LL-L "Etymology" 2002.10.16 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 16.OCT.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Holger Weigelt <platt at HOLGER-WEIGELT.DE>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2002.10.14 (06) [E]

>From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Etymology
>
>Dear Lowlanders,
>
>Can any of you help me with the etymology of Polish _folwark_ and Yiddish
>_folvark_ (with a palatal /l/) '(country) estate', 'ranch'?  It sounds
>rather Middle Lowlands Saxon (Low German).  (*_volwark_ "full work"?)
>
>Thanks in advance!
>Reinhard/Ron

Hello Ron !
The words in question (Polish >folwark< and Yiddish >folvark<) I believe to
be derived from German >Vorwerk< (I don't know any proper English
translation but it is a special kind of estate or farm). Little irritation
is left by the palatal ~l~. I would expect a postpalatal sound with some
throat pressure (sounding somewhat like ~forlwark~).
Kind regards
Holger

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From: Thomas Byro <thbyro at earthlink.net>
Subject: LL-L Etymology

The word OK originated in one of the early 19th century American
presidential elections.  I think it was that between Harrison and Tyler.
Anyway, one of them was described in the election propaganda as being a
rough frontiersman, a native of the upstate village of Old Kinderhook, which
was a frontier village in his youth.  Actually he was no such thing, but was
a member of the Dutch patroon class of upstate New York.  Anyway, during the
course of the election he was decribed as being "Old Kinderhook."  As the
election progressed further he was described as simply "he is OK."  It
amazes me how the word OK has gained acceptance among speakers of so many
languages and at how few people actually know what it means.

My confusion regarding my perceived difficulties regarding the umlaut
situation in Yiddish I just posted in response to another letter.

I chaged the heading to Etymology, as suggested by Ron

Tom

From: Kate Gladstone <kate at global2000.net
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.10.13 (11) [E]

Tom - I do, indeed, want to know:

> what the word OK means and how it came about ...

Re your inquiry about:

> why Yiddish lacks the umlauts?.  And how Yiddish gets around the
> difficulties posed by this lack?

I speak (some) Yiddish, I know several fluent speakers, and to none of us
has it ever occurred that an umlaut-less language suffers "difficulties."
        (This reminds me of the time that a native speaker of Spanish asked
me how we English-speakers could possibly understand each other, what with
"a" often sounding like /e:/, "e" often sounding like /i:/, and "i" often
sounding like /a:i/ .)

> Folks,
> Of course Yiddish has "umlauts", it just doesn't
> realize them as "ue" (I'll avoid diacriticals in case
> it doesn't read right on all browsers) or "oe".  The
> plural of "buch" in yiddish is "bicher".

In fact, Yiddish carries this form of umlauting further than Standard German
does ... the word "tog" (= 'day') forms its plural as 'teg', and the word
"hunt" (= 'dog') forms its plural as "hint":
         somewhat as if a variety of German existed somewhere which formed
these words as "Tag/Täg - Hund/Hünd". (Does such a variety of German exist?)

Conversely, some Yiddish words lack umlauting where Standard German would
have it: e.g., where Standard German has "schlafen/er schläft", Yiddish (at
least in the central Polish variety I heard sometimes as a child) has what
Standard German orthography would transcribe as "schlufen/er schluft".

> I don't know if yiddish didn't carry the typical
> German kind of "ue" and "oe" umlaut sounds,

Yiddish, indeed, does not have these sounds:

if we used Standard German orthography to spell the sounds of the Yiddish
equivalent of "ich höre" ('I hear'), the Yiddish version would look like
"ich
here" ...

(by the way, in reading the above example please also note that Yiddish
(unlike
Standard German) pronounces the final consonant of "ich" with the
consonant-sound
that in Standard German does not occur in "ich" but does occur in "ach".
(This
probably has less to do with the fact that Hebrew - or German - spelling
treats
these sounds as identical than it has to do with the fact that Yiddish split
off from Standard German before the "ich"-sound became established as an
allophone
of the "ach"-sound.

> I forgot to mention the "soft l" (a palatalized version, vs. a "thick"
one,
> a contrast like in Russian and Gaelic) that some Eastern Yiddish dialects
> have acquired due to Slavonic (probably Russian) influence.  Uriel
Weinreich
> kindly distinguishes it by means of an apostrophe after the _lamed_.

There also exists a "soft n", generally transcribed as "ny" and spelled in
Yiddish with the equivalent Hebrew letters - e.g., in the (probably
originally-Slavic)
  Yiddish word "paskudnyak," meaning "scoundrel".

Yours for better letters,
Kate Gladstone - Handwriting Repair
kate at global2000.net
http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair
325 South Manning Boulevard
Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA
telephone 518/482-6763

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