ask that you include with the Admincodes.txt file:

1. The geonameid,
2. The continent and/or timezone.

It would make sorting/selecting the sub-selection a little easier.

Thanks,

Max

--
Latin Press, Inc.
2455 SW 27th Avenue, Suite 200
Miami, FL 33145, USA
Tel +1 [305] 285 3133

=====

Visite nuestros sitios web especializados:

ac/r latinoamerica - climatización/refrigeración
gerencia de hoteles & restaurantes - hoteleria/restaurantes
gerencia de viajes - viajes/eventos
inpra latina - pinturas/recubrimientos/acabados
mari papel - papel/corrugado/tisú
ventas de seguridad - seguridad electrónic

Conozca nuestro servicio de inteligencia:

indumedia - reporte quincenal con datos sobre la construcción

Participe en nuestros congresos y seminarios:

buildingtechamericas - diseño & gerenciamiento de edificios
cubrecol - aplicación de pinturas & recubrimientos
refricolombia - refrigeración comercial & industrial
viajescorpcolombia - viajes & reuniones corporativos

[Marc]

Hi Max

The geonameId is in the admin1CodesASCII.txt file. There are still some
inconsistencies in this file and we plan to replace the admin1Codes.txt
with the admin1CodesASCII.txt as soon as these are fixed. Any help in
this is welcome. The problem is that some admin1 features are associated
with the '00' feature code instead of with the correct feature code.

The continent can be extracted from the countryInfo and I would prefer
to not have too many redundancies. The timezone does not follow the
admin boundaries and it is not a 1:1 relation, so it is difficult to do
this for all countries.

Cheers

Marc

Max Jaramillo wrote:
> Marc:
>
> Love the project.
>

> May I ask that you include with the *Admincodes.txt* file:

>
> 1. The geonameid,
> 2. The continent and/or timezone.
>
> It would make sorting/selecting the sub-selection a little easier.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Max
>
>
> ma...@geonames.org wrote:
>> The flag 'isOfficialName' will be in the daily export file for the
>> alternate names starting from tomorrow.
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Latin Press, Inc.
> 2455 SW 27th Avenue, Suite 200
> Miami, FL 33145, USA
> Tel +1 [305] 285 3133
>
> =====
>
> Visite nuestros sitios web especializados:
>

> ac/r latinoamerica <http://www.acrlatinoamerica.com> -
> climatización/refrigeración
> gerencia de hoteles & restaurantes <http://www.gerenciadehoteles.com>
> - hoteleria/restaurantes
> gerencia de viajes <http://www.gerenciadeviajes.com> - viajes/eventos
> inpra latina <http://www.inpralatina.com> -
> pinturas/recubrimientos/acabados
> mari papel <http://www.maripapel.com> - papel/corrugado/tisú
> ventas de seguridad <http://www.ventasdeseguridad.com> - seguridad

> electrónic
>
> Conozca nuestro servicio de inteligencia:
>

> indumedia <http://www.indumedia.com>- reporte quincenal con datos

> sobre la construcción
>
> Participe en nuestros congresos y seminarios:
>

> <http://www.buildingtechamericas.com>buildingtechamericas
> <http://www.buildingtechamericas.com> - diseño & gerenciamiento de
> edificios
> cubrecol <http://www.cubrecol.com> - aplicación de pinturas &
> recubrimientos
> refricolombia <http://www.refricolombia.com>- refrigeración comercial
> & industrial
> viajescorpcolombia <http://www.viajescorpcolombia.com>- viajes &
> reuniones corporativos
>
>
>
>
> >