“In Alsace, it’s said like that”: a book to understand Alsatian expressions

“Comme dit”, “Gott verdàmi”, “Service !” : you may use these expressions daily, but they are relatively incomprehensible to the rest of France. Pascale Ehrardt, teacher-researcher and director of the Alsatian dialectology department at the University of Strasbourg, wrote a book entitled “In Alsace, ça se dit comme ça”, where she lists 150 of these expressions, “for all people in contact with Alsatians and who are sometimes surprised by certain words, certain formulations, certain expressions,” but also to Alsatians who wonder about their habits.

One of the themes of the book is dedicated to swearing. : “Alsatian is not just for telling jokes or swearing, but I said to myself that it was an opportunity to explain to people how to ‘swear correctly’ by understanding what they are saying”explains Pascale Ehrardt, who also cites the Alsatian translation of Tintin: “Captain Haddock's swear words are very well translated”, she smiled.