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?"


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