toponymia (2025-08-23 15:36:44+00:00): Hi mueschel

The word "profession" is clearly a better word than "job" in this context. I have corrected the word for both memorials.


On the page describing the guidelines for the description-tag, there is a section titled "Other languages." As far as I understand this section it illustrates the structure of three coherent descriptions: a description written in a local language and two translations of the description into German and English, respectively. Therefore, I consider that tagging of translations is not a problem in relation to the guidelines.

I do not have much experience with taginfo.openstreetmap.org, so maybe I am misunderstanding something. When I look at "description:de", using the 'Combinations'-tab (https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/description:de#combinations), as I understand the information, there seems to be more than 7.000 features that have been tagged with both the description:de-tag and the description:fr-tag. So tagging translations seem to be not only in line with the guidelines but also to be used quite a lot.
(Two examples:  Node: 5555323799 - English text, translations in German, French and Dutch. Node: 6298970962 - description in English, German and French.)

Of course, not tagging a translation is just as well within the guidelines as tagging a translation - and guidelines are guidelines / informal standards and normally not strict rules.


Regarding automated translations of Greenlandic texts (and (I guess) texts in other small languages that are spoken by relatively few people and therefore often have relatively small text corpora) the translations are often not very good. And it regularly happens that they are poor or very poor. 
And when some of the words in the source text are older words that are not used very much and whose meanings are not known to many people, the translation process can become even more difficult for the automatic translator.


A few examples to show the limited quality of automated translations related to Greenlandic (using Google Translate):

en: profession   -   Google Translate (en -> kl):  inuuniut   (a fine translation)

en: he is freezing  (kl: qiiavoq)   -   Google Translate (en -> kl):  taanna qinngasaarivoq  (meaning:  "he (the aforementioned) is teasing somebody")


kl: iluliaq  (en: iceberg)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  beautiful

kl: ilulisserpoq  (en: there are icebergs in the waters / icebergs have entered the waters)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  it's beautiful   (very poor translation, but at least it is consistent with the previous poor translation)

kl: kangiani  (en: at a location to the east (of something))   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  ears

kl: aggustip arfineq-pingajuanni  (en: on the 8th of August)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  on the 7th of August

kl: aggustip tyvianni  (en: on the 20th of August)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  August 11th

kl: qasigiannguit  (en: the small harbour seals)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  a little bit

kl: kangerluk  (en: a fjord)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  sleeve

kl: nuup kangerlua  (en: the fjord of the cape)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  close kangaroo

kl: ajoqiuneq  (en: leading catechist (a sort of an assisting priest);  de: Überkatechet)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  damage

kl: ajoqiunertut  (en: as a leading catechist)   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  as damage / as a driver


Google Translate often gives better results when it is given a coherent sentence rather than a single word or a short phrase, so here are some variations of a sentence with a simple syntactical structure  (the words "qasigiaq" (harbour seal) and "puttaaq" (ice floe) are - just as "iluliaq" and "kangerluk" - all lexicaliced and can easily be found in the ordinary greenlandic-danish dictionary):

A harbour seal that is on an iceberg in a fjord of Nuuk on the 20th of August :
Aggustip tyvianni Nuup kangerluani qasigiaq ilulissamiittoq.   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  On the 1st of August, the iceberg in the south of Nuuk is located in Ilulissat.

A harbour seal that is on an iceberg in Nuup Kangerlua (the Nuuk Fjord) on the 20th of August :
Aggustip tyvianni Nuup Kangerluani qasigiaq ilulissamiittoq.   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  A beautiful polar bear in Nuuk Kangerlussuaq on the 10th of August. / On the 10th of August, the Nuuk Fjord is located in Ilulissat.

A harbour seal on an iceberg in Nuup Kangerlua on the 20th of August  (Practically the same sentence, just phrased a little differently) :
Aggustip tyvianni Nuup Kangerluani ilulissami qasigiaq.   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  A beautiful snowstorm in Nuuk Kangerlussuaq in the middle of August.

A harbour seal on an ice floe in Nuup Kangerlua on the 20th of August :
Aggustip tyvianni Nuup Kangerluani puttaami qasigiaq.   -   Google Translate (kl -> en):  On the 3rd of August, a snow leopard was caught in the Nuuk Fjord.


It seems difficult to determine whether the translations were improved.

We could end up in an even longer discussion on this translation topic  ;-)
So I intend to stop here.

Greetings 
toponymia