______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.251 February 28, 1994 1) Introduction and commentary (Ruth Minden) 2) The name for 'yiddish' in other languages (Howard Aronson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Feb 24 23:06:34 1994 From: R_MINDEN@oise.on.ca Subject: Introduction and commentary I am new to this whole gesheft of Internet, so please zayt mir moikhel if I don't get it right the first time, particularly whether to address this to mendele or to listserv. Anyway, I have been enjoying everything on mendele, from the prosaic to the esoteric, for about two weeks (excluding the technical tsoress of last week), and I've decided to dive in. My parents both are both native speakers of Yiddish (both now in their 80's, kin ayn horeh, biz a hundert un tzvantzik!), but never to each other. My father was born in this country (Canada), and had a bilingual dog (English-Yiddish). My mother was di grineh, so I imagine she was in a rush to "fit in" and probably took on English as quickly as possible, including with my father, "the Canadian". Oddly, they sent me to a Yiddish day school (in Winnipeg; the I.L. Peretz Folk Shule, after sending my older brother and sister to public schools. Gey veyss. So my Yiddish was acquired not from my fully fluent parents, but from an academic setting. It is interesting to consider the gaps in my vocabulary, based on the source from which I acquired it; very ordinary household things are often unknown to me, while historical, literary etc. themes are easier for me. Re Ellen Prince's speculation on whether the "Jewish" as applied to the language is avoided because it's the dreaded "j-word": I too language is a word that is avoided because it is the dreaded "j-word": I and those in my childhood environment in Winnipeg also used the word Jewish when referring to the language. However, I don't agree with Ellen Prince on why it's no longer current. I believe it has more to do with the awareness, probably with the advent of the State of Israel, that there are plenty of Jews in Israel and worldwide who speak "a Jewish language" of one kind or another which is NOT Yiddish; whether it's Hebrew, Ladino, Judaeo-Tadjik, Tat, or what have you. I personally think it's a more enlightened development, which recognizes and accepts the diversity of Klal Isroyl. I was made aware of my own shift of position when, about five years ago, I was visiting my aunt and cousins in Samarkand, and a roughly contem- porary cousin (mid 30's) bemoaned the fact that among his Jewish peers he was about the only one that speaks Yiddish; when he concluded by saying "A yid mooz vissn zayn shprakh", I found myself jumping to the defence of non-Ashkenazis. And what about Hebrew, I wanted to know. Glasnost was not yet a fait accompli at that point, and he changed the subject... My relatives in Samarkand, who fled there from Slutsk, Byelorussia, during the war, as well as my mother's mother, are the only people I have ever heard use the word "kiRIK" for the word "tzuRIK"...that is, until this week on mendele, when it was used (spelled "karik") by Anatole Beck, I believe it was (I'm sorry, I took notes and misplaced them, so I may not have the right person). I wonder how local a localism it is. Restricted just to Slutsk? To Minsk guberniya? To Litvakes? Other divergences from "YIVO Yiddish" are also familiar to me, but are, I guess, no great khidish--like azey for azoy, or greyss for groiss. A freylachn Purim aykh alemen. Ruth Minden 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Feb 24 23:08:50 1994 From: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: the name for 'yiddish' in other languages Ellen Prince asks " WHY do we call it 'yiddish'?!? it's the only language i can think of whose name in english is simply borrowed rather than translated." Perhaps the answer might be that loshn koydesh is the "Jewish" language par excellence and that people were aware that Yiddish was -a- Jewish language, not -the- Jewish language. It's also instructive that, in a sense, Yiddish is opposed to "galkhus," i.e., the opposition was perhaps viewed more as one of religion than of nationality. Incidentally, Yiddish is not the only language whose name in English is simply borrowed. In Western Europe we find "Dutch" (from, I assume, deutsch, rather than from duits), which has no linguistic connection with Netherlands or Holland. A related topic that interests me very much is why the root for "Jew" (< Judah, Judea) has become derogatory in the languages of Eastern Orthodox countries. (Cf. earlier Russian "novoevrejskij jazyk" lit. "new Hebrew [language]" = Yiddish, because the root -zhid- had become tabooed.) So Catholic Croats use the "Jew" root, while Orthodox Serbs use the "Hebrew" root. This phenomenon is apparently relatively recent, since in Georgian the "Jew"-root -Uria- was replaced by ebrauli/ebraeli 'Jewish' (lit. 'Hebrew') only recently. If anyone has any insights into these changes, I'd really appreciate hearing. Howard Aronson ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.251 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU 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 Mendele: Yiddish literature and language