Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 16.004 June 29, 2006 1) garyat (Jack Berger) 2) garyat (Gershon Freidlin) 3) garyat (Bob Rothstein) 4) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language"(Dina Levias) 5) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Marc Caplan) 6) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Jack Berger) 7) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Perele Shifer) 8) a martyr's tears (Joseph Sherman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 22, 2006 Subject: garyat I think Veronica is looking at a Slavism. The root for this is in Russian, signifying grief, violence, and therefore indicative of a "travesty." This seems like a fairly logical title for the subject in question. Given that nearly all South African Jews are Litvaks of one stripe or another, their Yiddish should naturally be laced with a goodly number of such Slavisms. Jack Berger 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 22, 2006 Subject: garyat A variant of "varyat"--a wild person, i.e., out of control??? Gershon Freidlin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 22, 2006 Subject: garyat Could the mysterious word "garyat" be a phonetic representation of Russian "goriat" - "they're burning"? Bob Rothstein 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 22, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's "Lament for a dying tongue" Dear Chaim, You are both right and wrong! Yes, Yiddish "as she was spoken" and as you still speak it is becoming a rarity for the reasons you have identified and which are obvious: the communities which used this language are no more - that is a fact. But there are still survivors left, and you are one of them! You are not alone, however: in my Yiddish group here in Geneva (Switzerland) we have Tova (born in Ukraine) who was raised in a Yiddish-speaking family, and Ziona (born in Istanbul of Ashkenazy Jews)and Alexander(a Litvak), and Rosine (a Belgian)... they all speak Yiddish as their mame-loshn, albeit each with their specific accent, and with the proper "sing-song," which makes Yiddish such a delight! "News of my demise are slightly premature": Yiddish, your brand of Yiddish, is still spoken, and being taught. Not Hassidic Yiddish, not academic Yiddish, but the everyday brand, "mama's chicken soup Yiddish"! Heather Valencia's book "With Great Pleasure" (Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies -2003 - ISBN 1 877909-76-9) comes with 8 CD's: these are recorded readings in Yiddish of works by Yiddish authors, including such names as Mendele Moykher Sforim, Avrom Reisen, Sholem Aleykhem, and many, many others. Wouldn't it be a great idea, if you, and other "native" speakers of Yiddish like you, would get together and launch similar projects the world over, recording for those of us who want to keep the language alive pieces of literary works, excerpts from newspaper articles, or ordinary mundane conversations, or whatever... Far vos nisht? Mit a hartsikn grus, Dina Lvias 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 22, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" A pre-Copernican sensibility animates Chaim Pevner's posting on "Yiddish, a Dying Language": by the lights of his mean-spirited observations, one would think that the entire Yiddish world must revolve around him. To say that I found his comments gratuitous and misplaced is to put the case very mildly. Although I do not know Khaver Pevner personally, and I am therefore unable to comment on his self-asserted fluency in the Yiddish language, I consider it telling that he chose to record his jeremiad in English, rather than the language of which he claims, essentially, to be the last native speaker. I guess the influence of all those non-native speakers has had an invidious effect on his command of the language, after all. I will refrain from indulging in a point-by-point refutation of his manifesto--life, after all, is short, especially where a "dying" language is concerned-- but each of his overarching premises is demonstrably false and rooted in an inaccurate understanding of the role of Yiddish in Ashkenazic culture. In demographic terms, as Dovid Katz among others has noted, the number of Yiddish speakers in the world is, thanks to the khasidim, rising and not falling. Pevner complains, as is his prerogative, that khasidic Yiddish isn't his Yiddish and khasidic culture isn't his culture. Rather than taking this as a sign of stasis or cultural decline, though, this should indicate the variability and liveliness of Yiddish culture: is Pevner equally at home in his use of English with Brooklyn schoolteachers, Wyoming cowboys, and Jamaican dancehall toasters? (And speaking of English speakers, does Pevner react with comparable displeasure when speaking to a non-native speaker of English? Imagine for a minute how he would sound if his arguments against the academic study of Yiddish were applied to English as a second language....) Second, Pevner's condemnation of "Yeshiva Yiddish" as a specialized dialect within Yiddish culture is a particular distortion of the social and historical development of the language. Yeshiva Yiddish didn't, in fact, devolve from the secular Yiddish culture, but rather just the opposite: the traditions of Jewish learning inform and animate all of Yiddish culture, and to understand a fundamental strain within that culture, one must have at least a minimal familiarity with the habits and language of the Jewish religious tradition. One wonders if Pevner finds Yeshiva discourse obscure what he makes of Mendele, Peretz, or Bashevis Singer. Most fundamental among his errors, however, is his assumption that the model of a sustainable, living Yiddish culture is dependent on monolingual Yiddish speakers. When in the history of the Yiddish language have Yiddish speakers spoken only one language? When has Yiddish not been affected, directly as well as subconsciously, by the presence of coterritorial languages? Were we, in fact, to find such a supposedly monolingual Yiddish speaker, would we not pity him his uncharacteristic provincialism rather than celebrate his ostensible authenticity? Because even a broken clock can be right once or twice a day, Pevner hits on a correct formula when he refers to contemporary haredim as a sub-culture within Yiddish--or more properly, given his continual slippage between language and culture, Ashkenazic--culture. But the supposedly robust and authentic secular Yiddish of Peretz, Bashevis Singer, and Sutzkever is also a sub-culture. Saying this in no way demeans secular Yiddish: Jacobean theatre, the French Enlightenment, and Be-Bop are also the cultural products of sub-cultures, all of which were as anomalous, fragile, and embattled as the sub-culture which created the Bund, YIVO, and di Goldene keyt. Like the institutions and art created by all other subcultures, whether "living" or "dead"--and please keep in mind that the viability or terminality of a culture can only be understood in metaphorical terms; cultures as such don't live or die any more than books, monuments, or subway systems do--modern, secular Yiddish culture requires careful, patient, immersive study in order to be understood and interpreted. Instead of condescending to the academic students of Yiddish language, literature, and culture, Khaver Pevner ought to be expressing his gratitude toward the growing number of undergraduates, grad students, and professors who are incorporating this culture into their field of study as well as their intellectual--and even emotional--lives. Marc Caplan 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 24, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's "A Yiddish Speaker's Lament" I find some interesting references in this issue that unintendedly impinge on the question of "Yiddish a Dying Language." Specifically, there is the reference to 'Yinglish,' and the reference to certain Slavic languages that may have been written in Hebrew. We know that Yiddish, from its inception, has proven to be a fertile receptor of linguistic inputs from any tongue where Jews resided. We also know that Jews have not been shy in rendering foreign tongues in the Hebrew alphabet, when it suited their purpose. The existence of Ladino tells us that this inclination extended beyond the Ashkenazic world as well. If we accept the fact that whatever serious use of Yiddish remains is probably within the Hasidic and Haredi communities in the United States and Israel, it may be useful to look at what this phenomenon may produce in those locations. The excision and extermination of Eastern European Jewry very likely has struck a mortal blow to the use of Yiddish as a language of daily discourse (this is my personal view). However, since it continues to obtain allegiance from Hasidim and Haredim, it is useful to understand what is happening to it. From reading samples of what is laughingly referred to as the 'Yiddish Press' in Monsey, NY, one is struck by the following: The blow of the Holocaust has set back Yiddish, from its achievement of literary status, to the stage where it is again a 'Zhargon.' Not since the appearance of Alexander Zederbaum's 'Kol Mevaser' began to bring order to the language has there been such a casual abandonment of the rules of grammar and orthography built up during the century prior to the Holocaust. In the United States, where I live, the incursion of English into the patois is rampant. While hardly new, it appears that the rate of assimilation of English words is accelerated by loss of contact with the generation that had European roots. I would like to suggest that Jeffrey Shandler's PVY in America might actually be a 'Yinglish' of sorts, still written in the Hebrew alphabet. There is precious little to suggest that a driving force exists to impel its re-evolution into a literary language. In Israel, the picture is analogous, but less clear. My Israeli correspondents suggest that Hasidim and Haredim in the Holy Land will lace and distort their Yiddish with Hebrew. What this implies for a Hebrew-speaking majority is not so evident since the use of Hebrew orthography is not a differentiating factor as it might be in an English-speaking country. The language could be completely absorbed into Hebrew over a long enough period of time. Regards, Jack Berger 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: June 25, 2006 Subject: Chaim Pevner's "A Yiddish Speaker's Lament" As a "native Yiddish speaker," it always is a stab in the heart to hear Yiddish referred to as a dying language. I would like to address some of the points raised by Chaim Pevner: "One sign that the language is just about dead is that there are quite probably NO monolingual speakers of Yiddish left." I think that most native Yiddish speakers were not monolingual at all, but did speak "la'az" as well, although in the Yiddish Forverts article this week about the litvishe yidn it seems they did speak only (mainly?) Yiddish. "Of course, there will be a fairly large number of Hassidim who will continue to use Yiddish as a religious language." This is something I just don't understand. Hasidim use Yiddish all the time, not as a "religious" language. I work in Boro Park. My balebos is a khsidisher man working in a secular world with people of all backgrounds, yet when he is accompanying the phone guy or the a/c guy around the plant, they are speaking Yiddish. The comparison to opera singers singing off key was an interesting one. After all, how many opera singers actually speak the language they are singing?? (Italian or German) However, if the experience of hearing non-native speakers is "disconcerting linguistically" and "emotionally alienating," that is totally subjective and therefore I cannot speak to that. Chaim Pevner is certainly entitled to his emotional reaction and I would not want to argue about his emotions. I did enjoy reading the following in his post: "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.)" I feel the same way about Hungarian, which is my second "mame-loshn," spoken to me by my parents and grandmother when I was an infant, along with Yiddish. I think that the writer uses broad stereotyping when he writes: "But such works are taboo among the religious. As are things like films, TV and most other secular activities and sources of general information." People are people, and Hasidim know what is out there and may even indulge. When the writer complains that he cannot follow Yeshivish Yiddish, it reminds me of Germans who say they cannot follow Yiddish. It ain't that hard to do if you want to. Look at the Talmudic (Aramaic) expressions found in everyday (secular?) Yiddish. I will admit that I have not done enough to perpetuate yiddish, my kids know some Yiddish (hentele, fisele, kepele) but I did speak to them almost exclusively in English. Yiddish was something that I took for granted, thinking that it would somehow be transmitted in the blood, since I do not remember speaking Yiddish as a child and yet am fluent in it. My dad says that I would speak Yiddish to our black neighbors in inner-city Cleveland, and that my younger brother spoke Yiddish with our Sicilian neighbors in Brooklyn. I was fortunate to have a yeshiva education where we read, wrote and spoke Yiddish. It is only in the past two years that I reclaimed Yiddish and began reading the classic Yiddish writers. My vocabulary has increased and I hope to continue to learn more and more. There is that emotional tie that Chaim Pevner talks about. So folks, redt yidish!! Perele Shifer 8)---------------------------------------------------- Subject: a martyr's tears Date: July 3, 2006 I am seeking fuller information about a possible folk belief that teaches that "one is forbidden from wiping away a martyr's tears." This belief -- if such it is -- is invoked by one of the characters in Dovid Bergelson's short story "Der sculptor" which was among the last works he ever published. It appeared in a volume of short stories entitled "Naye dertsyelungen," which appeared in Moscow, under the imprint of Melukhe- farlag "Der emes," in 1947. The story is to be found on pp.61-93 of this volume, and the quotation itself appears on p. 85. The story concerns a Jewish sculptor who returns to his home shtetl two days after the German murderers have been driven out by the Red Army, and he is hearing about the fate of the murdered Jews of his home town from a young woman who weeps as she describes the events. And he, the sculptor, thinks as he looks at her tear-stained face: "Nu, yo ... martirer-trern tor men nit opvishn." (p.85) Since the remark is made in the context of the aftermath of the Shoah, in resposne to Stalin's repression of Jewish mourning over the Shoah, it is evidently important for an understanding of the story as a whole to know where this concept originated. Any information, or advice about where to seek it, will be gratefully received. Joseph Sherman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 16.004