Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 16.006
July 21, 2006

1) gilgul (Jack Berger)
2) gilgul (Josh Kleiman)
3) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Martin Jacobs)
4) Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language" (Hershl Goodman)
5) Introduction (Abby Howell)
6) Explanation of terms (Zulema Seligsohn)
7) Explanation of terms (Elye Palevsky)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 14, 2006
Subject: gilgul

The definition shown below is incorrect.

The word "gilgul" is Hebrew, meaning literally, "a rolling over." It
refers, probably to "reincarnation" as in the expression, "gilgul
neshamot." The notion here is that a soul is "rolled over" from one
physical incarnation to another.

Jack Berger

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 15, 2006
Subject: gilgul

When I grew up in a Yiddish speaking house, "gilgul" referred to the
diaspora.

Josh Kleiman

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 14, 2006
Subject: Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language"

A recent Mendele subscriber wrote:

"I do not believe that 'modern' Yiddish, as taught in universities is any
less legitimate than that spoken in 19th century Poland, any more than
'modern' English is a bastardization of the 'King's English' I learnt at
school some 70 years ago."   He refers to such phenomena in a language as
"a signal of the continuing evolution of the language." However, there is a
difference between a spoken language changing naturally over the course of
generations and a language changing artificially, losing its tam, because
it is only learned in school. (Nevertheless, we have an advantage over the
ancients - Yiddish still lives in films and recordings.  We don't know what
Cicero sounded like, or King David, but we do know how Maurice Schwartz and
Isaac Bashevis sounded.)

Martin Jacobs

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 18, 2006
Subject: Chaim Pevner's "Yiddish, a Dying Language"

The other day I overheard two Hispanic women screaming at one another. It
turned out that they were cleaning women by occupation; however,it was
their topic of discussion that intrigued me. They were debating the merits
of Chaim Pevner's posting on Mendele, "Yiddish, a dying language".

"This Pevner, let me tell you, he knows what he's talking about. When it
comes to Yiddish, he's the bomb!"  The other woman looked disgusted and
said, "What do you take me for, a fool? I cleaned his apartment just the
other day and, would you believe it, he has the chutzpah to tell me that my
Spanish is flawed. He told me that he is an associate member of the Real
Academia Espanola and that my use of the past perfect subjunctive of
aprender is incorrect. I told him that that's how we speak in El Salvador
but he told me that I'm a functional illiterate. I told him to find someone
else to clean his place. Then he yelled, "Zayt geharget," and I left."

It is clear that Chaim has definitely stirred up things not only on Mendele
but outside of our little heymishe khevre here as well.  I just heard on
the BBC that crowds of hooligans in Warsaw are demonstrating, threatening
to shut down the entire city, over his perceived insults to their
understanding and use of Polish.  One man, Jerzy Potczewski, a spokesperson
for the Rada Jezyka Polskiego, the Academy of Polish Language, was quoted
as follows," Pan Pevner is a linguistic pedant. Who in the world can live
up to his exalted standards of Warsaw Polish circa 1932? It's a different
world today."

Why, I ask myself, all the fuss?

So the man laments the loss of a linguistic world with which he deeply
identifies. So no one else can meet his high standards when it comes to
conversing in Yiddish? So there is no one else left to speak with in
Yiddish without Chaim feeling sick to his stomach as his beloved mame-loshn
is butchered by pretenders and ignoramuses. Well, please excuse us for
existing.

I must confess that, unlike Chaim, I am not a native Yiddish speaker. My
father, who is now 89, spoke no English until he was sent to public school.
Up until his teens almost no English was spoken in his home in New York. He
only spoke Yiddish with his family, which included all of his relatives
from Europe. He went to afternoon Yiddish school and loves Yiddish. I have
spoken Yiddish with him over the years. I subscribe to such secular media
as the Forverts, Yugntruf,and Yidishe Kultur. Sometimes I read selections
to him.  He will often tell me that much of the vocabulary is unfamiliar to
him.

He will say, "Glaykhstu ice cream?"  (Do you like ice cream?)  Chaim would
probably develop stomach cramps upon hearing this. However, in New York in
the 1920's this was the colloquial Yiddish of many American Jews. People
were interested in communicating, not being linguistically politically
correct. I once used the word fenster with him in a shmues. "What's that?"
he asked. "It's Yiddish for window", I said.  "Not in our house", he
replied.  "We used to say vindow." And so it goes.

According to Chaim there are two types of Yiddish:  his version and that of
imposters (university trained, non-native speakers) and what he terms
yeshivah Yiddish (which he says is spoken by religious Jews).  Both are
treyf and posul, totally unacceptable. Why? Because it's either his way or
the highway (or possibly the subway).

I straddle both sides of the fence. I was raised in a secular home, heard
Yiddish from my parents, studied and received degrees in Judaic Studies in
the US ( one BA, two MAs), lived and studied in Israel over several years
where I both attended universities (Haifa and Hebrew University) and
learned in a yeshiva where much of the instruction was in Yiddish.

I can tell you, Chaim,that Yiddish is alive and well today in the Haredi
and Hasidic communities of the US, Canada, Israel and elsewhere. While I do
not term myself Orthodox I have no doubt that the sole survival of a
vibrant, colloquial, everyday Yiddish, in whatever form it may take, will
be due to the efforts of this community. They speak and use it in all
possible ways. They shop, eat, play, argue, converse, and have sex in
Yiddish. That's just the way it is. They don't think it's anything special.
They are not Yiddishists, nor are they interested in general in
linguistics. It's just part of their tradition and the way they have
communicated for a long time.  I recently watched a 90 minute detective
story, created by and for Hasidim.  It was entirely in Yiddish and on a
DVD.

All the great Yiddish secular writers Chaim mentions knew that Yiddish came
out of a total Jewish experience. Before the secular world impacted the
Jewish world, there was Torah. After the secular world and its adherents
are gone, whatever is left of a Jewish nature will, as before, be Torah.
There is a place for the secular in this community but it is, as it
traditionally has been, defined in Jewish terms.

How did the Jews endure and grow over these many years? Was it I J Singer,
Sholem Aleichem who inspired and nourished us? No, it was something else.
Something which, apparently, you know little about. This is the world of
enduring Jewish existence; the world that has left the major secular
societies that tried in vain to destroy our people, Rome, Greece, Egypt,
Persia, and more recently Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, in the dust.
Jewish spirituality, expressed via Torah and our relationship with God, is
what has truly sustained us.

At one point the lingua franca of Jews was Aramaic. No more. We have the
Babylonian Talmud, probably one of the greatest intellectual and teaching
tools ever created, which was written in Aramaic. The same for much of the
Kabbalistic literature. But, Aramaic, per se, is even deader than the
secular Yiddish you lament.

The Jewish people are a people whose genesis is totally Divine. You may not
know of or care to learn about the true heroes of our people, the Vilna
Gaon, the Baalei Musar, the Mekubalim, the Rishonim, Akharonim, Tanaim and
Amoraim. What do you know of the people of the Tanakh? What do you know of
the greats among the Hasidim? This is what will endure long after Sholem
Asch and other secular writers you place front and center as a requirement
for an educated Jew are relegated to their places in the footnotes of
historical dissertations.

It is our unique and evolving spiritual tradition, rooted in Torah,
centered on God, open to whatever may come our way, that has and will
sustain us. It alone transcends the individual, personal visions and
illusions rooted in time and space, in the winds and vicissitudes of
history. Am yisroel khay vekayam.

Hershl Goodman

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 20, 2006
Subject:  Introduction

Ikh shrayb do zikh fortsushteln vi a nayer abonent af mendele.  Ikh heys
Avigayl Howell un ikh bin a studentke un libhober fun Yidish in
mizrekh-Massachusetts.  Ikh bin itst a graduir-studentke in dertsiung fun
toybe kinder in bostoner universitet, ober ikh hob ongehoybn zikh lernen
yidish vi a biz-graduir studentke mit zeks yor tsurik.  Ikh frey zikh
sof-kol-sof tsu bakumen dem Mendele durkh blitspost.

Abby Howell

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 18, 2006
Subject: Explanation of terms

In the first quote the verb dakhtn (to think or to seem) would fit the
meaning of the sentence.  I wonder if durkhtn is a local variation or
mispronunciation, since it seems to be quoted from a person's expression.
This is just a guess, but I believe I have heard it spoken that way.

Svita is a retinue or a train, but it can also refer to a Frock Coat in
Russian.

A postman is a Potshtar or Potshtalin.  The Potshtove horses would be those
who led the Post wagon.  I am not sure what word was being questioned in
the last sentence.  Shpanen potsht seems to be a synecdoche of sorts.  It
is the horses that get hitched, not the post, but the meaning is clear.

Zulema Seligsohn

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 19, 2006
Subject: Explanation of terms

loz zikh im dukhtn - let him imagine / think / believe

svite - entourage

Regardless of the yikhes of pronunciation, Yiddish is alive whenever it is
used to communicate, create, inform consciousness, enrich identity and/or
enhance personal and community practice.

Elye Palevsky
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End of Mendele Vol. 16.006