Yinglish in New York City, 100 years ago

[Geoffrey Steven Nathan]

Of course, if you use Notabene, switching language direction within a line is a no-brainer, because it was designed that way from the ground up.

<completely unsolicited and unreimbursed endorsement>Notabene is still the best word processor/research tool for language-oriented people, and, despite its tiny niche status, is still being developed. I'm currently beta-testing version 10.</c.u.u.e>

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.


----- Original Message -----

> From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 10:40:07 AM
> Subject: Re: Yinglish in New York City, 100 years ago

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: Yinglish in New York City, 100 years ago
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I believe the same is true of other languages written right-to-left,
> such as Chinese and Japanese. And also for Roman-alphabet words
> embedded in the Chinese or Japanese text. Becomes a challenge for
> word-processing software. Thinking about line wrap warps my mind.

> Joel

> At 6/10/2013 10:05 AM, Alice Faber wrote:
> >This is correct. The numbers in Hebrew and Yiddish work exactly as
> >in
> >languages written with the Roman alphabet. (Hebrew religious texts
> >have
> >a different system, whereby letters of the alphabet represent
> >numbers:
> >aleph=1, bet=2, ... yod=10, kaph=20, etc., and so forth.)
> >
> >On 6/10/13 9:20 AM, Amy West wrote:
> >>What I found intriguing about the Yiddish sign, because I am
> >>completely
> >>ignorant of the Hebrew alphabet, is the Arabic numerals plopped
> >>into the
> >>text: 15000 and 15. The text, I'm assuming, is read right to left,
> >>but
> >>the numbers aren't. So either the direction of reading has to be
> >>reversed for them, or they're just read immediately as a whole.
> >>
> >>Is this how numbers are usu. treated in Hebrew alphabet texts or is
> >>this
> >>an aspect of it being Yiddish or an aspect of it being Yinglish
> >>(like
> >>the borrowings)?
> >>
> >>---Amy West
> >>
> >>On 6/9/13 12:01 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> >>>Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2013 10:49:09 -0800
> >>>From: Chris Waigl<chris at LASCRIBE.NET>
> >>>Subject: Yinglish in New York City, 100 years ago
> >>>
> >>>A light-hearted look at a bilingual (English/Yiddish) 1908 sign
> >>>from
> >>>the Lower East Side:http://chryss.eu/?p=431
> >>>
> >>>Chris
> >>>
> >>>--
> >>>Chris Waigl --http://chryss.eu --http://eggcorns.lascribe.net
> >>>twitter: chrys -- friendfeed: chryss
> >>
> >>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org