this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
43 points (100.0% liked)

World News

783 readers
913 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be a decent person
  2. No spam
  3. Add the byline, or write a line or two in the body about the article.

Other communities of interest:

founded 5 months ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
43
Train conductor’s bilingual morning greeting raises hackles in Belgium (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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”.

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!”

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 9point6 18 points 2 months ago

That seems ridiculous, if that's got legal backing the law should be changed. Multilingual announcements on public transport are commonplace across the world anywhere you can expect people to travel speaking several languages

I'm sure it would not be unusual for a french speaking person to use the train?