My name is Dominique Lang, I live here in Molsheim,
a little city about 25 km from Strasbourg.
To be true, I’m not entirely Alsatian, I was born in Alsace
I was born in Mulhouse, Upper Alsace, Haut-Rhin,
have spent my childhoood near Paris and came back later in Alsace
for my Medicine studies in 1974 and have been staying here since.
I’ve always stayed here, always worked here and still work here
in Molsheim, I’m an MD, working with elderlies in the Molsheim hospital.
What can I say? About Alsatian… Alsatian is a very special dialect,
a language could we say since it doesn’t exactly come from today’s German,
it is an heir of the “Mittelhochdeutsch”, which is a medieval language
that was spoken in the Middle Ages in Germany and has become Alsatian
through the centuries whereas German evolved on its own side.
Hence the many differences between German and Alsatian.
The pronunciation is not the same, the Germans have today the “Hochdeutsch”,
we have Alsatian and what we can still say is that Alsatian is really different
between North and South, the dialects are totally different; in Southern Alsace,
the language is much closer to the Swiss German, the “Schwiztg’r Düetsch”,
which is really particular; the Northern dialect resembles the German dialect
of Saarland or Baden-Württenberg.
In Alsace, we also have many wines, the best ones being produced in the South,
the Haut-Rhin, where we have the best types of vine from Alsace.
The Alsatian wine is really particular, there are almost only white wines,
we have some rosés and only one real red wine, the Rouge d’Ottrott,
produced a couple of km from here, that means in the Bas-Rhin.
We have some good wines in the Bas-Rhin, also very special
and the Rouge d’Ottrott comes from the Bas-Rhin. So.
Now, how did I come to Alsatian language? Well. As said,
I spent my childhood in Paris and came back to my roots in Alsace in 1974
At this time, I began to work with elderlies in the hospital and, at this time
the elderlies were almost only speaking Alsatian or German.
I hence have been obliged to learn Alsatian and, since I also speak German,
it has been let’s say natural for me to switch from German onto Alsatian.
And afterwards, speaking, as I further talked to the people, year after year,
it entered.