Minsk airport launches Belarusian language information screens with mistakes
Photo: Telegram channel #MotolkoPomogi: Minsk
The photo of the Belarusian version of Minsk Airport flight information display was uploaded to the Telegram channel #MotolkoPomogi on January 6. Initially, the screen displayed information only in two languages: English and Russian. Mandarin was added in early October 2017.
Disaffected Belarusians started lodging complaints to the airport administration asking to add the Belarusian language to the flight information screens. Several petitions appeared on the Internet, including one that was signed by almost a thousand people within two weeks.
Euroradio was happy to see the addition of the Belarusian language to flight information board at the airport. However, there is space for improvement as at least four spelling mistakes were made in the Belarusian-language inscriptions.
Belarusian was added to the display after Mandarin – you can still see some of the Chinese inscriptions there. We could have probably spotted more mistakes if the whole display was translated into Belarusian.
The Minsk international airport now uses four languages on flight information screens: English, Russian, Mandarin and Belarusian. There was no Belarusian version "in order to avoid misinterpretation of information for transit passengers," airport director Dmitry Melikyan previously told reporters
"People need to be able to find their way normally. 30% of our clients are transit passengers who do not speak Belarusian. We are trying to make it convenient for passengers in the first place. We do not need any problems. The nearest Russian territories (Smolensk and Pskov Oblasts) also use the Minsk airport since it is more convenient than going to the Moscow airports.”
