I refer to the letter Why is Georgetown called Georgetown?

I would have to disagree with the writer that the proposed multi-lingual road signs in Penang are being trivialised for political reasons.

To me, the very act of wanting to have road signs in other languages alongside the national language is to make a political statement and nothing else. There is no rational for having such signs.

However I do agree with the writer that Georgetown has a rich history and this should not be lost.

One of the ways to keep this history alive is by producing good literature such as Khoo Salma's Streets of Georgetown. This could be translated into various languages for the benefit of tourists.

In fact, rather than putting up multi-lingual road sings (if it is going to be done for tourists), it would be better to have multi-lingual tourism promotional materials, which we lack.

Having multi-lingual road signs in Georgetown is not going to teach people about its history. How is a road sign in Chinese or Arabic going to make any sense, it would be all Greek to me. This is only going to serve one sector of the local community.

The fact that the writer had to translate the local names (in parenthesis) in the above letter proves my point.