Add your voice to google maps!!
Have you ever wondered how to pronounce a place name correctly in the country’s language?
The world is full of fascinating languages that are a crucial part of human heritage.
However, with the spread of internet mapping services, toponyms are more and more translated into English.
That is good because it allows people to easily understand each other, but at the same time we risk loosing an important part of our local heritage and traditions.
Think about remote places, where the local language is spoken by a minority of people and it risks to be quickly forgotten for more widespread languages.
Moreover, think about local accents and dialects. Will these resit the advance of mainstream languages.
Toponyms names are a very important part of the local history. Sometimes they refer to ancient historic events, or just to the way the place looked in the middle ages.
If we loose sight of this history we risk loosing much more than a pronunciation, we risk loosing our local history.
There is still time to stop the process!!
Internet can be used to preserve this history in a way that will be available for ever.
Audioramio is an open project where we are aiming at the creation of the first Audio Atlas of the world. I know that it is ambitious, but you need to set high targets if you want to obtain good results!!
The problem is we need a lot of help (from YOU!!) to complete it.
We will also need plenty of time!!
If you want to contribute you can just go the homepage, click “Add your voice” and follow the instructions. Your help is crucial!!