Favorite Fotos: Multiculturalism

I've got a lot on my long weekend to-do list (including starting to design a new blog), so I'm making today's post very brief—a short sample of multilingual signs.

In a gesture typical of the tolerant and courteous attitude I found everywhere in London, they bi-lingualize their street signs occasionally, depending on the ethnic makeup of a neighborhood. Hal and I noticed English-Chinese street signs in their tiny Chinatown, and on the right is another example. This time the second language is, I think, Bangla, in an east London neighborhood I toured with the students' British culture class. The prof giving us the tour noted that the same neighborhood has seen waves of different types of immigrants, with the Bangladeshi folks being the latest.

Lots of folks from eastern Europe have come to the UK seeking better jobs and living conditions, as we noticed in London when conversing with young ladies behind the counter in sandwich shops who seemed often to have heavy Slavic-related accents (in Henry's opinion, they were usually quite lovely, as well). On the left is a for rent sign, which I think was in Edinburgh, that shows there must a lot of Polish emigrés there. (For some reason, I assumed it was Polish—could be something else?)

Then there are the more home-grown varieties of different cultures that are expresed in bilingual highway and other official signs, similar to what you see in Canada. On the cluster of signs below, which were along the highway that runs next to Loch Ness, you see not only Scottish Gaelic, but other languages to help tourists from all over remember that crazy aspect of British driving....

And you can get a whiff of the very complicated-looking spelling of Welsh on these signs, which greeted us right after crossing the border from England, on the very congested westward lanes of the M4.