May 2004

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BILINGUAL ROAD SIGNS IN THE PROVINCE OF UDINE SOON (Lenghe.net)

May 2004 – Most of the road signs of the Province of Udine will be bilingual by the end of this year. This is the aim of the Provincial Administration of Udine [Amministrazione Provinciale di Udine], based on the Law 482/99, entitled ‘Regulations for the protection of historical language minorities’. The province has a budget of 293.475 €, which will make feasible the replacement of more than 1000 road signs along approximately 700 km. The new signs will show the official place names in Italian and also in its original name in Friulan, Slovene or German. The project intends to ensure both the functionality and the equality of the different languages and will be carried out by the Office of the Friulan Language and the Other Minority Languages [Unità Operativa Lingua Friulana e altre Lingue Minoritarie] and the Roading Service [Servizio Viabilità]. In order to ensure the quality of translations, the province has created an ad hoc commission with the aim of defining the place names in Friulan, taking into account the official grammar and orthography; the Slovene and German areas will count on a working group formed by specialists of both languages. According to Marzio Strassoldo, the President of the province, the initiative stands for an important step for the promotion of the use of these minority languages in all domains of the province’s social life.