Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 15.020 July 14 , 2005 1) Soviet orthography (Hugh Denham) 2) Yiddish in Los Angeles (Lucas Bruyn) 3) Yiddish in Los Angeles (Robert Berkowitz) 4) Yiddish handwriting (Lucas Bruyn) 5) Plurals (Dovid Braun) 6) a rusish lidl (Sidney Doris) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: July 13, 2005 Subject: Re: Soviet orthography In Mendele 15.014:6 Noyekh asks about Soviet orthography. I believe this conventional designation may be a misnomer or, at least, a misleading description in as far as proposals to reform both Russian and Yiddish orthography had been mooted before the revolution for philiological and certainly not for political reasons. The term "Soviet spelling" comes about in both cases because it was the Bolshevik regime that actually implemented the reforms. If my memory serves me, Mordkhe Veynger at least had put forward relevant ideas before the First World War. Unfortunately, from my vacation address I cannot be more precise, let alone attempt an answer to Noyekh's second question. Hugh Denman Oxford 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: July 13, 2005 Subject: Re: Yiddish in Los Angeles Some years ago a committee of Dutch Hebraists and Yiddishists was formed in order to decide how Hebrew and Yiddish words should be written in Dutch. Dutch has a small heritage of Yiddish words or words of Yiddish origin and the language has been enriched by words like kibuts and knesset, so deciding on how they should be entered in a Dutch dictionary is of some importance. However, the committee also decided that there was a need for a standardized Dutch transcription of Yiddish in general. Main reason was that the scholars on the team thought the YIVO system 'too American' for Dutch users The Dutch-Yiddish magazine Grine Medine uses this new Dutch transcription in its articles. Although I agree with Marty Green that the YIVO transcription is not suitable to be used for representing Yiddish words in the American language and although I admire his endeavors to popularize Yiddish making use of a transcription made by himself, a word of caution. Yiddish is a world language and if transcriptions are needed for international exchange, scholarly or not, the YIVO system is the best known and works reasonably well. Provincialism like practiced in Holland is not doing Yiddish any good. Lucas Bruyn 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: July 13, 2005 Subject: Re: Yiddish in Los Angeles Regarding Marty Green's comments about Noyekh Miller's observations about 'avade' etc., the whole idea of a transliteration system, whether created by YIVO or anyone else, is that it provides a consistent and intelligible method of knowing how to say Yiddish words for those who do not read Yiddish. That is, it is a system. An inconsistent method of transliteration, or one which contains exceptions, is, like English orthography, erratic, inconsistent, difficult to understand and certainly does not deserve to be called a 'system.' 'Avade' is a perfectly reasonable way to transliterate the word, because anyone who understands the principles of the YIVO system--which is really a system--will know that it is a three-syllable word ending in a schwa. Consider, as an example of potential confusion, the transliteration of the name, 'Menashe' by various orthographic methods, including a likely Los Angelish 'Manasha,' and the resulting phonetic corruption. While many other transliterations might be defended in a spirit of orthographic freedom, students do best when following a consistent system that incorporates no exceptions that twist orthographic rules. Almost every other language demands more rigorous orthographic discipline than English. There is no good reason for transliterated Yiddish to adapt to the orthographic anarchy that is English. Robert Berkovitz 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: July 13, 2005 Subject: Yiddish handwriting I would like to draw my fellow Mendelianer's attention to a feature of the Jewishgen website called ViewMate. Here researchers can place documents for translation. The archive for Yiddish translations contains over 400 items, inscriptions on tombstones, writings on the backs of photographs, postcard, letters and documents. Some are given upside down, some are not in Yiddish but in Hebrew, but it is a fantastic collection of examples of handwriting. The letters show a wide variety of spelling conventions. It appears that most requests for translations were never answered. If you want to improve your reading skills, have a look. Lucas Bruyn 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: July 13, 2005 Subject: Plurals My Yiddish interfered with "my" German: the German plural of _Kindergarten_ is _Kinderga"rten_. (The Yiddish plural of _gortn_ is _gert(e)ner_.) The point remains the same: English adds the -s to _kindergarten_ when pluralizing this noun, notwithstanding the correct German plural. Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: July 14, 2005 Subject: Re: a rusish lidl a sheynem dank far dem entfer. di melodie iz rikhtik ober ober di strofes fun dos lid zenen andersh. to voszhe zorgn farn morgn, gis dem bekher on mit vayn. oys mit fashistn, kapitalistn, hulyet bizn tog arayn. Sidney Doris 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: , 2005 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: , 2005 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: , 2005 ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 15.020 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, choose one of these two: Messages for posting on Mendele Personal and other messages to the shamosim