VILVOROOR SOCK STATION, BELGICA
Employee was a complaint for responding in French instead of Dutch and Belgium’s Permanent Linguistic Control Commission gave the complainant client.
Let it be an example for all establishments in Portugal where linguistic “battles” are already locking, with employees from the principle that the client is a tourist and, therefore, does not speak Portuguese: Belgium has already entered the Guerra do “Hello”.
The wars begin with small central events, and gives it this Friday account of a linguistic dispute in a Belgian train that rekindled the old debate about multilingualism in a country where three languages officially speak.
A simple transportation in transportation triggered a national controversy over the country’s complex linguistic rules. During an hourly hour morning in Vilvoordein the Flamenga region of Belgium, the reviewer greeted passengers with a cordial “good morning, bonjour”, In a junction of the lateland and French – something usual in a country with three official languages: Dutch, French and German.
The greeting was enough to annoy a Flamengo passenger, who considered inappropriate to use the Frenchman in that official tongue zone. ”You have to talk about Dutch,” he said, and later filed a complaint to Belgium’s Permanent Linguistic Control Commission.
Five months later, in March, The Commission gave the passenger reasonconsidering the complaint “founded”. Citing the administrative legislation in force, he said that employees should use the region’s official language exclusively – in this case, the Dutch – when they interact with the public, unless they know that the interlocutor speaks another of the official languages.
The reviewer has not let himself stay: he is selling mugs for 13 euros with the words “Goeiendag” and “Bonjour” next to the Belgian flag. “Can’t we be more open?” He asks.
The case occurred a few minutes away from Brussels, an officially bilingual region (French and Dutch) where living between languages is common.
It is recalled that the north of the country, Flanders, has about 6.8 million inhabitants and rigorous linguistic laws. To the south, Valônia, is francophone, with about 3.7 million inhabitants. There is also a Germanophone minority of about 80,000 people in the east of the country.
