Cyprus One - Text
Male, born Cyprus of Greek parents, 1978. Learned English from an aunt, a native of London, England, when he was a teenager. Subject is well traveled in Europe, North Africa and the USA. Had been living in Lawrence, KS, USA for three years when recorded there by Paul Meier in 1999. Moderately strong Greek-Cypriot accent. Speaks movingly of the conflict between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots. Running time 00:02:34.
TRANSCRIPTION
I come from Cyprus, which is an island in the Mediterranean. Um, how is life? Life is at the beach most of the time. People drink a lot of coffee, a lot of uh, kebab. We love music, we love, um, partying. We are supposed to learn how to speak English and French in, um, from starting with Jr. High, I think and then continuing in high-school but most of the people take uh, private English lessons from uh, people from England uh, because they want to stu- study abroad either in England or the U.S. So. My teacher was an aunt of mine, actually, she was married to my uncle who met uh, her in London, so she came back, and she that's what she does. She teaches, like, private English lessons. So with, with, with somebody from London, I guess. And I started doing that like, um, nine years before I left home. So, was like eleven years ago. And I live here for two years but, in Kansas, Lawrence. But, have visited like, uh, New York, and LA, and Arizona for a while. Uh, but for periods like less than a month. And I spent two months in Italy some time later and uh, stayed in London for a month and I've also been to Morocco, Tunisia, like three or for more months or something working. I speak Italian like, uh, wouldn't say like good or something, but I can manage if I'm in Italy or something. I used to be like, uh, not that fluent but, I could like manage with like French too because I had to like cause French won't talk, won't speak to you in English or anything. You have to speak French or something, so I had to do that, but I'm not very good at it, but that's basically, and I speak Greek.
Transcribed by Anthony J. Bernal II; edited by Kevin Flynn, Associate Editor for Transcriptions, February 11, 2008