names of cities in various languages

[Phaseolus]

as EBT is supposed to follow European and national rules when applying, it should simply stick to the often national rules regarding the use of languages.

In Belgium rules are very clear regarding the use of languages ; just respect these. I am not saying that they are not tricky ; I am just saying that they exist and one should respect them.

[Beatminister]

Anyway... concerning the name problem for EBT I also agree with you: it should be solved by a strict but easy rule. Like the one I suggested earlier: call the city by its real name, the name that its inhabitants use.
I mean - if you enter a note for a city it means you received it there - and you have been there - so where is the problem to find out the name? Especially since you need to find out the post code as well.

Quite frankly, this is a pretty stupid rule. You really don't want to enter notes from القاهرة‎ from your last vacation to Egypt.

I didn´t say its the solution for everything, and what alphabet can be used is another question. Also, I´m sure there is a way of writing this in latin letters - approved by the Egyptians. Names in japanese or chinese could be a much bigger problem. And the countries with more than one official language, as discussed here.
But at least it would work for a big part of the world, and especially most €-countries.

[Nerzhul]

Also, I´m sure there is a way of writing this in latin letters - approved by the Egyptians. Names in japanese or chinese could be a much bigger problem.

I'm not trying to heat up this discussion (which is a bit pointless imo anyway as we really don't have a problem), but what exactly makes a chinese name that much more difficult than an arab name?

[JP Simões]

I'm not trying to heat up this discussion (which is a bit pointless imo anyway as we really don't have a problem), but what exactly makes a chinese name that much more difficult than an arab name?

Romanization of the Chinese language, in particular, has proved a very difficult problem, although the issue is further complicated by political considerations. Another complication is the fact that Mandarin is perceived to be written non-phonetically, and this myth has retarded acceptance of romanisation efforts. Because of this, many romanization tables contain Chinese characters plus one or more romanizations or Zhuyin.

[Beatminister]

I'm not trying to heat up this discussion (which is a bit pointless imo anyway as we really don't have a problem), but what exactly makes a chinese name that much more difficult than an arab name?

Well, I´m not heated up yet...
You spoke about Egypt - AFAIK Egypt has English as a second administrational language, and many roadsigns ect have the writing in latin letters next to the arabic writing. Of course thats not the case in all arabic countries. Still, arabic - same as Greek or Cyrilic (sp?) - is based on a alphabet, Chinese or Japanese is not. The words we use for chinese cities origin from western visitors, who did just what I suggested: they asked the chinese what the place is called. And then they tried to write a word that sounds the same (more or less) - usually coloured by their native language (English, French ect) . For a chinese they are all rubbish, but over the time (and for business reasons) they learned to live with it. I wonder if the Chinese have a "officially approved" list if city names in latin letters?

[philgelico]

Talking about confusion :
As teenager i traveled to Flanders , and how difficult was it for me to find the way back to France : Lille is written in Flemish language : Rijsel.
And how funny you can see many people driving out of the Motorway between Antwerpen and Gent : there is a small village there , and it's name is Lille .
Philippe

[Beatminister]

Well, some people can get lost everywhere...
I heard a story of a british couple driving along on a french motorway. After some time the wife says: "My god, this Sortie must be a huge city - we have been driving for 50 miles and all turn offs go there..."

[diogocanilho]

Well, some people can get lost everywhere...

I have a cool story with my parents in Italy...
I was a little kid and we were near Vintemiglia (near the french-italian border) and we want to go to other place (I don't remeber where), and we ask a person some directions, and that italian told us that we need to go "Sinistra"... Some km's after, and trying to see any "Sinistra" directions, my mother realizes in those little dictionaries that "Sinistra" is "Esquerda" (Left)

[Beatminister]

There is another ( this time true ) story of a british woman, who wanted to go from Germany to Calais, in order to take a ferry to England. After hours and hours of driving she got stopped - by customs officers at the spanish border! No kidding, it happened about 10 years ago.