Friday, November 23, 2007

Which is the third language around here?

I catch métro line 14 on a regular basis, especially during strikes as it's the fully automatic line. I've heard the announcement many times at the end of the line that says "Terminus. Tous les voyageurs sont invités à descendre." and then "End of the line. Would all passengers kindly leave the train." followed by the same announcement in Spanish. Many of the métro lines don't bother saying anything, but those other lines that do either just announce in French or French, English and Spanish. This is convenient for all those people on the métro who speak French, English and/or Spanish. One day, while in the métro/RER station Châtelet-Les Halles, on the RER A platform, an announcement came over the speaker system in three languages: French, English and German. I've paid attention to the announcements on all métro and RER trains and stations in Paris and I've noticed that on the métro*, they're in French, English and Spanish and on the RER, they're in French, English and German. Does this mean that Spanish (or Spanglophone**) tourists/residents catch the métro while German (or Germalophone**) tourists/residents use the RER?



* Except for Pont de Sèvres, the station at the end of line 9, which uses the language set of the RER.
** These words exist. Because I said so.

3 comments:

David Barry said...

Germalophone doesn't really work for me, but Spanglophone is truly inspired. I will do my best to use it whenever I need to write about Spanish speakers.

Anonymous said...

Surely Spanglophone would refer to people who speak Spanglish? Mind you, there's a lot of them out there.

Anonymous said...

They just make me think of saxamophone. Perhaps you've really just invented a couple of new instruments?