Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.159 December 9, 1993 1) UFRUF and OYF (Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Dec 8 12:09:55 1993 From: Roslyn Kalifowicz-Waletzky <0005943838@mcimail.com> Subject: UFRUF and OYF To Jeremy Stern: >My original question was, why did Orthodox Jews take up "uf". I >cannot think of another instance of wide-spread Orthodox usage of a >NE Yiddish form. Despite several responses here questioning your using the term "orthodox Jews" as if they consituted a seperate regional dialect, you still seem to be confused about it. Orthodox Jews lived in all dialect regions and their speech in America still reflects that. Why don't you identify the Modern Orthodox community where you heard UFRUF? I can tell you that I come from a large orthodox Jewish family and among my native Yiddish-speaking uncles, incidentally all Modern Orthodox, one may hear "ofruf", "ufreef", and "ufruf" depending on their native dialects. These are the same variations you will find in the rest of the Yiddish speaking population, Modern Orthodox or not. Perhaps what you are finding is that in certain communities connected with certain popular synagogues or rabbis, the rabbi's dialectal variant became popular, and everyone else adjusted. I know of several cases in America like that. This always happened in khasidic courts (Orthodox) and probably also among students of misnagdishe yeshivas (also Orthodox), although the latter probably tended to be mostly Litvish anyway. [Meyer David writes:] >Oyf is not originally Yiddish. It was a hack by language >planners to have one spelling for both the preposition [AF] with the >adverbial [UF]/[ARUF]. It's caused no end of confusion, in my >opinion. > However, well-meaning native Yiddish speakers and teachers of >Yiddish have cultivated the use of the "proper" [OYF] for so long, >that it actually has become an authentic Yiddish form. >[Well, that ought to inspire at least a bit of dialog....] Vos heyst OYF is not originally Yiddish"? It is part of Southeastern Yiddish and as someone here has already pointed out unquestionably kosher . There is no confusion between the preposition "oyf" and the adverbial complement "oyf" for the native Yiddish speaker despite the fact that they are and have always been spelled the same. Granted, you sometimes see the preposition spelled aleph fey in books from Litvish publishing houses. Most speakers who pronounce the adverbial complement spelled aleph, vov, yud, fey as OYF to rhyme with loyf pronounce the preposition aleph, vov, yud, fey "OF" to rhyme with shlof. Most speakers who pronounce the adverbial complement ARUF, usually pronounce the preposition as AF. I think that there are maps of this in Mikhl Herzog's published thesis where you can see the regional distribution of these dialect variants. What you guys may be talking about is interdialectal confusion between the adverbial complement OYF of one region with the preposition OYF of another region. But that is not clear here. I don't know of any "hacking" by language planners. The only decision on the part of language planners I know of is the one to include the AF pronounciation of the preposition as a variant of OYF into klal-Yiddish. What are you referring to? To Peyrets Mett on this point: Litvish Jews didn't take up the "UFRUF" pronounciation for this word. It corresponds to all the other words with this adverbial complement, e.g., uframen, ufgeyn, ufefenen, etc. There are too many interesting things to say here about AF but I will make one point. AF is the exception not UFRUF. It should be pronounced EYF like litvish LEYFN (=loyfn), BREYT (=broyt), VEYNEN (=voynen) but it isn't. Mikhl may want to give us the historical reason for that development. I don't remember it anymore. Note: there are 2 Litvish variants of this, east and west. E.g., OYFGEYN in at least southwestern region of Lithuania (exact map?) and UFGEYN in White Russia. Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.159 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files