Mendele: Yiddish literature and language __________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 16.002 June 6, 2006 1) Multiple Questions in Yiddish (Denis Liakin) 2) kinigl revisited (Martin Jacobs) 3) Topolo Kukiriku (Florette Lynn) 4) Bastomski (Jessica Schein) 5) h/g correspondence in Yiddish and Ukrainian (Keyle Goodman) 6) hulyen/gulyat' (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 7) Glatshteyns yorshim (Ruth Goodman) 8) "Oystralye" (Freydi Mrocki) 9) "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Chaim Pevner) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 17, 2006 Subject: Multiple Questions in Yiddish Hello, I am working on comparative linguistics, in particular on multiple questions. Recently I found out (Molly Diesing, "On the nature of multiple fronting in Yiddish," in Cedric Boeckx and Kleanthes Grohmann, eds., "Multiple wh-fronting." Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004, 51-76.) that some dialects of Yiddish allow multiple questions when both interrogative words are placed in the sentence in initial position: (1) Ver vos hot gekoyft? (Who bought what?) Meanwhile, according to the author, the following question is ungrammatical: (2) Vos ver hot gekoyft? My question: Can you say the following sentences (3-4)? (3) Ikh veys ver vos hot gekoyft. (I know who bought what.) (4) Ikh veys vos ver hot gekoyft. (I know who bought what.) If you find them incorrect, how would you say them? Thank you in advance for your judgment. Any remarks concerning multiple questions in Yiddish will be much appreciated. Denis Liakin 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 22, 2006 Subject: kinigl revisited I have resolved my question about "kinigl," the rabbit. The problem: "Kinigl," although it looks as though it means "little king," surely derives from the Latin "cuniculus." The words for "rabbit" in Slavic languages also appear to be diminutives of their own words for king and have nothing to do with "cuniculus," e.g. compare Polish "krlik," rabbit, with "krl," king. Why this parallelism? It is too striking to be just coincidence. It is not likely that a Slavic word would be a calque on a Yiddish word, but it cannot be a calque on the German "Kaninchen," which does not look like a diminutive for "king." On the other hand, the Yiddish cannot be a calque on the Slavic, since it is derived from "cuniculus." The solution: The Slavic words are actually calques on the Middle High German "knicln" (from which the Yiddish is immediately derived),which is from "cuniculus," but also looks like a diminutive of "knic," "king." The modern German "Kaninchen" also comes from "cuniculus," but by way of Old French "conin," not MHG. So rabbits have nothing to do with kings, except by folk etymology. Martin Jacobs 3)---------------------------------------------------- Subject: Topolo Kukiriku Date: June 5, 2006 Can you help me with the name Topolo Kukiriku? I believe this was a character in a Sholem Aleichem short story. Was it ever translated? Where can I find a copy of it either in Yiddish or in English? a sheynem dank faroys Florette Lynn aka Faygl 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 28, 2006 Subject: Bastomski I have been reading Mendele for ages, but have never posted before. As a basic introduction, I am a baby-boomer and life-long New Yorker. I have been studying Eastern European Jewish history on my own for several years and have been taking courses in reading and writing Yiddish with various teachers in NY (There is a small floating group of adults studying Yiddish). I have a question that I have not been able to find an answer for elsewhere. I am reading "Radiant Days, Haunted Nights" translated by Joachim Neugroschel. As is usual with his translations from the Yiddish, he provides little useful background information on the authors or historical context (at the least). In "Radiant Days" are two selections of folkstories; one compiled and edited by Shmuel Bastomski (1891-1942) and the other by Shloyme Bastomski (1891-1941). I well know Shloyme is a diminutive for Shlomo or Solomon, but isn't Shmuel a different name? I could find only Solomon (Sh.)on the NYBC's author list. So, were there twin-brother folklorists who died a year apart? Your help in clarifying this will be appreciated. Jessica Hinda Schein [Moderator's Note: Shloyme isn't a diminutive of Shlomo. They are one and the same name: Shloyme is a Yiddish pronunciation and Shlomo is the Modern Hebrew pronunciation. Shmuel is, of course, a different name.] 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 29, 2006 Subject: h/g correspondence in Yiddish and Ukrainian Responding to Rick Turtle's posting concerning hulyen/gulyat': My mother's name was Genya but my aunts always called her Henya. We are indeed from the Ukraine. I wish I could post this in Yiddish but don't have the software. Keyle Goodman 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 29, 2006 Subject: hulyen/gulyat' I've heard gulyat' take on the robe or hat of a verb: "Geyst gulyarn oyf Brodvey?" Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 5, 2006 Subject: Glatshteyns yorshim Glatshteyn's son lived in Wilmington, Delaware. His widow still lives here. Her name is Beverly Gladstone. Ruth Goodman 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 1, 2006 Subject: "Oystralye" Rukhl Eissenstat asked about the words to "Oystralye." The album is called "Oystralia" and was recorded by Klezmania in 1995. My name is Freydi Mrocki and I am the lead singer of the band that made the recording and one of the writers of this adaptation/parody. Unfortunately I don't have any typed/computer stored copies of the words that I can send to you at the press of a button. They are rather outmodedly stored in my head and on scraps of paper. I will post them on Mendele as soon as I can. a sheynem dank, Freydi Mrocki 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 30, 2006 Subject: "Yiddish, a Dying Language: a Native Speaker's Lament" Speaking as a native speaker of Yiddish, one who grew up in a community where everybody spoke Yiddish, where all business and all everyday activities were conducted in Yiddish, where the people around me lived their entire life in Yiddish, twenty-four hours a day, awake and asleep, in health and in sickness, in hope and despair -- there is now absolutely no doubt left in my mind that I am one of the last thoroughly fluent carriers of a dying language. The reason that this is true is quite simple -- the Yiddish-speaking community no longer exists. Because of the social nature of language, once the community is dead the language is essentially dead. True, there are still hundreds -- perhaps a few thousand fully fluent speakers of Yiddish scattered about the world -- and there are perhaps a few households here and there -- in Israel -- New York --a very few here and there -- where Yiddish is still the dominant language of the home -- but very few. And there is no outside community of Yiddish speakers on the street to backup this home use of Yiddish. In the next generation Yiddish will be effaced. One sign that the language is just about dead is that there are quite probably NO monolingual speakers of Yiddish left -- in fact, very few even whose dominant language is Yiddish. I actually know several but they are all very advanced in years. Once they are gone, it's all over -- a matter of ten, possibly fifteen years. Of course, there will be a fairly large number of Hassidim who will continue to use Yiddish as a religious language. It is the current practice still in many yeshivas to explain and discuss the Mishnaic Torah commentaries in Yiddish. Therefore, there are still young boys and teenagers who continue to maintain a certain competence in Yiddish. However, (1) this is a very special, limited kind of religious Yiddish, which bears little resemblance to the full secular language, and (2) Yiddish is unquestionably the Second Language of these children. If the Yeshiva is in London OR New York, their dominant language -- the one they actually use to talk to each other on all subjects other than religion -- is English. If in Israel, the dominant language will tend to be Hebrew or English. Elsewhere, whatever the reigning local language is -- French, Spanish, Danish, whatever. There is also a small community of academic scholars -- young and middle aged teachers of Yiddish in universities -- some of them not even Jewish. In every case they speak a stilted, highly unnatural form of "textbook Yiddish" of a kind which it is painful for a native speaker of Yiddish like myself to listen to. I recently met one such scholar in Oxford who has a PhD in Yiddish studies and is a teacher of Yiddish. His Yiddish was reasonably fluent, but highly influenced by German which he had studied before Yiddish -- and totally UNNATURAL. The question was not that he speaks Yiddish with a slightly odd non-native accent, rhythm and intonation -- in fact, his Yiddish is quite clear and except for an occasional lapse in syntax or morphology is basically correct and essentially complete. The problem is that it is fatally obvious that he acquired his Yiddish without benefit of exposure to a cohesive Yiddish speech community. It therefore lacks the most important qualities that make the language a living organism -- spontaneity and natural flow -- and the mindset internal to the speech community where it was used -- a quality of language which manifests itself not only in the words and phrases chosen by the speaker to convey a particular thought -- but moreover -- the way the words sound -- the music of the language. Listening to one of these academic speakers of Yiddish speak is like listening to somebody singing an entire opera off key. It soon becomes tiring, even annoying to the ears of the true native speaker. The words are more or less right, but the flow of the Words is wrong, the music is wrong -- or totally lacking. Therefore, the overall impression is disconcerting linguistically, and emotionally alienating. I recently found myself involved in an extended conversation with another enthusiastic and very capable speaker of academic Yiddish -- and although I myself was literally hungry to have someone to exchange ideas with in Yiddish --- at some point I realized that I was not enjoying the experience -- that the linguistic (on an emotional level, for language is by definition emotional) feedback I was getting was less than satisfying -- that it was in fact disturbing and affecting my own Yiddish negatively in a kind of subconscious application of Gresham's law to the linguistic domain -- Bad money tends to drive the good money out -- Unnatural Yiddish tends to derail the mindset of the speaker of natural Yiddish. At some point I simply bailed out and switched to English, because it was just too tiring -- too much of a strain, and too alienating -- to continue the conversation in Yiddish. This, may it be noted, is in stark contrast to a conversation of any length, and of whatever banality -- with a true native speaker of Yiddish -- which in my case these days invariably occurs only with somebody older than myself. When speaking with a true native speaker of the language there is an immediate sense of relaxation -- a sense that you are going to have a good time just slinging the words around -- no matter what the topic of conversation. It is always refreshing for me to talk Yiddish with real native speakers -- it's like returning to childhood and playing -- vocalizing for the sheer joy of vocalizing -- the way birds chirp together or crickets crick. Something very, very primitive. (I do not, incidentally, ever get the same charge out of using English -- which indicates to me that English is emotionally secondary to Yiddish, in my deep psycho-linguistic structure.) The fact that the next generation of potential Yiddish speakers are being taught the language by teachers who themselves speak it in a way that is out-of-tune means that even the few students who manage to attain some competence will, nevertheless, never attain natural-sounding Yiddish because they have no natural speech community against which to bring their own Yiddish into tune. One can therefore discount the effect of University Yiddish as a force in "bringing the language back to life" -- (except in the form of an artificial monstrosity). I have visited such university classes. What they are producing is a few people who can grope their way through some of the Yiddish classics with about the same appreciation of the underlying culture as students who today study Latin have of the culture of ancient Rome. The majority of these students will never learn Yiddish -- they will merely learn to flail about in Yiddish. The "fluent" Yiddish of today's Yeshiva bokherim is a special case. The form of Yiddish that is being preserved in these religious institutions is indeed a "form of Yiddish" -- but what form? -- and to what extent can this be called a whole language if a whole language, such as English, Japanese or Eskimo, is the expression of a whole culture. In fact, Yeshiva Yiddish is not the expression of a whole culture -- it is the expression of a very limited, totally religion oriented, fundamentalist sub-culture within Jewish culture, which does not come anywhere near expressing the whole of Jewish culture. To do so it would have to be able to discuss, e.g., non-religious works by secular Jewish writers like Bashevis Singer, Sholem Ash and Philip Roth, among others. But such works are taboo among the religious. As are things like films, TV and most other secular activities and sources of general information. The only parallel to Yeshiva Yiddish I can imagine is of necessity hypothetical. Imagine that the English language here has been completely replaced by Japanese -- (and has long since died out everywhere else where it has been systematically replaced by Chinese) in all walks of life -- for two generations. There are only a small number of aged people left who still remember English from their childhood years. However, there is one place where English is still used regularly -- and this is the only domain of the society in which it is still used -- the born-again, fundamentalist Christian church. Moreover, the only subject that the disciples of Christ ever use English for is to preach about the New Testament. This and this alone. All their other affairs are conducted in Japanese. Could this special, religiously focused subset of English be said to represent the whole English language, when Shakespeare, baseball, cricket, TV, movies, the news of the world, every other domain of life is never referred to except in Japanese? -- I think not. At that point I would be tempted to regard English as a dead language and the "Christianese" variant of it as an extremely limited liturgical descendant -- something like Coptic in Egypt. Even now, the Yiddish used in the Yeshiva is a rather distant relative of my own ordinary, secular Yiddish, and I can barely follow a Yeshiva discussion in Yiddish. Since almost all of the hopes for the survival of Yiddish are now pinned on the extremely religious Orthodox community with their Yeshiva system of education, and since it is highly unlikely that there will ever be any resurrection of the general secular Yiddish speech community outside of this most narrow religious sector -- I see no realistic hope for the survival of Yiddish as a full language in the sense elucidated above. Though it may persist in a highly specific variant offshoot form, that form will eventually have about as much in common with the universal Yiddish of, let us say the Yiddish newspapers of 1939, as New Testament Greek has with Modern Greek or Cicero's Latin with Modern Italian. Chaim Pevner ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 16.002