RE: breaking the string of pearls without knowing the culture

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

Hadass,

I don't have time for this, but I will try to respond to this as quickly as 
I can.  Sorry that I don't have time for subtlety.

Where do you get this idea of the "flexibility of Yiddish"?  You should 
excuse my bluntness, but this hogwash.  Hebraists and Germans put out a 
rumor that Yiddish has no grammar, just as American whites loved to say 
that Black English has no grammar.  Both ideas have been long disproved, 
yet you are still mimicking their archaic notions.

Do you speak Yiddish Haddass?   Did you ever formally study Yiddish grammar 
that you allow yourself to make such broad linguistic statements?  Or is 
Rosten your source for making these simplistic linguistic observations 
about the language?  The general books about Yiddish are fun and 
interesting, but since their goal is to teach you a few juicy phrases 
rather than the language, they allow themselves such loose statements.  No 
one who has spoken Yiddish exclusively on a daily basis would make the 
statements you made.  (Answering in English or Hebrew to a Yiddish-speaking 
mother doesn't count.)

Every language has various levels of formality.   Most Jews spoke Yiddish 
in the kitchen with their parents, but that doesn't mean that Yiddish 
didn't have formal, or literary, or scholarly, or religious, or mercantile 
linguistic traditions and forms.  You are obviously not familiar with them. 
 I can assure you that all these forms still have their currency and they 
are all continue to evolve.  Living in Brooklyn, I remain both a witness 
and a participant.

>even at the times Yiddish was a spoken language (more than now) among 
European Jews, >there was a difference between the German/Austrian and East 
European Yiddish.
>And then as the Jews imigrated to the States, they adopted American words.

Nothing in the above observations has an iota to do with Michel's new line, 
any error in it, or with any of Lee's comments.  First, Michel is not a 
native speaker of Western Yiddish, so your observation that there are 
differences between German/Austrian vs. East European Yiddish has no 
connection to: Michel, the song, his new line, or Hasidic songs about 
moshiakh.  Second, as Michel has told us before, he does not even speak 
Yiddish.  Third, Jews were conscious of the foreigness of words they took 
in from English or German.  Yinglish words, were inserted for humorous 
effects, just as Polish, Ukrainian, Rumanian words were.  Insertion of 
German words in Yiddish songs had two functions - either to give speech 
instant "high culture" or to satirize the people who inserted German words 
to give their speech "high culture" in order to sound cosmopolitan and 
non-provincial.  Shnirele perele is an inspirational Hasidic song by and 
for internal, inwardly-focused Jewish social and political functions and 
Hasidim would not have inserted foreign words in such songs.  Any one who 
sings about going to settle in Israel would not be interested in appearing 
as a high cultured, worldly German or European.  It was/is a song by and 
for people, who are antagonistic to that very trend.  I strongly doubt that 
Michel's intention here was humor.  And what is 'sholon' anyway?

>The beauty of it is its flexibility - it is like an open minded
language, based on feelings, emotions and social connection.

I don't know where you get this except in general comments of books about 
Yiddish expressions, written for a popular audience who don't and won't 
speak the language.  They just want nice comfy generalities.  I have lots 
of such books and articles.  Yes, Jews were highly cosmopolitan and often 
moved from place to place. Therefore, they had to be open to many cultures 
and languages.  Just because Jews picked many words from their various 
travels and settlements, doesn't mean that Yiddish doesn't have strict 
rules about its grammar, syntax, and usage.  The implications you are 
making is that anything goes, and that is simply not true.  Secondly, you 
can not make such an oversimplified, general statement about the language 
and then try to force it on this particular song or Michel's new sentence. 
 If you would be familiar with this song genre, you wouldn't have written 
what you wrote.  Again, one finds foreign words in satiric Hasidic songs. 
 This is not a satiric song and nothing you wrote above applies to the old 
text or to the spirit of Michel's revisions of the last line.

>And anyway Yiddisch is originally written in Hebrew letters, so any
>transliteration is not always exact (take the word "Yiddish" itself.

Sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but this statement is both false and 
incorrect.  You may know the 'alep hbet' as the Hebrew alphabet, however, 
since 17 other Jewish languages have used, it is technically the Jewish 
alphabet.  This alphabet is not limited to Hebrew, which was the Jewish 
vernacular for only about 400 years before the 20th century.   You may see 
people never schooled in Yiddish try to write Yiddish transliteration every 
which way, but people who do have a complete Yiddish education do know the 
rules and standards.  Please don't make statement about a language based on 
your convenient ignorance.  There is no excuse for that.

You may be surprised to know that Yiddish Orthography was standardized in 
1939 and German in 1938 - just a year earlier.  They used to say the same 
thing about German orthography as you just wrote about Yiddish.  However, 
because the overwhelming majority of German speakers lived in one 
territory, government, educational institutions and press could be 
coordinated to disseminate the new standard.  (We won't deal with the issue 
of West and East Germany, because German language planning still applied in 
both parts and in Austria.) Because of the War, the whole dissemination 
process for standard Yiddish orthography and lexicon was interrupted and 
severely hampered after 1939.  After the War, issues around severe 
dislocation, murder of almost all the children, search for a safe homeland, 
building a new country, focus on learning Hebrew in a new Jewish state, and 
post-War trauma took precedence over all other issues.  Second, Yiddish 
speakers, who always lived under multiple national flags, became even more 
diffused on the wide world map, i.e., in at least 20 different countries. 
 There was no single national, governmental authority or educational system 
to continue a uniform, standardized educational system established in 
Eastern Europe between the Wars.  All the countries could pick up and 
continue with their various language planning programs, except Yiddish 
speakers outside of America, but America was dealing with Jews fiercely 
striving for assimilation after the war in the hope that it would prevent 
another Holocaust.  Several political organizations created their Yiddish 
school systems around the world before the War, but those political 
organizations went through severe changes after the War.  Orthodox, 
Hasidic, and Zionist Yiddish-speaking communities set up their own Yiddish 
schools and curriculums - again a strike against uniformity and 
cohesiveness.  There were no means or forces to disseminate the new 
orthographic standards, no less the new transliteration standard.  Unlike 
other nations, Jews now had to focus on learning the new co-territorial 
language of the new countries in which they found themselves in order to 
make a living.  This took precedence over everything else.  Except for 
Eastern Europeans who had to learn Russian (I don't remember when Russian 
spelling and/or lexicon was standardized), Western Germans, Dutch, 
Scandanavians, etc. didn't have to learn a new language.  The horrific 
struggle between the Hebraists and the Yiddishists to give Yiddish an equal 
footing in the new Israel not only exhausted Yiddishists, but the language 
suffered severe suppression and abuse from a large portion of its own 
speakers who were now dedicated to Hebrew as the new Jewish vernacular. 
 The dissemination of Yiddish orthography and the standard language that 
was supposed to happen in Israel, could not happen very well.  Thus, 
Yiddish standardization never got to the level that other European 
languages achieved, even though they started at the same time.  That means 
that the Yiddish Forverts still maintained its own standard, the writers 
and the poets had another standard, the Hungarian Jews a third standard, 
the Lubavicher another standard, and the Polish Hasidim yet another 
standard, etc.  Slowly, more and more people have taken on YIVO's standard, 
including the Forverts and the Israeli and American Yiddish press, while 
Polish and Hungarian Hasidim still keep their own.  But your claim that 
there is no standard is only an uninformed opinion about the language and 
it's speech communities.  As someone who first learned to read and write 
Yiddish in a Hasidic elementary school and who became familiar with 
Standard Yiddish only after college, my knowledge of what I wrote above is 
not something I only learned in graduate school.

>In German it is "Jiddisch" - so what is correct?)

Each language developed its tradition of Yiddish transliteration.  German, 
English, and Spanish seem to have its own transliteration traditions.  YIVO 
standards are for all Roman-character languages, but enforcing it around 
the world is a whole other matter.  We Yiddishists hope that we will gain 
greater uniformity, but observing these variations does not justify the 
claim that there are no rules of Yiddish transliteration or that Yiddish 
has no standard.  Observing that some English speakers write 'theater' 
while others write 'theatre' doesn't mean that English speakers have no 
spelling system.

Let me recommend to you YIVO's guide for English transliteration (sorry I 
don't have time to find the exact title for you.  You can also see the 
citation I wrote for an online transliteration guide to Lee and Michel.  I 
also recommend that you get YIVO's "Guide To The Standarized Yiddish 
Orthography", New York 1961 as well as read anything by Max Weinreich on 
the Yiddish language.

This was a fast response.  I hope it is clear and plain to understand.

God, I really don't have time to write such long responses, but I hope that 
people understand the issue Lee was trying to raise and that I hope I have 
clarified a bit more.


Reyzl





----------
From:  HG [SMTP:tsayeret (at) yahoo(dot)com]
Sent:  Monday, November 05, 2001 9:35 AM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant
Subject:  Re: breaking the string of pearls without knowing the culture


First of all, from what I understand, the one who suggested the translation 
was Michal and not Michel (notice the A and not E).
One of the beautiful aspects of Yiddish is its flexibility - even at the 
times Yiddish was a spoken language (more than now) among European Jews, 
there was a difference between the German/Austrian and East European 
Yiddish. And then as the Jews imigrated to the States, they adopted 
American words.
The beauty of it is its flexibility - it is like an open minded language, 
based on feelings, emotions and social connection. And anyway Yiddisch is 
originally written in Hebrew letters, so any transliteration is not always 
exact (take the word "Yiddish" itself. In German it is "Jiddisch" - so what 
is correct?)
Hadass
----- Original Message -----
  From: Dick Rosenberg
  To: World music from a Jewish slant
  Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 3:11 PM
  Subject: Re: breaking the string of pearls without knowing the culture


  I'm somewhat at a loss to understand exactly what it is that you're 
offended about.

  Are you offended that Michel didn't express his sentiments in 
gramatically correct Yiddish? Then suggest a better phrasing.

  Are you offended that he changed the message of the words from what one 
hopes will be when the Moshiakh comes to his hopes that Israelis and 
Palestinians will one day live in peace? Isn't that part of the folk 
process? I haven't seen anybody getting offended about what the Klezmatics 
added to ale brider expressing their sentiments. I believe here in America 
we call that respect and understanding for those who have a different 
opinion or outlook than us.

  And finally, I don't understand the "ma yofis" comment at all. The way I 
understand the song it means "You think you're such a hotshot. Your 
(father, cousin, I forget what) greases wheels. Your sister goes with 
sailors..." What does this have to do with Michel's wish for peace in 
Israel?

  Dick Rosenberg
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Leopold N Friedman
    To: World music from a Jewish slant
    Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 8:46 AM
    Subject: Re: breaking the string of pearls without knowing the culture


    Michel,
    Maybe that's what you meant to say. In your attempt to be clever 
without
    doing your homework, you've done violence to a fairly polished 
traditional
    work. I am offended that you just carelessly mistranslated from German, 
    thinking that would be good enough. (e.g., 'ir'n' and that's only the 
first
    mistake; I don't know what or who 'palestinenish' or 'sholen' is, etc.)
    Maybe few in your audience actually know any Yiddish and haven't 
noticed
    or cared enough to call your mistakes to your attention if you yourself 
haven't
    cared enough to express those words correctly.

    Yiddish material should not be made into a meta-code, puzzle, or joke 
for
    the amusement of German (or even Hebrew) speakers, with reversions to
    "real" languages when serious points are to be made. Would you change
    a song in German or French (or Arabic) or even any language you know 
well
    without getting confirmation that your changes were, at least 
linguistically,
    correct and valid? Mistakes that might be forgiveable in the haste of 
everyday
    speech should not be preserved in a performance, if you take that 
seriously.
    Yiddish material deserves just the same care and respect, or perhaps 
even
    more, because it's threatened, as any other. Otherwise, it's mockery.

    Thematically, Shnirele Perele is about 'moshiakh's tsaytn' (Messiah's 
times)
    and uses Jewish religious and messianic imagery. To inject explicit 
political
    imagery in the form of a Palestinian "hot button" into this song is to 
change it
    to tutti frutti. The concept that you've replaced, that the "yidn veln 
in erets yisroel
    aynshteyn," appears to have been misunderstood. This religious concept, 
in fact,
    predates any concept of a Palestinian people or even the political 
Zionism that
    established the state of Israel.  Additionally, 'aynsteyn' has 
connotations of being
    (settled) secure and not of "returning." The song asserts that Jews 
have never left,
    in the theological sense. Without being aware of that, wouldn't it be 
presumptuous
    to proceed to try to "improve" that lyric?

    Finally, 'ma yofis' (my original succinct comment) has connotations of 
 "shuckin"
    and "jivin" for the goyim. Sorry, those are "Americanisms," which may 
have to be
    looked up.
    Lee

    On Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:20:48 +0100 "Michel Borzykowski" 
<borzykowski (at) infomaniak(dot)ch> writes:

        ----- Original Message -----
        "...weln di yidn in erets isroel aynsteyn" means:
        The Jews will return to the land of Israel.
        and "... weln di yidn in erets isroel mit ir'n palestinenishen 
brider kol sof in sholen lebn"
        The Jews will finally live in peace in the land of israel with 
their Palestinian brothers.

        Michal


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