[Wikipedia-l] Re: Sometimes, there is every reason to be

Sun Oct 5 13:38:32 UTC 2003

> From: Gutza <gutza at moongate.ro>
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Sometimes, there is every
> reason to be 
> >Btw, many romanian people speak french, don't they
> ?
> >  
> >
> Uh-oh, "you got me started" alert, combined with
> "I've got too much free 
> time on my hands" alert! :)

Well, perhaps your wife then ? :-)

> There was a very strong trend towards speaking
> French until the end of 
> WWII (quoting from
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Romania):
> 
> "Carol was crowned as the first King of Romania 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Romania> in
> 1881 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1881>.
> 
> "The new state, squeezed between the great powers of
> Ottoman, 
> Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, with Slav
> neighbors on three 
> sides, looked to the West, particularly France 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France>, for its
> cultural, educational, 
> and administrative models."
> 
> After the communists came to power however, Romania
> stopped "looking to 
> the West, particularly France", and instead started
> looking to the East, 
> particularly USSR. :(
> 
> So, nowadays there aren't so many French speaking
> Romanians left, 

I know several Romanians who emigrated in Belgian or
France. Especially scientists who could not find
necessary resources to go on with their research about
10/15 years ago. Two of them live 6 months there, and
6 months in Antwerpen now.
One of my co-worker wife is also from there. She is
currently struggling with paperwork :-(
And of course, we had many poor people who came to
France in the 90ies. I do not know really if they
succeeded to stay and find their way, or if they were
sent back :-(

Usually, they manage in french.

>Incidentally, my wife speaks impeccable French, she
>works at Radio 
>Romania International (http://www.rri.ro), the French
>branch. Maybe I 
>would've spoken better French than I can, hadn't I
>married her: a 
>couple 
>of years back we went to Paris for three weeks, and
>she did all the 
>talking, the only French words I said being "Une
>blanche!". :)

Well, that is an important word :-) Along with "ou
sont les toilettes s'il vous plait" :-)

Cough, cough

Could not your wife write us a couple of article on
Romania ?

Look : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roumanie

This is *absolutely* shameful given the long
relationships between our two countries.

Don't you think ?

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