Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.013 June 11, 1996 1) The survival of Yiddish (Ellen Prince) 2) The survival of Yiddish (Perets Mett) 3) The survival of Yiddish (Leybl Botvinik) 4) The survival of Yiddish (Morrie Feller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 14:30:11 EDT From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: 'living language', nokhamol morrie feller claims that it is _my_ 'contention' that: "a language is kept alive only when children learn it from their parents and family, and then continue to use it at home". several points are in order there. first, it is irrelevant who the child learns the language from -- that depends on who the child grows up with -- parents and family in our society, adult female members of tribe in the new guinea highlands, etc. second, while it's always an honor to be quoted ;) , i do feel a bit funny about being quoted here as tho i were being original. alas, this is neither my discovery nor my invention: a living language is _by definition_ a language learned by children as their native language (or as one of their native languages -- you can have more than one). while i hate to be a party-pooper, this does mean that yiddish on the net is really not relevant to the future of yiddish as a living language. at the same time, i should like to (once again) cheer up mr. feller: yiddish IS a living language -- it is alive and well in mea shearim, parts of brooklyn, and a few other places where the ultra-orthodox live and grow up speaking yiddish natively. why he worries about the vitality of yiddish all the while ignoring the community for whom it IS a living language is a puzzlement... finally, in case this definition seems too ad hoc to be taken seriously, i should point out what is perhaps obvious: for strictly _biological_ reasons, linguistic competence acquired in childhood is _qualitatively different_ from linguistic competence acquired after puberty. it has even been shown (melissa newport, don't have refs here) that linguistic competence gained only after the age of 5 or 6 (but before puberty) is demonstrably weaker than that gained before the age of 5. thus the definition of 'living language': for a language to be classified as 'living', its complete grammar/structure/etc must reside in some (living) human heads; for a complete grammar/structure/etc to reside in human heads, it has to have gotten in there when those heads were very young. hope this makes things clearer. ellen prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:57:17 +0100 From: p.mett@open.ac.uk Subject: Yiddish back from the dead [Regarding Morrie Feller's post in 6.010]: If this is a correct extract from Professor Wisse's article, one must wonder whether it is backed up by any serious research. Living in a 'Hasidic' community I feel qualified to comment. Nothing could be further from the truth. It may well be that the scope of topics discussed in khasidishe communities does not reflect the content of the Sunday press or the television channels. But Yiddish is used as a living language, to a greater or lessser extent within these communities, and at least some of them use yiddish as their first language. I don't know whether the extent of yiddish spoken within these communities will have a noticeable impact on the number of yiddish speakers in 50 years time, though I suspect it will. But facts do not have to be invented. Perets Mett London 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 13:57:40 +0300 (IDT) From: leybl@telecomm.tadiran.co.il Subject: Ruth Wisse on the survival of Yiddish ven Morrie Feller hot mir geshikt a kopye fun rut vayses (Ruth Wisse's) artikl, hob ikh zikh dermont in an enlekhn fal mit knape 10 yor tsurik. hob ikh glaykh ongeshribn an entfer (oyf english, farshteyt zikh), un dos tsugeshikt in der redaktsye fun New Republic (NR). khaveyrim hobn mir geeytset, az dos vos ikh hob ongeshribn iz tsu lang, az ikh zol es farkirtsn, vayl andersh veln di redaktorn in NR dos zikher nit farefntlekhn. hob ikh take azoy geton un zey tsugeshikt a shtark farkirtste versye. di lengere versye gib ikh aykh iber do, vayl es vet mistome in ergets nit vern farefntlekht (in english. efsher oyf yidish volt men es ye farefntlekht, ober mayn dayge, iz vos di vos leyenen NR zoln visn az nit alts iz azoy fintster vi rut molt es. aykh darf ikh dokh nit ibertsaygn, ir lebt es dokh oys a yede mol vos ir efnt ayer i-post kestlekh un derkvikt zikh mit di mendele-diskusyes). far di vos zaynen farinteresirt: mayn entfer rut vaysn. zi zol visn, az yidish lebt, un lozt zikh nit bagrobn lebedikerheyt. leybl botvinik netanya [Leybl's article will appear separately in 6.014. nm] 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 21:10:55 -1000 From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Another article on the survival of Yiddish It looks as if this is the season to maintain that Yiddish cannot survive as a living language. The "Na'amat Woman" (magazine of Na'amat USA,the Women's Labor Zionist Organization of America) in its May-June, 1996 issue has a lead article by Isidore Haiblum which is entitled : "A Bird's-Eye Look at Yiddish." Haiblum is described as a novelist who has written numerous articles about Yiddish, humor and popular culture. This article might be considered to be a companion piece to Ruth Wisse's article "Shule Daze". Its tenor is much the same, and its conclusions are similar. In the body of the article Haiblum states that today Yiddish is spoken by three groups: (1) the elderly, (2) the ultra-Orthodox, and (3) students and teachers. Of the latter group he says: "Those who actually learn the language, unless they intend to become Yiddish professors themselves, can usually 'speak to the wall' - a fine Yiddish expression, if not very encouraging." His concluding statement is: " So where are we? In college - where every Jewish mother wants her children to be. And where one can study Yiddish just like Latin. And learn all kinds of nice words. But not the words in _this_ article, which, alas, despite being in a Jewish magazine, are all in English. Welcome to modern times." (To Na'Amat Woman's credit, it still includes a page of Yiddish in each issue after having published fully in Yiddish many years ago.) To Isidore Haiblum I would like to say that instead of speaking to the wall, those who learn Yiddish can comunicate with their counterparts the world over on the Internet. And when he says "welcome to modern times", I suggest that he recognize the positive impact of the computer and the Internet on the survival of the Yiddish language. Morrie Feller Phoenix ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.013