LL-L 'Yiddish' 2007.02.12 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 12 February 2007 - Volume 06

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From: Lee Goldberg <leybl_goldberg at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L 'Yiddish' 2007.02.11 (05) [E]

For Western Yiddish, try the following links:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cria/Current-projects/Yiddish/yiddish.html
*http://judaisme.sdv.fr/dialecte/index.htm*

The first link is to the "Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry"
conducted the 1960s.  It had a number of sample audio files on line,
including recordings of Western Yiddish speakers, but the link wasn't
working today when I checked.  You might try searching on the title of the
atlas, or the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research, which sponsored the Atlas,
or Prof. Marvin Herzog of Columbia University, the head of the project.

The second link is specifically about the Alsatian Yiddish dialect, with
examples of jokes, proverbs, and songs, including sound files (for instance,
one located here: http://judaisme.sdv.fr/dialecte/metzger/index.htm).

Finally, if print resources are something you'd consider, two books by the
late Solomon/Salomo A. Birnbaum contain pages of sample texts in Western
Yiddish in Roman transcription:

*Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar* (University of Toronto/Manchester Press,
Toronto/Manchester: 1979)
*Di jiddische Sprache* (Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag: 1997)

From: Mark Williamson < node.ue at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L 'Lexicon' 2007.02.10 (03) [E/Yiddish]

Speaking of which, does anyone know if I can find any information on
Western Yiddish online? I've only seen sociolinguistic accounts so
far, nothing that actually gives even a vague sample of the language,
except for mediaeval texts.

Mark

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Yiddish

Thanks, Lee.

I used to have a copy of Birnbaum's German work (bought it at Buske's in
Hamburg ages ago), but I don't know in which box it's now ...

By the way, it came out again (edited?) in 1986.  However, it seems to be
sold out.

The English work costs US $100.  Ouch!

Both of them are in our university library, and I might check them out
later.

*Die jiddische Sprache : ein kurzer Überblick und Texte aus acht
Jahrhunderten / Salomo A. Birnbaum, * Hamburg : H. Buske, 1986 (ISBN:
3871187445)

*Yiddish, a survey and a grammar / Solomon A. Birnbaum, * Toronto ; Buffalo
: University of Toronto Press, c1979 (ISBN: 0802053823)

There are also the following:

*Praktische Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache für den Selbstunterricht. Mit
Lesestücken und einem Wörterbuch. Von Salomo Birnbaum, * Wien und Leipzig,
A.Hartleben [pref. 1915]

*Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache. Mit einem Wörterbuch und Lesestücken, von
Salomo A. Birnbaum, * Hamburg, Buske [c1966]

But why, oh why, is it so hard to find the original West Yiddish version of
Glikl's memoirs?

Of course, it would be great to know if there was any interaction between
Low Saxon and Yiddish.  I suppose that when larger communities of Ashkenazi
Jews arrived in 17th-century Northern Germany, German had already made
definite inroads there and had been adopted by the elite. Most Ashkenazim
arrived from German-speaking areas in the south, and they spoke West Yiddish
and German.  However, as far as I know, there were still lots of ordinary
Gentile people that didn't speak German, and many of them probably didn't
understand it either.  Which leads me to assume that those Jews that had
contact with the general populace must have at least understood Low Saxon,
if not also spoken enough of it for professional purposes.  Glikl Hameln
does write about interactions with such people, but she mentions nothing
about the language.  However, there were early Ashkenazi settlers in
Northern Germany before the main immigration wave.  Most of those immigrated
in the 16th century when German encroachment was barely beginning, the
Hanseatic League was breathing its last, and Low Saxon was still used
extensively.  So I assume that these early settlers did use Low Saxon in
public.  However, there were Jewish communities in several smaller North
German cities and towns where Low Saxon remained the predominant language
among ordinary people as late as in the 19th century, or even later.

As for Ladino speakers, I believe it is fairly safe to say that many of them
understood and spoke Low Saxon at least soon after their arrival in Hamburg
from Portugal (and they are said to have been proficient in Portuguese,
Ladino and Spanish and remained so for several generations).  They
constantly intermarried with the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, so I
assume that there was a fair bit of Dutch profiency among them in both
cities.

Both Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities of Hamburg then created offshoots in
Copenhagen, and new communities were established in Schleswig-Holstein,
which was intermittently under Danish rule.  So this means that eventually
Danish came to be thrown into this already interesting mix.

Talking about "West Yiddish," I wonder if you are aware that people use this
label to refer to Yiddish spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands today.  As
far as I can tell, those are East Yiddish dialects imported to the west,
with Dutch and French imfluences.  What is your assessment, Lee?

Thanks.
Reinhard/Ron
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