Comments on: New Year’s greetings

By: Valuethinker

Valuethinker — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:36:05 +0000

Ted Barlow
Thank you for the pointer to that wonderful piece.
History has many tragedies. Yiddish is up there with Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar amongst them.
V.

By: Bernard Yomtov

Bernard Yomtov — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:59:37 +0000

a friend who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking house was in the Netherlands on an extended business trip (quite a few years ago) and found himself in an “off-the-beaten path” place where no one spoke English. He spoke Yiddish to the Dutch speakers and was understood, though they told him he sounded like he had time-travelled from the past.
My father used to claim that knowing Yiddish would enable me to travel anywhere. Guess he had a point.

By: bemused

bemused — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 03:27:23 +0000

To SamChevre — a friend who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking house was in the Netherlands on an extended business trip (quite a few years ago) and found himself in an “off-the-beaten path” place where no one spoke English. He spoke Yiddish to the Dutch speakers and was understood, though they told him he sounded like he had time-travelled from the past.

By: jerry

jerry — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 02:35:54 +0000

I love Klezmir music.
And my 7 and 9 year old daughters know that we are a mishigas mishpocha, and to be careful because they might get a zetz in their pupik.
And it cannot go unsaid, Shakespeare is much better in the original Klingon.

By: JR

JR — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:52:23 +0000

“The Yiddish King Lear” is not a translation of Lear. It’s a play loosely based on Lear by Jacob Michailovitch Gordin, an American Jewish playwright of the early 20th century. A better translation of the title would be “The Jewish King Lear,” the idea being that the protagonist is a Jewish Lear-like character.
There is also a version of Hamlet called “Der Yeshiva Bocher” (The Yeshiva Student), in which the Hamlet character is a rabbinical student, son of a prominent Hasidic rabbi.

By: American Citizen

American Citizen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:58:35 +0000

But what’s Mark’s stance on John Zorn’s Masada project?

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:58:17 +0000

Michael Chabon wrote a lovely essay that you might enjoy about finding a Yiddish phrasebook for travellers: http://www.michaelchabon.com/archives/2005/03/a_yiddish_pale_1.html

By: SamChevre

SamChevre — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:55:15 +0000

Thanks Altoid!
I already know that Pennsylvania Dutch and Yiddish are somewhat related (but probably no closer to each other than each is to German); I’m lucky enough to know someone who knows both.
I wondered if Plattdeutsch/Plautdietsch (I’ve seen it written both ways) would be closer to Yiddish, as it, like Yiddish and unlike Pennsylvania Dutch, has a strong Slavic influence.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:45:15 +0000

Lear in Yiddish? I never thought about it, but it sounds like a perfect fit: all that kvetching about ungrateful children and meshugge parents would be perfect in Yiddish.
On the other hand, Macbeth is probably irredeemably goyish, and Henry V should be translated into Hebrew.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:04:08 +0000

By: Altoid

Altoid — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:26:31 +0000

SamChevre, I believe Yiddish is descended from Middle High German rather than from Low German– indeed I’ve heard that there are some key MHG texts that are preserved only in Yiddish. (If I’ve got that wrong I’m sure someone will correct me.) But Yiddish has a lot of its vocabulary from Hebrew (pre-Israel Hebrew), Aramaic, and Slavic languages and even a little from Greek, I think. Syntactically it might be relatively close to Pennsylvania Dutch German, at a guess, though I think the latter is probably much closer to modern German dialects than Yiddish is.

By: SamChevre

SamChevre — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:57:05 +0000

This is a very random question, but–this group might know the answer. How close is Yiddish to Plattdeutsch (still spoken by Hutterites and Old Colony (“Russian”) Mennonites)?

By: JR

JR — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 03:47:41 +0000

“L’shanah tovah” means “for a good year.” It’s a shortened version of “”L’shanah tovah tikatev,” “may you be written for a good year.” The greeting reflects the belief that God determines our fate – metaphorically, writes it down – at the New Year.

By: Heather

Heather — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 23:01:32 +0000

Hilarious, Mark Long Island should print that up on official stationery…

By: Altoid

Altoid — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 22:16:04 +0000

Nicely put in general, Mark, and happy new year. My mother understood Yiddish because her grandparents spoke it most of the time (and her parents some of the time) and I’ve got about the same relation to the language that you do.
Another wrinkle: I’m old enough that when I learned liturgical Hebrew I learned the Ashkenazi (or Yiddish) pronunciation. Today all the synagogues and temples I’ve ever heard of have shifted to Sephardic Hebrew– the reform ones most thoroughly of all, which I find ironic in the extreme.
When I need to recite something I still use the Yiddish pronunciation. I could shift, but I don’t want to. It’s a political and cultural decision.
I also think it should be added, in all fairness to whatever forces have been at work out there, that a lot of people were involved over the years in the collective decision not to use Yiddish. Immigrants and their children often wanted to stop as soon as they could; a common story for other immigrant languages as well at the time. And of course Israel also spurned Yiddish, and many of the people who went there after the war had every inclination to stop using it.
Sorry if anyone thinks this is inappropriate.

By: Valuethinker

Valuethinker — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 20:09:14 +0000

Mark
You write some very clever things, but this was about the cleverest.
The loss of Yiddish is truly one of the great tragedies of world history. Such a language for humour, such unsurpassed invective. Woody Allen, Saul Bellow….
Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of A Man Who Rescued A Million Yiddish Books (Hardcover)
by Aaron Lansky (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Outwitting-History-Amazing-Adventures-Million/dp/1565124294/ref=sr_11_1/104-2798541-1751165?ie=UTF8
As an uber-goy, I always envied the Jews for having access to such a rich and subversive cultural history. Terminal WASPism is like a medical condition– it doesn’t kill you in the short run, but it doesn’t make you any healthier or richer either.
And in any case, I think God did create a new promised land for the Jews: Florida.

By: franck

franck — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 16:52:24 +0000

Yiddish isn’t dying, really. All the haredim sprouting up in suburban New York speak it as their daily language. Among non-haredim it is dying, sure, but they’re just doing what created Yiddish in the first place, inflecting the dominant language around them with Judaicisms.

By: JL

JL — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 16:07:14 +0000

“A language without an army” — I.B. Singer.
As for not getting those punch lines, Robert Klein, who as a kid, he worked kitchens at borscht-belt hotels and watched the comedians at night, has a similar comment, only funny.

By: Nezua Lim�n Xolagrafik-Jonez

Nezua Lim�n Xolagrafik-Jonez — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 14:32:36 +0000

I don’t think assimilation as currently defined is such a great thing. I understand completely what you are saying about losing language and roots. And I think that kind of thing carves a hollow out of humans’ souls. I enjoy seeing people celebrate their roots, no matter if I share them or not. I like this post.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 13:41:26 +0000

There’s been a substantial effort to preserve the Yiddish language for some years. Check out the
following site:http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/

By: Aaron Baker

Aaron Baker — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 13:12:02 +0000

I agree with you about Klezmer music. I might actually donate money to NPR if they STOPPED broadcasting it.

By: shmuel

shmuel — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:02:31 +0000

Shana Tova,
Shakespeare was translated into Yiddish and said to be “fartichted und farbessered” or translated and improved.
Quite a few Talmudic and biblical sayings have this “untranslatable” property, but Yiddish has a folksy color, sound and expressive power no other language I am familiar with has.

By: Bernard Yomtov

Bernard Yomtov — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 02:43:39 +0000

There are things that can be said in Yiddish that simply can’t be said in English,
I’ve heard it said that King Lear is an even better play in Yiddish than in English.
Shanah tovah to all.