Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.208 January 6, 1996 1) Introduction (Allan Kroll) 2) Is Yiddish dying? (Jean Maslo) 3) Is Yiddish dying? (David Herskovic) 4) Is Yiddish dying? (Miki Safadi) 5) The apostrophe in Romanized Yiddish (Marion Aptroot) 6) Pluperfect (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) 7) Graf Pototsky (Charles Jones) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 18:06:34 -0500 (EST) From: akroll@freenet.npiec.on.ca Subject: Introduction Shalom Aleichem I am new to this list and I am in awe of the wonderful use of Yiddish of the people who post on it. My yiddish is poor from neglect over the years and this list is helping me to revive it. Nu, how about a few Yiddish jokes to liven up the proceedings? Allan Kroll 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 04 Jan 96 10:46:03 EST From: 75774.3631@compuserve.com Subject: Bagrubn Yiddish? Azoi vi Ruvn Millman erladnt unz, vil ikh guebn a tzeikhn, alts fransoizicher yid: _Di Yiddishe shprakh lebt_. Goodman is nicht der erchter vos guet tzu visn az yiddish vert a toite shprach. oun dokh, neie gueneratzies lerenen, redn, leinen oun zinguen in mame loshn. nicht nor frime yidn (ikh hob letstn gueret yiddish mit a tunisian gueboirener lubavitcher man) nor youngvarik vos lerent in ovnt coursn oder in universitet. a frague: efcher is Goodman a provocator ? Jean Maslo 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 05 Jan 96 04:24:33 EST From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: yiddish khay vekayom! In the debate that has ensued as a result of the question 'Is yiddish dying?' passion has helped to cloud over the actual question. The typical answer seems to be vos hayst yiddish is dying? I speak yiddish, my kids speak yiddish, my elter babe speaks yiddish. Let us imagine if someone were to ask 'Is Latin dying?' and a reply was given that it is as good as dead. This reply would then be contested, "What do you mean it's dead. Every year the Pope sends out a Christmas message in Latin heard by millions if not billions of people around the globe. You call that dead?" My reply would be "You call that an argument?" The analogy might be slightly Talmudic but I'm sure the gist is understood. A single swallow does not make a Summer and a few hundred or thousand families around the globe conversing in yiddish doesn't quite mean the language is alive and kicking. So let me try and analyse the question. Yiddish speakers can be divided into two groups. One is the secular or semi-religious person who may come from a yiddish background or perhaps picked up the language by their own accord in order to appreciate its richness or its literature. Even if these people are religious their love of the language is more than likely to be for the nostalgia of the past that it invokes. Their first language will probably be their native language while yiddish is either used for family and acquaintances that know yiddish or for reading the literature that, again, is mainly of a bygone era. If we are to judge yiddish by them alone than perhaps we could say olov hasholem on mame loshen. I am not trying to be in any way disparaging to these lovers of yiddish. I share in many of their enjoyments. It is simply that one cannot describe a language that is more of a hobby than a tongue, as alive. On the other hand are the khsidim who for ideological reasons will not talk anything but yiddish. It is definitely not of the quality found in literature or even of some of the yiddish used here on mendele. But whatever it is it is spoken as a first tongue by generation after generation. Now, to the indifferent person (not Jewish; he is yet to be created) who walks along Boro Park, doesn't give a toss whether their cousins in Israel serve in the army or not, whether the kids have a secular education or not, whether they have fifteen kids or a kid and a dog, in short who can manage to keep outside issues outside and concentrate on yiddish and only yiddish, this person will tell you that yiddish is alive to all intents and purposes albeit in a relatively small format. Enter politics and everything is turned on it's head. The yiddishist won't admit that the khsidim have the authentic language. The khosid, when he knows of anybody but himself, will tell you that it is obscene to call their yiddish, yiddish. While the Israeli will say a plague on both your houses and curse away in Hebrew. Ugh! Enough for now, but how about an antidote to this notorious question. I have a friend who believes that Israel would have been a far more civilised place if only they had adapted yiddish as their official language. Now let them froth around the mouth. David Herskovic 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 08:17:46 -0800 From: msafadi@ucla.edu Subject: No! Yiddish is not dying! Dying? No! Disappearing as a spoken language? Yes, nebekh, at least here in Los Angeles. We should know by now that there is too great a body of secular and religious literature that will always excite academics to want and need to learn Yiddish. There are enough Hasidim in the world for whom Yiddish will continue to have some importance as a spoken language. However, fewer and fewer people are interested in continuing to speak Yiddish - and this includes the orthodox and ultra-orthodox - at least here in L.A. As I pursue this issue for my dissertation, I'm finding that while most adults (30s and up) do know Yiddish, they just aren't speaking it with each other or their children. Even the Yeshivas here seem to be giving up and teaching in English (Yiddish is taught for taytch exercises and learning to read the religious texts). Si'z a shod! Si'z a shande! But that's life. I suspect the same trend is occurring or will occur in New York and everywhere else - more slowly perhaps, but inevitable, I fear. Me? I wear my "Red mit mir yiddish" button all the time (from Yugntruf and The League for Yiddish in New York City). Iz lomir redn mer yiddish af Mendele. Miki Safadi 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 18:44:57 -0500 (EST) From: aptroot@husc.harvard.edu Subject: The apostrophe in Romanized Yiddish I feel compelled to write in response to Zellig Bach's posting on the apostrophe in Yiddish romanization (Mendele 5.203, December 27, 1995). Bach's proposal to introduce the apostrophe for functions other than to indicate a contraction (ikh'l, mir'n, s'iz) is confusing rather than helpful. The advantage of the Yivo-transcription system is its simplicity and the absence of ambiguity. It is useful for the representation of standard Yiddish, and once someone has learned the rules, the only problem that could be encountered is the lack of indication of stress. This can be remedied by the use of accents or the use of capitals for the stressed vowels. The use of the apostrophe for several different functions only complicates matters. The Yivo system was proposed for speakers of English and although it is more difficult for those who have another first language, one can get used to it because it is so simple and unambiguous. The proposed modifications disturb the simplicity and add ambiguity by assigning different values to one sign. How can someone who doesn't know the pronounciation of a Yiddish word in advance see whether the apostrophe has been written to indicate a contraction, the pronunciation of _k_ preceding _n_, a shva or a succession of two vowels rather than a diphthong? The only readers who won't be confused are those who know in advance what the answer to these questions is. We already have more than enough _makhloykes_ over the spelling in Yiddish in _yiddishe oysyes_. Please, let's not start new schools in transcription too. Marion Aptroot 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 02:10:10 -0500 From: wolfim@chelsea.ios.com Subject: Pluperfect Ellen Prince's question on the pluperfect ("when the current form of the pluperfect dates from?") might better be: who decided on the form she cites and when. For instance, Weinreich's Dictionary has invariant 'gevezt' as an alternative to the invariant 'gehat'. Zaretski (1926: 86ff.) notes geographical variants of the pluperfect, such as: bin gehat geshlofn, bin geven geshlofn, hob gehat geshlofn. Unfortunately, the variants come without indication of their geography, so our knowledge of the geographic origin of the "standard" pluperfect awaits information from the Yiddish Language Atlas. Zaretski also tells us that the future perfect works like the pluperfect should, always using hobn, e.g. vel hobn geshlofn. Falkovitsh (1940: 192) notes that there is also a future pluperfect, e.g. vel hobn gehat gemakht. Meyer-Leyb Wolf 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 14:32:11 -0400 (EDT) From: cwjones@husc.harvard.edu Subject: Graf Pototsky Norman Rosenblatt asks [5.207] whether Graf Pototsky really lived. Good question! Apparently he did but the (1972) Encyclopaedia Judaica article on him has it that "So far no historical evidence for the story has been discovered, although it is generally believed to be true." He is supposed to have been burnt at the stake as a proselyte at the foot of the fortress of Vilna on the second day of Shavuot, 5509 (c.e. 1749) and is also known as Abraham ben Abraham and as the Ger Zedek. The Library of Congress has established him (as a real person) under the name "Potocki, Valentine, d. 1749", in case you want to look him up as a subject in library catalogs. Charles Jones Cambridge, Mass. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.208