RE: Kol Isha/Trudi's Yiddish/

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Wolf,

What you wrote and what I responded to was:

><take nokh amol>
><dayn velt iz di kleyner velt> <mayn is gants andersh ikh denk, ober zis>

You haven't written <kleynere> anywhere till now.  Please don't start 
making up stuff at this point, and if you had, it would be incorrect and 
not a matter of transliteration would have nothing to do with it.

You can not say in Yiddish " di kleyner velt".
Velt here is feminine singular nominative case and it has to be <kleyne>. 
 This is basic Yiddish grammar.  Look at Weinreich's chapter 2. This has 
nothing whatsoever to do "hoykhe fenster" or YIVO Yiddish or anything else. 
  Every single Jew Eastern Europe no matter his/her dialect would say 
<kleyne> in that sentence.

As for the word order, there are only 3 ways to render in proper Yiddish 
what Trudi wrote.  (We won't bother with Trudi's 98% German sentence which 
Trudi is also convinced is a dialect of Yiddish and also believed is 
correct.)

Your correction of the original was:
<dayn velt iz di kleyner velt> <mayn is gants andersh ikh denk, ober zis>

there are three possibilities:

Dayn velt iz a kleyne velt.  Mayn iz, denk ikh, gants andersh, ober zis.

Dayn velt iz a kleyne velt.  Mayn iz gants andersh, denk ikh, ober zis.

Dayn velt iz a kleyne velt.  Ikh meyn az mayn velt iz gants andersh, ober 
zis.

What Trudi wrote followed English word order.

"Mine is very different I think, but sweet."

Yiddish word order is very different.  Yiddish word order has very, very 
little dialectal variations, if any.

<Ikh denk> is an independent clause and can not be inserted in the middle 
of a sentence.  For that clause to be inserted, the word order has to 
change so that the verb "iz" is the second unit of the sentence.  This is 
lesson one in College Yiddish, Wolf.  Let your wife Paula explain it to 
you.

>You know very well that the scholars  have designated 4 distinct regional
>Yiddish dialects/styles not counting the overlaps.  If you choose to claim 
the
><hoykhe fenster> Yiddishof the textbooks is the only real deal, , that is 
your
>right, but it doesn't make me wrong, either.
>Weinreich, because of his personal hang-ups, omitted much of the people's
>Yiddish in a silly attempt to shoehorn the language or as  he apparently
>thought, to elevate it.

Wolf, there is no dialect in Eastern Yiddish where you are correct on 
either points.  All dialects agree on this point and I know all the 3 
Eastern dialects intimately well.  What you wrote above shows total lack of 
understanding of the standardization of the language.  I don't know which 
Weinreich you are referring to, but neither Uriel or Max single handedly 
standardized the language.  A committee of at least 20+ people did that 
over many years.  Uriel's College Yiddish reflects that work.  No language 
text book puts in dialectal variations and no one but you expected him to. 
 Uriel W. was very well aware of all the exceptions and he worked very hard 
on documenting all dialectal variations and all the exceptions to every 
rule and all that work still sits at Columbia's Yiddish Language and 
Culture Atlas for anyone to check.  (You can e-mail them and ask them this 
very question.   They have a web site.)  We at Columbia studied both the 
rules and the exceptions and I assure you that the word "velt" is not one 
of the exceptions. Your unfair comments about Weinreich indicate extreme 
ignorance and lack of understanding of what the whole linguistic process 
was about.

>> Wolf, you have to know Yiddish well in order to offer corrections.
>
>Reyzl,  I may not be a stone expert like Herzog or Shaechter,  but to  say
>that I don't know it well is really condescending.

Wolf, you don't know it, stone or no stone.  Admitting making a mistake 
can't be this traumatic Wolf.

* Yiddish is my first languge.  I  may not have learnt it in yeshiva,

Many people can claim that Yiddish is their first language, but that 
doesn't necessarily mean that they speak it well.  There are millions of 
examples of bad Yiddish speakers whose first language was Yiddish.  I 
wouldn't bother to correct you unless I knew that there a lot of performers 
on this list who sing in Yiddish and they need to see all Yiddish correct 
and properly transcribed.  If someone makes mistakes in correcting other 
people, well that can't be ignored.

> and am not a grammarian, but it is the people's Yiddish. Like Elvis'
> English, if I may be permitted to draw a parallel. Maybe Lawrence Olivier
> would have winced, but that wouldn't have  made Elvis' speech 
"incorrect",
> just a different regional speech.

Wolf, this is total hogwash.  Ask your mother to translate the sentence 
into Yiddish and I can guarantee you that she wouldn't make the mistakes 
you made.  The most uneducated Eastern European Jew, no matter what his/her 
dialect, would not make these mistakes.


Reyzl
A Yiddish language instructor since January, 1971.






----------
From:  Kame'a Media [SMTP:media (at) kamea(dot)com]
Sent:  Sunday, September 26, 1999 10:11 PM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant
Subject:  Re: Kol Isha/Trudi's Yiddish/




Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:

> Wolf,
>
> >Depends on if Trudi meant " smallER world"   or just "world".
>
> If Trudi would have wanted to say a " smallER world", your correction 
would
> not have been right.  That sentence would have needed to have been:
>
> <dayn velt iz a klenere velt.>

Whoops:  I wrote <kleynere> instead of <klenere>.  Same word, incorrect
transliteration.

> And the word order was definitely incorrect.   Her word order was English
> and not Yiddish.  No native Yiddish speaker would have said that sentence
> that way.

That's a little overbearing .  NO native Yiddish speaker?  Please.

> Wolf, you have to know Yiddish well in order to offer corrections.

Reyzl,  I may not be a stone expert like Herzog or Shaechter,  but to  say
that I don't know it well is really condescending.

>   Yiddish is my first languge.  I  may not have learnt it in yeshiva,

> and am not a grammarian, but it is the people's Yiddish. Like Elvis'
> English, if I may be permitted to draw a parallel. Maybe Lawrence Olivier
> would have winced, but that wouldn't have  made Elvis' speech 
"incorrect",
> just a different regional speech.

You know very well that the scholars  have designated 4 distinct regional
Yiddish dialects/styles not counting the overlaps.  If you choose to claim 
the
<hoykhe fenster> Yiddishof the textbooks is the only real deal, , that is 
your
right, but it doesn't make me wrong, either.
Weinreich, because of his personal hang-ups, omitted much of the people's
Yiddish in a silly attempt to shoehorn the language or as  he apparently
thought, to elevate it.

As I said before, -- picky, picky.

Say hi to Josh for me.

Wolf

>

>

> Reyzl
>
> ----------
> From:  Kame'a Media [SMTP:media (at) kamea(dot)com]
> Sent:  Sunday, September 26, 1999 9:23 AM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant
> Subject:  Re: Kol Isha/Trudi's Yiddish
>
> Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:
>
> > OK, let's make it all proper Yiddish.
> >
> > <take nokh amol>
> > <dayn velt iz di kleyner velt> <mayn is gants andersh ikh denk, ober 
zis>
> >
> >
> > <take nokh amol>
> > <dayn velt iz a kleyne velt.  Mayn iz, meyn ikh, gants andersh, ober
> zis.>
>
> Depends on if Trudi meant " smallER world"   or just "world".
>
> > Thank God we got rid of all that previous pure German.
>
> I concede that "denk ikh" is <daytshmerish> but that does not make it
> improper
> Yiddish, only regional vernacular.   It is true that <tsu denken> implies 
a
> more active cogitation than Trudi's sentence necessitates so, your
> substitution
> of <meyn ikh> is good.
>
> I maintain that the word order is somewhat  flexible, although I should
> have
> inserted commas, too.
>
> Picky, picky.
>
> Wolf
>
> >
> >
> > Reyzl
> >
> > ----------
> > From:  Kame'a Media [SMTP:media (at) kamea(dot)com]
> > Sent:  Friday, September 24, 1999 2:34 PM
> > To:  World music from a Jewish slant
> > Subject:  Re: Kol Isha
> >
> > Right on, Shira!
> >
> > I can begin to understand why someone with your mindset left copyright
> law.
> > Great post.  People just tend to shy away from real issues.
> > I am shocked that an issue pertaining to social justice, not to mention
> the
> > aspirations and livelihoods of many on this list (who struggle with 
this
> > stuff every day)  would be perceived as a "rat hole" and not an
> opportunity
> > to effect change.
> >
> > You made your point very well.
> >
> > Steve --
> > To me, a musical group was always an "Us-against-the-world" 
proposition.
> > All for one and one for all, -- in all sincerity.
> > I would feel disloyal doing what you do under these circumstances.
> > It's like: "Okay, we won't bring the Black guy".
> > Your position perpetuates, in my view, a social injustice and panders 
to
> > dangerous regressive forces that harm us all.  The intermarriage and
> > assimilation issue is a distraction.
> >
> > Then again, if it's only business -- There was an early rock and roll
> group,
> > the Hollywood Argyles. They had  white, Black and Latino line-ups.
> >
> > Jewish life and living are too precious to be dominated by the 
monolithic
> > arcane views
> > of a handful of MEN ONLY.
> >
> > I believe Judaism is an evolving civilization.
> > Jewish institutions are another matter.
> >
> > We can only hope that through protracted peace and the healing of
> > survivor families, the uprooted, embattled and impoverished,
> > we can truly evolve and leave the tired obscure outlooks of mere mortal
> > men behind.  Infallibility is not a Jewish concept as applied to human
> > beings.
> >
> > Let's play Halakhic Hot Seat:
> >
> > Let's say there is a singing Jewish hermaphrodite out there.
> > Can  orthodox men listen to the verses, but not the choruses?
> >
> > Trudi Goodman wrote:
> >
> > > ayn take mol..
> > > daynes veld iz die kleynzeker veld, maynes iz gantze sondern ish denk
> aber
> > > zis.
> >
> > Guerilla Yiddish Lesson #208
> > <take nokh amol>
> > <dayn velt iz di kleyner velt> <mayn is gants andersh ikh denk, ober 
zis>
> >
> > Wolf
> >
> > >
> > >
> >
>





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