Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.109 September 22, 1994 1) Introduction (Mendy Fliegler) 2) Introduction (Marcia Gruss Levinsohn) 3) ALA/LC Romanization of Yiddish (Zachary Baker) 4) Transliteration (Louis Fridhandler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94 23:34:37 EDT From: sroolik@aol.com Subject: Introduction Ich hays Mendl Fliegler. They call me Mendy. I am an engineer retiree from the Fed. Gov't. But my background in Yiddish originates when I came to the US in 1937 from Honduras, my birthplace, when I only spoke Spanish and Yiddish. Spanish disappeared when I learned English. I was a student in the Sholem Aleichem Folkshule Drei, while growing up on a poultry farm in Central New Jersey. Marvelous teachers, Schegloff, Chanukov, etc., came from New York and stayed over at various farms and taught the language, theater, history, poetry, etc., at the community center on weekends. I graduated at 13. My folks and I, un die schaynim all spoke Yiddish to each other. A mix of Galitz, Litvakish, some literary, etc. The farmers were a mix of Linke, Rechte, Refugees, Spinoza-ites, Dahtchen, Socialists, un zo veiter. Sometimes a Republican! Yetzt vil ich mit eich redn. Die shprach shpringt arois fin mein moyach/kop, gradeh yetzt ven ich bin shoin tzvay un zechtzig yuhr alt. Ich ken eich afileh zugen vie a shpin voint--oif a povetinyeh!!! Hots alle a zies yuhr un a shaynem sikkes. Mendy Fliegler 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 23:52:13 -0400 (EDT) From: mashinke@wam.umd.edu Subject: Introduction I am thrilled to have finally arrived on Mendele's list. My formal studies in Yiddish started in 1983 at YIVO's Columbia Univ. summer program. Currently I'm studying Yiddish at the University of Maryland with Dr. Dorothy Bilik, at the DCJCC leyen krayz with Dr. Max Ticktin, and a small group of lovers of Yiddish. Adrienne is already on Mendele. As you can see, Adrienne, I finally made it! My husband, Meyshe, and I hold a class, Mishpokhe Yiddish, for 3 to 7 year olds, in our home. Parents and/or grandparents are encouraged to participate. We present Yiddish stories, (puppet shows), for children 3 to 93 years young. "s'is take a mekhaye." yidn, zayt bagrist. a gut yom tov. a gut yor. mashinke Marcia Gruss Levinsohn 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94 16:20:27 PDT From: BM.YIB@RLG.Stanford.EDU Subject: ALA/LC Romanization of Yiddish There has been some discussion on MENDELE lately, regarding libraries' practices in Romanizing Yiddish. Those who are familiar with the YIVO standard for the Romanization of Yiddish are often startled to see (for example) "mekhaber" transliterated in library catalogs as "meh.aber," or "zhargon" as "zshargon." These spellings are not, however, the caprice of an ignorant cataloger (though some of us may indeed not know Yiddish well); rather, they represent the systematic application -- or occasionally, misapplication -- of what is best known in the trade as ALA/LC [=American Library Association / Library of Congress] Romanization of Yiddish. ALA/LC Romanization is intended to be a *transliteration* (not a transcription) scheme. In other words, it represents the letters that appear on a printed page, and not the sounds with which those letters are normally associated. Librarians transliterate (rather than transcribe) Yiddish for bibliographical purposes: Transliteration ideally should be "reversible"; when one sees the title "Der yud" in a library catalog it signals to the researcher that the original spelling is daled-ayin-resh yud-vov-daled -- even if it is actually pronounced "Der yid." Transcription has its place, but bibliographical accuracy (one of the principal raisons d'etre for library catalogs) demands transliteration. ALA/LC bases its Yiddish transliteration on the YIVO standard, but is far from identical to it. That is because Yiddish is treated as a subset of Hebrew-alphabet transliteration as a whole (just as ALA/LC transliterations of languages using the Cyrillic or Arabic alphabets conform to overall rules affecting those alphabets, albeit with modifications). In ALA/LC Romanization, each Hebrew letter is represented by a distinctive symbol, as mandated by the Library of Congress' "Hebraica Cataloging Manual." H.es is distinguished from khof, kaf from k.uf, s'in [accent aigu after "s"] from samekh, s`ov [accent grave after "s"] from samekh, t.es from tov. Zayin-shin is represented by z+sh (zsh), rather than zh. ALA/LC Romanization of Yiddish works reasonably well from the transliteration perspective, as long as one avoids Yiddish words deriving from the language's loshn-koydesh component. There is a tendency in the library world to strain toward reversibility, yielding such bizarre Romanizations as "s'imh.eh" (for simkhe) -- whereas a Hebrew book with the identically spelled word in its title would have it Romanized "s'imh.ah," according to current library practices. ALA/LC Romanization has been particularly problematic in the area of Hebrew personal names. Take, for example, the name Rokhl Boymvol. As long as the author resided in the former Soviet Union, her first name was spelled resh-komets-alef-khof-lamed -- and was transliterated Rokhl. But as soon as she moved to Israel, her books began to appear under the spelling resh-h.es-lamed, and her name was transliterated Roh.el. Thus, ALA/LC is not a pure transliteration scheme, but a mixed, transliteration/transcription scheme (not a happy situation). The point of all this is that there IS a method to the madness of ALA/LC Romanization, even if that system ultimately is a bit of a "plonter." Zachary Baker 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Sep 94 12:45:32 EDT From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: Transliteration My comments are not meant to suggest any alteration in the rules of transliteration now practiced in Mendele. I appreciate the logic (see Zellig Bach in 4.102 for some of the rules), and the benefits of consistency. But, an observation: I learned transliteration from Weinreich's "College Yiddish" and from Weinreich's English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English dictionary. There, upper case letters are used except when a combination of letters was needed to transliterate a single Hebrew character. For shin, the transliteration was Sh. For a khes or a khof, Kh was used. J is rendered DZh. A couple of examples: To render the Yiddish word meaning "to hear out," the prescribed transliteration is OYSHERN. For "to cut out with scissors," the transliteration is OYSShERN. Clarity is served. This is perhaps a point overfine, but I see another advantage in using the system used by Weinreich. In writing in English about Yiddish literature, italics are often used for quotations in Yiddish. It has seemed to me useful to reserve italics for the more familiar uses: emphasis, foreign languages other than Yiddish, titles, etc. The upper case system immediately signals that those passages are Yiddish, not any _other_ language. For distinguishing Yiddish quotations (from intermixed italicized Russian, Ukrainian, Polish or German), a format reserved for Yiddish might be helpful. This applies mainly to the printed page. I don't suggest any alteration in Mendele (considering custom and the limitations imposed by modem communication), but my comments do contain a question: Why has an integral part of the system in Weinreich been abandoned? Louis Fridhandler ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.109 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu