Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 6.150
December 19, 1996

1) Zakh/zikh (Hugh Denman)
2) Jet-lag af yidish (Dan Leeson)
3) Role of judeo-french (Joachim Neugroschel)
4) Role of judeo-french (Ellen Prince)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 18:08:55 +0100 (MET)
From: h_denman@maier.vol.at
Subject: Zakh/zikh

I must apologise to Al Grand if my previous answer on this topic [6,135.
3] was not clear enough. I will also try again, even at the risk of
paraphrasing Joachim Neugroschel [6,142. 4] to some extent:

1. In Standard Yiddish one should spell the reflexive pronoun with a yud
and consequently transliterate 'zikh'. However, for reasons that one may
ignore, if so inclined, the pronunciation will be nearer to 'zakh'.

2. Al Grand then asks whether the diphthong "oy" with an umlaut over the
"o" wouldn't be pronounced exactly the same as "oy" minus the umlaut.
But pronounced by whom? That is the problem! The vov-yud grapheme
represents two distinct historical phonemes that are, however, both
pronounced identically as "oy" in the standard language. Nonetheless,
all the dialects maintain the distinction, albeit with differing
realisations. Olsvanger, like Birnbaum, is attempting to employ a
transcription system that will maintain the distinction, while leaving
the reader free to observe it or not as he pleases, and in the former
case to select the realisation he prefers. Of course, if Al Grand is not
interested in either the history of the language or in the dialects,
then he is quite safe in ignoring the umlaut. That was Olsvanger's
purpose in employing a diacritic in the first place.

Hugh Denman
London

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 16:15:51 EST
From: leeson@aspen.fhda.edu
Subject: Jet-lag af yidish

Zellig Bach [in 6.147] suggests "fli-mid" as a potential Yiddish form of
"jet lag."  He gives as an example: "Ikh bin zeyer fli-mid" which he
translates as "I am very fatigued from the flight."

Far be it from me to even suggest that Zellig could be off the mark in a
translation, but we have a definite problem here.  "Jet lag" is not the
equivalent of "fatigue" in English, and therefore, its Yiddish
translation of "fil-mid" does not convey the correct notion.

"Jet lag" makes reference to ones biological clock being off-kilter by
being forced to go from one time zone to a distant one in a short time;
i.e., I get an 8 or 9 hour jet lag when I fly from San Francisco to
Frankfurt because I want to eat when I should be asleep and vice versa,
but that does not mean I am fatigued from the flight because of this.
My biological clock is now confused from the time change and I have
become "Jet lagged."

In fact, I get "fli-mid" even when I don't get "jet lag", tsum bayshpil,
when I fly from San Franciso to Seattle where there is no time change
and thus, no physiological reason for jet lag.  But I am fatigued
nonetheless.

So I am not questioning Zellig's translation of "Jet lag" as much as I
am suggesting that he may have translated the wrong notion, one that I
cannot say in a few words other than with the phrase "Jet lag."  In
effect, I cannot equate "Jet lag" and "fatigue by flight" as being the
same ideas.

In conclusion let me state that when I get jet lagged, the joke "What
hangs on the wall, is purple, and flies" sounds very rational to me.  (I
presume that everyone knows the answer to that question: "a herring."
You say it doesn't hang on the wall? I could hang it if I wished.  You
say that it is not purple? I could dip it in purple paint.  You say that
it does not fly? That is true, but I put that one in to fool you.)

Dan Leeson
Los Altos, California

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 20:05:43 -0500 (EST)
From: achim1@cris.com
Subject: Role of judeo-french

in regard to the Yiddish expressions "es iz do" & "es iz nisht do":
Sylvia Schild [6.148] points to a possible Judeo-French origin.  But her
evidence doesn't quite strike me as valid.  for one thing, she lists
modern French idioms, and not medieval ones.

Furthermore, contrary to her theory, the French idioms she cites do
_not_ translate literally into the Yiddish ones.  "Il y a" literally
translates as "it there _has_ (not _is_).  Likewise, "il n'y a pas"
literally translates as "it no there _has_ not"--which sounds nothing
like "es iz nisht do".  Swiss German contains calques of those idioms
("es hat"), but Yiddish doesn't.

The more probable source of the Yiddish phrases is German:  even today,
the German verb "dasein" means "exist, be there, be available,
etc."--e.g.  "Ich werde immer fuer dich dasein" = "I'll always be there
for you."  And the German noun "Dasein" still means "existence".

Currently, the German idiom and the Yiddish idiom overlap only partly.
A precise German translation of, say, "Es zenen do a sakh shraybers af
der velt" would be "Es _gibt_ viele Schriftsteller auf der Welt".  "Es
gibt" + object (not subject) noun is the most colloquial way of
expressing "there is (are)" in modern German.  However, in medieval
German, the phrase "es (ez) ist (sind) da" was a lot more common.

Joachim Neugroschel

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 20:41:35 EST
From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Role of judeo-french

syliva schildt writes (6.148) that we are forgetting that the original
yiddish speakers were once judeo-french speakers and that _es iz do_ is
a translation of _il y a_. i would like to say that, first of all, the
claim that the original yiddish speakers came from france is not
universally accepted as true by linguists (i for one am skeptical and
await more compelling evidence than i've seen so far) and, second, a
real calque of the french would be _es hot dort_, not _es iz do_.

actually, i believe that modern german has _da is_ 'here/there is',
where 'here/there' has a real locational meaning. interestingly, two
other germanic languages -- english and danish -- have a modern
existential 'there' construction that evolved out of a locational
'there' construction, so yiddish could very well be a third -- that is,
they could have started with a _do iz_ locational construction and it
could have evolved into the modern _do iz_ existential construction,
just as the english and danish constructions did. no need to posit a
french source -- and then have to explain why they got the verb wrong.
of course, all this could use some serious research -- i'm just
speculating.

on a more general note, i know of a handful of lexical items in yiddish
from judeo-french (tsholnt, yente...) but i don't know of any structural
influence. sylvia, did you have anything specific in mind? (this is a
subject that interests me very much.) thanks.

ellen prince

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End of Mendele Vol. 6.150