Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.177 December 21, 1993 1) Bibliography (Bob Rothstein) 2) Daytshmerizms (Ellen Prince) 3) Jewish languages (Lewis Leavitt) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Dec 21 10:39:13 1993 From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: Bibliography In response to Ellen Prince's solicitation of bibliography, I offer the following notes. 1. A. Zaretski, the foremost Soviet specialist on Yiddish syntax, published two articles on the question of verb position in the Yiddish sentence in the Kiev journal _Di yidishe shprakh_. The first, in no. 1 (March-April, 1927), was entitled "Tsu Sholem-Aleykhems verter seyder" (pp. 5-10). The second, in no. 3 (May-June 1928), bore the title "Tsu Mendeles verterseyder [sic]" (pp. 19-26). Zaretski shows that in the overwhelming majority of the examples in his sample, the personal verb form occupies the second position in the sentence, but cites examples in which the verb occupies the first or even the third position (as in exclamations like "Vi sheyn, vi likhtik dort iz!"). His conclusion is that the subject requires more study, but that there are both justifiable and unjustifiable deviations from the verb-second principle. (The "errors" are a problem in contemporary newspaper practice; here Zaretski refers to his "bikhl" _Grayzn un sfeykes" [Kiev, l927].) 2. The late editor of the American _Yidishe shprakh_, Yudel Mark, published an article entitled "Dos ort fun beygikn verb in dem zats" in that journal (vol. 6 [1946], no. 1-2, pp. 1-14). He also points out that verb-second is the statistical norm, but verb-first and verb-third are also normal in appropriate circumstances. One justification for verb-third is extra stress on the second element, as in "Vos ER hot ibergelebt!" Before introducing one set of examples, Mark points to the importance of intonation and stress by asking his readers to read the examples out loud: "Mir betn bloyz nit leyenen ot di vayterdike doygmes mit di oygn, nor zey aroysreydn oyfn kol." Bob Rothstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Dec 21 11:57:13 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: 'daytshmerizms' just have to stick in my two cents. i agree with khaim that a bunch of different things are going on under the rubric 'daytshmerizm'. as i see it, there are: 1. orthographic influences of new high german: still occurs in the classified ads in the forverts, for example, e.g. in the most recent forverts, 12/17/93, p. 10, ad for palace hotel: shin-vov-he-lamed for /shul/. (btw, the same ad has an english borrowing, baths, spelled beys-alef-tes-he-samekh.) 2. self-conscious use or citation of nhg words not otherwise used in yiddish, e.g. hokhtsayt in harkavy's earlier dictionary mentioned previously. 3. nhg borrowings fully entrenched in central yiddish but unfamiliar or at least marked in other varieties of eastern yiddish, e.g. kuzin, tante, le(y)zn, geve(y)zn, onkl, aynladn, yetst, etc etc etc. since most 'grammarians' of yiddish were not of this dialect, they seem to have had trouble distinguishing this class from type-2 hokhtsayt-type borrowings. as the grandchild of a very simple polish jew who left his goat and chickens in his village and came to america in 1890 at the age of 14, where he was hitched to a pushcart on the lower east side, and who barely knew the latin alphabet, much less german, i find it alternately amusing and infuriating that his lexicon should be labeled 'daytsmerish' by the litvak and bukovine mavens. the fact is that new high german was a coterritorial/contact language for much of the area where central yiddish was spoken (e.g. all of the austro-hungarian empire) and there was lots of movement back and forth (e.g. i recently learned that my other grandfather was born in hamburg of polish-jewish parents; they moved to slovakia when he was a small child), and you find the same sort of borrowing from german in this area that you find from other coterritorial languages in other areas. to all those who are STILL ranting and raving about these borrowings, i'd like to quote my students and say: 'get a life!' ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Dec 21 12:11:02 1993 From: Lewis Leavitt Subject: Jewish languages For an opening lecture for an adult education course on "Yiddish language and culture" I would like to give a brief overview of other jewish languages such as Ladino, Judeo-arabic, Judeo-persian etc. I would be grateful for suggested references. (My knowledge to date is based on Weinreich's chapter in his "history of the Yiddish language"} A shaynem dank, Lewis Leavitt leavitt@waisman.wisc.edu ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.177 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files