Egypt Two - Text
Subject is male, had lived in Cairo, Alexandria and in Kuwait. Born 1976, he was a computer student when Krista Scott recorded this interview in Cairo on 6/24/99. He talks about the peaceable Egyptian character. His accent is stronger than Egypt1, but he also is quite fluent in English. Edited by Paul Meier 9/28/99. Running time 00:03:28.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
My name is Fade Yusuf (unclear surname). My name sounds strange a little bit in Egypt, uh, actually if you want to say it in Arabic you would say Fade Yusuf (unclear surname). I live in El-Hegaz Street in Heliopolis in Cairo. Although now I’m living in Egypt, I have stayed a little bit in Alexandria and, in fact, I consider myself come from Alexandria more than Cairo. First because I like Alexandria, second because most of my childhood I spent in Alexandria. However, I stayed in Kuwait for a very long time, like, ten years. There I, um, I stayed with Palestinians and maybe I got some kind of accs, of, uh, Palestinian accent for Lebanese accent but now I forgot it totally so there is no point. Uh, now I’m, uh, twenty-two–I’m about to be twenty-three. I fin, I’ve just finished, uh, my uh, college degree, computer science from the American University in Cairo and I’m waiting to finish my army service and then go directly to work…um, if you want to define Egypt, uh, you would really go for, like, uh, pacifism. I hate to say that. Actually, Egyptians are very peaceful are too, probably are too peaceful. They are, they are, they, they, they kind of, um, they are not attackers, they, they don’t have that attitude of attacking others and probably this comes from the environment. Egypt is, is very, uh, stable environment and did not have lots of revolutions, uh, which makes its people very, um, peaceful and they like social relationships with each other and they hate lots of trouble. Probably that’s why they were conquered by most of the history time.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY PHIL HUBBARD 16 AUGUST, 2008