Richmond, B.C., considers banning Chinese-only signage

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Originally Posted by Acajack

I mean, back when there were lots of English only signs in Quebec, someone could easily have made the argument that it was just a "prestige" thing and wasn't in any way meant to be disrespectful or rude to francophones.

Originally Posted by GlassCity

As I'm sure some of you know, I'm from Ukraine and it (along with Russia and all those countries) have had more and more English appear in the public sphere. This is also mostly done for prestige. Store banners are in English, advertising posters are in English, etc. Even the Russian language is changing, with some existing words being phased out in favour of Englishisms.

I consider this wrong, as I do English in China, or in Quebec. Language is the most obvious spatial representation of culture, and that's why I think it's so important for it to remain local.

Volkswagen's slogan in Quebec being unilingual German for years would be a good example of something done strictly for prestige/image (and it generally works; German engineering is still a selling point, even for the models made in Mexico).