Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 5.209
January 7, 1996

1) Introduction (Alan King)
2) Is Yiddish dying? (Shleyme Axelrod)
3) Is Yiddish dying? (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 13:54:20 +0100
From: mccay@jet.es
Subject: Introduction

First, an academic introduction.  I am a linguist/grammarian of somewhat
unorthodox leanings (in the approximate direction[s] of functionalism,
typology, pragmatics...).  Unfashionably for some mainstream linguists, I
do my best to cultivate a broad language base, meaning that I aim at
general practical knowledge of a wide variety of languages to inform my
thinking about and quest for meaningful insights into particular
grammatical phenomena in specific languages.  "Unscientific" though it
may sound, I put love into my study of individual languages in much the
way that I put it into my cooking, and hope that it shows (in both
cases!).

Another of my quirks is that I am (inexplicably?) attracted to minority,
out-of-the-way, endangered, or less studied languages. This may be due to
a non-conformist streak, to a sense that "small" languages are more fun,
or to an subconscious ability to identify more easily with minority or
non-mainstream groups.

Yiddish, then, is one of the languages I study.  Unfortunately it is far
from being the main one, but I put this down to a sad lack of
opportunities to pursue it further than I have done, certainly not to
disinterest on my part.  Consequently it is with great joy and delight
that I have now discovered Mendele.  Thank you so much!

Now a personal introduction.  I have been living in the Basque Country
for most of the past seventeen years, and have devoted many of these to
work on the Basque language, about which I have written several books.  I
am forty-one, and was born in Lancashire, England, in a reform Jewish
family.  Yiddish was my grandparents' native and everyday language in
eastern Europe and then in London's East End, but that was before my
time.

My mother and father spoke what Yiddish they knew occasionally with
non-English speakers, and in front of my brother and I when we weren't
meant to understand.  The good thing is that this provided an early
motivation to try an understand it; the bad news is that the more I
understood the less it was used.  Without wishing to lay the blame at any
single person's door (it was a general social phenomenon), despite my
early interest in languages, I was never greatly encouraged to learn
Yiddish, nor was I provided with many real opportunitites to do so.

I also suspect there was something of a quietly anti-Yiddish (or should I
just say non-pro-Yiddish?) atmosphere around when I was growing up in the
fifties and sixties, presumably linked with the promotion of Israeli
Hebrew as a national language and the "modern" vehicle of Judaism.
Yiddish wasn't killed, it was just allowed to die.  One example: despite
the strong Yiddish background of older members of our shul and community,
why were we kids never taught a single Yiddish song?  (What harm could
this have done? and how nice it would have been to have even such a
limited link with our own parents' past cultural background!) If this
issue has not already been talked to death, perhaps it might be a valid
subject for discussion in Mendele; I would certainly be interested to
know how much of my own experience in this respect is shared by others.
I also suspect that some parts of this problem have been (or are?)
subject to unspoken or even unrecognised taboos; could I be right?

My teenage years were spent in California, and I have also lived more
briefly in London, Wales, Israel and Catalonia.  Meanwhile, my mother and
brother are now naturalized Hawaiians!  I am trying to pass on to my
young Basque-born daughter as much as possible of her complex cultural
heritage!  My own other language interests range from Jewish (e.g.
Judeo-Spanish), Celtic and other European languages to Polynesian and
Oceanic.

A gut yor!

Alan R. King
Gipuzkoa, Basque Country

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Jan 1996 13:39:00 -0500 (EST)
From: ptyaxel@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Is Yiddish dying?

The recent _tararam_ (5.206, 5.207) set off when Dan Leeson (5.204)
called attention to one Stan Goodman's disdainful dismissal of Yiddish as
a living language (on a Jewish-genealogy bulletin board) has an
interesting print parallel in the pages of the English-language Forward.
Recall that in open letters (5.131, 5.150) to that paper's _On Language_
columnist "Philologos", Mikhl Herzog questioned the columnnist's
understanding of Sholem Aleichem's view of Yiddish.  A number of other
matters were touched on in the exchange --see Mikhl`s posts, and the
Forward of Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, 1995.  In his column of Dec. 8, Philologos
expressed respect for the "wonderful body of modern prose and poetry"
that Yiddish produced in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and grief and
anger at "the way in which Yiddish's life span was shortened in this
century by the Holocaust."  But he also wrote that he does "not think
that it is a great tragedy for the Jewish people that [Yiddish] is slowly
in the process of disappearing....Yiddish was already a dying language
decades before the Holocaust, and would be one today even if the
Holocaust had not taken place."

On Jan. 5, the Forward printed a letter from Motl Zelmanowicz, Director
of The Forward Association (which publishes the Yiddish _Forverts_ but,
confusingly, not the English-language Forward), roundly and emotionally
condemning Philologos's prediction.  "No, dear author, Yiddish is not
dying.  Nor will it die.  Large segments of the younger Jewish
generations are returning to their roots...and are especially attracted
to Yiddish.  Those who say _Kaddish_ for Yiddish...were around long
before you!..."

(By coincidence, the paper also carries a letter from the past president
of the same Forward Association, this one sharply criticizing a Dec. 15
article by the Forward's foreign editor Hillel Halkin for editorializing
in a report on the Madison Square Garden tribute to Yitzhak Rabin.)

Shleyme Axelrod
Buffalo, New York

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 13:10:46 -0500
From: shirshan@aol.com
Subject: Yiddish is changing, not dying

Here sits a secular Jew, who learned Yiddish oyf ir mame's shois and
tate's kni, who was formally educated all the way up through the Arbeter
Ring, who loves di goldene pave (Rokhl Korn, Sutskever, and Manger's
poems) almost as much as her eyniklekh. Well, as much as some of her
cousins, anyway. So why do I always agree with Dovid Herskovic and stand
on his side when I read his thought-filled postings?

Because I see Yiddish today as a duality, schizophrenically split into
two worlds, and sadly missing a functioning middle access road.

In one world, happily, Yiddish thrives: well-clad, well-fed, she tours
her ivory tower and drops sweet-smelling petals of pluperfects or poesy.
In this world, the National Book Center grows and distributes sets of
books to universities and colleges world-over, books from homes of
self-educated workers mit mazolyes oyf di hent who worshipped knowledge
and education, who lived and loved the Yiddishkayt the language threw
off. These books (homeless or orphaned because their inheritors were all
so carefully, so highly, educated in the new world culture) could have
ended in furnaces and garbage heaps, but were destined for the academia
(so beloved by the previous owners). Here Yiddish is taught, often with
passion, to students who will appreciate, dissect and study it, but
probably never use it in the normal, everyday communication over coffee
in the cafeteria.

Like my parents before me, I attend many meetings and plenary sessions
whose agendas list the spread or perpetuations of Yiddish. These meetings
are conducted in English, and are recorded in English minutes. My
parents' meetings and minutes, of course, covered the same agendas in
Yiddish.

So, when I read David Herskovic's postings, I want to shout a yea to
life. To another world, where the Yiddish may not rotate upon the grammar
or vocabulary that could be used in a thesis, but is rich with life and
feeling and activity.

Shayle: Can there be a secular khosid?  Otherwise entitled, vi azoy kumt
di kats ibern vaser?

Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan
Boynton Beach, Florida

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End of Mendele Vol. 5.209