spamfree wrote:
This is somewhat of a USA rant, but Europeans will understand. In
the USA, if a sign/ad includes the word bilingual, it always refers to
an ability to speak English & Spanish (and not European Spanish, but
Mexican / Central American Spanish). But in Europe, bilingual would
simply refer to an ability to speak two languages; German & Italian,
Dutch & French, etc. A European employment ad requiring bilingual
employees would always attract the query "Which two languages?"
This USA policy completely annoys some of us because if we ask that
question, "Which two languages?", we are immediately termed racists,
but in reality we are merely literalists. In any major city's Chinatown,
bilingual would more honestly refer to English & Chinese, and there are
neighborhoods in New York and Chicago where bilingual could easily
refer to English & Polish or English & Russian.

Where in the US are you? I'm in LA where we have a huge Hispanic
population, but whenever I've seen an ad asking for bilinqual
employees, they specify the languages they are looking for. And more
often than not, they are seeking folks who speak some of the Asian
languages.

As for signage here, it's more common to simply have the sign include
the same ad copy in the various languages represented by the company.
Ads for dentists, doctors, contractors etc. state quite proudly the
number of different languages their employees speak - not simply
Spanish.

When I worked in retail (about five years ago), our name tags specifed
the other language we spoke. We had a huge number of employees who
spoke French, Italian, Cantonese and even Hindi and Arabic.