Libya-truth (2026-07-06 13:43:23+00:00): Hello,

Thank you for reaching out. I appreciate the community's attention to data quality and I'm happy to discuss these edits in detail and provide sources.

## 1. Why bilingual names in name=*?

The Nafusa Mountains (Adrar n Infusen) is an indigenous Amazigh-speaking region. The majority of the population in towns like Jadu, Nalut, Kabaw, Yefren, and Zuwara are native Tamazight (Nafusi dialect) speakers. These are not "translations" — these are the original, indigenous names of these places, many of which predate the Arab conquest of North Africa by millennia.

OSM precedent for bilingual name=* in Amazigh regions:
- **Morocco**: After the 2011 Constitution made Amazigh an official language (Article 5), WikiProject Morocco (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Morocco) mandates trilingual tagging. Example: `name=Province de Tiznit ⵜⴰⵙⴳⴰ ⵏ ⵜⵉⵣⵏⵉⵜ إقليم تزنيت`. The OSM wiki Key:name:zgh page even includes a photo of an actual trilingual road sign in Agadir.
- **Algeria**: After the 2016 Constitutional Amendment (Article 4) recognized Tamazight as national and official, WikiProject Algeria (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Algeria) adopted community-agreed "on the ground" rules for Tifinagh naming. OSM taginfo shows 377 active editors using name:ber and 170 using name:zgh.
- **Belgium, Switzerland, Finland**: OSM already uses bilingual/multilingual name=* tags in regions where multiple languages are locally spoken. Brussels is "Bruxelles - Brussel". This is established OSM practice.

OSM wiki policy (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names): "The name tag should be filled with the most common name in the local language(s). If the place has multiple equally valid local names, both can be included." In the Nafusa Mountains, Tamazight IS the local language — Arabic is a second language for most residents.

## 2. These names are indigenous, not fabricated

The place names we added are not modern inventions. They are the original Amazigh toponyms, many documented for centuries:

- **Ghadames** (ⵖⴷⴰⵎⵙ): Known to the Romans as Cydamus — a Latinized form of the Amazigh name. Documented in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (77 CE) and Ptolemy's Geography (150 CE).
- **Yefren** (ⵢⴼⵔⵏ): Pure Amazigh toponym. Documented in medieval Ibadi sources (T. Lewicki, Études ibadites nord-africaines).
- **Nalut** (ⵏⴰⵍⵓⵜ): Amazigh origin. Its famous qasr (granary fortress) is an Amazigh architectural tradition unique to the Nafusa Mountains.
- **Jadu** (ⵊⴰⴷⵓ): Amazigh toponym. Berber texts from Jadu are documented in Provasi, "Testi berberi di Žâdo (Tripolitania)," 1973.
- **Kabaw** (ⴽⴰⴱⴰⵡ): Amazigh origin, referenced in Ibadi historical manuscripts.
- **Zuwara** (ⵜⴰⵎⵓⵔⵜ ⵏ ⵡⴰⵜ ⵡⵉⵍⵍⵓⵍ): The indigenous name Tamurt n Wat Willul ("Land of Wat Willul") is still used by locals.

The name "Nafusa" itself is the Arabic rendering of the indigenous "Infusen," a pre-Islamic Berber tribe of the Bôtr confederation — documented in Khelifa, A. "Nefoussa," Encyclopédie berbère, vol. 33, 2012 (https://journals.openedition.org/encyclopedieberbere/2697).

Academic references:
- Beguinot, F. Il Berbero Nefûsi di Fassâṭo, Rome, 1931 — foundational Nafusi grammar
- Kossmann, M. A Grammatical Sketch of Ghadames Berber, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2013
- Kossmann, M. The Berber Languages, Routledge, 2013
- Provasi, E. "Testi berberi di Žâdo (Tripolitania)," 1973

## 3. Legal and constitutional basis

**Libya:**
- Libya's Constitutional Declaration (3 August 2011), Article 1: "Arabic shall be the official language, while the linguistic and cultural rights of the Amazigh, the Tabous, the Touareg and the other components of Libyan society shall be guaranteed." (Full text: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Libya_2011)
- This is the founding post-2011 legal document of Libya, explicitly guaranteeing Amazigh linguistic and cultural rights.
- After 2011, Amazigh language instruction was introduced in schools across the Nafusa Mountains — documented by Karlos Zurutuza in Middle East Eye (9 Jan 2018), reporting Tamazight classes in Jadu schools and ~60 teachers across 26 schools in Zuwara. The Libya Herald (26 Nov 2013) confirmed the Education Ministry's plan to teach Tamazight as a graded subject.

**Regional precedent:**
- Morocco Constitution (2011), Article 5: "Amazigh is also an official language of the State."
- Algeria Constitution (2016 Amendment), Article 4: "Tamazight is also a national and official language."

## 4. International recognition

- **UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), Article 13**: "Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons." (PDF: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf)
- **UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger** (2010 edition, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000187026): Lists "Nefoussa" alongside Zouara, Sokna, Aoujila, and Ghadamès as endangered Libyan Berber varieties.
- **Glottolog** (https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nafu1238) classifies Nafusi as "severely endangered." **ISO 639-3** (https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/jbn) assigns code jbn with status "Active" — confirming Nafusi as a distinct, recognized language.

## 5. Regarding name:ber=* vs name=*

The suggestion to keep Amazigh names only in name:ber=* would be appropriate if Amazigh were a foreign or minority language in this region. It is not. Tamazight is the primary spoken language of the Nafusa Mountains population. Restricting the indigenous language to a subtag while keeping only Arabic in name=* would be equivalent to:
- Putting Welsh only in name:cy=* in Welsh-speaking villages in Wales
- Putting Catalan only in name:ca=* in Barcelona
- Putting Irish only in name:ga=* in Gaeltacht areas

In all these cases, OSM correctly uses the local language(s) in name=*.

## 6. Regarding the Nafusa Mountains relation

The name "الجبل الغربي" (Western Mountain) is a purely geographic Arabic descriptor. The indigenous name "Adrar n Infusen" (ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⵏⴼⵓⵙⵏ) — meaning "Mountain of the Infusen (Nafusa people)" — is the original toponym, confirmed in peer-reviewed academic sources (Khelifa 2012, Encyclopédie berbère), widely used in academic literature, by the local population, and in Amazigh cultural institutions. Both names are included in the bilingual format for maximum utility to map users.

## 7. Community discussion

I welcome discussion with the Libyan OSM community. I would note that:
- The Amazigh community IS part of the Libyan OSM community and the Libyan population
- These edits restore names that were suppressed for decades, and represent ground truth — how local people actually name their places
- No information was removed — Arabic names remain fully intact in name:ar=* and in the bilingual name=* tag
- The name:ber=* tags were already present on many of these places, confirming that the community had already begun this work

I am happy to provide additional sources or discuss any specific edit in detail.

Best regards