On 23 Aug 2006 08:35:55 -0700, "Iceman"
wrote:
>Martin Bienwald wrote:
>> Cesar Neri wrote:
>>
>> > I don't think you can just make a sweeping generalization like that. Even in
>> > Europe, it all depends on what country and what region we are talking about.
>> > For example, on a trip to Bavaria many years ago, I took the Brenner pass
>> > from Austria and ended up in a town in Italy near the border with
>> > Austra/Germany. In this town, all the signs were in 2 languages and everyone
>> > was bilingual. This town was Bolzano/Bozen and in this town bilingual
>> > definitely meant being able to speak Italian and German/Austrian. So, this
>> > is at least one example in Europe where, similar to the US, the word
>> > bilingual referred to 2 specific languages.
>>
>> I think that would be the case in most places with more than one official
>> or "default" language. I guess in Brussels "bilingual" would mostly refer
>> to Dutch/French, for example.
>
>Brussels has an annoying way of doing it where the sign for a street is
>in one language or the other, not both. So you are looking for "Rue de
>Ghent" and when you get to it the sign says "Klixpacqtynstraat."
I lived in Montreal in the mid-1960s when bilingual signage was
everywhere. The signs generally took advantage of the
"fore-and-aft" methods of applying English and French adjectives.
One day I was walking down the street and a car from Ontario
pulled over and the drive hailed me. He wanted to know "How do I
get to this Pont Mercier Bridge?"
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
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