...which puts him one up on a lot of the London Tube staff:
A ticket inspector’s bilingual greeting to a Flemish train passenger has created a political war of words – and an official complaint – in language-divided Belgium. The country’s language watchdog is investigating after a Dutch-speaking commuter protested a conductor’s use of “bonjour” – French for “good morning” – to welcome him onboard during a rush-hour train from Mechelen, in Flanders, to the capital, Brussels, in October. Writing on Facebook, Ilyass Alba, the French-speaking conductor, said that on the day in question he greeted passengers entering his carriage with a resounding “goeiemorgen, bonjour”.
And this is a big thing over there!
The use of both the Dutch and French greetings was not good enough for one Dutch-speaking passenger, who told him off, saying: “We’re not in Brussels yet, you have to use Dutch only!”
That told him!
The passenger was technically right, as under Belgium’s complex language rules conductors should in theory use both languages only in Brussels and a few other bilingual regions. “The file is under review,” the Permanent Commission for Linguistic Control said, adding it would ask the national railway operator, SNCB, for more information on its enforcement of language policies.
Ah, if only that was the only thing other country's transport systems had to worry about....
5 comments:
It's a bit like the progressive Welshification of sheep-shagger-land. I lived in Pembrokeshire for a while in the 1960s, and the last time I went there a few years ago, the sheep-shaggers had renamed a load of villages, added incomprehensible unpronounceable things to signs, and generally screwed things up.
Famously, it was a Welshman who invented the condom from sheeps' gut. Only 500 years later they discovered that it also worked if taken out of the sheep first!
".......under Belgium's complex language rules.....
Just wait until until "Salaam al Ikum" is expected, throughout the country, not just in Brussels.
Penseivat
I took a train from Manchester to Cardiff on business, and all the announcements were in Welsh first and English second, even when we were still in England. Even more surprising was that English place names were given in their Welsh language version. On the way home I had a moment of panic when I heard that I was actually on the train to Manceinion, because apparently the ancient name of Manchester isn't good enough for them.
"SNCB" - that's the French name for it. Is the Guardian taking sides itself ...?
My cousin's husband worked in a town hall near Brussels where the language attitude was blunt: if you want to speak with us it must be in Dutch, not French.
On another occasion I was in a Belgian bar less than a mile from France and ordered a round of drinks in French. The reply was in English along the lines of "France is over there, we are in Belgium".
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