WEBVTT

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My name is Dominique Lang,
I live here in Molsheim,

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a little city about 25 km from Strasbourg.

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To be true, I’m not entirely Alsatian,
I was born in Alsace

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I was born in Mulhouse,
Upper Alsace, Haut-Rhin,

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have spent my childhoood near Paris
and came back later in Alsace

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for my Medicine studies in 1974
and have been staying here since.

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I’ve always stayed here,
always worked here and still work here

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in Molsheim, I’m an MD, working with
elderlies in the Molsheim hospital.

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What can I say? About Alsatian…
Alsatian is a very special dialect,

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a language could we say since
it doesn’t exactly come from today’s German,

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it is an heir of the “Mittelhochdeutsch”,
which is a medieval language

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that was spoken in the Middle Ages
in Germany and has become Alsatian

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through the centuries whereas
German evolved on its own side.

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Hence the many differences
between German and Alsatian.

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The pronunciation is not the same,
the Germans have today the “Hochdeutsch”,

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we have Alsatian and what we can
still say is that Alsatian is really different

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between North and South, the dialects
are totally different; in Southern Alsace,

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the language is much closer to the
Swiss German, the “Schwiztg’r Düetsch”,

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which is really particular; the Northern
dialect resembles the German dialect

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of Saarland or Baden-Württenberg.

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In Alsace, we also have many wines,
the best ones being produced in the South,

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the Haut-Rhin, where we have
the best types of vine from Alsace.

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The Alsatian wine is really particular,
there are almost only white wines,

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we have some rosés and only
one real red wine, the Rouge d’Ottrott,

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produced a couple of km from here,
that means in the Bas-Rhin.

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We have some good wines
in the Bas-Rhin, also very special

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and the Rouge d’Ottrott comes
from the Bas-Rhin. So.

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Now, how did I come to
Alsatian language? Well. As said,

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I spent my childhood in Paris and
came back to my roots in Alsace in 1974

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At this time, I began to work with elderlies
in the hospital and, at this time

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the elderlies were almost only
speaking Alsatian or German.

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I hence have been obliged to learn
Alsatian and, since I also speak German,

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it has been let’s say natural for me
to switch from German onto Alsatian.

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And afterwards, speaking, as I further
talked to the people, year after year,

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it entered.