(2)
A few days ago, we reported on complaints that Google Maps for Israel was in Hebrew, people wanted it to be English or to have the option. Well, Googler Dave updated the Google Maps Help thread to inform us it was a bug. He said:
Thank you for reporting this issue. This was due to a error in one of our internal software settings. We're aware of the problem and are working to return the language settings back to their previous state. I hope it won't take much longer for us to complete our fix, and we'll roll it out as soon as it's ready.
Now, I see English cities and data on the maps (new next to old):
English:
Hebrew:
Want Hebrew back? Just change the hl=en to hl=he in the URL, for example, here is the URL for Hebrew text, http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=he&geocode=&q=Jerusalem,+Israel&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=59.769082,101.601563&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Jerusalem,+Israel&t=h&z=12.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
Comments:
Israel
10/31/2009 08:13 am
A lot of place names in west Asia and north Africa were Phoenician. Because both Phoenician and Hebrew are Western Semitic languages, these names still sound quite Hebraic. Aphrodite as an Anthropomorphic Map The goddess we call Aphrodite Is not just an old Grecian deity. The Phoenicians did make Her a map. It's not fake. Her body is cartograffiti. The Punic war destroyed her face, (1) The Romans left nary a trace. But her hair is still there, In Sahara, that's where. (2) And her chin's a Tunisian place. (3) Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra. (4) Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra. (5) Her heart is in Libya, (6) Her left leg, Somalia. (7) Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra. (8) The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an' (9) Her kidney was Biblical Goshen. (10) She's bent at her waist, Now Misr-ably placed. (11) The Red Sea was her menstruation. (12) As a kid I did think the Red Sea Was an English map typo: lost E, From Reed Sea in Hebrew. But that could not be true, Mare Rubrum 'twas Latin, B.C. Aphrodite with Hermes did sin, We know this is true 'cause within Her "snatch" we call Sinai (13) His "zaiyin" does still lie. (14) It's known as the desert of Zin. Footnotes: (1) The Romans destroyed Carthage during the 3rd Punic War. In Hebrew, "face" is PaNim. (2) In Hebrew, "hair" is Sa3aR (using 3 for the letter aiyin). (3) Tunis is a reversal of SaNTir, the Hebrew word for chin. (4) The Atlas is the first cervical vertebra that supports the skull. (5) In Hebrew, SHiDRa is spine, backbone. (6) The Semitic term for "heart" is LeB. (7) In Hebrew, "left" is S'MoL. (8) In Hebrew, "breast" is SHaD. (9) As in ancient Greek hepato- "liver". (10) The ancient shin had a T-sound, e.g., SHoR = ox was ToR as in Taurus. The gimel often has a K-sound in other languages, e.g., GaMaL = camel. So, GoSHeN sounded like QTN, as in QiTNiot = beans. Goshen was her bean-shaped kidney. Ashkenazi Jews do not eat beans on Passover. Cotton was exported from QTN / Goshen. The Latin genus for cotton is Gossypium. Compare English gossamer. (11) Both Arabic Misr and Hebrew MiTZRaim are derived from the Semitic term for narrow, TZaR. The waist is (or should be) the narrow part of the body. (12) In Latin, the Red Sea was called Mare Rubrum. In Hebrew, the Red Sea is called "Yam SooF" = Sea of Reeds. SooF is a reversal of the sounds in peh-sof PoS, Hebrew for the female pudenda. (13) In Hebrew, Sinai is spelled SiNi without an aleph. But it is pronounced as if had an aleph after the nun. It seems that the ancient sound of aleph changed from CHS/GHT => T => a glottal stop. Treating aleph as CHS, Sinai sounded like SNCHs, a reversal of K'NiSah = entrance (to her body). (14) Zaiyin means "weapon" in Hebrew. It is also a euphemism for the male member. For more examples of these place names, see http://historicalcartography.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/anthropomorphic-maps/
Aery
11/03/2009 01:00 pm
Thats very nice to Google to listen to customer complains.