From: Gutza gutza@moongate.ro Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Sometimes, there is every reason to be

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Btw, many romanian people speak french, don't they

?

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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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