Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.308 April 3, 1994 1) An open letter to Philologus (Mikhl Herzog) 2) Translation thanks, Litvish (Andrew Cassel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Apr 2 00:28:33 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: An open letter to Philologus New York, NY April 1, 1994 Philologus, for shame! You lurk "hinter di kulyisn", we teach you everything we know, and look at what we get. Your column of April 1 (Ah, April 1! Perhaps that accounts for it!) is a disappointment to all your fans and admirers. We've taught you better. Let's take it again slowly: 1. You say ". . . we do not find nasalized ayin . . . among Jews in Germany and Austria". Really? "ma:nse/maynse" do occur in Germany and "meynse" occurs in Holland. In all of the West, the feminine of "roshe" is "reshante"!. And "ya(y)nkef" too! OK, so far? 2. Why "plot a map" when he map has already been plotted. It includes ALL of the Western Yiddish area as well. (Yidisher shprakh-un kultur-atlas, Volume I, Map 10). If you count the name "Yayngkev" too, and why not, the map grows to include Yiddish in the Northeast as well. 3. "Why is it", you ask, "that most Yiddish words with ayin, even in the manse/maynse area, are not nasalized, e.g., sho 'time' or 'hour'". Why, indeed? You almost answer the question yourself by mentioning "daynge". It's apparently because the "ayin", itself, is not the decisive factor. It's "hataf-patah" that counts. That's why nasalization occurs with "alef" and "hey" as well: "ka:nsher", "ba:nsher", "ya:ndes" and, as you mention "da(:)nges/daynges", too. The problem with "daynges" is that it differs in the sequence of vowels in the Hebrew etymon which has "shwa-hataf-patah"; all the other cases of nasalization have "patah-hataf- patah". This leads Max Weinreich to reconstruct a Hebrew etymon "da'agah", rather than the assumed "deagah". 4. Now, what's this about "how did the word [manse/maynse] turn back into mayse in other parts of Eastern Europe?" Turn back into? What does that mean? Why is it necessary to take the "magic wand" approach? That's for turning young maidens into pumpkins or princes into frogs. Language doesn't work that way. In every language community, variants coexist, correlated with social and cultural factors, sex, age, education, religion, social class, geographic region, or what have you. How this came to be in language, in the first instance, is "a bazundere maynse" (to coin a phrase), probably no different from the way in which man (writ large, Man) came to be differentiated. The regionalization of different language features, pronunciation, words and their meanings, etc. may be determined by linguistic structural factors or a variety of topographical and man made barriers to communication, as well as facilitators of communication, both of which, by the way, have their genetic consequences too, "afile bay undz". At points of contact, where variants clash, whether as a result of migration or of diffusion in situ, variants may replace one another, and the direction of change is determined either by linguistic structural factors or by social factors; or some blend of the competing forms may emerge, but they don't "turn into" one another. Sure, some ideal type Hebrew etymon may be said to have "turned into" the variants we find in all modern forms of Hebrew and in all the Jewish languages in which it occurs, although it's probably better to say that the etymon "is realized" in these different ways; but there's no need to think of these realizations as "turning into" one another. Am I ranting? So, what about "sho" and, to be seasonal, "moes" 'money' (as in mo(e)s-khitn)? Why is the "ayin" not nasalized? Again, because it's not "hataf-patah-ayin" but "komets-ayin", which comes in for its own very special treatment, at least in western Germany: "shey/she:" and "me:s" (alongside of "sho:" and "mo:s"; an indication, perhaps, of the general use of "ayin" to represent [e] in Yiddish, not at all a self-evident or predictable usage. To complicate matters somewhat, at some Western Yiddish locations, in Alsace and western Germany, for example, even some words with "hataf-patah-ayin" are rendered with [e:]: "neylimer" 'shoes', "tseykenen" 'to shout'. This is not to be confused with the Dutch Yiddish "meynse" and "yeynkef", "teynis" 'fast day' which reflect the regular treatment of [ay] as in "tsayt" and "haynt". You assume that when Edward Stankiewicz and Sam Weiss refer to Sephardim, they must be referring to northern Italy. Why? They could as easily be referring to Holland where the contact between Yiddish and Sephardim was close and where nasalization in Yiddish extends even to the name of the letter "ngayin" itself. Furthermore, if I remember correctly, nasalization of "ayin" also extends into the Whole Hebrew reading tradition of the Dutch Ashkenazim. I assume that our Dutch Yiddish specialist is lurking, too. Perhaps she could enlighten us further on the subject. 7. Finally, let's talk about Italy. With respect to the nasalization feature, I think we can say QED. I've demonstrated the geographic connection that you find "lacking between northern Italy and parts of Eastern Europe". It's of equal importance, now, to assert the historical link between actual Yiddish speakers and northern Italy itself. Many years ago, Brendan Gill reviewed a new production of Shylock in the New Yorker and was critical of the fact that Shylock was made to sound as if he knew Yiddish. Yiddish? In Italy? He, like most others, harbored the myth that there was no connection between the two. Am I mistaken in reading this into what you say, too? In any event, Gill's review prompted what may actually have been the last time I wrote a letter to the editor (so to speak). Perhaps I'll get as nice a reply from you as I did from him. Surely, I'm telling you what you already know, but indulge me. Some Ashkenazic communities were transported, (that's a bad word) moved, virtually in toto, from Germany to Italy during the period of the Black Death and, by the middle of the 16th century, Italy was the center of a flourishing Yiddish literature. Remember Elye Bokher! From your perch in Jerusalem, you should have easy access to the specialists on the subject, Khone Shmeruk and Khave Turnianski, at the Hebrew University. I've gone on too long. Forgive me. I remain among your loyal readers. Mikhl Herzog 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Apr 2 06:05:13 1994 From: acassel@philly.cerf.fred.org Subject: Translation thanks, Litvish Thanks to all who helped me find translations for "gloksne-boymer" and "salte-noses." Of the latter, my dad hadn't heard of the term, but when I related the descriptions posted here he declared that he could remember what they tasted like. Sort of a Proustian moment ... Jules Levin (Mendele 3.302) raises the question of how commonly Jews spoke Lithuanian. If it's any help, here is an excerpt from my zeyde's memoir, published in his landsmanshaft newsletter in 1930. The time referenced is the 1880s in Keidan, Kovne gubernie. The translation is by a novice (me) and thus open to correctn. (Places I'm really guessing are marked with [?]) "...Kimat yeden donershtog un "Almost every Thursday and zuntog bay Rive-Golde di Sunday, Riva-Golda the barley- krupnitze, vemen hoyz is geven seller, whose house was next in shkheynes mit undzer hoyz, door to our house, used to flegen zikh tzuzamenkleyben ir gather together her people, landlseit, litvishe poyerim fun Lithuanian peasants from Survilishik, nokhn mark oder Survilishik, after the market or kumendig fun tifle, me flegt coming home from church, to zikh mesameyakh zayn mit shnaps, celebrate with schnapps, beer bir un ferbeisen velkhe iz and snacks, which consisted of beshtanen fun a nit-opgevashenem unwashed[?] herring, or sausage hering, oder vursht un shinken and ham with black bread. mit shvartzen broyt. "Rive-Golde hot geredt litvish Riva-Golda spoke Lithuanian as azoi gut vi di poyerim un iz well as the peasants and acted geven zeyer bal-yoyetzte, zey as their advisor. They used to flegen zikh take oykh filen really feel at home in her heimish bay ir in hoyz mit dem house, with its earthen floor erdenem diel un kimat shvartze and almost black walls and vent un lubes. posts[?] "Me flegt zingen -- mir kinder They would sing -- we children flegen dos rufen "blekertzen" -- called it "babbling" -- amol shpilen oyf a harmonike, un sometimes playing on a altz kimat mit eyn nusekh, harmonica, and always the same monotone, azoi vi "me fershleft version, so monotonously that it a pgam," on oyfregende melodi would put you to sleep, unlike en, oder nigunim fun di rusen the exiciting melodies or tunes oder yiden..." of the Russians or Jews... Andrew Cassel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.308 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. 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