Re: [Cz-L] Hochdeutsch and Czernowitzer

I heard a story on a similar theme from a (recently discovered) cousin in Scotland.

My great-aunt returned to Czernowitz with a few members of her family, decades after she first left (1920, approx.). The story goes that when the group reached a border crossing, she launched into fluent German, in a lively discussion with the guards.

Except that the German-speaking guards didn't have the faintest idea what she was saying. Her family teased her about it for years.

Warm regards from Vancouver,

Shula

On Jan 16, 2014, at 2:38 PM, IrisJune11_at_aol.com wrote:

> Dear Cz List Members:
>
> During the late 1940s, when I worked as a French translator for a New York
> City import-export company,the German-English translator was a
> German-Jewish refugee from Berlin. She always seemed very reserved, so in an attempt
> to break the ice I told her that even though I neither spoke nor understood
> German I learned a few German songs from my Czernowitz-born father. To
> impress her, I started singing"Zwei herzen im driverteltakt". I never got
> past that first line because she stopped me, sneering, "You sing German with
> an Austrian accent."
> Incidentally, Hardy, I can't possibly be a stranger in paradise
> because that is where I live.
>
> Iris
>
> Iris June Steinhauser Vinegar
> Raleigh, North Carolina
>
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 1/16/2014 1:49:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> HARDY3_at_BEZEQINT.NET writes:
> Reading the related posts I can say only this :
> Never have so many written so much about something they [k]now so little.
> And for our non- German speakers : they should join in with this song:
>
> " Take my hand
> I'm a stranger in paradise
> All lost in a wonderland
> A stranger in paradise "
>
> (the music from Polovtian Dances -Prince Igor -Borodin, )
>
> Hardy
>
>
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Received on 2014-01-17 08:17:37