A Gift For Alizée, Grégoire, Annily and Baby Maggy!

[CleverCowboy]

The gift has been sent to Chonchon. Thanks to all of you that donated, we were able to send a gift of 574 Euros!

We received the following response from Johanna. They are busy working on the card for us. Will post more as we know more.

Chonchon reply.jpg

[CleverCowboy]

Chonchon has completed the card. They did an excellent job and the card is very nice.

I am only posting the front of the card. The back of the card contains the signatures of all the contributors. For privacy reasons, this will not be posted on the forum.

I love it when a plan comes together!

[Aragorn97]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

Chonchon has completed the card. They did an excellent job and the card is very nice.

I am only posting the front of the card. The back of the card contains the signatures of all the contributors. For privacy reasons, this will not be posted on the forum.

I love it when a plan comes together!

Yep, Corsican is basically Italian with less consonants and random "u" every now and then.

Anyway, yes, this gift has been a great idea. I'm sure Alizée will be super happy!

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Aragorn97

Yep, Corsican is basically Italian with less consonants and random "u" every now and then.

This is interesting. I really did not expect this big of a difference from French.

The note to send to them was the simple message of "We at AlizeeAmerica.com send warmest congratulations on the birth of your sweet baby girl, Maggy!"

I ran the sentence through the Google translator from English to French and from English to Corsican. I then reverse translated them using Google back into English. The French message translated back pretty close to the original message, but the Corsican message lost a significant amount of meaning when translated back to English. It made it sound like the birth of Maggy had not happened yet and was something that was going to happen in the future.

Bamagirl was friends with somebody from France and he was able to translate the message to Corsican. Then things became more complicated because we learned there was French Corsican and south Corsican and "real" Corsican.

It was at that point we decided to let Nathalie do the translation for us because she felt that a message in Alizee's native dialect would be very meaningful to her.

So, I'm not sure what it exactly says now, but I'm sure the message is nice.

[Aragorn97]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

This is interesting. I really did not expect this big of a difference from French.

The note to send to them was the simple message of "We at AlizeeAmerica.com send warmest congratulations on the birth of your sweet baby girl, Maggy!"

From what I have seen, Corsican is more similar to Italian than to French. I bet that if you speak to an Italian in Corsican, they will think that you are from Sardinia or Sicily. Just to make you understand, here is the translation of the message to Italian:

"Noi di Alizéeamerica.com ti mandiamo i nostri auguri più sinceri per la nascita della tua cara bambina"

It seems the same language! The only word that is completely different is "ciuccia". It might be "pure" corsican. There are a lot of words in regional dialects (languages) that sounds completely different from, in this case, italian. I translated it as "bambina", which means child but it would be interesting to know what the origin of the word is... "Ciuccia" is really similar to "ciuccio", which means pacifier in italian. But I guess the masculine version of the corsican word is "ciuccio" or "ciucciu", so it might be a reference. I don't know, but, if didn't know it was Corsican, I would have thought of an Italian dialect.

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

Bamagirl was friends with somebody from France and he was able to translate the message to Corsican. Then things became more complicated because we learned there was French Corsican and south Corsican and "real" Corsican.

It was at that point we decided to let Nathalie do the translation for us because she felt that a message in Alizee's native dialect would be very meaningful to her.

So, I'm not sure what it exactly says now, but I'm sure the message is nice.

You had a great idea. Sorry, but I'll do another example with Italy XD, because I don't know how dialects work in other countries, but Corse seems a lot similar.
Just consider Naples and its province. If you take a person from the southern province, one from the city and one from the northern province and make them speak in their dialects, they will understand each other. But they will have some peculiar words and intonation that make you understand that they are from your region, but from another area.

I said this because, if Corse is similar to Italian regions, the message will be even more personal. So, everyone who worked for this gift, very well done!

[Rev]

I can't believe I missed out on this by a few days. Oh well, great idea and nicely executed.

[Mr Coucou]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

It was at that point we decided to let Nathalie do the translation for us because she felt that a message in Alizee's native dialect would be very meaningful to her.

I would speculate that most of what she's received from outside Corsica is in French. It will definitely impress her. As Rev said, nicely executed!

Edit:

Originally Posted by Aragorn97

Sorry, but I'll do another example with Italy XD, because I don't know how dialects work in other countries, but Corse seems a lot similar.
Just consider Naples and its province. If you take a person from the southern province, one from the city and one from the northern province and make them speak in their dialects, they will understand each other. But they will have some peculiar words and intonation that make you understand that they are from your region, but from another area.

As an American, I'm often surprised at the variety of regional dialects in Europe.

Corsica is a perfect example. Its a small island. According to this thread, Corsica has 3 different dialects. How can a small island have 3 different dialects?

Here in America, the regions differ in spoken accent (i.e. western vs. southern vs. northeastern etc)--- there is a difference in pronunciation, but the words are the same.

[Aragorn97]

Originally Posted by Mr Coucou

As an American, I'm often surprised at the variety of regional dialects in Europe.

Corsica is a perfect example. Its a small island. According to this thread, Corsica has 3 different dialects. How can a small island have 3 different dialects?

Here in America, the regions differ in spoken accent (i.e. western vs. southern vs. northeastern etc)--- there is a difference in pronunciation, but the words are the same.

And keep in mind that Corse is smaller than some italian regions lol

[Bamagirl]

I think it all worked out perfectly! We were able to translate our English wishes into “Corsican French,” and then that was translated into pure “Corsican.” As CleverCowboy says, I’m sure the final sentiment is very nice. And there is no doubt that Alizée will be touched that we expressed our thoughts in her native language.
Thank you to everyone for your contributions, and to Scruffydog777 and CleverCowboy for all the behind the scenes efforts to make this happen so perfectly.

[Scruffydog777]

I believe what the message says is roughly "We and the members of AlizeeAmerica.com, send you our most sincere wishes for the birth of your dear child.".