RE: Yiddish capitalization

[Sandra Layman <sandralayman...>]

Dear Lorele,

Sorry to be so slow about forwarding this response, but maybe it will still
be interesting for you. Have you gotten any further information or
responses?

I forwarded your query to a friend, Elliot Gertel, who's the Judaica
librarian at UM in Ann Arbor.  His response is below (forwarded to the list
with Elliot's permission).

Best,
Sandra

----- Original Message ----- > > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Elliot Gertel" <p031293b (at) pb(dot)seflin(dot)org>
> > To: "Sandra Layman" <sandralayman (at) earthlink(dot)net>
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 12:22 PM
> > Subject: Re: Fw: Yiddish capitalization
> >
> >
> > > I have seen contradictory variations in capitalization of romanized
> > > Yiddish.  On the Yugntruf web page at http://www.yugntruf.org/ they
> > > capitalize the first letter in all sentences (as I do), the names of
> > > people (as I do), names of organizations (if I remember correctly, you
> > > only do this for the first letter in a sentence or for the initial
> letters
> > > in personal names if they appear as part of a group's name); they
don't
> > > capitalize titles (I'm sure this is so for song titles, too) unless
> > > appearing at the beginning of a word, or the initial letters of any
parts
> > > of a personal name) as I do.  Check their page for examples; they are
> > > pretty serious and scholarly in their approach.  I can't find
> > > (maybe they don't have one anymore) _Di yidish-lige_ page (League for
> > > Yiddish), but here's the e-mail address, I think: yidleague (at) 
> > > aol(dot)com
> > > Maybe forward the question there for a more definitive explanation.
From
> > > what I remember, and I can easily have forgotten some important
points,
> > > only the initial letter of a sentence and of the _first word_ of a
title
> > > are supposed to be capitalized.  Many people, y.t. arayngerekhnt,
> > > also capitalize people's names, out of respect, I guess, but I'm not
> > > sure that you are supposed to do so.  The bit about capitalizing only
> > > the first word in a book or song or periodical title, etc. is what
> > > Library of Congress cataloging rules call for (also in Romance
> > > the first word in a book or song or periodical title, etc. is what
> > > Library of Congress cataloging rules call for (also in Romance
> > > language titles) and whether LC derived their own capitalization rules
> > > for romanized Yiddish from Yivo or vice-versa, I don't know, but I
don't
> > > think anyone would come down too hard on someone over the
capitalization
> > > issue.  What irks some is the way the romanizing itself is done and
> > > lack of consistency there.  There are definitely many people who do
> > > not capitalize any letters in their romanized Yiddish as they say that
> > > since there is no distinction of majuscules and minuscules in the
Yiddish
> > > alphabet, there should also be no capitalization in its transcribed
form.
> > >
> > > Nu, klor vi negl-vaser, ayo?
> > >
> > > Ele Hersh
> > >
> > >
> > > Elliot Gertel
> > > p031293b (at) pb(dot)seflin(dot)org
> > >
> > > On Sun, 13 May 2001, Sandra Layman wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi, friends,
> > > > I'd be interested in your opinions on this one.
> > > > A dank!
> > > > Sandra
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Lori Cahan-Simon" <l_cahan (at) staff(dot)chuh(dot)org>
> > > > To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) 
> > > > shamash(dot)org>
> > > > Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 3:37 AM
> > > > Subject: Yiddish capitalization
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > When writing the name of a song in Yiddish transliterated to Roman
> > > > > characters, does one capitalize every word or just the intitial
letter
> > > > > and names, or not even names?
> > > > >
> > > > > Lorele
> > > > >
> > > > > ----------------------
jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+
> > > > >