Showing posts with label strange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strange. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Why French?



I wonder why is French the first language printed on all Romanian ID cards (upper part, title area). Is this a joke? Why is the first word on our ID cards a French word? Why not first Romanian then other languages?

Then is it really necessary to translate the Romanian "Carte de Identitate" to "Carte D'Identite"? To my knowledge, Romanian is a Latin language, same as French and Italian. We are likely to understand each other, and words like the ones above are easily understandable by French, Belgian or Italian people (in case you need to show your ID when travelling within EU countries).

I would rather use Romanian as a first language, simply because the ID card is to be used by Romanian people before others. I would use German as a second language, since the words are very different (Carte de Identitate - Ausweis, Loc nastere - Geburtsort), and definitely need translation for people who travel to Austria, Germany or Switzerland without a passport.