[Ads-l] Latent anti-Semitism [Was: Provenance of /Or/ > [ar] / __@ ?]

Fri Oct 7 15:41:17 UTC 2016

Here are the titles of D-n N------z's most recent 30 articles on Atlas
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Why Linguists are Fascinated by the American Jewish Accent
Why Northerners Think All Southerners Have One Accent
Yu's take on Hong Kong's high rises.

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Read excerpts from the forthcoming *Dictionary of Christianese
<http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/>*

On Fri, Oct 7, 2016 at 10:21 AM, Tim Stewart <timoteostewart1977 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I had a different takeaway. Rather than interpreting *Yoda-like*, *mashup*,
> and *-ish* as latent anti-Semitisms, I took those as attempts by the
> article writer to make the subject matter (Yiddish) appeal to a millennial
> audience. My hypothesis is that the article writer would bring that exact
> same kind of flippant cleverness to bear on any topic he dilated on.
>
> Tim
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Read excerpts from the forthcoming *Dictionary of Christianese
> <http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/>*
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 7, 2016 at 8:47 AM, Margaret Winters <mewinters at wayne.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> I agree with Joel's assesment of the quotes he cites.  I do the
>> occasional lecture on Yiddish to Detroit area Jewish groups (I learned it
>> as a child both at home and through second language study and have to some
>> extent -- not enough! -- kept it up).  One of the points I make (yes, to
>> Jewish groups) is that it isn't cute, nostalgic, meant just for jokes, a
>> debased dialect of something else, but is a living language of its own with
>> a history, literature, culture of its own!
>>
>>
>> sigh,
>>
>> Margaret
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------
>> MARGARET E WINTERS
>> On Leave
>> Office of the Provost
>> Wayne State University
>> Detroit, MI  48202
>>
>> mewinters at wayne.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
>> Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET>
>> Sent: Friday, October 7, 2016 8:44 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Latent anti-Semitism [Was: Provenance of /Or/ > [ar] / __@ ?]
>>
>> This of course is not a criticism of Neal.
>>
>> I find a latent and repellent anti-Semitism in the Atlas Obscura article,
>> in it's characterizations of "the American Jewish Accent" --
>>
>> weird
>>
>> bizarre
>>
>> Ladino as a "mashup"  -- what is "standard" English but a mashup of other
>> languages?
>>
>> The use of "-ish", in "Germanicish" and Yeshivish", as though these
>> dialects are somehow substandard versions of German or of the speech of
>> Jews educated in "the schools for the organized study of Jewish holy texts".
>>
>> The use of Yoda-like" has a similarly-disparaging undertone.
>>
>> The first sentence of the last paragraph seems to extend the disdain to
>> all minorities, as though their speech of English too is substandard.
>>
>> Finally, the article concludes "It's messy and confusing and pulls
>> elements from all over the world. But it’s pretty great for telling jokes."
>> More slurs.  "Great for telling jokes"!  As if that's all it's good for.
>> Is (stereotypical) Italian, or Irish, or Indian, or ... accent great for
>> telling jokes, and not much else, such as being understood in one's
>> community?
>>
>>
>> Joel
>>
>>
>>
>>       From: Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
>>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2016 11:38 PM
>>  Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Provenance of /Or/ > [ar] / __@ ?
>>
>> Relevant to this thread from 2012 (hat tip to LSA for sharing on
>> Facebook):
>>
>> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-linguists-are-fasci
>> nated-by-the-american-jewish-accent
>> [http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/34854/image.jpg]<
>> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-linguists-are-fascinated-by-the-
>> american-jewish-accent>
>>
>> Why Linguists are Fascinated by the American Jewish Accent<
>> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-linguists-are-fascinated-by-the-
>> american-jewish-accent>
>> www.atlasobscura.com
>> Between 1880 and World War I, a wave of Eastern European Jewish
>> immigrants crashed on America’s shores. They spoke Yiddish, and then
>> English, with a special tone, a ...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/17/2012 3:02 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender:      American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:      Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
>> > Subject:      Re: Provenance of /Or/ > [ar] / __@ ?
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------
>> >
>> > I'm not sure what my original pattern was, though my parents (NYC born)
>> had [a] in nearly all or all words in this set intervocalically.  I,
>> however, have [O] in them all, despite living a good deal of my childhood
>> in the NY/NJ suburbs.  I could have picked it up in Chicago, where I lived
>> from 6-14.  However, my high school years were in Morristown, in Morris
>> County, NJ, not far from the Oranges, and my birthplace was a stone's throw
>> from Florida,NY (not the state)in Orange County, so there's plenty of words
>> there in the classthat would come up all the time.  My memory may be
>> playing tricks on me but my impression was that local Morristonians had [O]
>> like me, but the incomers from NY
>> > and farther toward the Hudson had [a] (in my day, distributing very
>> much like rhoticity).  Monroe, NY was also in the [a] area.  But if
>> Philadelphia also has [a], shouldn't all New Jersey have it too?  Am I
>> projecting my Illinois pronunciation on others?
>> >
>> > What I remember, too, is Morristonians using [O] and contrasting it
>> strongly with southern NJ's Moorestown [mu:rztaUn], which was always being
>> confused with our place.  We'd never use [O] in the latter.
>> >
>> > Throughout, NORTH =FORCE for all areas that I've lived in in this
>> country.
>> >
>> > By the way, what's the Eastern New England pattern for <orV>, [a] or
>> [É’]?  The last one would equal NORTH in many places there, with NORTH and
>> FORCE being different.  Would Boston and Providence be different?
>> >
>> > Paul Johnston
>> > On Nov 17, 2012, at 12:49 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> >
>> >> ---------------------- 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: Provenance of /Or/ > [ar] / __@ ?
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------
>> >>
>> >> At 11/17/2012 01:36 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> >>> On Nov 16, 2012, at 6:24 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> I'm sure this has been analyzed somewhere at some point, but I
>> >>> don't know where.
>> >>>> What is the dialect that has /O/ lowering to [a] in a stressed
>> >>> vowel preceding
>> >>>> /r/ and an unstressed vowel? In other words, the dialect that
>> pronounces
>> >>>> "forest" as "farrest," "Florida" as "Flarrida", "Oregon" as
>> "Ahregun,"
>> >>>> "horrible" etc. as "harrible" etc., "authority" as "autharity",
>> >>> but still has
>> >>>> [O] in "fort", "lore," etc.? What is this realization called?
>> >>>>
>> >>> It's what I grew up with in NYC,
>> >> Me too.
>> >>
>> >>> although I've shifted over to [O] most of the time for these; I
>> >>> suspect I go back and forth (on "Florida", "orange", "forest") even
>> >>> though I think of myself as an open-o employer for these (the first
>> >>> group, that is; I've never varied on [O] for "fort" or "lore").  I
>> >>> think of "AH-rinj" as the locus classicus, but as I recall it was
>> >>> getting mocked for my [a] in "corridor" as a freshman in Rochester
>> >>> that led to my abandoning my native vowels in this frame.  I'm sure
>> >>> I never say "flarrist", but I probably did before the fall of 1961.
>> >> Except my vacillations and shifts are different from
>> >> Larry's.  (Perhaps because he stayed close, in New Haven, while I
>> >> moved further (farther?), to Boston.)  For example, I'm sure I seldom
>> >> say "florist" but mostly "flarrist".  But I say "floral", not
>> "flarral".
>> >>
>> >> Joel
>> >>
>> >>> LH
>> >>>
>> >>>> I've been vaguely aware of it for many years, but have begun to
>> >>> notice it more,
>> >>>> especially among certain NPR speakers. I even heard one guy on
>> >>> Planet Money talk
>> >>>> about a "flarrist" (florist), which is right in line with the
>> phonetic
>> >>>> environment I described, but was still a new pronunciation to me.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Neal
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> American Dialect Society<http://www.americandialect.org/>
>> www.americandialect.org
>> The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is dedicated to the study
>> of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or
>> dialects of other ...
>>
>>
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> American Dialect Society<http://www.americandialect.org/>
>> www.americandialect.org
>> The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is dedicated to the study
>> of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or
>> dialects of other ...
>>
>>
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Neal Whitman
>> Lecturer, ESL Composition
>> School of Teaching and Learning
>> College of Education and Human Ecology
>> Arps Hall
>> 1945 North High Street
>> whitman.11 at osu.edu
>> (614) 260-1622
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> American Dialect Society<http://www.americandialect.org/>
>> www.americandialect.org
>> The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is dedicated to the study
>> of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or
>> dialects of other ...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> American Dialect Society<http://www.americandialect.org/>
>> www.americandialect.org
>> The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is dedicated to the study
>> of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or
>> dialects of other ...
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>

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