Language policy in packaging

[Philippe Blanchet UHB]

Harold F. Schiffman a écrit :

>I have a question:  recently while exiting a Home Depot store in my
>neighborhood, I encountered a bunch of large boxes containing some kind of
>appliance, with a description of the product in both English and another
>language that I can't identify.  Since packaging in the US usually comes
>with English and Spanish, or sometimes English and French, I am wondering
>what language this is:
>
>The English text said "easy to assemble" and the other language was "facil
>reune" except that there was a grave accent on the [`a] in facil, and a
>grave accent on the final [`e], i.e. "f`acil reun`e" (or in html coding
>"fàcil reunè').
>
>This doesn't look to me like Spanish, since in googling for fàcil
>reunè I found facil with an *acute* accent [a']in many documents;
>some of the documents that come up are in Spanish and some in Portuguese,
>but none of them have the accents I describe here.  (In other words when I
>google for fàcil reunè I get documents with "Facil and reune"
>but not with the accentuation I am describing.)
>
>Since language policy in packaging and product labeling in the US is
>(unofficially, of course) mostly in English and Spanish (and sometimes
>French), I can't understand which Romance language this is supposed to be,
>or why someone would put this on the product if it's not "correct".
>
>Can anyone enlighten me?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Hal Schiffman
>
>  
>
Dear Hal

Just an idea: could it be esperanto? it sounds like an odd romance 
language in general…

Philippe
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