Re: Yahrzeit

[Spudicmikhl <Spudicmikhl...>]

A quick opinion on this issue, would be to refer back to the original email 
that questioned the spelling of "Yahrzeit" in light of the YIVO standard of 
transcribing Yiddish into English.  From what I understand, Bob Rothstein was 
asking that the YIVO standard be adherred to, especially when presently 
transcribing this term.   I don't think Bob meant any slight to Irwin 
Oppenheim in asking for this, and all the Yiddishists on this list know the 
story all too well, that what is at stake is whether to continue recycling 
"daytshmerish Yidish" into the future, or to try to emphasize a standardized 
way to transcribe the language so that there is consistency all over the 
world. 
        I don't know if this is tune with "globalization" or even whether it 
is "anti-global;"  perhaps like anything much is gained and lost in such a 
process.  I personally love the serendipity of people's transliterations from 
the way they hear the Yiddish language, but on the practical side, if there 
is not a basic, standard way to transliterate  a term such as "Yortsayt," 
when you consider the internet as repository of information, imagine the 
confusion when searching a topic and you have to go through several hurdles 
in imagining how a word was transcribed from the Yiddish.    The issue here 
does not seem to be so much the inveighing against Germanic transcriptions 
for Yiddish expressions, terms, songtitles (why this should continue to this 
day in America, beats me, even in places like the English Forward), but 
moreso to further strengthen and project what is inherently YIDDISH about the 
language, also as Bob mentioned, to stop promulgating a macaronic quality in 
spelling out words that often add charm but at the expense of precision.  The 
precision is helpful when all agree to a common system of rules in 
transcription and this of course does not apply to verbal expression, only to 
writing i.e. transcribing Yiddish.  
Michael Spudic