New “Welcome to England” signs in Dover

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Vierwielen
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Re: New “Welcome to England” signs in Dover

Post by Vierwielen »

Gareth Thomas wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 14:39 I think the UK is fairly unique in that there are no "Welcome to the UK" signs at any of its borders (excluding purely island nations, of course).

I suppose a reason they only went for English on the signs could be, what languages would you put on there? French would be obvious, but a lot of lorries from Eastern Europe use the port for example (Romania and Latvia being the two most common I've seen, although this is by no means scientifically accurate!). So would you put Polish on there as well? Latvian? Dutch?

I'd have put French on there at the very least.

Another thing I wondered was instead of having the two signs at different locations, why they didn't put one sign here.
If one looks at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union, the obvious languages would be English, French and German as most Europeans understand at least one of those languages.
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Re: New “Welcome to England” signs in Dover

Post by Gareth Thomas »

I managed to get some photos the other day...

(Ignore the fact the thumbnails are at a 90 degree angle. When you click on them, they are the right way up! I think it's something to do with my old phone!)
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Re: New “Welcome to England” signs in Dover

Post by exiled »

Gareth Thomas wrote: Mon Aug 22, 2022 22:54 I managed to get some photos the other day...

(Ignore the fact the thumbnails are at a 90 degree angle. When you click on them, they are the right way up! I think it's something to do with my old phone!)
Not bad, not brilliant, but not bad. In terms of languages, I don't know many other jurisdictions that will sign in anything other than its official language(s) as a regular at the border. Mostly the borders are marked with the blue square with the gold stars in the EU with the name of the state, and a speed limit sign.

Example here, right on the border https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.05700 ... 384!8i8192 you get the name of the state, België, then a couple of toll signs, before

Welcome to https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.05784 ... 384!8i8192 Flanders' followed by a West Flanders Province welcomes you.

None of those signs are in French. Cross the border the other way, none of the signs are in Dutch.

Now Wallonia https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.74236 ... 384!8i8192 signs this way on the border between it and Flanders just south of Brussels, with welcome in French, Dutch, English and German. The name though is only in French.
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