Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.141 October 15, 1994 1) Beyond Romanization: Oyb Nit Nokh Hekher (Zellig Bach) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 13:34:16 -0400 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Beyond Romanization: Oyb Nit Nokh Hekher I wish to express my genuine thanks to all "panelists" who participated in Volume 4.104 with their liberal comments and reactions to my posting on romanization (4.102). I also thank most sincerely all those Mendele khaveirim who sent me personal E-Mail letters. Those with critical views of my position I emphatically urged to post them to Mendele so that their arguments could be discussed in a public forum. Certain subtopics in today's posting are only sketchily drawn and deserve, on another occasion, lengthy treatments of their own. In the main, however, it is again about romanization, but within a different framework and from a totally different angle. All names and textual matters mentioned below are in reference to Vol. 4.104, unless otherwise indicated by Vol. and item Nos. 1. Response to comments a) Yes, vintshn. I thank my colleagues Rick Gildemeister and Louis Fridhandler for correcting my "kh'vinsh," at the end of my romanization posting, to "kh'vintsh." I am always ready and willing to learn. Harkavy (1928) lists "vinshn," but this is clearly a daytshmerism. _Vintshn_ is definitely the preferred and correct verb. b) Yes, Mentsh. Here, too, a /t/ before the /sh,/ (not mensh or mensch). I very much like Fridhandler's definition: "Mentsh is Yiddish with all its attendant richness and implied nobility... one of the finest creations [our] language hammered out during its long arduous evolution." Now, that I'm in my mid eighties, I still remember, almost with an inner shudder, when my widowed mother, o"h, , would admonish me, with boundless love in her heart: "zay a mentsh!" c) I do not mind at all to substitute _conventional_ for _correct_, as Ellen Prince suggests, as long as the spelling remains consistent. In either case it would be CR (correct or conventional romanization ;-). d) You write: "Maven" is an English word, and "that's it how it is spelled." It is, of course, a Yiddish loanword that in a relatively short time gained full citizenship in English. Yes, it is most commonly written in English 'maven,' but it is not pronounced the same as the Yiddish 'meyvn.' In Yiddish usage there is no vowel sound beween the /v/ and the /n/, whereas the English speaker does pronounce the /e/ before the /n/, thus making it a syllable of its own. Therefore, In English: Maven, mavens (plural), in Yiddish: meyvn, mevinim (plural). e) By way of asking my opinion about capitalization, Ellen writes one sentence three ways: "farvos vil moyshe redn mit got," all in lowercase letters; then capitalizes the opening initial of the sentence and the name; and then adds a third capital letter (Got), as an honorific. Her third variant reads: "Farvos vil Moyshe redn mit Got." I am no authority in this matter, and can only share with you, and all Mendelyaners, my personal inclination: Capitalize the first initial of a new sentence: it is a good visual aid, in addition to the period; capitalize first and last names. If the personal pronoun "I" is capitalized in English in the _middle_ of a sentence, why not also capitalize first and last names in romanized Yiddish? f) Vi darf men reydn tsu got? As far as the word "got" is concerned, I would not capitalize it. I believe that Jewish people always treated God with all due respect but _vi an eygenem mentsh_, as one of our own. They addressed him as "gotenyu," occasionally "tatenyu," and always "dutst" him, that is they used the familial form of address "du" (in Hebrew ato'), as befits someone within one's own family, and never "irtst" him, that is never used the "ir" form of address as if he were a stranger. Tevye der milkhiker never waited for a royal audience with God, felt himself as being with Him on a direct and familiar basis, and spoke to him, any time of day or night, in his own vernacular, as to a "pani brat", as if he were a pal of his. (Attention, Philologos: How translate "pani brat" into English, or convey approximately its meaning?) g) Evelyn Feins, whose "thanks to allah" I humorously satirized as "thanks to Allah," and in turn was "singed" myself for a typographical error (in English, no less), again demonstrated her readiness to learn, as when she graciously accepted my correction. She found my Information very instructive, copied secion G of my essay on romanization ("Let's Start with some Minor, Random Correctives") for future reference, and expressed the wish to see "more on this topic in the future." (I hope so.) 2. Mendele's open door policy It was never, never my intention to exclude anyone. My call for a consistent romanized spelling of Yiddish was an _appeal_, a plea for an attitude of respect for our language, an attitude which at the same time would also spell out our own sense of pride and self-respect. My purpose was by all means to strengthen Mendele and in no way to alienate anyone from our mishpokhe. It was and is my wish and hope to enlarge Mendele, not, khas vekholile, to shrink it. Some readers, as the above-mentioned Louis Fridhandler (4.ll4,1), did not sense [in my message] "a hint of a desire to exclude anyone with a love for Yiddish." In the same vein Martin Davis wrote: "I personally, as one guilty of slovenly spelling, am grateful for the care taken and will TRY (capitals in original) to take the advice given. This is just the kind of constructive criticism that is helpful." I felt real bad when I read in the introduction by Al Strauss (4.113,2) that his "first impulse on reading Zellig's message, was I don't belong here." No, Al. You belong with us. Let's symbolically shake hands, a firm handshake, and let all Mendelyaner, across States, Countries, and Continents, symbolically link hands in a wide, wide circle, and let our love for Yiddish flow through our collective handshake and energize our purpose of revitalizing Yiddish The lively and colorful format of the Mendele bulletins of information, anectodes, stories, inquiries, responses, comments, reviews, quotations, etc., etc. will remain the same. Mendele's open door policy shall and will continue. All are welcome! 3. Romanization in Mendele is no enemy to dialect To my understanding, romanization in Mendele is not averse to transcription in dialect. If your grandparents or parents spoke in a Yiddish dialect, and you transcribe it correctly, I think it's fine (for example: a git harts; a sheyner punem). There is advantage and value to retain and maintain Yiddish dialects. It adds color and music to our language. 4. A revival of the spirit of learning I think that all of us could benefit from a renewal of the spirit of learning. Mikhl Herzog wrote some time ago (4.040,5): "There are numerous [Mendele] postings in which it is... apparent that no effort to learn is taking place and, perhaps worst of all, that the writer doesn't care." For the sake of Yiddish we must do everything within our power to turn this around. I do not aim to point fingers at misspellers, or at those who write "by ear," but rather to state some of the possible reasons for Herzog's comment, as I understand them: a loss of the habit to study; inertia; age factors; a lack of awareness that Yiddish, as any other language, is not devoid of established rules and usages, and does not admit to a capricious, individualistic spelling arbitrariness. My position is that it is not enough to be a _libhober_ (a lover), even an ardent one, of Yiddish. Our love for Yiddish dictates respect and proper action, and this, in turn, calls at least for a consistency and uniformity of spelling. 5. The old Jewish tradition of learning It is a truism that learning was a Jewish tradition since immemorial times. The Jewish people were called "am ha'seyfer"--the people of the book. This tradition was, in part, carried over into the secular realm, and we must continue to do so with regard to Yiddish. Here is a lovely example from Mendl Fliegler's introduction (4.109,1): "I was a student in the Sholem Aleichem Folk Shule No. 3, while growing up on a poultry farm in Central New Jersey. Marvelous teachers, Schegloff, Chanukov, etc. came from New York and stayed over at various farms and taught Yiddish, theater, history, poetry, etc. at the community center on weekends." 6. Mendele's additional special function To judge from the introductions by new members we can sense a deep yearning to learn, and they look to Mendele to be their teacher. In my message (4.102, Section A) I outlined Mendele's several functions. I firmly believe that it has an _additional_ function: To become, in the best and most enlightened sense, a benign, loving, indirect _melamed_, a modern teacher of dignity and nobility to young and old, to kin'der willing to learn. As our new member Gaetano Liguori unhesitatingly stated in his introduction (4.134,1): "Can you help me to learn Yiddish?" 7. "Let two flowers bloom" I greatly appreciate Shleyme Axelrod's posting (4.108,4). It was sensitive, judiciuos, and I concur wih him in an essential point: We can not afford to dismiss a whole group of Mendele members for non-compliance with orthographic, grammatical, and transcriptional norms. But this was not my intent in the first place! He then continues to write: "Why can't we have both ways, Group 1 striving toward functioning as a learned society, the members of Group 2 enjoying Mendele for their own less scholarly and less technical reasons?" He finishes his statement with the poetic "Let two flowers bloom." Yes, indeed. But I am concerned, and, indeed, worry that while one flower will grow beautifully, and proudly open its petals towards the sky and the sun, the other will grow scrawny, stunted, wilted, and ultimately lifeless. My call for an active and visible respect for Yiddish might yet turn out to be one of the necessary nutritional ingredients for the second flower. 8. Let's introduce ourselves to Mame Yiddish In view of the disastrous Yiddish translation of the questionnaire of the last Census count, I expressed in my letter to Congressman Sawyer (4.110,4) my concern about the Yiddish translation of the questionnaire for the next Census count. I wrote him: "I see Yiddish, lost and bewildered, in tattered clothes and with ash on her head, wandering from one shtetl to another, mourning after her children whose mother tongue was cut out." Fifty years have passed since the tragedy for which no adequate adjective has yet been forged to describe its dimensions. Let's invite mame-loshn in our midst, let's ask her to sit down, and offer her, to calm herself, a glezele tey with a slice of lemon and a cube of sugar. And let's present ourselves to her: We are your new children. We are your new mey'shelekh and shley'melekh, your new so'relekh and riv'kelekh. And with eyes, long dry of tears, she will bestow upon us a mother's smile... Zellig Bach ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.141 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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