Judaize

[Joel S. Berson]

Me too, although the Snow has so far only arrived
on my sideburns.  jew-DAY-ism --  but more
recently JUdy-ism -- and definitely jew-DAY-ica.

Joel

At 11/9/2009 10:20 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>I think that y'all both need a little Snow on y'all's roofs. Surely, I
>can't be the only participant old enough to recall when the stem was
>normally spelled _Judae-_ and the semi-learned, such as your humble
>correspondent, used the pronunciation, [dZudeIzm], while wondering why
>the learned, among them the few Jews of his acquaintance, preferred
>the pronunciation, [dZudiIzm]?
>
>I didn't give up that pronunciation, "JEW-day-ism," until I noticed,
>ca.1974, that a friend of mine, whose parents spoke "Iddish" aas they
>say in Russian and some other languages, at home and were from
>Nizhnii-Novgorod - for some reason, I was never able to persuade her
>that that town was, at the time, the Soviet city called "Gorkii" -
>always said "JUDY-ism."
>
>IAC, I eventually concluded that she, a speaker of ordinary, standard
>AmE with no local, regional, or ethnic accent that I could discern,
>surely must know the pronunciation of the name of her own religion
>better than I. OTOH, IIRC, it was about this same time that I noticed
>that the spelling had shifted from "Judaeism" to "Judaism."
>
>FWIW, at Harvard, in my days at Widener Library, the staff, whether
>Jewish or not, used the spelling, "Judaeica (Division)" - and probably
>still do, Harvard not likely to spend any money on anything as trivial
>as retagging tens of thousands of books and changing hundreds of
>thousands of records to match that retagging, especially since the
>endowment is on the verge of bankruptcy :-) - and the pronunciation,
>"Jew-DAY-icka."
>
>-Wilson
>
>-Wilson
>
>On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Judaize
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I'm surprised nobody else has responded to
> this, but the origin of the /i/ (tense high
> front vowel) pronunciation seems to me to be at
> least in part by analogy with 'Judaism', which I, and many others pronounce
> > [dZudiIzm], especially, as Mark notes, when
> the relevant syllable is unstressed.
> >
> > Geoff
> >
> > Geoffrey S. Nathan
> > Faculty Liaison, C&IT
> > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
> > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
> > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
> >
> > ----- "Mark Mandel" <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> >> From: "Mark Mandel" <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >> Sent: Monday, November 9, 2009 2:36:00 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> >> Subject: Re: Judaize
> >>
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Mark Mandel <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: Judaize
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 8:44 AM, David Barnhart
> >> <dbarnhart at highlands.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > I was struck very early this morning with the seeming contrast
> >> between the
> >> > spelling of Judaize and the pronunciation /-i:-/ variant.
> >>
> >> That is,  /'dZu:.di.aIz/, yes? MW Online uses e with macron for the
> >> 2nd
> >> vowel, but in this context its quantity has to be short.
> >>
> >> > The variant is recognized by MW3 and NOAD and AHD and RHU.   Other
> >> variants
> >> > are schwa and /-ei-/.   WBD has only /-i:-/.   ACD has only /-i-/,
> >> probably
> >> > corresponding to schwa.  OED has only /-ei-/.
> >> >
> >> > My question is this: where did the /-i:-/ variant come from?
> >>
> >> /eI/ -> /i/ seems like a normal qualitative reduction under
> >> destressing, vs.
> >> only /ei/ when stressed in "Judaic". MW and OED have the same sets of
> >> vowels
> >> in "Judaism".
> >>
> >> m a m
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>-Wilson
>­­­
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"­­a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>­Mark Twain
>
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