Re: [Cz-L] Are you from Rumania ?

Dear all,- yes I am from Rumania, so fo once I have no problem. My mum
married into Rumania while Bukovina seemed to have been still German
speaking in the '30s. She spoke to me all her life in German & English
wherever we lived. My father preferred the Yiddish language because "with
Yiddish one can travel the world" he used to say,-' but who speaks
Rumanian outside Rumania'? I hardly do anymore.
 By the time we arrived in Australia I could speak or understand some 9
languages while still a little kid.
These days, who needs languages that much? As long as you have English, we
seem to be able to get by in the world and hardly need any other language.
My slight accented English means I get asked "where do you come from?" as
though just off the boat. I have to say Rumania, though haven't lived
there for 60 years. I met some German tourists on a train in China and to
their surprise conversed with them in German,- yet I told them I was
originally Rumanian! It's a true Tower of Babble with all our past
languages!
Even those born in the USA hardly seem to understand this.
Malvina Malinek
Melbourne, Australia

> I, personally, never felt Rumanian except for my travelling documents
> -once
> I had a passport and in 1942 on my long journey to Israel I had "a
> document"-. Although or despite of the fact that I studied in the
> Notre-Dam=
> e
> in Galati I felt an outsider everywhere- not Rumanian but very Jewish. For
> the first time I wore a star around my neck-. My roots were in the German
> language and during the first Russian occupation I went to the Moldavsaka
> scoala where we learned Rumanian NOT Russian but in Cyrillic writing. Our
> Russian teacher was a lovely lady and we learned Russian poetry as well.
> In
> that school we had a German teacher a professor of literature (refugee
> from
> Germany??) who gave me even more love for the language. When,- in a
> different century -it seemed to me- I lived in Austria and Germany,
> because
> my husband worked in German speaking countries, I was told that MY GERMAN
> was without accent the clear of all their dialects. O.K. so we called
> Semmeln and not Broetchen, Palatchinten not pan cakes, Weiss Kaese not
> Topfen etc. but I spoke it "wie mein |Schnabel gewachsen war" (not
> translatable, you won't even find it in the Wikipadia).
> We never had Ruthenian maids and I never ever learned the lingo. Ours
> were Zippzers. In the Meisler school we had German lessons and I learned
> Gothic and Latin letters. After that it was Rumanian but the lendinding
> library was, if I my memory doesn't fail me, in the Herrengasse not street
> level but steps down, German books and the Schreibwahren opposite Meisler
> school was either Fingerhut or .....schnabel does anyone remember?
> I don't know whom I hated more the Russians, Germans or the British in
> Palestine. It's good that I live in Israel, I'm at home.
> Anny
>

-snip-
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Received on 2010-03-02 05:46:51