Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.097 December 11, 1998 1) Sholem Aleykehm and frum Yiddish (Larry Rosenwald) 2) Frum Yiddish and Literary Standard (Bruce Mitchell) 3) der yid (Id) laytish oder lebedik (sylvia schildt) 4) "Standard" Yiddish? (Bob Newell) 5) teaching Yiddish like other languages (Sholem Berger) 6) bilingual postings on Mendele (Larry Rosenwald) 7) der tsveyter tog yontef (Noyekh Miller) 8) Mendele ain't jist for beginners (Martin (Moyshe) Horwitz) 9) Mendele languages and statistics (Iosif Vaisman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 12:36:45 -0500 (EST) From: Larry Rosenwald Subject: Sholem Aleykehm and frum Yiddish I was struck by a passage in Yankev Lewis' posting on "Klal-yidish tsvishn di frume": "I think there is in particular a disappearance of Slavic vocabulary. E.g. Weinreich gives only words of Slavic origin as equivalents to "lake" but Der Yid uses the English word. Similarly a Bobov Hasid in Boro Park told me that the Yiddish word for "supper" is now "supper" ("soper" in YIVO transliteration) -- and, he said, after all in the old country people also didn't use "nakhtmol", they used the Polish word, "vyetshere". I.e. he didn't see the Slavic word as rooted in Yiddish." This reminded me of a passage in Sholem Aleykhem's Motl Peysi in Amerike, where there's a dispute over precisely this word. Motl Peysi's older brother Elye, and his friend Pini, are working in a "shap," and come home tired - "zey kumen ale mol oysgematert un hungerik. Un mir zetsn zikh esn vetshere. Do heyst es 'Saper.' [sic] Brokhe [Elye's wife] hot faynt ot dos vort, azoy vi an erlekher yid hot faynt khazer" (they always come home exhausted and hungry. And we sit down to eat _vetshere_. Here it's called 'Saper.' Brokhe hates that word, the way an observant Jew hates pig). This is only one of the words Brokhe hates - she's equally unfond of "vinde," "stakings," "dishes, "spun," and prefers the (sometimes Slavic, sometimes German) words to these American innovations. What's weird, really, is that in the SA passage, Brokhe's refusal to use American vocabulary is part of her resistance to Americanization generally - whereas the Boro Park Bobover Hasid quoted in Yankev Lewis' posting is a representative of the group that has surely resisted Americanization in most ways successfully, however much American vocabulary has infiltrated its Yiddish. Al dos guts, Larry Rosenwald 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:34:16 -0500 (EST) From: Bruce Mitchell Subject: Frum Yiddish and Literary Standard Before I address Yiddish orthography in the frum world, I would like to make a very general observation about Yiddish as it is spoken and written by non-haredi Jews. Contrary to popular belief, not all contemporary Yiddish scholars and writers accept YIVO orthography or a puristic form of the spoken language. There are descriptivists who propose written forms and vocabulary more in line with the linguistic reality, and there are less religious Yiddish speakers who liberally lace their Yiddish with all sorts of Germanisms, Anglicisms, and more seldom words borrowed from Modern Hebrew. In fact, it is not uncommon to find older speakers who do not know any German and, being completely oblivious to the post-war fashion of replacing words deemed "too German" with Hebrew, still use "varshaynlekh" instead of "mistome", "aynfershtendik" instead of "maskim", and "hayratn" instead of "khasene hobn".In fact, I met one native speaker from Liverpool who did not even know what "maskim" meant and constantly needed to have the word "translated" as "aynfershtendik". So much for the authority of linguistic purists. As for "popular Yiddish orthography", just about any editor of Yiddish language texts today can testify to the wide variety of spellings found even in the comparatively small secular pool of speakers in the 90s. If the secular world cannot even enforce one standard orthography without dissension, then the frum community can hardly be expected to do so either. In fact, the frum community has several periodicals published by different groups, with no organization which even intends to establish a common standard orthography. Although frum Jews are interested in Yiddish as a language and in a pious Yiddish literature, they are not necessarily interested in YIVO orthography. Nonetheless, several haredi editors are struggling to find an acceptable orthographic standard,and it just may be a matter of time until one actually emerges. With regards to hebraisms, anglicisms, and germanisms, new words are a sure sign of life and should be welcomed, not eschewed because of linguistic pretension. Finally, I would like to introduce "mendelianers" to the scholarly work of a hasidic linguist, Shmuel Heiley. Yes, he has long peyes, wears a shtrayml on shabes, and a black hat during the week. No, he is not a bal-tshuve and does not work at a university. He is simply gifted in languages and has cultivated his interest in Yiddish to the point where he can conduct competent scholarly work. I have personally spent shaboysim and yon-toyvim with him and his rather large family, who speak a beautiful Polish dialect of Yiddish-none of this standard nonsense. Personal details aside, I am quoting an excerpt from his article "Solomon A. Birnbaum", because I think his perspective on Birnbaum's work is both unique and relevant to the ongoing Mendele discussion. Here it is: "Birnbaum's View of Yiddish If there is one central feature which encapsulates Birnbaum's perception of modern Yiddish, it is his strict adherence to the spoken language, to its specifics in comparison to cognate or coterritorial languages, and his refusal to create, adhere to or tolerate a synthetic standard form(on Solomon Birnbaum's original contribution to the standardization of modern Yiddish see Schaechter 1955,1962). This stands in stark contrast to the work of many of his prominent contemporaries whose normativist tendencies were by and large aimed toward such a standard. >From the time he began contributing to Yiddish studies, Birnbaum was influenced by traditional Jewish values;his life-style (as far as his surroundings in pre-World War Two Germany permitted) was modelled on that of Eastern European Jewry, promoting strict adherence to traditional values, in which Yiddish played a significant part. He thus viewed Yiddish as part and parcel of a much greater age old framework, which contains the necessary power to generate its own continuation. Therefore Yiddish, according to Birnbaum's worldview, was never and end in itself. In contrast, his colleagues did not share his life-style or views at all. Having separated themselves from traditional Orthodoxy, or having been born to parents who had done so, they often failed to see any inherent connection between Yiddish and Judaism. Having assimilated almost completely into the dominant society, they viewed Yiddish as the last rallying point for their identity as Jews. This dichotomy of views underlies the widely diverging approaches to the way in which Yiddish should be promoted. On the one hand, Birnbaum's work is characterized by an active involvement with a culture, realizing its millenium-long history, and its potential for preservation, knowing full well that is has every reasonable chance of a long future ahead. On the other hand, his contemporaries, while attempting to regard the subject in terms of a purely academic discipline, and to display a corresponding academic objectivity and detachment, repeatedly subjected it to the contemporary philosophies upon which their own lifestyles were subjectively based. In Birnbaum's view, the confusion of concepts and emotions in the secular Yiddishist camp gave rise to the abortive attempt to create a standard language that was based NOT on the majority of Yiddish speakers but on an asssumed model of academic prestige..." Excerpt taken from Shmuel Heiley, "Solomon A. Birnbaum", IN: Dov-Ber Kerler, ed., "History of Yiddish Studies", Winter Studies in Yiddish, Volume 3. Bruce Mitchell 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 13:25:08 -0500 (EST) From: creativa@charm.net (Sylvia Schildt) Subject: der yid (Id) laytish oder lebedik tayere mendelyaner ... ikh hob nokhgefolgt di rekomendatzie tzu leyenen "der yid" un zikh farshribn af 1 yor. ot iz ongekumen der numer fun detzember 4 (iber 140 zaytn). vilt zikh mit di khaverim tzetayln di ershte frishe ayndrukn. der tam fun yidishkeyt gefint zikh iberal, af yedn blat, afile in di anonsn - grayzn a sakh, anglitzizmen a sakh veyniker vi in forvertz in di 20-er, 30-er, 40-er, biz nit lang tzurik. af english shteyt geshribn "Der Yid" - in Yidish, leygt men dos oys vi in far-yivo tzaytn in forvertz, vi ba litvishe un rusishe yidn (afile in sovyetish yidish) shtumer aleph, yud, daled. nit azey geferlekh, ven me nemt in batrakht az klal yidish iz a lebedike shprakh un di mentshn muzn araynnemen inyonim fun hayntzytikn lebn.un yeder anons oder shrayber tut epes andersh. tzum bayshpil: s'iz do an anons vos nemt arayn gantz zayt 27 fun "Lee Avenue Photo" - halb english, halb yidish. Lee Photo farkeyft kolerley tekhnishe zakhn, bashribn af english merstns - ober de anons gufe iz azoy yidishlekh geshmak -- az me ken geshmoltzn vern. eybn iz do a bild fun a teler latkes un es geyt fun zey a pare. ikh tzitir: " Hert un shtoynt ,,, Elektronishe 'Latkes" ...?! Neyn. Elektronishe latkes hobn mir take nisht, ober elektroniks bilig vi latkes hobn mir yo ...! " Un vegn di grayzn un anglitzizmen vil ikh nor makhn eyn bamerkung -- di lerer mayne fun arbeter ring zaynen eykh geven shtark gegn anglitzizmen in yidish, ober zey hobn shtark genutzt daytshmerizmen un slavizmen -- fregt zikh di kashe -- un zikher darf zayn a mos -- mit vos zaynen verter fun lender vu men hot yidn geharget vi di shof -- mit vos zaynen zayere verter kosherer vi verter fun a fray land, vu yidn kenen zikh -- tzi frum vi di satmer, tzi fray vi di sylvies -- oyslebn di yorn in fridn (lomir hofn als yidn)??? ikh hob eyn yor abonirt Birobidjaner Shtern - iz nit nor nit geven kin gefil fun yidishkey, nor es is faktish geven anti-tzionistish, anti-semitish. Vos iz beser? Efsher darfn mir zikh dernentern vi in di alte tzaytn -- vet klal yidish vern a bisele mer laytish un laytish yidish a bisele lebediker. dear mendelyaner ... I followed the recommendation to read "Der Yid" and signed up for a year. The issue just came, for December 4 (over 140 pages!). I have the urge to share my first fresh impressions with my friends. The taste of Yiddishkeyt is everywhere, on every page, even in the ads -- lots of mistakes, fewer anglicisms than in the Forward of the 20's, 30's, 40's, until not too long ago. In English it's written DER YID -- in Yiddish, they spell it like in the pre-Yivo days of the Forward, as with Lithuanian and Russian Jews (even in Sovietish Yiddish) silent aleph, yud, daled. Not so terrible, when you take into consideration that klal Yiddish is a living language and the people have to incorporate subjects of contemporary life. And every ad or writer does something different. For example: there's an ad that occupies all of page 27 from Lee Avenue Photo ... half English, half Yiddish. Lee Photo sells technical stuff, described mostly in English - but the ad itself is so deliciously Jewish, you could melt. Above is a picture of a plate of latkes and steam is coming from them. I quote: " Listen and be amazed. ": Electronic "Latkes" .. ? ! No. Electronic latkes we don't actually have, but electronics as cheap as latkes, that we do have. " And about the mistakes and Anglicisms, , I wish to make just one comment -- my teachers in the Arbeter Ring were also very anti Anglicisms in Yiddish, but they used lots of Germanisms and Slavicisms. This begs the question -- and of course there has to be some moderation-- with what are words from countries where Jews were slaughtered like sheep - with what are these more kosher than words (borrowed) from a free land, where Jews can -- be they frum as Satmer, or fray as the Sylvias -- live out their years in peace (let's hope as Jews) ??? I once subscribed to Birobidjanaer Shtern for a whole year and found it to be in truth not only anti-Zionist, but anti-Semitic. What is better? Perhaps we need to come closer to each other -- so klal Yiddish can become a little more respectable -- and respectable Yiddish a little livelier. sylvia schildt baltimore, maryland 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 20:32:59 -0500 (EST) From: Bob Newell Subject: "Standard" Yiddish? I read the last few postings about variants of Yiddish, and as a newcomer to this list, whose exclusive experience with Yiddish is having read the Vorverts for seven or eight years: is the Yiddish of the Vorverts considered "standard" literary Yiddish? It seems to conform pretty closely to the textbooks, but as I say, I have no other experience with Yiddish. Bob Newell Los Alamos, New Mexico 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 08:50:42 -0500 (EST) From: "Sholem Berger" Subject: teaching Yiddish like other languages Yankev Lewis, writing in Mendele 8.096, looks forward to the day (bimheyro byomeynu, omeyn selo) "when Yiddish is considered like any other language, to be studied accordingly to how it is usually written and spoken by the majority of its contemporary users." Though my experience of language education is from the student's side, I would venture that most languages are taught in the unrealistic way that Lewis bemoans, based on a literary standard and kept at some conscious difference from the spoken language. For example: most people's first exposure to Spanish comes in high school, where a field trip to Harlem or Puerto Rico is far down the list from "La celestina" and "Don Quijote." "Victorian Yiddish" may be an easy target, but it's no less prevalent in the classrooms than Academie French or "Castillian" Spanish. Sholem Berger 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 14:13:59 -0500 (EST) From: Larry Rosenwald Subject: bilingual postings on MENDELE On the question of whether Yiddish-language postings on MENDELE always need to be accompanied by an English translation - I'm inclined to agree with Hugh Denman that they don't, for a couple of reasons. 1) I certainly don't read Yiddish as well as I read English, but I'm often likely to learn more Yiddish if I can't turn to an English translation. I wish I could resist the temptation to follow the path of least resistance , but I can't. 2) I'm in favor of having more postings rather than fewer, and my guess is that the labor of producing an English translation of a Yiddish posting might deter some people from posting at all. 3) This is especially true where the posters' native language isn't English. English is a pretty good lingua franca for this list, but so is Yiddish; Yiddish isn't just the subject that MENDELE is devoted to, it is also, here as elsewhere, now as in the past, a language we have in common, or that we're striving to have in common, that makes it possible for us to talk among ourselves over the spaces (linguistic and geographical) that separate English from Russian and Russian from Spanish and Spanish from Hebrew. Al dos guts, Larry Rosenwald 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 14:52:12 -0500 From: "N. Miller" Subject: der tsveyter tog yontef It's that time of year again and the matter of transcription is once again on the table. This time it's led off by Mel Poretz, who proposes (8.093) that we start using aitches with certain vowels. For example, the word for "face" when spelled "punem" misses the mark by permitting the new reader to sound it out like the word for "pun" with an "em" tagged on at the end. I've often seen it spelled as "poonem" and maybe some Yiddish, somewhere, was spoken that way. Introducing the letter "h" gives it the special resonance of "puhnem" where the first syllable sounds like "puff" as in taking (nishtduhgedokt) a drag on a stogie. The word for "all" when spelled "ale" rings true to Yiddishists who automatically sound it in their mind's ear the way it was spoken by our tateh-mamehs, regardless of how the word appears on a printed page or screen; but to the uninitiated, at any rate, it could sound like a bottle of ale. Finishing the word with the letter "h" gives it the Yiddish sound quality it needs, "aleh." When the word for "from" is used in the Yiddish, it could read to some like the English word for an enjoyable experience and not the Yiddish "fuhn." He's aware that his proposed rule may not serve the hundreds of Mendele's readers for whom English is not a primary language: Obviously, this does not account for foreign readers who spellings and pronunciations might not fit within any such rubric. I'd settle, mit gelust, for an Americanized standardization. Vus zuhgst du? That's the proposal. And since we've been invited to "zuhg" what we think, here's my take. It's a terrible idea. The most obvious reason is that we already have an excellent system (YIVO) that's easy to learn and that works. http://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/library/ And makhn shabes far zikh is, as a friend writes, a waste of everyone's time. We're not concerned here, after all, with an orthographic guide for _English_ books and dictionaries, nor do we normally use Yiddish words in isolation--except where the reader may be reasonably expected to understand. If the Yiddish "gas", for instance, might be misconstrued when used alone (though who would so use it?), surely no one can be misled by "di yidishe gas". But there are other aspects of the Poretz plan that bother me a great deal more than its mere uselessness. I have in fact three objections which I hope others will find reasonable as well as a personal quibble that's possibly unreasonable. First, it's discriminatory. A "standardization" that would make things more difficult for "foreign" readers is on the face of it atrocious. All Mendelists have precisely the same standing. Mendele is not an "American" list and no Mendelist is a "foreigner". Second, and even more basic, it demeans Yiddish. It betrays a notion of Yiddish as something less than a language in its own right. Mr. Poretz wouldn't dream of asking the French Academy to modify the spelling of "pour" because American readers might pronounce it wrong. Or that the German "die" be respelled. Yet here he is, implying that English is privileged with respect to Yiddish: that no Australian reading a Yiddish text should be expected to do any code-switching. We're not told why. Are Canadian readers so dumb that they can't figure out for themselves that pronunciation shifts with the language being used? This proposal is not only a serious insult to Yiddish, it treats speakers of English none too kindly. Third, the supererogatory aitch is daytshmerish revisited, a regressive step to the time nitdogedakht when German occupied the place for some Yiddishists that English nebekh does today. The result then was a Yiddish orthography that tried as much as possible to resemble modern German, a Yiddish bristling with aitches in the form of the hey. Fighting daytshmerish in all its forms took a long time (indeed the Forverts has only within the year adopted the full YIVO standard). It would be a travesty were we to start that nonsense all over again. I refuse to believe that Mendelistn can't approach a transcribed Yiddish text with the same degree of attention as they do something written in Spanish or Polish. I mentioned a personal reason. The unnecessary aitch is mildly annoying at all times, but when it comes at the _end_ of a word, as in "tateh" or "mameh" or "aleh", I positively get the jimjams. It puts me in mind of the raised little finger that some once thought (still do?) was de rigueur when taking tea with the Duchess of Kent or whatever. And Yiddish was not designed for living it up at the Ritz--except maybe as a subversive vehicle for the Marx Brothers or S.J. Perelman. Me, I drink my tea from a mug and I suspect that most of us on Mendele--Mel Poretz included--do likewise. A final point. Nothing in the foregoing should be construed as a personal attack. The Internet, wonderful as it is, seems to turn what ought to be civilized if peppered debate into hair-pulling contests. The first is interesting, the latter boring. Zol zayn lebedik! Noyekh Miller 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 08:45:42 -0500 (EST) From: Martin Horwitz Subject: Mendele ain't jist fer beginners This is a response to Messrs. Gaston,Gilboa,Ben Litman,Friedman,and Berkowita and their insistent request that everything be translated because it is too hard, they are lazy, they just began, they speak but don't read, they are retired and too lazy to work (!!!??SIC),and any one who does not cater to them or even urges them to treat the language of nostaligia and hobby with a bit of respect is a snob or just not helping. I am not a native speaker of Yiddish. I learned my Yiddish 35 years ago at a folkshule. My parents never spoke TO me ,just among themselves while disparaging any Jew who did not know Yiddish. I relearned Yiddish at the YIVO after a trip to Russia in 1959 where Yiddish allowed frightened Jews to immediately trust me and to talk about antiSemitism in the public street. So I returned and had the pleasure to hear seminars say af idish, say af english fun gelernte, eydele mentshn vi Miron un Harshavsky vu inem YIVO, a place where scholars, Bundists, chance students, and serious lovers of Yiddish language and literature could learn more no matter what their level. But they did not go around asking that everything be done only for them or to make their life easier. So, be careful that you do not drive away those "serious" people who started Mendele. You do so at your own peril. It may not be here without them. Martin (Moyshe) Horwitz 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:12:59 -0500 (EST) From: Iosif Vaisman Subject: Mendele languages and statistics In the recent Mendele issues we've seen several opinions regarding posting translations. Mendele is unlikely to enforce any of the suggestions: all messages in Yiddish or English or both languages are equally welcome. I think it may be appropriate to remind here that Mendele is a truly international community. As of today, we have 1,720 subscribers living on six continents, approximately two thirds of them in the United States. (The exact numbers are unknown, because it is difficult to attribute correctly addresses in .com, .net, and .org domains. The numbers below reflect only the respective country domains -- .ca, .il, .de, .nl, etc. Actual number of subscribers from some countries is significantly higher). Canada 73 Hungary 11 Israel 61 Italy 10 Germany 45 Switzerland 9 Netherlands 26 Japan 7 UK 22 Poland 7 Australia 17 Brazil 6 France 12 Sweden 6 Argentina 11 Austria 5 Country domains with less than 5 subscribers: Belgium, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Uruguay. If you subscribed to Mendele and your country is not listed here, please let me know. I am preparing the Mendele World Map and would like to have everyone represented. Iosif Vaisman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.097 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html