Yiddish Mailing List, Issue #42 May 22, 1991 244 lines =============================== More on the 19th century letters from Sedalia, Missouri (Ellen Prince, Frank Silbermann, Mikhl Herzog, Nicholas Eshelman) ------------------------ Digest-Message: 42/1 Subject: Re: mail.yiddish issue #41 Date: Sun, 12 May 1991 02:00:50 -0400 From: Ellen Prince in response to nicholas eshelman: modern standard yiddish was not proclaimed as such until well into the 20th century. likewise the modern orthographic conventions were adopted in the 20th century. the orthography of your letters looks quite standard, i.e. typical, for that time. as for it sounding 'german', there are some things that are simply older forms of yiddish and therefore more like german ('das' instead of 'az', '(h)ayte' or '(h)eyte' instead of 'haynt', 'var' instead of 'bin geven')--some of these may have been normal yiddish in 1856 when he left europe, others he may have been used in writing because they sound archaic and therefore fancier/more formal. likewise there are some spelling conventions in the letter that make it look more like german, e.g. the daled in 'un'. this continued into the twentieth century, tho more often with an apostrophe instead of the daled. also 'habe' instead of 'hob' was no doubt a spelling convention, for formality. i call these 'spelling conventions' because it's pretty definite that no one PRONOUNCED 'un' as 'und' or 'hob' as 'habe' by that time--it was just used in writing. but it's definitely yiddish--note that there are no case endings on 'dayn', for example, and, the most telling, the subordinate clause in the first paragraph ('biz ikh vil...') has the verb ('vil') in the second position, not at the end as it would be in german or in old yiddish. (it changed in yiddish in eastern europe toward the end of the 18th century.) if you could send me a xerox of the letters, i'd be happy to give you a more detailed analysis and, better, to show them to a former student here, beatrice santorini, who did a dissertation on the history of word order in yiddish and is very familiar with writing conventions, old handwriting, and older forms of yiddish. we'd both also be very interested in seeing the letters for our own interest. my snail-mail address is: ellen prince linguistics dept. williams hall univ. of penn. phila., pa 19104-6305 fantastic find! ------------------------ Digest-Message: 42/2 From: Frank Silbermann Subject: Re: letters from Sedalia, Missouri Date: Mon, 13 May 1991 12:11:07 -0400 It looks like pretty good German to me: > Myyn lyber k'zyn 'hrn Lyyzer Shpyler. > 'ykh h'be dyyn bryev 'yyte m'rgyn gykrygn > 'nd 'ykh denk d's es vyl nykht l'ng zyyn > byz 'ykh vyl dykh 'nd dyyn fruy und dyyn t'khter ts' zehyn [...] GERMAN RE-TRANSLITERATION: Mein lieber Cousin, Ihren Lazer Schpieler, Ich habe dein Brief heute Morgen gekriegen, und ich denke dass es will nicht lang sein bis ich will dich und dein Frau und dein Tochter zu sehen [...] ENGLISH: My dear Cousin, your Lazer Schpieler. I received your letter this morning and I think that it will not be long until I will see you and your wife and your daughter. > 'ykh byn f'n U'nuv (Yonev, Galicia?) avek gyk'myn 'yn y're 1855. > 'ykh k'm glyykh n'kh Engyl'nd. > F'n Engl'nd byn 'ykh 'n shyf gykymyn > ts' 'rbyytn myt 20 t'l'r d's m'nyyt 'yn kh esyn fryy. > 'ykh v'r 'n mytlershyn mer 'n shvartsyn mer > 'yn K'nst'ntyn'pl, fyle pletsn ts' fyel ts' shryybn. > 'ykh byn vydyr gyk'myn n'kh England bets'lt gykrygyn > 'nd n'kh 'merik' gykumyn 'n tsyytyn t'g Rush Hshnh 1856 > 'yn der sht't B'ldym're 'yn N'rt Ameryk'. > 'ykh v'r d' 'yyn y'r. > 'ykh 'n gyf'ngyn ts' 'ndlyn v'ry > tsu fyrkufyn klyydyr 'ly 'nd shnyt v'ry. GERMAN RE-TRANSLITERATION: Ich bin von Yonev weg gekommen in Jahr 1855. Ich kam gleich noch Engeland. Von England bin ich in Schiff gekommen zu arbeiten mit Dollar des Monat und ich essen frei. Ich war in Mitlershein Meer in Schwarzen Meer in Constantinople, viel plaetzen zu viel zu schreiben. Ich bin wieder gekommen noch England bezaehlt gekriegen und noch Amerika gekommen in zweiten Tag Rosh Hashonah 1856 in der Stadt Baltimore in North Amerika. Ich war da ein Jahr. Ich angefangen zu 'ndlyn v'ry (?) zu verkaufen Kleider 'ly und schnit v'ry (?). ENGLISH: I have from Yonev departed in year 1855. I came straight to England. >From England I came in ship (merchant marine?) to work for a dollar a month and free food. I was in the Mediteranean Sea, in the Black Sea, in Constantinople, many too many places to write about. I came again to England, received pay, and came to America on the second day of Rosh Hashonah in 1856 in the city of Baltimore in North America. I was there one year. I began to 'ndlyn v'ry (?) to sell clothes 'ly and cut v'ry (?). > He goes on to say he got married a woman who is > "gyz'nt 'nd shtark, vegt 'n gyfehr 200 fund." GERMAN RE-TRANSLITERATION: Gesund und stark, wegt ungefahr 200 pfund. ENGLISH: Healthy and strong, weighs about two hundred pounds. Frank Silbermann fs@cs.tulane.edu Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana USA ------------------------ Digest-Message: 42/3 Date: Mon, 13 May 1991 08:44:00 -0400 From: zogur%cuvmb.bitnet@utcs.utoronto.ca (Mikhl Herzog) Mr. Eshelman, some comments on your text. Forgive me if I dwell on things that are obvious to you. Some of us are in the business of being pedantic. The spelling in your document is not really erratic although I can see why you think so. The key to it lies in what you describe when you say that "there is no telling a vov from a yud". This reveals, first and foremost, that the writer's native speech is DECIDEDLY NOT northeastern: it has merged all the historical u-sounds (represented by vov in the Standard language) and i-sounds (represented by yud). ALL of them are realised as "i"; thus singular "bruder" and plural "brider" are alike: "brider". The writer's attempt to differentiate them in writing leads to hypercorrection (writing vov where one would expect yud, and vice versa) We find spellings like "kund" for "kind", "funger" for "finger", etc. It's a common feature of 19th century manuscripts (and even of published works) in Poland and the Ukraine. One puzzle, though, the name of the town. I'm surprised to see the substitution of vov for initial SEMI-VOCALIC yud (as the name Janow would imply). Let me draw your attention to two other features of the writer's speech which the spelling reveals: 1) 'yyte (= hayte 'today') and 'andlyn (= handlen 'to trade') suggest that he "drops" his aiches; this is regionally distinctive. 2) tsyytn t'g (= tsveytn tog 'the second day'), in which the "v" is lost, is also regionally distinctive; essentially the same region, though. Now then, both features ARE TOTALLY consistent with part of the area in which the u's and i's have merged in "i". and, from its location, Janow does seem to be a good candidate for the cooccurrence of all three. There is definitely more, but other duties beckon. One more comment, to close. I don't think that the grammar is heavily influenced by German. I see only one really German grammatical form "k'm" (= the preterite "kam" 'came'). The others all seem to be "Germanizations" (stylistic affectations) of spelling, mainly, in such cases as "'nd" (und for un), "bryev" (for briv) and in the form of some words "h'be" (= habe for hob) and "'yyte" (= ? German "heute"? No! "Yiddishized" "ayte" (and without the aich, yet!). These are better designated as "daytshmerish" not as "daytsh" (= German). Are you familiar with the concept? See Mordkhe Schaecter's "The Hidden Standard" (and accompanying bibliography) in THE FIELD OF YIDDISH, Vol. 3 (1969). OK? Mikhl Herzog ------------------------ Digest-Message: 42/4 Date: Tue, 14 May 1991 09:00:20 -0400 From: Nicholas Eshelman David, It's fine with me if you print Mr. Herzog's comments. He sure seems to know his stuff. [Mikhl Herzog is a professor of Yiddish (at Columbia, I believe). I had some fascinating discussions with him when he came up to a weekend that the Friends of Yiddish in Toronto ran a few years ago. A digression: during one of his talks to the FoY group about the history of Yiddish, Mikhl spent some time on the phenomenon that Yiddish speakers will often decry a particular word as not being Yiddish (i.e., it's Polish, or German, or whatever). He discussed the way that Yiddish picked up words from many languages, but noted that this is hardly unusual for a language. "In fact, English is an example of that par excellence". Then he realized what he'd just said, and everyone broke up, (If it was staged, Mikhl, you did it very well.) But I digress... - DS] I received several other letters but they were both translations first into German then into English, so I didn't forward them to you. If you think that these old letters are interesting I can transcribe some more passages and send them to you. I find it all fascinating. [Whether it's worth it depends on whether people are reading it. If other readers would like Nicholas to continue this effort, please mail him your encouragement directly. -DS] I have about 40-50 8" x 5" pages written on both sides. The letters are to various relatives, presumably back in Janow. The author seems to be very troubled that he had to leave his family and that he is still unable to afford to bring them to America. In several letters he states that he had never before understood why he had to leave his home, wander the world and live among the goyim but that believes that he has found the answer in the Torah. Then follows several pages of uninerupted passages from the Torah in Hebrew. He also quotes exensively from the Torah to give his relatives hope that he will one day have enough money to bring them over. ------------------------ SOF FUN NUMER 42 ------------------------ David (Doniel Moishe) Sherman, Toronto Moderator, mail.yiddish dave@lsuc.on.ca attcan!lsuc!dave@uunet.uu.net uunet!attcan!lsuc!dave {AT&T sites}!att!lsuc!dave