Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 153 January 30, 1992 1) Standard Yiddish (Ellen Prince) 2) Standard spelling (Nisn Goldberg) 3) Query (Fishl Kutner) 4) Transcription (Yude-Leyb Proger) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 17:59:29 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: RE: std yiddish: erratum for m.-n. eytan: 'sina%' should read 'sino%' 'ka%pra%dre$' should read 'ko%pra%dre$' i wrote it first in egyptian french, to be REALLY nasty. then i decided to be kind and switch to standard french but inadvertently left in these two egyptianisms. now it's really easy, ne$spa? ellen prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 15:30:02 PST From: xidak!poseidon!bob@uunet.UU.NET Subject: Let's Standardize Our Spelling Hau mehnie ov ewe feind iht eezee too reeyd thihs? That's what some of the Yiddish in messages in MENDELE look like to me. I support Yude-Leyb Proger's arguments to adopt SYR (Vol. 1 no. 149). There are two steps to this argument: (1) adopt standard Yiddish spelling (StY) using the Hebrew alphabet, and: (2) adopt standard translations of Yiddish spelling in the Roman (i.e., ASCII a..z) alphabet. Aside from disagreeing which standard to choose, can there really be any doubt by any MENSH that a standard for both Yiddish spelling in aleph beys and transliteration of that spelling to a..z benefits us all? Sure, it's nice sometimes to write in dialect for effect or to emphasize a point, or to show how you pronounce a word, and I'd like to get my hands on a dictionary that tells me how to pronounce Yiddish words as my ancestors did. But does anyone seriously propose that we each choose our own spelling depending on our accent? Reread the opening sentence again before answering. I have learned that komets aleph is rendered as "o" in SYR, and vov is rendered as "u" in SYR, ergo I pronounce SYR "vos" as "vus" and SYR "kuk" as "kik". Now, some well-meaning Galitzianerke comes along and writes down some word I don't know, but makes the above dialectic substitutions, and I have to guess whether the "u" is Litvish that I need to pronounce "i", or is really a "u" sound. And vey mir nebkh if I have to look it up in Weinreich's dictionary! Aside: Isn't "oy vey" short for "oy, vey iz mir"? ... Nisn [Bob] 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 20:32:56 -0800 From: Philip Kutner Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.146 Anyone have info re Yiddish Language & Culture at UCL Language Center? Fishl Kutner 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Jan 92 13:26:36 IST From: Leonard Prager Subject: general I received a letter from Moyshe-Nosn and answered it privately, but when I saw he had sent a copy to _Mendele_ I decided to do the same. Here it is: Dear Moyshe-Nosn, I like your peppery manner and acknowledge that we disagree. Perhaps we will arrive at a mutually satisfactory solution -- or is that formulation too weasel-like? S'iz ober nit gefeyrlekh vos mir zenen nit maskim eyner mit dem tsveytn benegeye dem inyen transkriptsye. It is certainly possible to write any language in a variety of alphabets and there is a group in Israel lobbying -- in vain -- to romanize Hebrew (Kemal Ataturk did it for Turkish, Jabotinsky I believe was in favor of it for Hebrew, there have been advocates for romanizing Yiddish). Zayt mir gezunt un shtark, Ayer, Yude-Leyb Proger P.S. You are right about the SYR being biased toward Litvish; my own dialect is Southeastern (Ukrainian). I value Yiddish more than any version of it and in certain areas of life I favor standardization, which is not the same as Gleichschaltung. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.153