Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.020
July 14 , 2005

1) Soviet orthography (Hugh Denham)
2) Yiddish in Los Angeles  (Lucas Bruyn)
3) Yiddish in Los Angeles (Robert Berkowitz)
4) Yiddish handwriting (Lucas Bruyn)
5) Plurals (Dovid Braun)
6) a rusish lidl (Sidney Doris)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 13, 2005
Subject: Re: Soviet orthography

In Mendele 15.014:6 Noyekh asks about Soviet orthography. I believe this
conventional designation may be a misnomer or, at least, a misleading
description in as far as proposals to reform both Russian and Yiddish
orthography had been mooted before the revolution for philiological and
certainly not for political reasons. The term "Soviet spelling" comes about
in both cases because it was the Bolshevik regime that actually implemented
the reforms. If my memory serves me, Mordkhe Veynger at least had put
forward relevant ideas before the First World War. Unfortunately, from my
vacation address I cannot be more precise, let alone attempt an answer to
Noyekh's second question.

Hugh Denman
Oxford

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 13, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish in Los Angeles

Some years ago a committee of Dutch Hebraists and Yiddishists was formed in
order to decide how Hebrew and Yiddish words should be written in Dutch.
Dutch has a small heritage of Yiddish words or words of Yiddish origin and
the language has been enriched by words like kibuts and knesset, so
deciding on how they should be entered in a Dutch dictionary is of some
importance. However, the committee also decided that there was a need for a
standardized Dutch transcription of Yiddish in general. Main reason was
that the scholars on the team thought the YIVO system 'too American' for
Dutch users The Dutch-Yiddish magazine Grine Medine uses this new Dutch
transcription in its articles.

Although I agree with Marty Green that the YIVO transcription is not
suitable to be used for representing Yiddish words in the American language
and although I admire his endeavors to popularize Yiddish making use of a
transcription made by himself, a word of caution. Yiddish is a world
language and if transcriptions are needed for international exchange,
scholarly or not, the YIVO system is the best known and works reasonably
well.  Provincialism like practiced in Holland is not doing Yiddish any
good.

Lucas Bruyn

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 13, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish in Los Angeles

Regarding Marty Green's comments about Noyekh Miller's observations about
'avade' etc., the whole idea of a transliteration system, whether created
by YIVO or anyone else, is that it provides a consistent and intelligible
method of knowing how to say Yiddish words for those who do not read
Yiddish.  That is, it is a system.  An inconsistent method of
transliteration, or one which contains exceptions, is, like English
orthography, erratic, inconsistent, difficult to understand and certainly
does not deserve to be called a 'system.'

'Avade' is a perfectly reasonable way to transliterate the word, because
anyone who understands the principles of the YIVO system--which is really a
system--will know that it is a three-syllable word ending in a schwa.
Consider, as an example of potential confusion, the transliteration of the
name, 'Menashe' by various orthographic methods, including a likely Los
Angelish 'Manasha,' and the resulting phonetic corruption.

While many other transliterations might be defended in a spirit of
orthographic freedom, students do best when following a consistent system
that incorporates no exceptions that twist orthographic rules.

Almost every other language demands more rigorous orthographic discipline
than English.  There is no good reason for transliterated Yiddish to adapt
to the orthographic anarchy that is English.

Robert Berkovitz

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 13, 2005
Subject: Yiddish handwriting

I would like to draw my fellow Mendelianer's attention to a feature of the
Jewishgen website called ViewMate. Here researchers can place documents for
translation. The archive for Yiddish translations contains over 400 items,
inscriptions on tombstones, writings on the backs of photographs, postcard,
letters and documents. Some are given upside down, some are not in Yiddish
but in Hebrew, but it is a fantastic collection of examples of handwriting.
The letters show a wide variety of spelling conventions. It appears that
most requests for translations were never answered. If you want to improve
your reading skills, have a look.

Lucas Bruyn

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 13, 2005
Subject: Plurals

My Yiddish interfered with "my" German:  the German plural of
_Kindergarten_ is _Kinderga"rten_.  (The Yiddish plural of _gortn_ is
_gert(e)ner_.)  The point remains the same:  English adds the -s to
_kindergarten_ when pluralizing this noun, notwithstanding the correct
German plural.

Dovid Braun
Cambridge, MA

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 14, 2005
Subject: Re: a rusish lidl

a sheynem dank far dem entfer. di melodie iz rikhtik ober ober di
strofes fun dos lid zenen andersh.

to voszhe zorgn farn morgn,
gis dem bekher on mit vayn.
oys mit fashistn, kapitalistn,
hulyet bizn tog arayn.

Sidney Doris
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End of Mendele Vol. 15.020


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