From: Gutza <gutza(a)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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