rhyds wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 08:52I'm not sure how signmaking worked back in the 1970s (as opposed to modern CAD systems) but it must be remembered that the original bilingual signage dates from back then, therefore it may have been deemed too difficult to provide colour differentiation back then and that's how the standard was set at the time.
Nope! It was easy to provide color differentiation even back then and that was one of the options studied in a late-1960's TRRL project to investigate the legibility of bilingual signs in Wales. The full menu was as follows:
* Two-line bilingual name pairs with Welsh and English versions of the name on separate lines (this was the option originally adopted in the late 1960's when the Welsh Office authorized bilingual legends to tamp down sign vandalism; current standards call for a minimum 3 sw separation between adjacent bilingual name pairs to allow destinations to be differentiated)
* Two-line bilingual name pairs with a bracket ranged to the left and centered on the line break, to indicate the two elements of the pair refer to the same destination
* Two-line bilingual name pairs with English in mixed-case on top and Welsh in smaller all-uppercase on bottom (similar to current practice in Ireland, except with different ordering of English and non-English, smaller size for non-English, and no italicization)
* Two-line bilingual name pairs with Welsh appearing in different colors (white on brown, as patch or separate sign, where English appears in black on white; yellow where the English appears as white against a dark background--essentially similar to current practice in Scotland for Scottish Gaelic placenames)
National Archives file MT 112/351 has further details.
The question asked upthread that is more difficult to answer is why slashes and ruled horizontal lines were not used to separate the two languages within bilingual name pairs. Slashes and horizontal lines are indeed now part of the official standards in Spain, which however are of more recent vintage because the use of Iberian languages other than Castilian Spanish was officially suppressed until Franco died. Slashes and horizontal lines are also favored in Canada, where bilingual English/French signing is widespread and is officially required in some contexts (e.g. Francophone Ontario under the French Language Services Act, federal government sites under the Government Property Traffic Regulations, etc.). However, in other European countries with formal rules for bilingual signing, such as Ireland (systematic provision, "pre-Worboys" practice calling for Irish in smaller letters partly because Irish placenames tend to be longer than their English equivalents), Switzerland (very limited provision in French/German contact territory), or Finland (systematic provision according to a system of demographic thresholds), vertical separation or use of separate sign panels has been favored over graphical elements like slashes and ruled lines. This is also the approach favored in Israel (trilingual and bilingual legends are used, all with vertical separation), Russia, East Asian countries where primary legend is in CJKV characters, and most of the very isolated examples of bilingual signing in the US (
1; arguably also
2 as an exception that proves the rule). Another factor is that while slashes can save space, horizontal ruled lines greatly increase the space required unless normal interline space padding is seriously compromised.
