Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 85 October 10, 1991 1) Galitzianer Yiddish (Ellen Prince) 2) "Galitsyaner Yiddish" (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 09 Oct 91 11:56:11 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.83 [Bob Goldberg writes:] >Subject: Vowel differences for Galitsianer pronunciation >It took me a while to reconcile Yiddish spelling with >bobe's and zeyde's pronunciation in galitsianer yiddish, as >well as the so-called "sepharidishe" Hebrew davening. Here >are the differences I have observed, all in vowels: i've had the same problem. at least in my recollections, tho, there are some more variations: >YIVO Vowel Standard (litvish) Galitsianer >---- ----- ------------------ -------------------- >o kometz-aleph "aw" as in law "oo" as in pool > (and kometz is > pronounced "koometz") not all komets-alefs are u, tho--nokh 'still' is always nokh (tho nokh 'after' is nukh), zol/volt/hob/hot/... are always o, mir/zey hobn is o but ikh vil hobn is u... (it depends on what the vowel was in old yiddish/middle high german.) >e ayin "e" as in led same but some ayins are ey, no? e.g. avek is e but ikh meg is ey; bet 'bed' is e but shtetl is ey, ikh ze 'i see' rhymes with ikh gey 'i go', etc. >ay yud-yud-patakh English long I varies: long A or I this was often a:, as in father, no? e.g haynt as ha:nt, tsiga:ner 'gypsy', bla:bn 'stay', dra:tsn 'thirteen'... when a couple remarried, each with a child from a previous marriage and then had a child together, it was 'ma:ns, da:ns, in inze(r)s'! (mayns, dayns, un undzers', for you litvaks out there.) >u vov "oo" as in pool i or ee some vovs remained u: nu! >Thus, in Galitsianer, "nokh a mol" is pronounced "nukh a >mul" (using YIVO transliteration). Similarly, "du bist do" >(you are here) is pronouced "di bist du". no, i don't think nokh a mol was ever nukh--unless it meant 'after a time'. what i remember for 'again' was categorically 'nokh a mul'. >Perhaps due to the effects of Litvish assimilation on my >grandparents' pronunciations, I find no consistency in >differences between yud-yud and yud-yud-patakh variations. >If I consistently pronouce a patakh-less yud-yud as either >ey or ay, it does not match the way they spoke, and the >standard spelling seems to match most of the time. stigmatized regional dialects are VERY RARELY consistent when the speakers have some contact with other, more prestigious dialects, in any language. i bet they were more consistent with ey for ayin than with ay for yod-yod--for some reason, ey for ayin was much less stigmatized. likewise u for komets-alef was pretty unstigmatized and therefore relatively consistent. >Another difference in pronunciation that I have noticed is >an interchange of "oy" and the Hebrew long O "oh", as in >the following: > > Standard Yiddish My Grandparents > ---------------- --------------- > moyl (mouth) mohel (rhymes with "coal") > mohel (circumcisor) moyl > boykh (belly) bohekh ("oh" is long O, and > two syllables) yup. also fro for froy, of for oyf, but never shon for shoyn, right? it's not easy to be a galits... [Ellen Prince] 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Oct 91 21:30 EDT From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.83; Yiddish Literature and Language Bob Goldberg: you've got a good ear; some problems with your interpretations but too much to deal with off hand. Designations like "galitsyaner yiddish" are quite inexact but we "know what you mean". The very work for you to see for a systematization of all of this will be "in press" as of November 1: Volume 1 of "The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry" (a dialect atlas--maps and all). In the meantime, read Herzog, "The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland --Its geography & History" (Indiana, 1965); Max Weinreich, "History of the Yiddish Language" (Chicago, 1980). More, after November 1. [Mikhl Herzog} ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.85