Ryanair Afrikaans test: South African fury over language quiz

[muriel_volestrangler]

South Africans have condemned Irish airline Ryanair for making them take a test in the Afrikaans language on UK flights, calling it discriminatory.

The country has 11 official languages, and many say they cannot understand Afrikaans - a language which was imposed during white-minority rule.

The quiz contains questions on South African general knowledge.

Ryanair defended the test, saying it weeds out those travelling on fraudulent South African passports.

"Due to the high prevalence of fraudulent South African passports, we require passengers travelling to the UK to fill out a simple questionnaire issued in Afrikaans," it said in a statement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61703174

WTF? When I started reading the article, I assumed it was a test for employment as flight crew on flights to/from South Africa - which might be understandable, if not necessary. But testing your passengers? In such a conflict-loaded language? Wow. A BBC South African correspondent notes they would fail this test.

[OnDoutside]

1. That's Ryanair for you....they feed off the free publicity.

[Javaman]

2. many years ago, a friend of mine, who was from South Africa, told me...

"the whole thing about forcing us to speak Afrikaan is just plain bullshit nationalism. no one speaks it and most everyone hates it".