Bilingualism / Kaksikielisyys / Tvåspråkighet

Hello!
On the maps of some bilingual cities or regions like Brussels, both official names are shown (using the ‘name’ tag). But on the OSM maps of bilingual municipalities in Finland, currently only one name is shown (the name in the most commonly spoken language). But this situation isn’t very comfortable, for example, for a user who knows only Finnish or Swedish names and, as result, couldn’t use OSM.
I think that both official languages of the municipality could be shown on the map (very similar to how Karttakeskus displays the street names).
For example, in Vaasa/Vasa or Helsinki/Helsingfors Finnish and Swedish languages will be used (like Rautatientori - Järnvägstorget), in Raseborg/Raasepori or Väståboland/Länsi-Turunmaa Swedish and Finnish (like Hangövägen - Hangontie).
I think it will attract more users to OpenStreetMap.
What do you think about this idea?

PS: The message is written in English for convenience, I speak Swedish too. Also, I understand Finnish though unfortunately I can’t speak it very well.

I prefer the current practice where there is a separate name:* attribute for each language and name corresponds to the majority language. No matter what is displayed in name, I think that the proper solution relies on name:fi, name:sv and so on. The rest is a matter of configuring the renderer. For example, you could invoke mkgmap with the option --name-tag-list=name:sv,name to generate a Garmin map with Swedish names (when available) from OpenStreetMap data. Some time ago, lazzko posted on this topic and mentioned that you can view OpenStreetmap in Swedish, in Finnish or in Sámi.

I think that displaying names in multiple languages has merit on printed maps that must serve a large audience with just one edition, but not so much on digital maps, which can be easily customized for every user, if needed. I believe that printed maps often omit information on purpose, to simplify the map layout or to reduce clutter. For example, phone book maps often distort streets in cities. Digital maps are different: they can contain very much detail, such the names of every bus stop. (Some users could choose to highlight them, while others could choose not to render them at all.) Finnish and Swedish names can be very long. City maps would be very cluttered if each street displayed both languages. Actually, if you look at commercial maps (printed, or bitmap tiles), they often omit one of the languages on short streets.

If you wanted a Swedish/Finnish map of Finland, you could implement a rendering rule that tries to display both name:sv and name:fi when space allows. There is no need to cram both languages in the name tag. When the map is built from the name attributes (which many renderers do by default), you will see the dominant language in each region. That could be useful information even for foreigners, because Swedish and Finnish should not be that hard to tell apart.

One last thing: Some time ago, OpenCycleMap was incorporated as a OpenStreetMap SlippyMap layer. Perhaps something similar could be done about the language selection in the future?

If a city is bilingual, this is okay. But as I live in Finnish only “city” Rääkkylä, it sound sometimes silly. In the map I fond in web, one Rääkkylä road has both Swedish and Finnish name. As far as I know, in Rääkkylä lives only three persons that are registered Swedish speaking.
Kaksikielisillä paikkakunnilla voidaan (ja oikeastaan pitää) nimet kirjoittaa niin,että molemmat nimet näkyvät, mutta mielestäni on turhaa suomentaa/ruotsintaa nimiä niillä paikkakunnilla, missä on vain yksi virallinen kieli. Yksikielisillä paikkakunnilla kuten Rääkkylässä tai Åålannissa riittänee teitten nimet vain toisella kielellä. Esim. Eniron kartassa oli yksi Rääkkyläläinen tie ruotsinnettu.

Kanske ett litet off-topic, men nu är http://www.polkupyoraily.net/osm/ tillgånglig också på svenska. Tack för översättningen, Parkstad!

Vielä hieman enemmän asian vierestä: käytössä on virheellisesti saamen kielen koodi (se). Valitsin aluksi ruotsin kielen koodin (sv), mutta silloin web-härpäke näytti jonkin oudon lipun. Yritän korvata liput teksteillä, koska eihän esimerkiksi Suomen lippu tarkoita suomen kieltä, koska maassamme on useita virallisia kieliä. Saamenkielinen käännös (tai käännökset; kieliä tai murteitahan on käsittääkseni useita) on yhä tervetullut.