Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.095 August 27, 1993 1) Philologos on Stankiewicz on Wexler (Zachary Baker) 2) Introduction (Jerise Fogel) 3) _Za_ and _shabesdike_ (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 26 21:00:39 1993 From: Zachary Baker (bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu) Subject: Philologos on Stankiewicz on Wexler on Judeo-Sorbian It will no doubt interest those who have followed this (dare I say it?) controversy that Prof. Stankiewicz's letter on Paul Wexler's theories regarding the origins of Yiddish has indeed wended Its Way to Philologos. In his latest column, "Wexler Revisited" ("Forward," Aug. 27, 1993), Philologos summarizes Stankiewicz's "lengthy response to my series," and then responds with a few remarks of his own. Rather than reproduce the entire column, I will summarize Philolo- gos' summary and then quote his final two paragraphs in toto: (1) "Mr. Wexler's assertion that 'the language spoken by Eastern European Jews before they switched to Judeo-German (i.e., Yiddish) is not new.... Wexler posits historical changes (from ancient to modern Sorbian) which defy the rules of Slavic comparative phonology and misinterprets the origins and meanings of a number of Sorbian forms.' (2) "...'Wexler ignores the basic lesson of historical grammar and its historical method, which is that the genetic affiliation of a language is not determined by its lexicon... but by its grammatical structure and the so-called regularity of phonetic correspondences'" -- "'The bulk of [the] grammatical structure [of Yiddish], its derivational and inflectional suffixes, and its phonetic development testify to its Middle High German origin and qualify it as a member of the German linguistic family.' (3) "Mr. Wexler's idea that 'Yiddish (read Judeo-Sorbian) adopted the bulk of its Hebrew... terminology to ward off the massive encroachments of German... strikes one as paradoxical, since Hebrew has from time immemorial served as the language of Jewish spiritual ... culture, whereas the German that (Slavic-speaking) Jews allegedly shunned was not a language imposed by a hostile power but one imported by their Ashkenazic coreligionists'." And now, Philologos' response to the foregoing: "Since Professor Stankiewicz's letter was written after the third column in my series on Mr. Wexler, I hope his disappointment in me was somewhat mitigated by the fourth and last, in which I offered my own opinions on Wexler's thesis and expressed some basic reserva- tions about it -- one of which made the same observation that Stankiewicz makes in his Point 2, and another of which partly corresponded to his Point 3. As to Point 1, I already wrote in my first column that Mr. Wexler's case for Judeo-Sorbian depended on 'a detailed linguistic analysis that must be dealt with point-by-point in order to be confirmed or refuted.' Since my knowledge of Slavic languages is barely rudimentary, I could hardly have been expected to take part in this debate. "Moreover, while I agree with Professor Stankiewicz that 'bombshell' was an unfortunate bit of journalese, I applied the word not to Mr. Wexler's already published linguistic thesis about Yiddish but to his soon-to-be-published sociocultural hypothesis about the development of Ashkenazic Jewry. Professor Stankiewicz is also being inaccurate when he quotes me as speaking of Mr. Wexler's 'revolutionary achievements.' The phrase I used was 'revolutionary theories'; to become 'achievements' these would have to be proved correct, and I never claimed that they had been. Professor Stankiewicz thinks that they never will be, and I suspect that he may be right, but I lack the competence to make a firm judgment on the matter." Koniec! Zachary Baker 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 27 09:35:08 1993 From: Jerise Fogel Subject: Introduction My name is Jeri Fogel, and I'm a classics grad student at Columbia, writing a dissertation on the rhetorical use of the past, especially the legal past, in Cicero's "public" speeches. I know only a bissel Yiddish to speak, but have been trying to practice by reading articles and children's books and listening to as many Perle fun yidishe Lider as I can! (Every collection seems to be called that!) Thank you for letting me "listen in", and sorry for what must be my terrible transliteration, especially considering the recent list conversation. A sheynem Dank! Jeri Fogel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 27 10:10:57 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: re _za_ and _shabesdike_ could what was heard as _za fidele_ have been /zan/ fidele? in southeastern yiddish, nonfinal /ay/ becomes /a/ and /zan fidele/ would be a normal way of saying _zayn fidele_. re _rivkele di shabesdike_, i went over the translation of that song with a yiddish singer, mascha benya, and she translated it as 'the sabbath-festive'. this isn't exactly great idiomatic english, but the point is that she's all decked out for shabes, consoling her child and telling him of how his father will come back and bring bread, not knowing of course that her husband is dead. ellen prince ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.095