France Seven - Text
White female, born 1944 in Metz, moving to Alsace, France at the age of two. French was her first language and she acquired the German dialect spoken in Alsace when meeting her husband, France6, whose family did not speak French. She has lived extensively in several countries including Italy, England, Canada and the US where she recorded this interview with Paul Meier on March 16, 2000. He edited it a few days later. Subject relates the story of first arriving in Montreal where the French she heard there was incomprehensible to her. Running time: 00:04:03.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born, um, many years ago. Fifty-five years ago exactly. I was, uh, born in, uh—in, uh, Metz which is not a town in Alsace. My parents moved to Alsace when I two. Uh, there, I, uh—because my parents. I—because I was born in a place where French was, uh, speak—was—was spoken language. Uh—I—my very first languages was French. And in addition, uh, my, uh, I had a—my best friend was from Paris. So my, uh, second language was French, too. Even if I was listening every day to, um, uh, to Alsatian and I was able to understand, it was not my language. And I—I rarely expressed myself in language—and it’s when, uh, in, uh—in Alsatian. And it, uh—when I, uh, met my husband, when I came into his family, uh, where the spoken language was Alsatian, I really had to start to come back to, uh, Alsatian. But it was something funny, though, with for me. And, uh, for instance, the structure is totally different, uh, in Alsatian or German, uh, from, uh, the French-speaking, uh, structure. So it was not so much a problem for me. After that, when we—as my husband said—we, uh, we traveled the—we, uh, we went into, uh—to, uh, Canada for two years. Our son was born there. We came back then to France for thirteen years. And after that, we traveled—we started to travel again. Three years in England, four years in, um, in Italy where each time when we had to—well, I had to catch up with the language, even if it’s really not my forte to speak another language. And so, uh, here I’m, uh, (unclear) my husband this year for six years. I’m for five years. It was a great experience, but on the other hand I’m very happy and very glad to go back to France. I can tell you about my experience. Very—um, when I—the very first time I came, uh, to, uh, to Montreal, I had a teaching position in, um, in, uh, Ottawa. And so I had to start at the beginning of September. Uh, (unclear), he—he did his PhD only at the end of September. So I went to Canada, uh, uh, on my own. It was my very first, um, travel abroad. And when I—when I arrived in Montreal, I realized that I missed the connection to, uh, Ottawa. So I went to the—to the—the office of Air France and, uh—and I tried to find another plane. I couldn’t—just couldn’t understand what this guy was, uh, telling me. And, well, he felt really offended, also, because he got nervous. He had a very strong accent I never heard about
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JOHN WRIGHT 15 AUGUST, 2008