Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 1 no. 8
May 31, 1991
 
1) Even more on Yiddish in English (David Sherman)

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Date: Thu, 30 May 1991 20:30:25 -0400
From: David Sherman <dave@lsuc.on.CA>
Subject: RE: Mendele Vol.1 No.7

I appreciate Ellen and Frank's thoughtful comments. 
Once upon a time (15 years ago) I did study a fair bit
of linguistics. It's interesting that when analysis of
language strikes close to home, one loses one's per-
spective a bit.  On reflection, I generally agree with
their comments.

I would, however, venture to say that although, as
Ellen pointed out, words like leyn and shiddukh don't
have a Jewish-only meaning in *Yiddish*, they do have
the very restricted meanings I referred to when used in
English.  Is there a linguistic term for this kind of
borrowing, which restricts the meaning of the borrowed
term very narrowly?

I think Ellen and Frank may have hit the nail on the
head with the following comments (from each of them
respectively):

|i agree that some of these are 'technical terms' and
don't translate well. but |others aren't. what does
non-frum have that non-observant lacks, other than |an
ability to make the hearers feel warm and in-group?
(i'm not putting down |the importance of feeling warm
and in-group--in fact, there's a long literature |on
that as a motivation for code-switching in general--i'm
just pointing out |that there's no NECESSITY for using
most of these.)

|C) Desire to distinguish in-group people from outsid-
ers |   via a special in-group slang, much as adoles-
cents are prone to do.
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End of Mendele Vol 1.008