Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.263 March 5, 1996 1) Hasidic Yiddish (Ellen Prince) 2) Hasidic Yiddish (David Lidsky) 3) Hasidic Yiddish (Eliyuhi Yuni) 4) Can "ober" mean "or"? (Hershel Bershady) 5) Ober/oder and correct Yiddish (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 20:23:14 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Hasidic yiddish to steve jacobson: i can second the motion that michael krauss is an authority (a world authority, i might add) on language death. and i certainly agree with the assessment that yiddish will remain alive insofar as the chassidic yiddish-speaking community remains intact. of course, as i said a while back, given the demographic and linguistic differences between this community and the former eastern european yiddish-speaking speech community, one would also predict rather dramatic changes in the language, above and beyond 'normal' language change. (it would be nice if someone would actually go out and study this!) not unrelatedly, i'd be very interested in getting a copy of that novel you mention, _geknipt un gebindn_ by khaye rosenburg. do you know how i could get a copy? thanks! finally, re 'daytshmerisms' in chassidic yiddish, i can tell you that, when i started getting 'yivo-ized' at the tender age of 40, i was stunned to discover that the yiddish of my very down-home non-chassidic grandfather, who grew up with goats and chickens in poland and barely knew the latin alphabet, much less german, was full of so-called 'daytshmerisms' -- shtunde, monat -- also farhayret [farheyrat, accg to weinreich] 'married', gestern 'yesterday', leyzn [lezn, accg to weinreich] 'read', entshuldikn [antshuldikn, accg to weinreich] 'excuse' and many many others. i'm sure my grandfather's reaction to this labeling would have been similar to the bourgeois gentilhomme's delight at discovering that he'd been speaking 'prose'. :) i suspect that poland (and perhaps other western areas of eastern yiddish) simply had many more recent arrivals from german-speaking lands and lots more interaction in general than lithuania etc, yielding borrowings that spread thru the language -- but not as far as vilna and points east... and i personally find the labeling and stigmatization of words as 'daytshmerisms' to be obnoxious in general and totally contrary to the spirit of yiddish, a language whose very genius lies in its openness to influences from language contact. (when i get really paranoid, i start wondering whether in fact the yivo mavens didn't actually know this and just pushed the 'daytshmerism' line to put down the despised galitsianer. ;) ) ellen prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 20:04:46 -0800 From: fdlidsky@netvision.net.il Subject: Hasidic Yiddish In Mendele 5.258 Steve Jacobson ask why Hasidic Yiddish contains so many daytshmerisms. This reminded me of a discussion of "Orthodox orthography" in Dovid Katz's "Grammar of the Yiddish Language" (p 21). There Katz mentions that traditional religious communities (in particular Hasidim) often use a Yiddish spelling convention which is highly influenced by German spelling. He points to the irony of the fact that such Germanized spelling was developed by the proponents of the Enlightenment movement and later by revolutionary parties, both of which were ideologically opposed to the religious tradition represented by Hasidim and other traditional Orthodox Jews. Rereading that passage it seems to me that Katz does not quite offer an explicit explanation of this phenomenon but he seems to imply a simple explanation which goes like this. In the late nineteenth century such germanized spelling became standard in Yiddish and despite its having originated with their ideological enemies traditional Orthodox Jews adopted it as did other people. When in the early twentieth century modern orthographies were developed by people who were not as traditionally religiously inclined as they, traditional religious Jews rejected modern spelling (because it was the product of people seen by them as secularizers) and just stuck to the old system, as they still do. A similar explanation could apply to the Hassidic lexicon. Such daytshmerisms were once common in written Yiddish. When attempts (largely successful) were made to expunge them from the language traditional Orthodox Jews did not go along with those attempts because they were made by people whom they perceived as opposed to the religious tradition which they hold dear. Could that be the explanation? David Lidsky 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 23:07:03 -0500 From: e.juni@utoronto.ca Subject: Khsidishe yiidish, nokhamul In numer 5.255, Reb Yankef Lewis hot g'fregt tsi s'du bay hayntike khsidim, vos redn keseyder yidish, epes a klal-yidish, a standard azoy vi in andere krayzn "YIVO-yidish", tsi yeder grupe nitst an ander redenish on kayn shum klal-shprakh. In numer 5.258 hot Reb Steve Jacobson g'shribn a shtikl veygn yiidish bay khsidim, m'inyen l'inyen b'oyse inyen. Ikh hog'shribn a bisl veygn di temes far tsvay monat, in di diskusye veygn standartn; di mul vel ikh shraybn nor b'kitser :-). Ts'nisht du bay khsidim kayn moysed vi YIVO, vus shtelt zikh alts balebues fin'm shprakh; fin YIVO alayn vaysn ribe d'ribe fin di khsidim gur nisht, un bay di vus kenen's yo iz's nisht kayn balebos. Ober s'du epis a standart, of a pur oyfanim: a) Di merhayt fin frime yiidn vus redn yidish haant shtamn fin Ingern. Ingerishe yiidish iz nisht a standart azoy vi YIVO-yiidish bay nisht-haymishe, ober s'iz der dialekt vus m'nitst mer vi ale, un a mul funtsyonirt's alts "lowest common denominator". (Di farshidene dialektn kimn fin farshidene gegent, nisht farshidene grupes khsidim, owser spetsifishe verter vus hobn ts'tin mit di shites oder kultur fin ayn grupe oder an anderer.) b) K'mat ale di haantige roshei yeshive, m'lamdim, un rabunim hobn g'lernt in litvishe yeshives (oder bay rebeyim vus hobn g'lernt in litvishe yeshives). Derfar iz litvishe yiidish der "lowest common denominator" bay a sakh lomdim un klay koydesh. (M'zeyt deym "phenomenon" owkh bay sfardishe klay koydesh, ober nor a g'vise dor, b'eyrekh di vus zenen ts'vishn 35 un 60 yur alt: k'mat ale kenen a bisl litvishe yiidish.) c) In di letste 50 yur (zint der krig), zenen rov fin di haymishe reydner fin yiidish kontsentriert g'vorn in a pur k'hiles: Nu york, London, Antverpn, Yrishuloyim, Bnay Brak, ua"v. Ts'vishn di farshidene dominant shprakhn un kulturn, zene g'vorn farshidene yiidishe sub-dialects, mit farshidene borrowings, pronunciations, un efsher afile farshidene intonations; m'ken zugn az di sub-dialects zenen local standards. (Kh'mayn az David Herskovic, a Mendelyaner fin Londn, vayst gants a sakh veygn deym inyen.) d) A sakh haymishe reydner fin yiidish vus nits'n a sakh "borrowings" fin English oder Hebreyish kenen owkh di originele yiidishe verter. Ven z'nits'n aza vort vi "vinde" anshtat "fenster", oder "biznes" anshtat "gesheft", in m'fregt ze vizoy mzukt's in "emese" yiidish, entfern zay mit'n originele yiidishe vort. (Dus g'fint zikh nisht nor bay di yinge khevre vus hobn g'lernt zayer yiidish in Amerike oder in Eyretsyisrul--ikh her's k'sayder fin di zayde-bube, vus zenen bayde g'khovet g'vorn in Kozhnits far'n krig.) S'ken zayn az bay di haymishe reydner fin yiidish, ts'du a "submerged" standart, dus hayst, a reyne versye fin *zayer* dialekt--un di verter vus z'kenen alts "borrowings". Oybazoy, ken men farshtayn a khaylek fun dus vus Reb Steve hot zikh g'vindert, az in khsidishe yiidish ts'du a sakh daytshmerizm'n: ayner vus nitst loshnkoydesh k'seyder, baym davenen in baym lernen, ken maynen az a sakh alte "borrowings" fin loshnkoydesh, verter vus b'emes zenen 'rayne' yiidish, zenen naye, nisht-gerekhte "borrowings", in az der 'emeser' yiidsher vort iz der daytshmerizm. (Nokh a khaylek kimt fin farhsidene dialektn--in Ingerishe un Karpatishe Yiidish nitst men "monat" gants a sakh baym redn, hagam baym shrabn nitst b'deyrekh klal "khoydesh"; oyb Vaynraykh halt nisht derfin, vet's nisht shtern kayn hur fin kayn geshurte khsidishe kop :-). Der'khagev, ven ikh bin g'veyn far a pur yur of a bazikh in Karpatya mitn tat'n, hot er zikh g'vindert az di dortige proste yiidn hobn g'zukt "muen-hayt", anshat "monat".) A gitn Pirem in a kushern Paysekh. Eliyuhi Yuni 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 14:21:32 -0500 (EST) From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Can "ober" mean "or"? My ears still ring with my parents declaiming to me (which I render phonetically): "Akshin! S'iz ba dir iber gur iber gurnisht." In this example "ober seems to mean "either/or." My parents, may I hasten to add, were native speakers, if you call the vicinity of Kiev native ground. Hershel Bershady 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 19:05 EST From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu Subject: Ober/oder and correct Yiddish On the matter of _ober_/_oder_, B. Katz of Guelph, Ontario invokes the "correct" Yiddish which he was taught at the Talmud Torah of Toronto's Yeshiva Toras Khayim (of "the late great Rabbi Price"). Without casting aspersions, kholile, on the greatness of Rabbi Price, I can, nevertheless, comment on the "correctness" of his Yiddish. I had occasion, some (?) years ago, to attend a small committee meeting at the Canadian Jewish Congress, then at 150 Beverly St., next door to the headquarters of the RCMP. Both Rabbi Price and the Rabbi of the "other" Yeshiva, Rabbi Ochs, were present. Rabbi Price, who had to leave early, requested at the outset, that the meeting be conducted in Yiddish--no problem, at that time, for anyone there. He then proceeded, to my surprise, to deliver his remarks in a most inelegant Yinglish melange, an embarassment for everyone there. Having said his piece, he took his leave, at which point everone sighed with relief and Rabbi Ochs remarked, "Itst ken men shoyn redn yidish". As for the _ober_/_oder_ matter, without speculating on the "reasons" for it, it's clear that _ober_ 'or' and _ober_..._ober_ 'either ... or' are widespread usages. I think we find similar usages in some German dialects as well. Mikhl Herzog ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.263