Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 16.003 June 20, 2006 1) kinigl (Joachim Martillo) 2) kinigl (Bob Rothstein) 3) Yinglish in India (Hershl Hartman) 4) Slavic languages and the Hebrew alphabet (Martin Jacobs) 5) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Jack Berger) 6) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Alan Astro) 7) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Morrie Feller) 8) Multiple Questions in Yiddish (Shye Shenkman) 9) Multiple Questions in Yiddish (Meyer Wolf) 10) Garyat (Veronica Belling) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 6, 2006 Subject: kinigl >From Two-Tiered Relexification in Yiddish by Paul Wexler (pp. 380-1): Older High German kueniglin neuter `rabbit' (< Latin cuniculus), which was ultimately adjusted Koenig `king' through folk etymology, as in South German koenigshase masculine (see Schuster-Sewc 1978-1996: 663 and Middle High German kuen[i]c, kuenec masculine `king' vs. kueniclin, kuenglin `rabbit') is also found in Y kinigl(ex) neuter. The Yiddish form is diminutive, in imitation of Slavic, which has a loan translation of G. Koenig `king' with the Slavic diminutive suffix, see (archaic) Upper Sorbian kralik, Ukrainian krolyk `rabbit' < Upper Sorbian kral (via Czech), Ukrainian korol' masculine 'king' < German Karl male name. U. Weinreich (1968) regards Yiddish krolik(es) masculine `rabbit' (< Ukrainian) as unacceptable for literary Yiddish. I note that Modern High German also has the work Karnickel neuter for rabbit. Joachim Martillo 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 6, 2006 Subject: kinigl Martin Jacobs asked about the Yiddish word for rabbit (kinigl) and similar words in Polish and Russian. The Polish word for rabbit is "krolik" (with an acute accent on the first vowel - the work is pronounced [krulik]). It derives from an old German name for the rabbit, "Kueniklin" or "Kueniglin" (from Latin "cuniculus," which also gave the Yiddish term). The German word was misunderstood as a diminutive of the word for king ("Koenig"), and so the Poles called their rabbits "little kings" - and the Russians borrowed the Polish mistake in the form of "krolik." (The words for hare are different: Russian "zaiats" and Polish "zajac"- with a "tail" under the final vowel and pronounced [zaionts]). Bob Rothstein 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 4, 2006 Subject: Yinglish in India To read the whole article in "The Hindu" (if you're conversant with the languages of the sub-continent) you may go to the url below. Otherwise, the 1st, 2nd and 4th paragraphs may suffice. http://www.hindu.com/lr/2006/06/04/stories/2006060400320600.htm Wordspeak When language becomes informal by Anand The vast number of emails in response to May's Wordspeak ("Echoes in Language") took me by surprise. It was written on a whim, as an off-the-cuff reaction to a linguistic oddity that I came across often in North America. Judging from the way that particular column tickled the fancy of readers, the same idiosyncratic usage is apparently common in very many languages. The typical response, as Harshita Yalamarty wrote, was that the readers were delighted to have a name for an expression they all used. A Telugu girl born and brought up in Delhi, Harshita explained how "... (Punjabi) expressions like chai-shai, chicken-shiken, are very prevalent in conversations, almost a hallmark of Delhi language. In fact, too many ad campaigns using the word-echoes have been carried out to `represent' Delhi." Hershl Hartman of Los Angeles pointed out that the correct transliteration of Yinglish (Yiddish-English) words was shmok (schmuck), shmuz (schmooze) and shmalts (schmaltz). Since taaba-e-mohmals are the characteristic of colloquial speech and Yiddish, just like Hindi and Punjabi, is spoken in so many different ways by so many different people, it might be imprudent to stick to any one transliteration in any language.* Online edition of India's National Newspaper Sunday, Jun 04, 2006 Hershl Hartman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 11, 2006 Subject: Slavic languages and the Hebrew alphabet In the book "The Slavonic Languages" (ed. Comrie and Corbett, pp. 20-21, 47) it is stated that Wexler provides some evidence that Belorussian was once written by Jews in Hebrew letters, the implication being that this is the only instance of a Slavic language being written in the Hebrew alphabet. However, I seem to recall reading somewhere that there was an early Czech grammar written in Hebrew letters, but I cannot remember where I read this. Assuming my memory is not playing tricks on me, can anyone give me the reference? Are there any other instances of a Slavic language being written in Hebrew letters? A dank in foroys. Thanks in advance. Martin Jacobs 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 13, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" While it pains me a great deal to say this, I must register my complete agreement with Chaim Pevner's thesis in his message of the last issue. I have long held this opinion, and also share his aversion for the stilted and artificial resonance of book-learned mameloshn, which grates on the ear like a fingernail being scraped on a blackboard. This reality is the prime mover for my own endeavors to translate Yizker-bikher into English. Regards, Jack Berger 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 14, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's, "Yiddish, a Dying Language" Like a "khazn-bayzinger," an expression I learned from my mother, I shall chime in "yes" to Chaim Pevner's remarks, with just a few minor points of discord. As someone academically trained in Yiddish but lucky enough to have grown up in Brooklyn hearing some Yiddish bandied about, and so fortunate as to have started studying Yiddish when there were still many (though already quite old) Yiddish intellectuals around (1977), I know everything he says about academic Yiddish is true; and indeed, when it is spoken by those who have no intimate connection to Jewish culture Yiddish can seem pretty strange indeed. The limitations of Yiddish among the religious are also apparent. However, there are a few factors that somewhat invalidate the comparison of future study of Yiddish to that of ancient languages like Greek and Latin: we have much recorded material of Yiddish spoken when it was still an "umfarmitlte shprakh," to use Max Weinreich's formulation, which can transmit to future generations what Yiddish really did sound like; and there are scholarly linguistic works that describe Yiddish speech actually as heard. Also (but here I don't know to what extent Greek and Latin possess the same, but I don't believe they do so significantly) there are Yiddish literary works (like much of Sholem-Aleichem) that carefully reflect patterns of the spoken tongue. I understand that it is tiring for Chaim Pevner to listen to academically-trained Yiddishists and that it infects his Yiddish, but practicing it with a native speaker does raise the level of the learner, and so it is a mitsve to do so (if you care about such mitsves), so I hope that those like him take the trouble now and again. Purposeless as it is, I still use with a few people PVY (post-vernacular Yiddish, in what I believe is Jeffrey Shandler's felicitous coinage); I welcome any chance to chat with a native speaker, but I understand his/her reticence, since use of one language when another is on the average known better by the interlocutors involved is something best left to language teachers and students; but I know that the overwhelming bulk of real conversations I shall have in Yiddish from now on will be with the authors of the books I read. To believe otherwise is simply to deny history: mass extermination on one continent and mass linguistic assimilation on all others. Verba volant, scripta manent. Alan Astro 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 17, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's, "Yiddish, a Dying Language" I find it somewhat ironic that Chaim Pevner (vol. 16.002) has chosen Mendele, which is dedicated to the preservation of Yiddish, as a venue in which to proclaim that Yiddish is dying. I have read and re-read his extensive comments, and I think it fair to say that they can be dealt with as two categories: 1) very subjective, personal observations; 2) generalizations about the status of the Yiddish language. With respect to his complaints about finding someone to converse with who will match his pronunciation, fluidity of speech, music of language, etc., I can sympathize with him. The fact that there can be considerable variations in pronunciation such as, for example, between Litvak Yiddish and Polish Yiddish can be a problem. So if Chaim Pevner is a Litvak, I imagine he would not have enjoyed conversing with Isaac Bashevis Singer who spoke with a pronounced Polish accent. Pevner's denigration of those whose level of Yiddish competency is below his level is unfortunate. (Even those who cannot speak the King's English to the Queen's taste will still ensure the survival of English). As to his generalizations about the requirements which are essential to ensure the survival of Yiddish, these have been extensively formulated by others. For example, Ruth Wisse, Professor of Yiddish at Harvard University, has said: "Language is the expressive instrument of a community that is sufficiently separate to sustain a separate language." (The New Republic, May 27, 1996, pp.16-19). In other words, de-assimilation would be required in order to create the conditions under which Yiddish would thrive. Another saying which succinctly describes a necessary condition for Yiddish to survive is: "a loshn muz hobn a gas." It is my opinion that the Internet can function as the new "gas" which will ensure the survival of Yiddish. But this is a whole other topic which requires a separate exposition. We come now to the Hasidim and their daily use of Yiddish in their lives. Chaim Pevner is not the only one who has looked down on Hasidic Yiddish as substandard and narrow in its applications. This situation is somewhat similar to that of some Blacks' usage of English. Years ago, in a linguistics class, I learned that the English of some Blacks (e.g.: it beez that way) is not bad English, but rather a legitimate form of its own. So, too, is it with Hasidic Yiddish. In a letter to the editor of The Pakn Treger (Spring, 1998), Prof. Dovid Katz, referring to Hasidim, stated: "Cold demographics alone (not starry-eyed Yiddishists!) predict well over a million speakers a hundred years hence. This is no dying language. Period." Prof. Katz followed up on this letter with his published book: "Words on Fire - The Unfinished Story of Yiddish" (Basic Books) in which he presents the facts which he claims justify his prediction. Finally, if Chaim Pevner is interested in meeting more conversational partners, I suggest that he should visit the upcoming conference of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs which will take place July 6-9 in Teaneck. NJ. There will be lots of Yiddish filling the air there. Morrie Feller 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 13, 2006 Subject: Multiple Questions in Yiddish Dennis Liakin: My first response to this "multiple" query is that even the supposition is incorrect. The nominative of the verb, "hot gekoyft," is "ver" and the object is "vos." "Ver hot vos gekoyft?" seems more correct than "Ver vos hot gekoyft?", because the subject is before the verb and object follows. One can assume any dialect to contain any expression. My instinctive response is that neither question, "Ver vos hot gekoyft?" or "Vos ver hot gekoyft?" is correct. "Who had bought what" and "What had who bought" flow more easily to the speaker and the listener than, e.g. the question "What who had bought?". The correct way to write the statement, not question, "I know who (had) bought what" is: Ikh veys ver hot vos gekoyft. Shye Shenkman 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 13, 2006 Subject: Multiple Questions in Yiddish The following sentence seems all right to me: Moyshe hot gekoyft fish un Arn hot gekoyft fleysh; itst veystu ver vos hot gekoyft un vos ver hot gekoyft. But perhaps the eydes of linguists is posl in such judgements. Meyer Wolf 10)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 9, 2006 Subject: Garyat I am trying to ascertain the meaning of the word in Yiddish "Garyat," (spelt gimel, alef, resh, yud, alef, tet) quoted from a South African Yiddish newspaper published in 1911, that is cited in a Yiddish book published in South Africa in 1956. It is not found in any of the standard dictionaries, or in Stutchkoff's Thesaurus. I quote from my translation to give the context: "When the Wolmarans Talmud Torah started teaching the prayer, Ashre, in English, it created a huge sensation in the columns of Di Yudishe Fohn. Deborahsohn [pseudonym] published a biting and mocking feuilleton under the heading "Garyat."" The only meaning I have found so far is geographic - a place name in Libya, (not exactly appropriate). Any ideas would be welcome. Thanks, Veronica Belling ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 16.003