Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.136 October 11, 1995 1) Dialects and standards (Khayem Bochner) 2) Dialects and standards (Allen Edel) 3) Dialects and standards (Khayem Bochner) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Oct 95 23:34:51 -0400 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: standards (again, alas) Arre Komar (5.130) and Miriam Isaacs (5.134) have addressed related, but I think different, issues about standards. I'll address myself here to the former. Khaver Komar asks about cases of conflict between the Yiddish of khsidim and the Yiddish of academics. What sorts of conflict does he have in mind? S'kumt den bald tsu petsh? Seriously, has anyone heard of concern being expressed in the Hassidic community about the kind of Yiddish that's taught in universities? Or of an academic trying to tell khsidim to change their Yiddish because it isn't pure enough? I haven't. Perhaps Khaver Komar is suggesting that college courses should teach students the Yiddish of khsidim. An interesting idea. Care to suggest a textbook? And, much more importantly, what would you mean by _the_ Yiddish of khsidim? They don't all speak the same dialect, you know. The older generation represents a variety of dialects, and in the younger generation that's compounded by differing outside influences (usually English or Hebrew). (This is something Miriam Isaacs has studied, if I'm not mistaken, and something that would be interesting to hear about.) Perhaps the khsidim would prefer that the existing artificial standard be taught, if the alternative would be to favor the dialect of one rebe over the dialect of another? Or perhaps not; that's for them to say. Khaver Komar says further that "I get the impression that no one in our khevre either knows or cares how the living language is being employed in the real world." Well, when I visit friends who speak Yiddish to their young children (I have no children of my own), am I entering the twilight zone? I may be an apikoyres, but as far as I know that doesn't disqualify me as a resident of the real world. And a language that is spoken by children is a living language. Ah, but secular (or even non-ultra-orthodox) yiddishists are few in number in comparison with the ultra-orthodox (of various kinds) Yiddish speakers? So? If numbers were our primary concern, we would drop Yiddish in favor of English, and then have to drop English in favor of Chinese. Does this mean I'm not interested in learning about the varieties of Yiddish that are spoken in communities other than my own? On the contrary, I'd love to learn more about it. I suspect the reason that Khaver Komar's questions have not gotten much response is that most of us on Mendele have little contact with the Hassidic community. But if there is anyone among us who can fill us in, please, I'm sure there's lots to tell. So much for "conflict" (at least as far as I'm concerned ;-). Perhaps tomorrow I'll return to the issue of "dialect". Khayem Bochner 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Oct 95 17:49 PDT From: allen_edel@macnexus.org Subject: Af vs. oyf and related questions YIVO or University Yiddish represents a lowest common denominator that any Yiddish speaker will not find jarring. It is a combination of accents that no European native speaker uses. It tends more towards a Litvakish dialect, without the Litvak grammatical elisions. Just as, in America, many Southerners (wrongly) believe their accents connote ignorance, many Yiddish speakers fancy that a Litvak accent is more "proper" because of their intellectual reputation. Just as, in English, we do not write the same way we talk (I would have said "don't" rather than "do not" in that phrase), there is a formal Yiddish, and a colloquial yiddish. My mother, too, is always telling me "Yes, that is the proper way, but nobody says it like that." YIVO has attempted to codify a received standard Yiddish that no one naturally speaks. It's good to have the dictionary and grammar books for reference. If there were enough of us, those reference books would be updated periodically as speakers bring in new words and change the language, just as the OED is updated. I am, frankly, only interested in using the dialect of my parents (Litvak) since that is my personal heritage.I have many friends who are Lubavitcher chassidim, and they all speak Litvak. My cousin, a Belzer chosid, who lives in Israel, speaks with a Galitzianer accent. Allan Edel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Oct 95 21:56:42 -0400 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: Dialects and standards Miriam Isaacs writes [5.134]: "I would recommend reconsideration of attitudes towards dialects. The time for purism - is past. I find that there are many who know Yiddish and who might speak it, but do not because of fear of making mistakes." "It is appropriate to ask whether standard Yiddish reflects a historical need more than a present one. The small but dedicated cadre of Yiddishists certainly adhere to the standard with vigor." These remarks seem to reflect a sense that there's an invisible elite Yiddish dialect police, striking fear into the hearts of dialect-speakers everywhere. One mis-spoken word, and you'll be subject to punishment, or at least ridicule. Yiddish-land as a police state, a scary thought indeed. I truly don't understand where this feeling comes from; it certainly doesn't match up with my experience of yiddishists. Yiddishists who speak standard yiddish usually do so because they learned it out of a book; usually they're the ones getting a little embarassed as they fumble for words trying to keep up with the conversation. (I put myself in this category, by the way. Most of the time, at least :-() Most of the truly fluent yiddishists I know speak their diverse home dialects except when special circumstances, such as being in front of a classroom, call for standardized speech. Not all, but most. It certainly is true that there's a lot of dialect ridicule out there. And my experience is that Polish Yiddish (Miriam's home dialect and mine (except that I don't speak it very well)) gets more than its fair share of the ridicule. I resent that, as Miriam does. But in my experience this ridicule doesn't come from an elite cadre of yiddishists, vigorously enforcing standard Yiddish. On the contrary, my experience is that it mostly comes from dialect speakers indulging in the old-fashioned vice of regional rivalry. In fact, it often comes from people who don't speak much Yiddish themselves, but who nevertheless are convinced that their parents spoke the one true Yiddish, unlike all those other "corrupted" varieties. Does "standard Yiddish reflect a historical need more than a present one"? Well, if people want to learn Yiddish, you have to teach them something. I've heard of a teacher who deals with the difficult issue of case/gender endings on adjectives by telling students to mumble: "That way no one will know if you got it right." Is that a way to teach respect for the language, and for the people who speak it? "Yidish iz nisht hefker", to quote Zellig Bach. It's hard for people to understand that the variation between the dialects doesn't mean that anything goes. I don't care what dialect you speak, as long as it's a real dialect. "Ikh tu nisht shprekhndik a zeyer guter yidish" is fine for a beginning student's early attempts at conversation, but it isn't good Yiddish, no matter what your home dialect may be. I think that if we want students to do better than that, we have to have some standard to serve as a model. Maybe someday a new standard will arise from the Hassidic community; but until it does, we're stuck with the standard we've got. genug shoyn! Khayem Bochner ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.136 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu ****Getting back issues**** 1. 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