Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 157 February 2, 1992 1) 'Oy vey, mame' (Yude-Leyb Proger) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Jan 92 13:38:02 IST From: leonard prager Subject: widman A Little Exercise in Seeing and Hearing: The Case of Lifshe Shekhter-Vidman's "Oy vey, mame" (with an apology beforehand for not discussing what is most important, namely the song) by Yude-Leyb Proger (Leonard Prager) Lifshe Schaechter-Widman {Lifshe Shekhter-Vidman} _Az di furst avek_ {Az du forst avek}, A Yiddish Folksinger from the Bukovina. New York: Gloval Village Music, 1987, 1990, 40 pp. The pamphlet which accompanies the cassette (Global Village Music, 1986) of these Yiddish folk songs prints the words of twenty-one songs, ten on one side and eleven on the other side of the recording. Three texts accompany each song: a Yiddish text, a romanized one and a translation. Of the first we are told that it "follows standard orthography"; of the second we read that "LSW's dialect is more accurately reflected in the English transliteration." The reference is to the _transcription_, which does not follow the rules of the Standard Yiddish Romanization, which is based on Standard Yiddish, but is a compromise between the morphophonemic SYR and a partially phonetic rendition of the Bukovina dialect (the singer was from Tshernovits). Were it a _translitera- tion_ we would have letter-for-letter substitution. It would have been possible to indicate dialectal variants in the Yiddish version, e.g. by writing -- as in the English title -- daled yud _di_, but we find daled vov, which is StY _du_, pronounced /di/ in Southeastern Yiddish. The publishers are faithful to the principle of a standard orthography, but they also wish to preserve the phonological specificity of the dialect. The pamphlet is an aid to the English reader who may not know Yiddish -- it gives him a translation and with some practice he can follow the Yiddish with the help of the transcription. Unlike the Yiddish reader he is left without a StY text -- which use of the SYR would provide. The solution of the editors in theory has the practical advantage of serving as a text for learning the marked features of the Bukovina dialect. Let me note that the authors do not give the singer's last name in transcription -- it should be Shekhter-Vidman, as is immediately clear from the Yiddish title. In this particular at least -- names are a thorny matter -- the Anglicized name is given. In such instances I believe it vastly simplifies matters to give the romanized Yiddish name first, followed by the "common form" in brackets, e.g. Lifshe Shekhter-Vidman {Lifshe Schaechter-Widman}. This formula gleans all the information present in the Yiddish form of the name, and satisfies the linguists and the librarians, two groups whose bibliographic demands often differ. Before going any further, let me say that this is an excellent collection of folk songs, and if you do not yet own it, order it from League for Yiddish, Inc., 200 West 72nd Street, Suite 40, New York, N.Y. 10023, USA, while it is still available. Thus far I have listened only to the first song with the transcription in front of me. Here is that song in SYR and in the transcription which purportedly renders Bukovina dialect, one line above the other for comparison. I print in capital letters the supposed dialectal forms which I DO NOT HEAR as such. 1. SYR -Oy vey, mame, der kop tut mikh vey tut, mikh Buk -Oy vey, mame, der kop tit MEKH vey tit, mekh SYR Ruf mir a dokter eynem oder tsvey. Buk Ruf mir a dokter eynem oder tsvey. SYR -Zog zhe mir, tokhter, vos dikh tut vey, Zog, vos dikh tut Buk -ZUG zhe mir, tokhter, vus dekh tit vey, Zug, vus dekh tit SYR Vos toyg dir a dokter eynem oder tsvey? Vos Buk Vus toyg dir a dokter eynem oder tsvey? Vus 2. SYR A dokter ken helfn dem krankn di krenk dem Buk A dokter ken helfn deym krankn di krenk deym SYR Zog zhe mir, tokhter, nokh vemen du benkst? Zog, nokh vemen Buk Zug zhe mir, tokhter, NUKH veymen du benkst? Zug, nukh veymen SYR S'i geven aza tsayt, vos ikh hob nisht getrakht geven,tsayt,vos,ikh Buk S'i geveyn aza TSAT, vus ekh hob nisht getrakht geveyn,tsat,vus,ekh SYR Ikh hob gemeynt s'iz ba* tog, tsum sof iz ba* nakht. tog, tsum Buk Ikh hob gemeynt s'iz batug, tsim sof oz banakht. tug, tsim 3. SYR Oy vey, mame, di shtern geyen uf, uf Buk Oy vey, mame, di shtern geyen of, of SYR Az me folgt nisht a mamen geyt oys aza sof. oys Buk Az me folgt nisht a mameN geyt OUS** aza sof. ous SYR -Zog zhe mir, tokhter, vos iz dir oysgegan? Zog, vos, oys- Buk -Zug zhe mir, tokhter, vus iz dir OUSgegan? Zug, vus, ous- SYR Host gemeynt du vest nemen a dokter far a man. du Buk Host gemeynt di vest nemen a dokter far a man. di 4. (first stanza is repeated) SYR -Oy vey, mame, der kop tut mikh vey tut, mikh Buk -Oy vey, mame, der kop tit mekh vey tit, mekh SYR Ruf mir a dokter eynem oder tsvey. Buk Ruf mir a dokter eynem oder tsvey. SYR -Zog zhe mir, tokhter, vos dikh tut vey, Zog, vos dikh tut Buk -ZUG zhe mir, tokhter, vus dekh tit vey, Zug, vus dekh tit SYR Vos toyg dir a dokter eynem oder tsvey? Vos Buk Vus toyg dir a dokter eynem oder tsvey? Vus The dialectal features implied by the editors' transcription are: Vowel substitutions: /i/ for /u/; /e/ for /i/; /u/ for /o/; /o/ for /u/ in _uf_. Diphthong for vowel: /ey/ for /e/. Vowel for diphthong: /a/ fir /ay/; /o/ {spelled ou} for /oy/. Altogether we find here seven individual sound differences. To sum up, I hear dialectal /zug/ twice as /zog/ (in the first and fourth stanzas/, dialectal /mekh/ once as /mikh/ (in the first line), dialectal /nukh/ as /nokh/, dialectal /os/ (spelled _ous_) as /oys/, dialectal /tsat/ as /tsaat/ and _mamen_ as /mame/. I wonder, too, why the transcrip- tion gives us _ekh_ on l. 7, but _Ikh_ on l. 8. This is correct as far as what one hears, but does this variation occur normally in the Bukovina dialect? Is the word in initial position always /iX/, but after all or certain consonants /eX/? I appreciate the fact that singers may take certain liberties as regards vowel quantity and quality and even with stress. Was the singer distracted from her native pronunciation by the Standard Yiddish text? Had living in America with speakers of many dialects contaminated her own? These are mere speculations based on the slim evidence of a single song. My own suggestion would have been to print the song in SYR with the dialectal variants indicated in the margins. This would also have brought them to the listener's or reader's attention. In its present form the transcription is slightly misleading -- which does not, of course, make the song itself or its delivery any less authentic. By alway using the SYR when we write Yiddish in Latin letters we strengthen the use of standard orthography in Yiddish and in transcription, and we counter the impression held by many that one can write Yiddish any way that suits one -- the way the English spelled in Shakespeare's day. This little exercise also reminds me that hearing too is subjective. What do you hear in this song? *There are a few frequently-used words in Yiddish which are not pronounced as they are traditionally spelled, and thus, as with words of the Hebrew-Aramaic component, the non-native speaker must learn how to say them and how to transcribe them. Dovid Katz, in his highly innovative _Grammar of the Yiddish Language_ (London: Duckworth, 1987), recommends the following pronunciations (p. 28): af|, afn|, uf| (often mispronumced /oyf/, /oyfn/, /oyf-/, em| (mispronounced /im/), ba|, bam| (mispronounced /bay(m)/, kam| (mispronounced /koym/, kin| (mispronounced /keyn/). I would accept all of Katz's suggested pronunciations as spellings in SYR except that I would write _im_ while pronouncing /em/ and I would accept either _kin_ or _ka_. The Weinreichs and Mortkhe Shekhter have done a good deal to safeguard _af_ against the inroads of inauthentic _oyf_ (though it may be authentic in some varieties of Yiddish). _ba_ and _tog_/_nakht_ are written separately in StY; the dialectal transcription reflects the actual running-together of the two words. **The editors give the note: "_ou_ = 'O' as in _close_." In the song I only hear /oy/. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.157