Dragaera

American tourists was - A Linguistic Note

David Dyer-Bennet dd-b at dd-b.net
Wed Dec 15 15:27:37 PST 2004

"Howard Brazee" <howard at brazee.net> writes:

> jeff G. wrote:
>> ----Original Message Follows----
>
>> A True Story.  I met an American guy in Paris who was teaching
>> English to French Air Traffic contollers.  He was walking down the
>> streets when he was stopped by an elderly American couple who asked
>> him for directions.
>
> Every international airport in the world - outside of Quebec has air
> traffic controllers who speak English.  Montreal's speaks French.

Quebec has controllers who speak English too; they just try to avoid
admitting it to Canadian pilots.  International treaty requires *all*
air traffic control to accept English.  Usually they accept the local
native language as well. 

> It is interesting that there are international pilots who don't know
> good English - just good enough to communicate with Air Traffic
> Controllers.  (Although it is a safety issue to learn it better)

And it's been cited as one cause of various accidents over the years,
too. 
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b at dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
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