STOP signs in Canada, elsewhere

[daveski]

Hello again all,

This is a much more frivolous post but I thought I'd try it out and
tap your collective experience...I'm uploading a photo I took on a
recent trip to Lyon, France where I was surprised to find the familiar
(to me in the U.S.) red, octagonal stop signs labeled "STOP". I seem
to remember reading somewhere that language such as this was the issue
of debate in French-speaking areas of Canada and perhaps elsewhere.
Are you familiar with debate over this most 'simple' of signs and the
politics of using English (and red octagons, for that matter) for
signing "stop" in Canada and elsewhere?

My image, taken about 4 days ago, is in the "FILES" section of the LL
group site.

Best,

David

[Bernard Spolsky]

For a set of choices, look up "arret" in Google Images,
Bernard

[Marian]

Hi,
this is not much relevant, but it may be interesting that although the
STOP signs in Belarus say "STOP" (a sort of naturalised English word
typically restricted in its use to stopping traffic), they are written
not only in Latin but also in Cyrillic script. As an illustration,
there is a photo in the "Files" section where you can see a wide one-
way street with stop signs on both sides (marked by yellow arrows),
one in the Latin, the other in the Cyrillics. The word is generally
not perceived inadequate in Belarus, nor the Czech Republic or
Slovakia for that matter, although Belarusian, Russian, Czech and
Slovak counterparts (stayats', stoyat', stát, and stát' respectively)
could have hypothetically been used instead of the English word.
Best,
Marian