Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.185 December 24, 1993 1) On Century Old Yiddish (Roslyn Kalifowicz-Waletzky) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 12:06:07 1993 From: Roslyn Kalifowicz-Waletzky <0005943838@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: On Century Old Yiddish To: Arre Komar, >I think that we are all in general agreement that Yiddish by >definition is the language spoken by native speakers, particularly >those from the shtels whose dialects were not overly contaminated by >the ambiant goyish culture. Of course they were "contaminated by the ambiant goyish culture". That's a natural process. >In fact there can't be too great agreement on that point since the people >themselves didn't agree. People in each dialect region agreed. Gut genug. They didn't have to agree with neighboring dialect region. > I turned to a century old English-Yiddish dictionary that I >inherited from my father and looked up several of the words that >have been subject to dispute and caviling. The dictionary is: >Complete English-Yiddish Dictionary by Alexander Harkavy New York: >Hebrew Publishing Company 11th edition 1910 (first edition >copywrited 1892)... >One can complain, scream nefarious conspiracy, etc., but in the end, >whether one likes it or not, a language is determined by what the >native speakers feel most comfortable with. And I believe that this >dictionary accurately reflects the feelings and practice of its >intended audiance. On what basis do you believe that Harkavy's 11th edition of this dictionary accurately reflects the feelings and practice of its intended audience? Do you know that even his 21st edition of that same dictionary some 10 years later was still criticized for its incompleteness and inaccuracies? Do you know that he was constantly revising his various dictionaries from 1892 until 1928 (when the trilingual edition was finally edited by Yude Yofe and a colleague). A dictionary is as good as its lexicographer, which means how skilled is he at catching as much of the existing corpus as possible and how well and for whom is he selecting the speech communities to be represented there. The fact that Harkavy doesn't include a term as basic to all regions and dialects as "leyenen" in the early editions just means that he did a bad job. Or perhaps it was deliberate as a way of promoting daytshmerizmen such as "lezn". I don't remember at this moment how much of a daytshmerist Harkavy was in 1910 to say whether it was or wasn't deliberate because I haven't looked in his dictionaries in a long time. Yiddish mavens know that buying any Harkavy other than the 1928 edition is just wasting money, and that even that one is of limited practical use. No matter what Harkavy's position was on the linguistic rage of the time, namely, using daytshmerizmen, not including a term as basic as "leyenen" is inexcusable. "Leyenen" is not the only term Harkavy left out. Further- more, the absence of an item in a dictionary should not be interpreted as proof that the item does not exist or that it is somehow restricted. For example, not even the greatest fans of Weinreich's dictionary assume that Weinreich presented the whole Yiddish corpus there. >In their dialect men lezt bikhr, djurnalen, etc. ober men laynt >toyre. It is a distinction which I always found beautiful and >profound and I feel agrieved to find it condemned and denigrated by >ideologues with tin ears unable to hear the music of the >distinction. I find that peoples's position on this issue usually varies depending on 1) whether some one is familiar with the history and development of the Yiddish language and 2) sees Yiddish as continuing to grow. If you just want to identify with the language your family spoke, daytshmerish or not, throw in a few Yiddish phrases here and there the way you do, tell yourself that Yiddish grammar is loose, that anything goes --- fine. That's one thing. Your needs and expectations for yourself and the language are minimal and I was not addressing you when I wrote about daytshmerizmen. However, if there are people on Mendele who are interested in knowing the history of Yiddish; or what position Yiddish linguists have on any various issues in Yiddish linguistics; or are teachers of Yiddish and want to know modern issues and perspective on what to teach new students first coming to Yiddish; or want to be speakers of Yiddish in a natural setting, the issue of daytshmerizmen is important. The fact is that the overwhelming trend in almost all Yiddish teaching institutions today is away from daytshmerizmen. If you are going to learn any form of Standard Yiddish (which of course rejects daytshmerizmen) then you have to select vocabulary and a linguistic style informed by the history and by current trends. Lexicons of all languages in close contact with others go through trends and modes just like fashion, food, music etc. Although modern Germanisms were at first imposed on the Yiddish press and literature to "elevate" the readers, this trend became quite popular. Its use became a mark of "intelligent and cultured" people. So your family, like other families using daytshmerizms, was quite typical of their speech community. Your parents were not the haskoleniks who imposed this mass borrowing. They just participated in the fashion of the time. So there is nothing to be aggrieved about. It's just that today we have a very different point of view about that corpus. (Actually, the counter-movement against daytshmerizms has been ongoing since the beginning of the 20th century, without the benefit of mass media and inter/national institutions.) The trend today is to choose linguistic elements that least resemble Modern German. I must also tell you that, when it comes to this issue, I liked your reference to me as a tin-eared ideologue . I've already instructed my husband to put it on my tombstone. Since he doesn't agree with you, I'm just afraid that he will not follow my instructions. Reyzl ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.185 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