@Rob_209 : you might be interested in the earlier forum post, Benefit of having artist names with non-latin characters?.
This is another example of MusicBrainz not being really multilingual. Requiring the sort name to be in the Latin script really is a crutch. It doesn’t give good sorting results except for English-language users. It is a convention not always followed, apparently.
A better way to deliver good sorting is:
- Let entities have multiple names, each tagged with a language and culture and purpose. One name might be “Japanese sortable”. One name might be “English sortable”. One might be “German sortable”.
- Let the user’s desired language and conventions inform sorting. One user might ask for “Sorted by English conventions, with names in original script”. Another user might ask for “Sorted by German conventions, with name in German script”.
- MusicBrainz selects a name for sort use according to the user’s preferences, when preparing to sort, then sorts according to the user’s conventions.
- MusicBrainz selects a (possibly different) name for display use after sorting.