Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.247 March 2, 1997 1) Ende oysiyes (Bob Rothstein) 2) Ende oysiyes (Zachary M. Baker) 3) Ende oysiyes (Iosif Vaisman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 12:49:27 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Ende oysiyes We, the people of the book (and our friends), sometimes ignore the fact that Yiddish has a written history as well as an oral one. There is in particular a literature on the subject of the reform of Yiddish orthography in the Soviet Union. For example Rachel Erlich writes about it in her article "Politics and Linguistics in the Standardization of Soviet Yiddish" (_Soviet Jewish Affairs_ 3 [1973], 1:71-79). She points out that after the revolution the Soviet government promised help in establishing educational and other institutions for all the peoples of the Soviet state. She writes: The Yiddish linguists, intent on standardization, were elated by this, and set out to simplify Yiddish spelling. They had before them as an example the changes in Russian spelling brought about with the help of government power. A plan of simplified Russian spelling, filed away in the Tsarist Academy of Sciences, had been quickly adopted by the Soviet Government, and brought into being by its decree. As part of a pedagogical debate on how to teach Yiddish to children ignorant of Hebrew, and how to make it easier for adults unfamiliar with Hebrew to write YIddish correctly, discussions about changing the Hebrew spelling of Yiddish words had begun long before the Russian revolution. [...] Only in the Soviet Union did the adherents of change win out. [...] The response outside of the Soviet Union was mixed: the naturalized spelling of words of Hebrew origin receiving a more sympathetic response than the dropping of the final letters. Both steps were imitated at one time or another in Yiddish writing in Europe and the United States, but these changes were never formally adopted in the West. [...] In 1932, the organ of the youth organization of the Bund in Poland, the _Yugnt-Veker_, naturalized the spelling of the words of Hebrew origin, and continued to do so until the outbreak of the Second World War. While the official organ of the Bund, _Di Naye Folkstsaytung_, kept the original spelling, not wanting to change it. Erlich also cites some evidence that not all Soviet Yiddish linguists and activists were in favor of the spelling reforms. A. Vevyorka, for example, pointed out that it would be easier to sell works of Soviet Yiddish literature abroad "were it not for the difficulties imposed upon the reader by the new orthography" (quotation from Vevyorka). Erlich adds in a note that "a spelling system ... made easier for those who are in the process of learning to read and to spell ... [may present] in the beginning some difficulty to older people who are set in their ways and do not like innovations. The spelling reform is also discussed briefly in Rakhmiel Peltz and Mark W. Kiel, "Di Yiddish-Imperye: The Dashed Hope for a Yiddish Cultural Empire in the Soviet Union," _Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages: Their Past, Present and Future_, ed. Isabelle T. Kreindler (Berlin etc.: Mouton de Gruyter, 1985), pp. 277-309; see especially p. 284 and the bibliography in note 22. The authors write that "it was the teachers in the Yiddish schools opened for children of displaced families in Russia during World War I who initiated the naturalization of the spelling of the Hebrew component of Yiddish. They argued that orthography based on phonetics would make it easier to teach children who did not know Hebrew how to read and write Yiddish correctly. Bob Rothstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 16:37:31 -0500 (EST) From: yivo1@metgate.metro.org Subject: Ende oysyes I don't believe that anyone has pointed out the following orthographical/bibliographical curiosity: The editors of the journal Sovetish heymland (1961-1989) reinstituted final letters in Yiddish, while retaining the phonetic renderings of loshn-koydesh elements within the language. Yiddish books published by Sovetskii Pisatel' (the Moscow-based publishing house to which, I believe, Sovetish heymland had some connection) followed the same practice, once the journal started to appear. Meanwhile, far, far away, the newspaper Birobidzhaner shtern retained the earlier practice of omitting final letters. I wonder how many other languages in the Soviet Union possessed, in effect, two variant, "official" orthographies. Zol men shoyn an "ende" makhn tsu der langdoyerndiker diskusye! Zachary M. Baker 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 21:00:43 -0500 (EST) From: iiv@mmlds1.pha.unc.edu Subject: Ende oysiyes I would like to add to Andrey Bredstein's sound account [6.241] just two points: 1. I believe (although I don't have references at the moment) that language reform was widely discussed in various Yiddish circles before the Russian revolution and not only in Russia. 2. Technically all letters were always present in the Soviet alef-beys. In 1920s and 30s ende oysiyes were usually accompanied by a footnote like this: "Final forms are excluded from Soviet Yiddish graphics, but de facto are used" (I.Zaretzki, 1930). Later these footnotes disappeared. Four other letters (khes, sin, tof, sof) were excluded more thoroughly. But again, they were always listed, accompanied by a comment: "These letters are used in Hebrew quotations and proper names only". To make up for the lost, two affricatives (zain shin, tes shin) were introduced as plenipotentiary letters. This innovation was adopted by many Western authors. The situation itself gives the hints to the answer on who initiated and introduced the reform. If the letters were purged by the Party/Government we would not find even traces of them. Iosif Vaisman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.247