EYDES (Evidence of Yiddish Documented in European Societies): The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry 9783484970632, 9783484731059

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Vorwort
Zeugnis – wovon und wofür?
L’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze et le Programme EYDES: les enseignements d’une continuité
L’apport des études sur la langue et la culture yiddish du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle au Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry
The Atlas Interview in the Age of Its Internet Ubiquity
Audio Preservation and the LCAAJ Archive at Columbia University
Regional Variation in Southeastern Yiddish Historical Inferences
The Infix [-ev-] and Initial Accent in Yiddish Verbs
Essay on Multilingualism
A code of many colors: Deciphering the language of Jewish cabaret
Der Jiddische Sprach- und Kulturatlas als explorierbares Gedächtnis
Is a Structural Dialectology Practical? Re-deploying Weinreich’s Approach to Diasystems
The Language and Culture Atlas - Reminiscence and Reflections
The Sibilants of Northeastern Yiddish: A Study in Linguistic Variation
Notes of a Fieldworker for the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry
Mapping Yiddishland: Place, Time, and Speech
The Making of a Chair: Uriel Weinreich and the Yiddish Chair at Columbia University
Backmatter

Citation preview

Beihefte zum Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry Band 5

Herausgegeben von Marvin Herzog, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke und Andrew Sunshine

EYDES Evidence of Yiddish Documented in European Societies The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry Herausgegeben von Marvin Herzog, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke und Andrew Sunshine in Verbindung mit Fr#d#ric Hartweg

Max Niemeyer Verlag T,bingen 2008

n

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet ,ber http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. ISBN 978-3-484-73105-9 ; Max Niemeyer Verlag, T,bingen 2008 Ein Imprint der Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG http://www.niemeyer.de Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich gesch,tzt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzul@ssig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere f,r Vervielf@ltigungen, Abersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbest@ndigem Papier. Gesamtherstellung: AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH, Kempten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Vorwort

VII

Ulrike Kiefer

Zeugnis ñ wovon und wofr?

Frank Alvarez-P"reyre

LíAtlas linguistique et culturel du juda(sme ashk"naze et le Programme EYDES: les enseignements díune continuit"

21

Jean Baumgarten

Líapport des "tudes sur la langue et la culture yiddish du XVIe au XVIIIe si4cle au Language and Culture Atlas of

33

1

Ashkenazic Jewry Jonathan Boyarin

The Atlas Interview in the Age of Its Internet Ubiquity

51

Janet Gertz

Audio Preservation and the LCAAJ Archive at Columbia University

59

Paul Glasser

Regional Variation in Southeastern Yiddish: Historical Inferences

71

Eugene Green

The Infix [-ev-] and Initial Accent in Yiddish Verbs

83

Benjamin Harshav

Essay on Multilingualism

97

Neil G. Jacobs

A Code of Many Colors: Deciphering the Language of Jewish Cabaret

119

Inhaltsverzeichnis

VI

Ulrike Kiefer Robert Neumann

Der Jiddische Sprach- und Kulturatlas als explorierbares GedFchtnis

169

William Labov

Is a Structural Dialectology Practical? Re-deploying Weinreichís Approach to Diasystems

217

Steven Lowenstein

The Language and Culture Atlas Reminiscence and Reflections

231

Rakhmiel Peltz

The Sibilants of Northeastern Yiddish: A Study in Linguistic Variation

241

Rosaline D. Schwartz

Notes of a Fieldworker for the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry

275

Jeffrey Shandler

Mapping Yiddishland: Place, Time, and Speech

291

Andrew Sunshine

The Making of a Chair: Uriel Weinreich and the Yiddish Chair at Columbia University

305

LMNOMP QRSNTR UTR VOSW

NZ\ USR \R^Z_ Y U`SaR] NXRZX Y [Z\ U\OZPORY UXZP bS^cSNRQbQ Y Ra Y UTR bS^cSPXOSQ NZ`S\ dSS UTR -eRNı` ] U`S\ dSS R] NRa ] ^bZSRNı Y R] ^S_ cRQ^ ] R] -NRQbQ Y Ra Y

*1

Vorwort

Der vorliegende Sammelband präsentiert Beiträge, deren Anstöße und Perspektiven sich direkt oder indirekt aus dem Archiv des Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry herleiten. Anlass für das Beiheft ist die Einrichtung des elektronischen Archivs unter der Bezeichnung EYDES im Internet, das im April 2005 in Berlin eröffnet wurde und seit Herbst 2006 mit der gesamten originalen Tonsammlung von um die 5000 Stunden unter www.eydes.de zugänglich ist – öffentlich und gebührenfrei. EYDES ist das jiddische Wort für Zeugnis und steht als Akronym für Evidence of Yiddish Documented in European Societies. Ziel ist, mit EYDES das im Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas dokumentierte Zeugnis für die breite Öffentlichkeit evident zu machen und es in die Wissenschaften und den öffentlichen Kulturbetrieb zu integrieren. EYDES beruht auf Forschung im Umgang mit sprachlichen Daten, zusammen mit den Archivdaten stellt es Methoden für den Umgang mit Spracharchiven für die Wissenschaftsgemeinde bereit. Mit den vorliegenden Aufsätzen wollen wir das Archiv, seine Inhalte und Methoden seiner Nutzung der wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit vorstellen. Der erste(!) Beitrag, der einzige jiddische, ist ein gemeinsames, bisher nicht veröffentlichtes, Memorandum des damals 24jährigen Archivbegründers Uriel Weinreich und seiner Frau Beatrice aus dem Jahr 1950. Zu unserem großen Bedauern erlebt Frau Beatrice Weinreich diese Veröffentlichung nicht mehr. Sie verstarb im Frühjahr diesen Jahres, einundvierzig Jahre nach dem frühen Tod ihres Mannes. Von den beitragenden Wissenschaftlern waren manche an der ursprünglichen Enquete beteiligt, andere haben am Aufbau des elektronischen Archivs mitgewirkt. Wieder andere haben über Daten aus

VIII

Vorwort

dem Archiv gearbeitet oder sich in Themenstellung und Argumentation auf das Archiv bezogen. Einige Beiträge sind durch persönliche Inspiration Uriel Weinreichs selbst motiviert. Allen Autoren gilt unser herzlicher Dank. EYDES konnte entstehen, weil uns Freunde des Jiddischen, Personen und Institutionen, zur Seite stehen, die die Einschätzung teilen, dass das Archiv des Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas der Förderung bedarf und dass es im öffentlichen Kulturbetrieb präsent sein soll. Wir danken folgenden Persönlichkeiten und Institutionen für ihre besondere Unterstützung: Frank Alvarez-Péreyre, Abraham Avi-Hai, Ignatz Bubis, Miriam Conant, Florian Frank, Rüdiger Frohn, Janet Gertz, Maurice Gross, Wilhelm Haferkamp, Joachim Hemmerle, Marvin Herzog, Judith Klavans, Salomon Korn, Heinrich Meyer, Wolf Moskovich, Regina Neumann, Dietrich Oppenberg, Gerhard Pfeiffer-Jäger, Wolfgang Putschke, Helmut Schnelle, Klaus Schütz, Paul Spiegel, Andrew Sunshine, Chava Turniansky. Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung; Columbia Universität, New York; Die Kommission der Europäischen Union; Förderverein für Jiddische Sprache und Kultur e.V. Düsseldorf; Jüdische Gemeinde Düsseldorf; Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen; Stiftung Pressehaus NRZ (Neue Rheinzeitung / Neue Ruhrzeitung); YIVO Institute for Jewish Research New York. EYDES ist nicht ‚fertig’ – technisch nicht, inhaltlich nicht, organisatorisch nicht. Vor allem bleibt die Aufgabe, das Unternehmen in eine Institution zu überführen, die das elektronische Archiv dauerhaft pflegt und kreativ weiterentwickelt. Wir nutzen diese Publikation für einen Appell an die politische Gemeinde in Europa und an die europäische Kulturgemeinde, an der weiteren Entwicklung von EYDES mitzuwirken. Das Bewusstsein vom Jiddischen als Mitgestalter europäischer Kultur über mehr als tausend Jahre hinweg soll den Menschen erhalten bleiben! Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann

Ulrike Kiefer

Zeugnis – wovon und wofür? In Worten Orte finden1

1 Verortung Mit der EYDES-Initiative ist das Archiv des Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas (Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry – LCAAJ) über das Internet zugänglich geworden. Damit eröffnen sich neue Möglichkeiten, den Raum des Jiddischen in Europa nachzuzeichnen. Die in den Dialogen und Narrativen der Zeitzeugen manifeste Sprache wird zum Wegweiser für Ortsbeschreibung und kulturelle Landschaftsbildung, geographisch, linguistisch und sozial gesehen. Von Ort zu Ort erschließt sich der europäische Raum mit Knotenpunkten ehemaligen jiddischsprachigen Gesellschaftslebens. In den Schilderungen individueller Erfahrung konkretisiert und lokalisiert sich eine abstrakt gewordene Zeitgeschichte. Die Eröffnung des elektronischen Jiddischarchivs im Internet fällt in eine Zeit, in der Raum und räumliche Dimension kultureller Prozesse verstärkt wahrgenommen werden. Zunehmend ist ‚Räumlichkeit’ Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Darstellungen und fächerübergreifend wird die Notwendigkeit formuliert, den Raum in den Fokus allgemeiner wissenschaftlicher Praxis und Theoriebildung zu bringen.2 In Anlehnung an ————— 1 2

In Abwandlung zu Aleida Assmanns (2006: 177) durch Ruth Klüger (1992: 94) inspirierter Fügung. Stimuliert durch neuartige Perspektiven in der Geographie finden wir den ‚Raum’ immer häufiger in Titeln vertreten, nicht nur von wissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen wie etwa „The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory,“ „Thirdspace“ (Soja 1989; 1996), „Erinnerungsräume …“ (Assmann 1999), „Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit“ (Schlögel 2003 – ein Friedrich Ratzel-Zitat), „Gedächtnisraum Europa“ (Sznaider 2008) – sondern auch auf der Ebene des lokalen Kulturbetriebs. Ein Beispiel: „LebensRäume – Ein literarischer Streifzug“ und „Stimmungsbild der interkulturellen Stadtgesellschaft“ mit …. verschiedenen Orten als Bühne“ im Mannheimer Stadtviertel Neckarstadt, Mai 2008 (siehe Prospekt „Literatur Sommer 08“, Mannheim).

Ulrike Kiefer

2

den seit Richard Rortys Sammelband von 1967 Epoche machenden Begriff des ‚linguistic turn’ wird in den Humanwissenschaften sogar vom ‚spatial turn’ oder einer topologischen Wende gesprochen.3 Erspüren des Raumes scheint mit Blick auf jiddischsprachige Kultur besonders dringlich. Seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg sind die Koordinaten für ihre Verortung mehr und mehr verlorengegangen. Bei der Mehrheit der europäischen Bürger ist das Bewusstsein von dem in ihrer Mitte herausgebildeten und jahrhundertelang verwurzelten aschkenasischjüdischen Gesellschaftsleben, wenn überhaupt, so nur diffus vorhanden. Krieg und Zerstörung haben die Möglichkeit zur physischen Berührung genommen und das Wissen um dessen Existenz verwischt. Jedoch hat die Wende von 1989 Bewegungsfreiheit gebracht und damit die Chance zu neuer Erkundung, physisch wie gedanklich. Mit dem Fall der Berliner Mauer und der Grenzenöffnung im Herzen Europas erweitert sich zunehmend auch der mentale Horizont und gibt den Blick frei auf einen ‚verlorengegangenen’ Raum mit dessen Geschichte und Gegenwartsbezügen. Sicht ist ohne Suche aber nicht zu haben. Ob von West oder Ost herkommend liegt der offen gewordene Raum dem Betrachter nicht einfach zu Füßen, sondern will im doppelten Sinn ‚erfahren’ werden in seiner derzeitigen Gestalt und historischen Tiefe. Dabei erhöht eine Beschäftigung mit dem europäischen Raum des Jiddischen die Schwierigkeiten der Annäherung, denn in den früheren kulturellen Zentren fehlt die Bevölkerung. Nur mit großer Mühe und unkonventionellem Einsatz sind heutzutage noch Orte ausfindig zu machen, in denen man auf Menschen trifft, die Auskunft geben können.4 Bei der Kontaktsuche im physischen Raum stoßen wir ins Leere und müssen uns ————— 3

4

Vgl. Metzler Lexikon 2008: 424f. Während der Historiker Karl Schlögel seinen Band 2003 der historischen und politischen Kehrtwende zur Räumlichkeit hin widmet, verwahrt er sich gegen die postulierte kategoriale Neuartigkeit dieser Wende (2003: 60f.). Doris Bachmann-Medick, die den „Spatial Turn“ dagegen als eine von sieben grundsätzlichen Neuorientierungen in den Kulturwissenschaften – im Gefolge des durchgreifenden Linguistic Turn – vorstellt, beklagt schon „die inflatorische Rede vom Raum“ (2007: 308). Mit erheblichem Aufwand und Engagement betreiben Dovid Katz und Dov-Ber-Kerler (mit Jeffrey Veidlinger) seit einigen Jahren diese Spurensuche in den symbiotischen Projekten "Expeditions to the Last Shtetl Jews" (http://www.judaicvilnius.com/en/main/ research/expeditions) and "AHEYM - Archives of Historical & Ethnographic Yiddish Memories" (vgl. Kerler 2005). Beide Forscher sind durch familiären Hintergrund und eigenen Lebensweg selbst Zeitzeugen und stehen exemplarisch für den Aufbruch zwischen Ost-West.

Zeugnis – wovon und wofür?

3

gezielt Vorwissen aneignen, um die noch vorhandenen Spuren zu entdecken oder die wenigen noch vorhandenen Ortskundigen ausfindig zu machen.5 Das Zeugnis, das wir durch Menschen eruieren können, die biographisch gesehen selbst noch Verbindung zum genuin europäischen Kulturraum des Jiddischen haben, können wir kaum an Ort und Stelle finden, sondern sind darauf angewiesen, außerhalb des ursprünglichen Jiddisch-Territoriums zu suchen und vornehmlich auch außerhalb Europas. Dieser verlorengegangen physisch-räumlichen Kontinuität eklatant entgegen stehen jedoch die quasi organischen Verbindungen zu Europa, die sich in jiddischer Sprache manifestieren, wo immer sie auftritt. Dabei ist nicht einmal ihre Eigenschaft als lautlich gesehen nächststehende germanische Schwestersprache zum Deutschen angesprochen. Es sind auch nicht die Reflexe der integrativen Vermittlung zwischen Germania und Slawia gemeint, die das Jiddische kennzeichnen.6 Bedeutsamer in diesem Zusammenhang ist das Faktum, dass auch im lange schon außerhalb Europas tradierten Jiddisch noch immer die regionalen Merkmale fassbar sind, die das Herzland des Jiddischen in Europa bis 1939 charakterisiert haben. Ob über Elternteile oder Lehrpersonen vermittelt, wird die mündliche Sprache jeden Sprechers früher oder später zum Beispiel als eher ‚litwakisch,’ ‚ukrainisch’ oder ‚polnisch’ Jiddisch erkennbar und lässt schon durch diese Bezeichnungen die auch im Deutschen in irgendeiner Form damit verknüpften geographischen und politischen Gebilde anklingen.7 Für den Versuch, sich den Raum in der Mitte Europas wieder präsent zu machen, der seit den Verwerfungen des Nationalsozialismus, dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs mit Teilung Europas und der bis 1989 anhaltenden Blockadepolitik aus dem Fokus verdrängt war, hat Jiddisch sozusagen emblematischen Stellenwert. Die Umrisse seines Territoriums umfassen das Zentrum der früheren Ost-West-Blockierung um vieles weitläufiger als das vormals geteilte Deutschland. Aber anders als bei den auf Krieg und Nachkriegszeit folgenden Staaten und Bürgergemeinschaften gibt es für —————

5 6

7

Exemplarisch etwa über das Vilnius Yiddish Institute, das Führungen durch Ortskundige mit einem reichhaltigen Informations- und Studienprogramm verbindet. Dies neben der einzigartigen Integration romanischer Elemente und vor allem hebräischer Schrift und Kulturtradition in einen genuin europäischen Kontext, die für das Jiddische grundlegend sind (dazu zum Beispiel M. Weinreich 1980; Katz 2004; Timm 1987; 2005). Der in Publikationen zum Jiddischen wiederholte Hinweis, dass sich die jiddischen Bezeichnungen von den entsprechenden geopolitischen Designationen in den umgebenden nicht-jüdischen Sprach- und Kulturkontexten unterscheiden, soll hier nicht fehlen.

Ulrike Kiefer

4

jiddischsprachige Kultur keine Verankerung mehr an Ort und Stelle, und wir müssen in verstärktem Maß nach Anhaltspunkten suchen, um uns eine Vorstellung davon zu erschließen. Solche Anhaltspunkte bietet das Archiv des Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas in mehrfacher Weise.

2 Vergegenwärtigung 603 Städte und Orte bilden das räumliche Gerüst, auf denen das Zeugnis von Gewährsleuten beruht, die für den Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas befragt wurden. Ihr Ensemble konstituiert in Grundzügen die Reichweite und Verankerung jiddischer Sprache im Vorkriegseuropa und macht die räumlichen Koordinaten sichtbar, in denen sich jüdisches Gemeindeleben – auf Jiddisch – abspielte.8 Östlicherseits zeichnen sie noch die Umrisse des im zaristischen Russland für Juden vorgegebenen Siedlungsrayons nach. Die Schilderungen der Befragten bieten Schnittstellen zur Vergegenwärtigung einer nur mehr schattenhaft präsenten Wirklichkeit. Der Informationsgehalt der Enquete geht über die Beantwortung des zugrunde gelegten Fragenkomplexes hinaus, allein der akustische Eindruck bringt die Menschen und ihre Sprache nahe. Dem ‚Fleisch und Blut’ der Stimmen möchte man sich nicht entziehen, sie binden die Aufmerksamkeit und laden ein zu vertieftem Zuhören. Auch bei inhaltlich scheinbar weniger ergiebigen Dialogpassagen reizen die Stimmenvielfalt und die akustisch wahrnehmbare Interaktion, sodass unser Interesse an den Akteuren steigt. Man möchte näher an sie herankommen und mehr von ihnen erfahren. Die mündlichen Berichte beflügeln die Vorstellungskraft unmittelbarer als ein gelesener Text. Von Sprecher zu Sprecher belebt sich ein Stück Alltag, wird uns Lebenskontext ‚vor Augen’ geführt. Konkrete Erfahrungen überzeugen und lassen den Hörenden teilhaben, sie machen Erlebnisse vorstellbar und Beobachtungen nachvollziehbar, holen Abwesendes in die Gegenwart hinein. Von daher die „wichtige Funktion, die Zeitzeugen über Jahrzehnte hin im Kontext historisch-politischer Bildung gehabt haben.“9 In den ————— 8

9

Mit der Einschränkung, dass dies für weite Teile des Westjiddischen nur in historischer Tiefe gilt, wo Jiddisch schon Jahrzehnte früher nicht mehr gesprochene Alltagssprache, sondern nur noch in Resten vorhanden war. Zu den westjiddischen Aufnahmen siehe Steven Lowenstein im vorliegenden Band. Ahlheim 2005: 2.

Zeugnis – wovon und wofür?

5

Schilderungen von Ort zu Ort wird die Bandbreite jiddischer Dialekte und Redensgewohnheiten manifest und die Ausprägung unterschiedlicher Lebensgewohnheiten mitteilbar. Im Detail vertieft oder im Überblick wahrgenommen sind uns darin Anhaltspunkte zur Imagination und zum Nachzeichnen von sprachlichen und kulturellen Landschaftsbildungen an die Hand gegeben, mit denen wir den flüchtig gewordenen Lebensraum des Jiddischen in die europäische Gegenwart zurückholen und mit Inhalt füllen können. Gesuchte Örtlichkeit und wieder zu entdeckendes europäisches Gesellschaftsleben können wir uns durch die Redetexte der Gewährsleute nahe bringen lassen, in ihren Worten nach Auskunft über Orte suchen. Das Stimmenensemble des Jiddisch-Archivs bildet eine tragende Komponente bei der Konstitution einer „um den Geschichtsort kreisende[n] Darstellung als [der] am meisten geeignete[n] Form der Vergegenwärtigung von Geschichte.“10 Erkundungen zu jiddischer Kultur als integralem Bestandteil zentraleuropäischen Kulturerbes sind Teil der mentalen Rückgewinnung des seit der Wende offen gewordenen Raums im Herzen Europas. Historiker wie Karl Schlögel sind „der festen Überzeugung, dass die Geschichte dieses Teils Europas sich überhaupt nicht erzählen lässt, ohne sich eingehend mit dem dafür konstitutiven Anteil des Jiddischen und der sogenannten ostjüdischen Kultur zu beschäftigen.“11

3 Vermittlung Verortung und Vergegenwärtigung jiddischsprachigen Lebens in Europa geschehen in EYDES über Sprache, Aufzeichnungen gesprochener Sprache sind das konstitutive Medium bei Erkundungen entlang des jiddischen Atlasarchivs. Der ursprünglich auf Magnetbändern festgehaltene Originalton führt uns in eine Interviewsituation hinein, die so vor 40 bis 50 Jahren stattfand – aber die Unmittelbarkeit der Stimmen verwischt den zeitlichen Abstand zum gegenwärtigen Hören. Wir sind jetzt Zeugen des ————— 10 11

Schlögel 2003: 10. Schlögel 2005 bei der Podiumsdiskussion, EYDES-Tagung Berlin „Jiddisch und die Mitte Europas;” Schlögels Veröffentlichungen sind selbst beredtes Zeugnis dieses Grundsatzes und bestätigen Uriel Weinreichs Feststellung (1963: 17): „The historian cannot fail to note that the economic and cultural tone of a substantial part of Europe would have been different during many centuries if the Christian rural society had not lived symbiotically with Jewish market towns (shtetlekh) in the thousands.“

6

Ulrike Kiefer

damaligen Gesprächs, gehen mit den Interviewern durch die Themen des weitläufigen Fragenkatalogs und lassen unsere Wahrnehmung von den Antworten der Gewährsleute leiten. Der Austausch zwischen Interviewer und einem, manchmal auch mehreren, Interviewten oder hinzukommenden Gesprächsteilnehmern vermittelt uns Kenntnis nicht nur durch die Gesprächsinhalte. Die Sprache selbst wird Inhalt und Indiz. Art und Weise der mündlichen Rede und der jeweilige Kontext bieten ein breites Spektrum an Anhaltspunkten. Die verbale Interaktion zwischen Interviewer und Proband wirft Licht auf fundamentale Komponenten der Sprache selbst und liefert über stimmliche und sprachliche Merkmale Hinweise auf die Verortung des Sprechers oder der Sprecherin, individuell, aber auch geographisch und sozial gesehen. Der sprachliche Ausdruck positioniert sie und den Ort, für den sie stehen, in den Koordinaten des Jiddischen. Auch Art und Weise des zugrunde liegenden Fragebuchs selbst geben Auskunft.12 Seine Anlage, Auswahl und Schwerpunktsetzung spiegeln Etappen in Wissenschaftsprozessen zur Zeit seiner Entstehung. Nach welchen Kriterien wird Information erfragt, welchen Details wird nachgegangen und vor welchem Hintergrund?13 Hier schließen sich Fragen nach der Umsetzung im tatsächlichen Interview an: Wieweit definiert oder dominiert das Fragebuch die stattfindende Befragung? In wieweit nehmen die Exploratoren Einfluss? Welche Faktoren bestimmen die Interaktion zwischen Interviewer und

————— 12

Der ostjiddische Questionnaire wurde 1961 für die dann folgenden Atlas-Erhebungen festgelegt (späterhin noch in manchen Details modifiziert und ergänzt). Die Redaktion der westjiiddischen (erheblich kürzeren) Questionnaires erfolgte erst einige Jahre später, nach 1965 (siehe LCAAJ I, 1992: 6). Die Questionnaires sind publiziert in LCAAJ II, 1995: *9– *87; alle Fragen sind mit zusätzlicher Indexierung zugänglich unter http://www.eydes.de/ index/FB/FB-list.html. 13 Die Konzeption von Questionnaires ist in der Zwischenzeit erheblich weiterentwickelt worden, wie der Blick in einschlägige Literatur, aber auch ins Internet zeigt (siehe etwa die Serie zugeschneiderter Questionnaires für sprachtypologische Erhebungen des Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, unter http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/ tools-at-lingboard/questionnaires.php). Aus heutiger Perspektive wäre eine wissenschaftshistorische und methodenkritische Einordnung des Atlas-Fragebuchs wünschenswert und könnte dessen Auswirkungen auf Exploratoren und Erhebungen in den 1960er Jahren näher bestimmen helfen (siehe auch im folgenden).

Zeugnis – wovon und wofür?

7

Proband oder Probandin? Worauf beruhen unvorhergesehene Redepassagen und wodurch sind sie motiviert?14 Sprache ist in EYDES aber zugleich Medium der Technik und Tor zum Ton. In Schrift umgesetzt und entsprechend kodiert dient uns die Sprache der dokumentierten Interviews als Recherche-Instrument und vermittelt Zugang zu den Redepassagen. Eine linguistisch-informatische Bearbeitung der akustischen Daten ist Grundvoraussetzung für die Nutzung der Archivinhalte. Durch sie entstehen aus akustischen Signalen die sprachlichen Zeiger, mit denen die Interviewinhalte erschlossen werden können im doppelten Sinn, thematisch und instrumentell gesehen. Umgesetzt als alphabetisierte Bildschirmliste von Wörtern in Koppelung mit aktivierbaren Links zum Ton in den jeweiligen Interviewkontext hinein vermitteln sie uns inhaltliche Ansatzpunkte, liefern Suchkriterien zur Auswahl und ermöglichen gezielten Zugriff auf gesuchte Tonpassagen. Anhaltspunkte für zu erwartende Interviewinhalte werden auch durch die Themen des Questionnaires vermittelt, die aufgrund entsprechender linguistisch-informatischer Bearbeitung über die jeweilige Fragenummer als inhaltliche Pfade in den Originalton dienen können. Die themenorientierte Befragung erlaubt eine inhaltliche Auswahl und den Vergleich der Meldungen untereinander. Die festgelegten Fragestellungen geben eine Richtschnur für die Themenfolge im Gang des Interviews an die Hand und lassen auf bestimmte Gesprächsinhalte schließen. Allerdings gilt dies nur mit Einschränkung, denn vorauszusehen ist nur die Fragestellung durch die Interviewer,15 nicht die Art ihrer Beantwortung durch die Befragten. Vor allem sind keine der individuellen Reaktionen oder spontanen Kommentare im voraus zu erahnen. Vom Fragenkatalog her ist nicht abzusehen, welche Assoziationskette sich im tatsächlichen Interview an die festliegende Frage reiht, welcher aus ————— 14

„Linguists and ethnographers have long since come to recognize that the fieldworker is not a neutral presence, and much less a neutral medium of recording, transmitting, and interpreting data. But rarely has the fieldworker’s influence on the interviewing process and on the data and their interpretation been studied to discover whether there are significant patterns in his or her behavior or interpretations“ (Sunshine in LCAAJ II, 1995: 9). Zwei der an den Atlas-Erhebungen beteiligten Interviewer kommentieren ihre Erfahrungen im vorliegenden Band (Steven Lowenstein und Rosaline Schwartz). Da insgesamt 18 Exploratoren beteiligt waren (LCAAJ II, 1995: 80/82) bieten sich hier gute Möglichkeiten zu einer vergleichenden Studie. 15 Auch dies nur in ungefähr, denn die adhoc-Frage kann sich von der im Fragenkatalog festgelegten unterscheiden.

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8

dem Augenblick stimulierte Dialog sich womöglich anschließt, ob zusätzliche Themenstellungen aufkommen und wann und wo Probanden eventuell aus freien Stücken erzählen. Solch freie Rede, weitgehend unbeeinflusst von vorbestimmten Auslöseimpulsen, ist für viele Untersuchungsansätze linguistischer und narratologischer Art besonders wertvoll, aber auch unter allgemeineren Gesichtspunkten, etwa als historisches oder anthropologisches Zeugnis. Beim Zugriff auf die Tondateien des Archivs über den Fragenkatalog oder gar über die nur zeitlich gerasterten Segmente der Tonaufnahmen (das EYDES „Zeitskeleton“) sind freie Interviewsequenzen nur per Zufall im Redekontext auffindbar. Um spontane Äußerungen und situativ bedingte Gesprächsanteile lokalisieren zu können, bedarf es intensiverer sprachtechnischer Bearbeitung, und eine Verschriftung jeden Interviews und dessen linguistisch-informatische Aufbereitung zu inhaltlichen Suchindexen ist unerlässliche Voraussetzung.

4 Rückkoppelung und Perspektiven Mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert liegen zwischen Uriel Weinreichs erstem Entwurf zur Schaffung einer repräsentativen Sammlung des europäischen Jiddisch und dem jetzt über das Internet zugänglich gewordenen elektronischen Archiv. Die Dokumentation ist mit dem Schwinden der Informanten-Generation und der zunehmenden ‚Nachmuttersprachlichkeit’ rares Zeugnis geworden.16 Der radikale Umbruch seit der deutschen Vernichtungspolitik und dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zeitigt seine Folgen. Die heutzutage in Amerika, Israel oder anderswo beheimateten Nachkommen der Überlebenden und Emigranten aus Europa können sich die räumlichen Koordinaten, aus denen ihre Eltern- und Großelterngenerationen stammen, nur mit Mühe zurückrufen. Wissen über europäisches Jiddisch ist in unserer Zeit nur mit Anstrengung und allenfalls stückweiser Annäherung zu gewinnen, als „excercise in memory“ (Shandler 2006: 42) und weit ab von ————— 16

Shandler (2006) prägte den Ausdruck von der „postvernacularity;“ siehe auch Shandlers Beitrag im vorliegenden Band. Muttersprachliche Sprachträger sind heutzutage meist nachfolgende Generationen chassidischer Gruppierungen – mit der ihnen eigenen Sprachprägung und Haltung der Sprache gegenüber und an säkularer Kultur kaum interessiert. Nur in seltenen Fällen entstammen sie noch dem ursprünglichen europäischen Jiddischraum oder sind dort gar angesiedelt, vgl. die oben in Anm. 4 zitierten neuen Feldstudien zu Jiddischsprechern in Osteuropa im östlichen Europa.

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der in den 1950er Jahren noch verbreiteten selbstverständlichen Kenntnis. Das Atlas-Archiv mit dem unmittelbaren Ton der Stimmen liefert ein Medium, das diese Annäherung sowohl intuitiv als auch reflektiv befördern kann. Hatten Weinreichs erste Pläne noch an frühere Vorstellungen von einem jiddischen Sprachatlas nach deutschem und französischem Modell angeknüpft,17 so trat in der Folge die Dringlichkeit zu einer umfassenderen Dokumentation immer deutlicher hervor. „The opportunity for direct linguistic and ethnographic study of European Jewry is … rapidly slipping from us,” betont Uriel Weinreich 1962(a: 27). Mit dem Bewusstsein von den radikal veränderten Ausgangsbedingungen wuchs das Bedürfnis zu substantielleren Formen der Repräsentation, über eine nur kartographische Darstellung ausgewählter Sprachphänomene hinaus. Die dann bei der Enquete mitgeführten Aufnahmegeräte trugen diesem Bedürfnis Rechnung und bezeugten die ‚Vielfarbigkeit und Reichhaltigkeit regionaler Sprachprägung’ im Jiddischen (Weinreich 1960: 47 = LCAAJ II: *2) auch akustisch, im Kontext tatsächlicher Gespräche. So haben wir nicht nur Karten auf dem Papier, sondern können einer Stimme anhören, ob sie der Herkunft nach eher nordöstlich oder zentraljiddisch anzusiedeln ist und registrieren spontan eventuelle Unterschiede zu dialektalen Merkmalen der Interviewerfragen. Wir haben nicht nur die auf sprachliche Besonderheiten verweisenden Notizen der Exploratoren, sondern können uns aus den Tonaufnahmen selbst Information erschließen, in mehrfacher Richtung und mit selbst gewählter Gewichtung. Seit Aufkommen der Sprach- oder Dialektgeographie vor fast 150 Jahren18 als Teildisziplin der sich rasch entwickelnden Dialektologie, ist ihr kulturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisgewinn zunehmend evident geworden, vor allem im Verbund mit der seit dem letzten Jahrhundert so zentralen modernen Linguistik. Dialektdefinition ist dabei grundlegend im doppelten Sinn, systemhaft wie geographisch oder sozial gesehen. Festgestellte Kontraste oder Übergänge auf den verschiedenen sprachlichen Ebenen – ————— 17

Siehe den Beitrag von Bina und Uriel Weinreich im vorliegenden Band; Weinreich habe den Traum seines Vaters Max von einem jiddischen Sprachatlas nach deutschem Vorbild zu seinem eigenen gemacht, stellt Mikhl Herzog 1992 fest (LCAAJ I: VII). Max Weinreich hatte bis 1923 seine Dissertationsstudien in Marburg absolviert, dem Zentrum des deutschsprachigen Atlasunternehmens und mit Betreuung durch Ferdinand Wrede. 18 Im Gefolge der ersten Forschungsunternehmen in Deutschland mit Georg Wenker und Ferdinand Wrede und in Frankreich mit Jules Gilliéron.

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lautlich, grammatisch, lexikalisch –, die Ausschlag geben für eine Verbreitung oder den Bruch in sprachlicher Kontinuität, werden zu Indizien für die Auswirkungen sozialer Faktoren und Vorgänge im gesellschaftlichen Umfeld. Ob intern bedingt oder durch kontaktsprachliche Einwirkung angestoßen, immer reflektiert dialektale Variation auch historische Abläufe, manifestieren sich in der räumlichen Verbreitung von sprachlichen Oppositionen auch zeitliche Relationen.19 An vorderster Front in der linguistischen Auseinandersetzung um eine tragfähige Definition des sprachlichen Systems und einen Variationsbegriff, der die Funktion sprachlicher Einheiten nicht außer Acht lässt, plädierte Uriel Weinreich vor mehr als fünfzig Jahren für eine „strukturelle Dialektologie.“ Sein „programmatischer Aufsatz von 1954“ (Löffler 2003: 130) „Is a Structural Dialectology Possible?“ (U. Weinreich 1954) erregte Aufsehen und erwies ihn als „glänzenden Theoretiker der Linguistik und Pionier der strukturellen und mehrsprachigen Dialektologie“ (Katz 1983: 1020). Mit zielsicherem Blick für die Schwächen einer Systemtheorie, die per definitionem auf Uniformität setzt, und die Unzulänglichkeiten dialektologischer Differenzierung, die dialektunterscheidende Merkmale ohne Beachtung der strukturellen Position im dialektalen (Sub-)System definieren will, hat Weinreich eine neue, systematischere Richtung in der Dialektologie, besser Varietätenlinguistik, begründet.20 Die aktuelle Diskussion des Diasystem-Begriffs durch den ehemaligen WeinreichSchüler William Labov im vorliegenden Band zeigen, wie tragfähig Weinreichs innovativer Ansatz auch für die derzeitige Linguistik noch ist. Indirekt formulierte Weinreich damit auch die theoretischen und methodischen Vorgaben für das eigene Atlas-Unternehmen, von dem ————— 19

In der Dialektologie ‚liest’ man, um mit Friedrich Ratzel oder Karl Schlögel zu sprechen, seit langem schon ‚die Zeit im Raum’ (siehe oben Anmerkung 3) und erklärt „das Sprachbild der Gegenwart genetisch-dynamisch, [erschließt] aus räumlicher Lagerung zeitliche Schichtung [...] und [erhellt] durch Rückprojektion von der Gegenwart aus die Vergangenheit“ (Grober-Glück 1982: 99f.). Aus Sprachkarten lese man nicht nur eine heutige Situation heraus, sondern auch einen Prozess betont Uriel Weinreich in seinem Memorandum 1950 (im vorliegenden Band, S. *2). 20 Es ging Weinreich ausdrücklich um eine 'Dialektologie' im weitesten Sinn, sowohl geographisch wie sozial, sowohl synchron wie diachron. Der Aufsatz von 1954 wurde später auf Spanisch übersetzt und erschien 1966 mit einem von Weinreich vorbereiteten Zusatz („Postscript“), in dem er auf inzwischen erfolgte Entwicklungen hinweist und die Dissertation Labovs von 1964 (Labov 1966) als Beispiel für eine erstmalige soziale Dialektologie hervorhebt (Weinreich 1966, Punkt 4).

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Marvin Herzog 1992 (LCAAJ I: 2) feststellte: „Perhaps for the first time, a dialect atlas was designed in full conformity with the structural principles of phonological and grammatical description, and guided by structuralist principles in its organization of lexical and ethnographic material.“ Die Originaldaten des Archivs werden in umfassenderem und verlässlicherem Maß als indirekt vermittelte Einzelkriterien dazu dienen können, den Rahmen für die Variation der im Jiddischen manifesten dialektalen Subsysteme zu konstituieren. Der direkte Zugang zur tatsächlichen Sprache macht Ausgangspunkt und Befund solcher Studien transparent und nachvollziehbar. Untersuchungen zum Jiddischen haben gezeigt, dass die Dialektlandschaft des Jiddischen besonders reizvoll ist durch ihr weitläufiges Terrain und das Zusammenspiel mit den vielen Sprachen und Dialekten, mit denen sie im Laufe der Zeit ihr Gebiet geteilt hat, insbesondere Deutsch, Polnisch, Ukrainisch, Weißrussisch.21 „The study of dialectological developments in consistently bilingual speech communities“ bezeichnete Uriel Weinreich schon 1952 (360) als eines der verlockendsten linguistischen Aufgabenfelder. Jiddisch bietet sich wie kaum eine andere Sprache an für ‚geographische Studien zweier Sprachen auf demselben Gebiet,’ mit denen man den ‚Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschieden in der Organisation des europäischen Kulturraums durch jüdische und nicht-jüdische Gesellschaftsgruppen nachgehen’ kann (U. Weinreich 1962 b: 9). Dass die Weitläufigkeit des Jiddisch-Terrains zum Beispiel relativ großräumige Dialektgliederungen aufweist, also Überregionalität eine weitaus stärkere Rolle spielt als im viel kleineren Sprachgebiet des Deutschen etwa, ist eine erstaunliche Eigenheit des Jiddischen und öffnet den Blick für die Besonderheiten im Gang seiner Entwicklung und Geschichte.22 —————

21

In Ausbreitung, zeitlicher Dauer und vielseitigem Kontakt sei Jiddisch ein linguistischer ‚Musterfall,’ konstatiert Uriel Weinreich 1950 (veröffentlicht im vorliegenden Band, dort Abschnitt II: *5) und zählt 13 Sprachen auf, die mit dem Jiddischen in einem ‚Konstrat’Verhältnis standen. Siehe auch die Grundkarte in http://www.eydes.de/index/ LCAAJMap.html und in den drei LCAAJ-Bänden; LCAAJ II: 83f., Map 3 „Coterritorial Languages,“ veranschaulicht die Antworten der Probanden auf Frage 001.040 nach der Sprache der nichtjüdischen Bevölkerung. 22 Die erstaunliche „systemhafte Einheitlichkeit [...] angesichts der riesigen Ausdehnung des historischen Sprachraums“ stellt Katz (1983: 1018) für das Jiddische heraus; Beranek (1965: 1) zitiert die „Tendenz des Jiddischen zur Großräumigkeit;“ dem Westjiddischen bescheinigt Timm (1987: 417f.) großflächige Gliederung und, statt Diversifizierung, einen Prozess relativen geographischen Ausgleichs im Gegensatz zum Deutschen.

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Fokussierung auf mehrsprachige Dialektologie und die ‚geographische Differenzierung in koterritorialen Gesellschaften’ war zentrales Anliegen der Atlas-Initiative.23 Der Zugang zu den ungefilterten Sprachaufzeichnungen erweitert um vieles die Untersuchungsmöglichkeiten landschaftsbedingter Variation und kontaktsprachlicher Effekte. Aus der breit gefächerten Evidenz der Sprache in den Tonzeugnissen lassen sich Bausteine für kontrastierende Studien zwischen Jiddisch und den auf selbem Gebiet angesiedelten Sprachen und Dialekten festmachen, um die historisch gewachsenen Gesellschaftsräume nachzuzeichnen.24 Die Beobachtung von Dialekten ist von jeher mit der Frage nach dem Verhältnis zu einem gegebenen Sprachstandard verbunden. Worin und wie weit unterscheiden sich dialektal geprägte Aussprachen von der oder den entsprechenden Hoch- oder Standardlautungen, welche Unterschiede zur geschriebenen Sprache lassen sich im Lexikon und in der Grammatik feststellen, welche Stilebenen gibt es und vieles mehr? Solche und ähnliche Fragen stellen sich für das Jiddische auf sehr eigene Weise, nachdem die schrift- und standardlichen Prägungen, die die Sprache im Laufe ihrer Entwicklung zeitigte, sich immer ohne Hilfe vonseiten einer Staatsgewalt durchzusetzen wussten. Ohne die tragende Rolle des Hebräischen und der auch im Alltagsleben zentralen Stellung des Schriftenkanons – im Original tradiert und durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch weiterentwickelt – wäre dies kaum denkbar gewesen.25 Bis in die Moderne hinein war nach schriftlicher und mündlicher Funktion sprachlichen Umgangs unterschieden worden und Jiddisch traditionellerweise der gesprochenen Kommunikation vorbehalten gewesen, gegenüber dem Hebräischen für schriftliche und dokumentarische Zwecke. Bei der in jüdischer Kultur so bedeutenden Stellung der Lehr- und Lerntradition hatte – und hat weiterhin – die Interaktion zwischen Originaltext auf Hebräisch oder Aramäisch (Bibel, Talmud, kanonische —————

23

Die Atlas-Erhebungen wurden unter der Bezeichnung „Geographic Differentiation in Coterritorial Societies“ durchgeführt und gefördert; an Weinreichs Arbeiten lässt sich sein zentraler Fokus auf Mehrsprachigkeit hin deutlich ablesen (vgl. Herzog, LCAAJ I: VIII und 1-2). 24 Genauer gesagt richtet sich der Blick dabei auf die früher bestehende jiddische Kultur. 25 ‚Hebräisch’ dient hier als Entsprechung zum jiddischen Begriff loshn-koydesh ‚Sprache des Geheiligten’ und umfasst die unterschiedlichen Prägungen des Hebräischen selbst (biblisches, rabbinisches etc.) aber auch die in der schriftlichen Tradition verwendeten Formen des Aramäischen.

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Literatur allgemein) und mündlicher Paraphrase, Textdiskussion und Kommentierung in der jeweils gesprochenen Alltagssprache zentrales Gewicht.26 Wie entscheidend diese interne Mehrsprachigkeit und der Verbund von Text und Diskussion für die Prägung des Jiddischen und den Sprachgebrauch seiner Träger war, ist seit den letzten fünfzig Jahren wiederholt unterstrichen worden.27 Das Verhältnis von Schrift und Mündlichkeit im Jiddischen ist ein grundsätzlich anderes als in anderen europäischen Sprachen, auch wenn sich historisch gesehen beim Gang der Alphabetisierung durchaus Parallelen zum Verhältnis Latein und Landessprache etwa zeigen. Das jiddische Schriftsystem, aus der ursprünglichen Konsonantenschrift des Hebräischen abgeleitet und in europäischer Weise phonetisch adaptiert, war von Anfang an in viel stärkerem Maß in der Lage, dialektale Differenzen zu subsumieren, als dies im Deutschen etwa der Fall sein konnte. Es nimmt unter diesen Umständen nicht Wunder, dass jiddische Dialekte auf mündlicher Ebene auch bildungssprachlich bis in die Gegenwart hinein ihren Einfluss behaupten. Der jetzige Zugang zu den Archivaufnahmen macht es möglich, gesprochene Sprache mit geschriebenem Zeugnis zu vergleichen. Man kann darauf gespannt sein zu sehen, in wieweit die Grundzüge interner —————

26

Als Metamorphose desselben Phänomens vor englischsprachigem Hintergrund kann „Frumspeak“ oder „Yeshivish“ gelten, zu dem Chaim (Jonathan) Weiser 1995 ‚das erste Wörterbuch’ publizierte und es beschrieb als Sprech- und Kommunikationsmodus an jüdischen Hochschulen in Nordamerika, derer sich die Studenten ganz in der Tradition der Amoraim (antike Gelehrte und Schöpfer der Gemara-Komponente des Talmud) bedienten, um ein effektives Studium (jiddisch-jüdisches Lernen) zu befördern: ein „task-oriented amalgam of languages“; “…the casual observer recognizes Yeshivish as English laced with Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic words“ – durchaus mit Unterschieden zwischen amerikanischem Englisch allgemein und den englischen Elementen des ‚Jeschiwischen’' (Weiser 1995=2004: xv-xvi). 27 Der Begriff der internen Zweisprachigkeit („ineveynikste yidishe tsveyshprakhikeyt“) geht zurück auf M. Weinreich (1959; 1973, I: 251-320); von Fishman (1967) in Abwandlung zu Ferguson (1959) als Diglossie bezeichnet. Den „internal Jewish trilingualism“ (mit Aramäisch neben Hebräisch) stellt Katz (2004: 45-77) heraus. Shmeruk (1988: 11-49) betont das jahrhundertelange Nischendasein jiddischer Literatur, die gegenüber der auf Hebräisch basierten Schriftlichkeit nur sozusagen gegen den Strich entstehen konnte. Die sich aus externer und interner Mehrsprachigkeit entfaltenden semiotischen Prozesse im sprachlichen Handeln leuchtet Harshav (1990) aus und umreißt die sich daraus ergebenden Eigenheiten jiddischer Literatur in der Moderne (siehe dazu auch im folgenden und Harshavs Beitrag im vorliegenden Band).

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Mehrsprachigkeit in der interaktiven Mündlichkeit des Archivs zur Sprache kommen und welche Charakteristika gegenüber schriftlichen Texten hervortreten. Mit den recherchierbaren Aufnahmen im elektronischen Archiv haben wir einen Referenzpunkt beim Vergleich zwischen realem Diskurs und der fiktiven Mündlichkeit, der in jiddischer Literatur eine so zentrale Rolle zukommt. Jiddisch sei in einzigartiger Weise in der Lage gewesen, plausible fiktive Welten aus Alltagsgesprächen zu erschaffen, betont Benjamin Harshav. Der Impetus jiddisch-säkularer Literatur und Aufbruch in die Moderne kam zustande, indem Autoren wie Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh oder Scholem Aleichem die Eigenheiten der Sprache und spezifische ‚Semiotik jiddischer Kommunikation’ bewusst einsetzten zur Kreation einer Welt „rich in talking and free-associating and relating any small event to a universe of collective wisdom and texts“ (Harshav 1990: 154). Durchweg dialogisch stellen dabei Durchschnittsmenschen und Alltagsprotagonisten sich und ihre Weltsicht in mehrsprachig verwobener Gesprächigkeit dar und nehmen in einem Mosaik von eingebetteten Geschichten und assoziativen Verweisen, quasi in der Tradition jüdischer Schriftexegese, indirekt Bezug auf die Diskrepanz zwischen äußerer Lebenssituation und kulturintern gepflegten Idealen. Die Frage wäre, ob Strukturelemente der literarisch geformten Mündlichkeit in den Redepassagen des Atlas-Archivs erkennbar sind. Darüber hinaus stellen sich Fragen nach den Grundzügen jiddischen Diskurses im allgemeinen. Welche Merkmale und kommunikativen Funktionen lassen sich herauskristallisieren und zu welchen narratologischen Erkenntnissen, sei es unter linguistischen oder literaturwissenschaftlichen Aspekten, können die Interviews beitragen? Hier sind sicherlich die vom Fragebuch gelösten Dialoge und spontanen Erzählsegmente besonders relevant. Desweiteren wäre zu fragen, ob sich in der mündlichen Sprache eventuelle Unterschiede zwischen weiblichen und männlichen Probanden festmachen lassen? Finden Unterschiede, die auf divergierende kulturelle und religiöse Identifikationen zurückzuführen sind, einen sprachlichen Niederschlag? Manifestiert sich zum Beispiel ein familiär eher orthodoxer Hintergrund von Probanden auch sprachlich gegenüber einem chassidischen? Gibt es sprachliche Charakteristika bei Sprechern mit eher säkularer Ausrichtung? Zweifellos ist der biographische Bruch im Leben der Befragten auch sprachlich spürbar. Nach der Flucht aus Europa beinhaltete die Verankerung

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15

in einer neuen Umgebung ja die Umstellung auf eine neue Landessprache, mehrheitlich Englisch in den USA oder Hebräisch in Israel. Die rund zwei Jahrzehnte, die zwischen Kriegsende und den von New York aus organisierten Atlas-Befragungen liegen, haben in der Sprache der Probanden ihre Spuren hinterlassen, und die neuen Kontaktsprachen machen ihren Einfluss auf das muttersprachliche Jiddisch geltend. Gewissermaßen nolens volens dokumentiert das Archiv nicht nur die Sprache der bezeugten europäischen Orte, sondern zugleich Jiddisch im Kontakt mit den Sprachen der neuen Heimat. Die Aufzeichnung der Stimmen auf Magnetband in den 1960er Jahren bietet nicht nur die erstrebte Evidenz für alle linguistischen und ethnographischen Fragestellungen, die die damalige Atlas-Initiative stimulierten und uns heute noch bewegen. Die Bedeutung des entstehenden ‚Archivs des gesprochenen Jiddisch’ werde, so Uriel Weinreich (1960: 57 = 1995: *7) um ein Vielfaches ansteigen. Seiner Weitsicht verdanken wir ein Repositorium, das neuen Perspektiven offensteht und auch für Gewichtungen relevant ist, die in der ursprünglichen Konzeption noch nicht vorgesehen waren. Dazu gehört, neben manchen der oben angeführten Untersuchungsansätzen, zum Beispiel auch die Möglichkeit zu korpuslinguistischen Studien.28 Neuartige technologische Entwicklungen haben eine Aufbereitung des Tons ermöglicht, mit der wir das flüchtige akustische Ereignis zurückrufen können. Damit bietet das elektronische Archiv eine neuartige Ausgangsbasis für linguistische Untersuchungen aller Art, sei es mit eher systemtheoretischer, variationsanalytischer, kontextanalytischer oder kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Ausrichtung. Über das speziell linguistische Interesse hinaus eröffnet die Metamorphose des Originalarchivs zu einem elektronischen Repositorium weitgefächerte Perspektiven. Der neuartige mediale Zugang zu Archivinhalten und Originalton wird komplementiert durch die um ein Vielfaches erweiterte Zugänglichkeit der Sammlung von außen her. Über die an der New Yorker Columbia Universität einsehbaren Originalaufzeichnungen hinaus haben Interessierte nun universell und vom individuellen Schreibtisch aus die Möglichkeit, sich das Archiv zu erschließen. Es gibt keine Schwellen oder Barrieren, und die Richtungen und Pfade, auf denen sich ‚Besucher’ durch den Archivraum bewegen können, sind eigen gesteuert und durch ihre Kombinierbarkeit praktisch unbegrenzt. Planlose —————

28

Siehe dazu die Ausführungen in dem Beitrag von Kiefer/Neumann im vorliegenden Band.

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Annäherung ist ebenso ‚erlaubt’ wie zielgerichtete Interessen, laienhafte Neugier ebenso legitim wie respektable Forschungsaspekte. Die mediale Aufbereitung eröffnet darüber hinaus neue Möglichkeiten zum Austausch über die Archivinhalte. Wegweisende Verzeigerung, gezieltes Ansteuern relevanter Tonsequenzen und ihre allgemein mögliche Abrufbarkeit machen gewonnene Beobachtungen und recherchierte Ergebnisse überprüf- und nachvollziehbar. Mit den Verweismöglichkeiten und der ubiquitären Recherchierbarkeit steht auch der Kommunikation zu gemeinsamen Studienzwecken die Tür offen und lässt potentiell partizipieren an andernorts stattfindenden Untersuchungsprozessen.29 Eine Vorstellung von dem in Europa verloren gegangenen Jiddischraum ist ohne Fakten und Indizien nicht zu gewinnen. Aber auch dokumentierte Realitäten bedürfen der intuitiven Imagination und reflektiven Wahrnehmung, um im gesellschaftlichen Leben wirksam zu sein. Die Stimmen dieses Archivs bieten einen Leitfaden für eine suchende Rückbesinnung. Die Unmittelbarkeit ihrer Rede kann die Sprachlosigkeit über das Ausmaß der Zerstörung aufbrechen, indem sie Momente der Fülle jiddischsprachigen Lebens vor Augen führt. Der EYDES-Initiative und Arbeit am Archiv des Language and Culture Atlas liegt die Überzeugung zugrunde, dass europäische Visionen der Gegenwart durch die Wahrnehmung jüdischer Stimmen und die Einbeziehung jüdischer Erfahrung Entscheidendes zu gewinnen haben.30

Bibliographie Ahlheim, Klaus 2005 Jiddisch als Gegenstand politisch-historischen Lernens. Exposé zur Podiumsdiskussion bei der EYDES-Tagung in Berlin, 28.-29. April 2005, http://www.eydes.de/conference.html.

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Es ist zu hoffen, dass für den Ausbau des elektronischen Archivs durch Aufarbeitung der noch nicht transkribierten Tonaufnahmen, Einrichtung neuer Recherchepfade und Implementierung weiterer Untersuchungsinstrumente sowie Erweiterung der Kommunikationsfähigkeiten die notwendige Finanzierung eingeworben werden kann. 30 Vgl. dazu die „Tischrede“ von Klaus Schütz zur Eröffnung des elektronischen AtlasArchivs in Berlin, April 2005, http://www.eydes.de/berlin/dinner/Tischrede-Schuetz.html.

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Assmann, Aleida 1999 = 2006 Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, 3. Aufl., München (C.H. Beck). Bachmann-Medick, Doris 2006 Cultural Turns. Neuorientierungen in den Kulturwissenschaften, Reinbek, Rowohlt. Beranek, Franz J. 1965 Westjiddischer Sprachatlas. Marburg (N.G. Elwert). Dialektologie 1982/1983 Ein Handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialektforschung, Werner Besch/Ulrich Knoop/Wolfgang Putschke/Herbert Ernst Wiegand (Hgg.), 2 Halbbände, Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter). Fishman, Joshua 1967 Bilingualism with and without Diglossia; Diglossia with and without Bilingualism. In: Journal of Social Issues 23: 29–38. Harshav, Benjamin 1990 The Meaning of Yiddish. Berkeley (University of California Press). Katz, Dovid 1983 Zur Dialektologie des Jiddischen. In: Dialektologie, 2. Halbband, 1018-1041. Katz, Dovid 2004 Words on Fire. The Unfinished Story of Yiddish, New York (Basic Books). Kerler, Dov-Ber 2005 EYDES and Contemporary Fieldwork in Yiddish Ethnography and Dialectology. Exposé (mit Appendix) zur Podiumsdiskussion bei der EYDES-Tagung in Berlin, 28.-29. April 2005: http://www.eydes.de/Kerler.pdf. Klüger, Ruth 1992 weiter leben [!]. Eine Jugend, Göttingen (Wallstein). Labov, William 1966 The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C. (Center for Applied Linguistics). Löffler, Heinrich 2003 Dialektologie. Eine Einführung, Tübingen (Gunter Narr). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Rorty, Richard 1967 The Linguistic Turn. Essays in Philosophical Method, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Metzler Lexikon 2008 Literatur- und Kulturtheorie. Ansätze – Personen – Grundbegriffe, Ansgar Nünning (Hg.), 4. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage, Stuttgart/Weimar (J. B. Metzler). (Darin: „Linguistic turn“ von Klaus Stierstorfer).

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Schlögel, Karl 2003 = 2007 Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit. Über Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik, München/Wien (Carl Hanser); 2. Aufl., Frankfurt am Main (Fischer Taschenbuch). Schlögel, Karl 2005 Podiumsdiskussion "Jiddisch und die Mitte Europas", EYDES-Tagung Berlin, 28.-29. April 2005: http://www.eydes.de/conference.html. Shandler, Jeffery 2006 Adventures in Yiddishland. Postvernacular Language and Culture, Berkeley (University of California Press). Shmeruk, Chone 1988 Prokim fun der yidisher literatur-geshikhte. Tel Aviv (I.L. Peretz). Soja, Edward 1989 Postmodern Geographies. The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, London, Verso Press. Sznaider, Natan 2008 Gedächtnisraum Europa. Die Visionen des europäischen Kosmopolitismus. Eine jüdische Perspektive, Bielefeld (transcript Verlag). Timm, Erika 1987 Graphische und Phonische Struktur des Westjiddischen. Unter besonderer Berücksich tigung der Zeit um 1600. Tübingen (Max Niemeyer). Timm, Erika 2005 Historische jiddische Semantik. Die Bibelübersetzungssprache als Faktor der Auseinanderentwicklung des jiddischen und des deutschen Wortschatzes. Unter Mitarbeit von Gustav Adolf Beckmann, Tübingen (Max Niemeyer). Weinreich, Max 1923/1993 Studien zur Geschichte und dialektischen Gliederung der jiddischen Sprache. Erster Teil: Geschichte und gegenwärtiger Stand der jiddischen Sprachforschung. Marburg (Inaugural Diss.). Mit einer Einleitung publiziert als „Geschichte der jiddischen Sprachforschung [von] Max Weinreich,“ Jerold Fakes (ed.), Atlanta (Scholars Press) 1993. M. Weinreich 1959 Ineveynikste tsveyshprakhikeyt in ashkenaz biz der haskole: faktn un bagrifn. In: Di goldene keyt 35: 3–11. Weinreich, Max 1973/1980/2008 Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh. 4 Bde., New York (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut YIVO ). History of the Yiddish Language, translated by Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman, Chicago/London (The University of Chicago Press) [englische Übersetzung der ersten zwei Originalbände]. History of the Yiddish Language, Paul Glasser (ed.), translated by Shlomo Noble, with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman, and Paul Glasser, 2 vols., New Haven/London (Yale University Press). Weinreich, Uriel 1954/1966 Is a Structural Dialectology Possible? In: Word 10: 388-40. Spanische Übersetzung mit einem neuen „Postscript“ von U. Weinreich in: Cuadernos del Instituto Linguistica Latinoamericano 14, Montevideo (Universidad de la Republica, Faculdad de Humanidades y Ciencias, Departamento de Linguistica) 1966: 38-43.

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Weinreich, Uriel 1960 = 1995 Vegn a nayem yidishn shprakh- un kultur-atlas. In: Di goldene keyt 37: 47-57; Nachdruck in LCAAJ II: *2–*7. Weinreich, Uriel 1962(a) Culture Geography at a Distance: Some Problems in the Study of East European Jewry. In: W.L. Chafe (ed.), Symposium on Language and Culture, Proceedings of the Annual Spring Meeting of he American Ethnological Society, Seattle, 27-39. Weinreich, Uriel 1962(b) Multilingual Dialectology and the New Yiddish Atlas. In: Anthropological Linguistics 4: 6-22. Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Mapping a Culture. In: Columbia University Forum 6, 3: 17-21. Weiser, Chaim M. (Jonathan) 1995=2004 Frumspeak. The First Dictionary of Yeshivish, (A Jason Aronson Book) Lanham MD (Rowman and Littlefield, Inc.).

Frank Alvarez-Péreyre

L’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze et le Programme EYDES: les enseignements d’une continuité

L’histoire de la production et des idées scientifiques oscille généralement entre deux voies. Dans certains cas, cette histoire revient à un intérêt pour les données biographiques individuelles. Dans d’autres cas, les historiens des sciences cherchent à expliquer une théorie donnée, ou l’évolution des références de base sur la longue durée; des parentés insoupçonnées entre chercheurs en un temps donné, ou encore le degré et le type de cohérence qui, au cas par cas, lient un projet intellectuel, les institutions et les outils qui marquent une œuvre, les effets du travail accompli en son nom. Dans un tel contexte, il est rare de pouvoir constater combien un ensemble d’initiatives académiques a pu converger pour porter une aventure humaine d’une ampleur inégalée tant dans les dimensions géographique et historique qu’aux plans social et philosophique. De tels cas d’espèce existent pourtant. L’histoire du yiddish – comme langue et comme continent géo-culturel – en est un. Une série de travaux universitaires de grande envergure a ainsi constitué un maillon irremplaçable dans la chaîne des actes par lesquels un monde advenu il y a plus de mille ans a perduré, et qui avait été de surcroît condamné à mort en plein vingtième siècle, au nom d’une politique d’Etat. Des enquêtes entamées avant la fin des années 1940, à la publication des volumes de l’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze, de la bibliothèque sonore édifiée dans la fréquentation des survivants d’un monde englouti à l’élaboration d’un outil multimédia voué à réintégrer la langue et la culture yiddish dans la conscience européenne à la fin du XXe siècle et au tournant du XXIe siècle, il y a eu bien plus qu’un projet ou qu’un programme scientifique. Au delà des initiatives personnelles, au delà des développements ponctuels, de la fragmentation des actes de chacun et du caractère collectif du travail à certaines périodes, l’entreprise scientifique a constitué un témoignage tenace, farouche, dans un temps donné: au nom d’un impératif du témoignage, où le témoin est lui-même porteur et partie

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prenante de ce qui ne saurait disparaître sous peine de voir l’humanité même menacée. Ce qui paraît remarquable dans cette aventure, c’est que ceux qui en ont été les artisans ont été inscrits successivement dans des paradigmes scientifiques hétérogènes. Par delà la variété de leurs ancrages et de leurs modèles intellectuels de référence, ces scientifiques ont toutefois produit des contributions qui ont convergé pour établir des édifices durables, dont les effets dépassent les limites de leur stricte sphère d’activité. Nous souhaitons ici mettre en lumière 1) la manière dont les artisans essentiels de cette aventure ont à la fois assumé les modèles de leur temps et fait évoluer de tels modèles; 2) comment ils ont créé des outils conceptuels ou pratiques qui ont eu un impact en dehors de leur projet propre, qui était le yiddish comme langue, comme société et comme culture. Nous nous attacherons de préférence aux figures et aux travaux de Max Weinreich, puis d’Uriel Weinreich, avant de considérer l’Atlas lui-même puis le transfert des données sonores vers le support multimedia dont le Programme EYDES a été le maître d’œuvre. La fréquentation du travail de Max Weinreich et de ses productions, mais aussi la mise en relation de ces productions avec le paysage intellectuel dans lequel cet auteur s’est inscrit conduisent à une image contrastée, tout autant qu’au constat d’une originalité certaine. Ce scientifique s’est fait l’avocat d’une conception systémique des faits de langue et de culture, en mettant au jour les principes et l’architecture implicites du yiddish comme langue et comme moyen d’expression. Il l’a fait en mobilisant complètement des capacités de philologue et la dimension diachronique. Autrement dit, il a déployé sur la longue durée le regard de l’historien de la langue et les faits attestés de l’histoire d’une langue donnée, pour mieux en dégager les principes structurels. Dans le même mouvement, il a assumé le point de vue selon lequel il n’y aurait pas d’étanchéité entre les faits de langue, les faits de société et les faits de culture. Enfin, il a posé fermement les fondements et le cadre d’une interlinguistique juive, fondant son propos relatif au yiddish dans une constante relation aux autres langues parlées dans les communautés juives. De par sa conception systémique, Max Weinreich se rattache bien à cet âge structural inauguré par F. de Saussure et R. Jakobson ou N. Troubetskoi en linguistique, par A. Jolles et V. Propp du côté des répertoires littéraires, savants ou populaires. Mais la façon qu’a Max Weinreich de s’inscrire de fait dans un moment de la science où un fait ne vaut qu’au sein d’un

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ensemble de faits dont l’organisation implicite repose sur des lois à découvrir, cette façon, chez Max Weinreich, ne correspond pas à la variante la plus désincarnée du structuralisme Bien au contraire. De ce point de vue, Max Weinreich aura partagé avec R. Jakobson et d’autres la conviction que les faits de langue, de société et de culture constituent un continuum indéfectible, quand bien même le regard du scientifique doit porter alternativement et de façon spécifique sur les plans structurels distincts de ce continuum. Ajoutons encore que la notion d’interlinguistique juive trouve sa pertinence dans un double argumentaire, l’un linguistique, l’autre culturel. Si l’on doit parler d’interlinguistique juive, c’est d’une part au nom de principes structurels qui régissent les langues juives en tant qu’elles sont des réalités langagières de même facture, qui obéissent à des lois linguistiques précises et très fortement similaires. C’est d’autre part au nom des fonctions que jouent ces langues au sein des sociétés qui les pratiquent. Cela, dans une relation privilégiée à l’hébreu comme référent culturel central, d’où tout procèderait, de l’idée de Création du monde à celle d’Election, du texte biblique à tous les témoignages langagiers attestés et en usage dans les communautés, de l’ensemble des faits historiques qui ont fait l’histoire juive à l’ensemble des comportements par lesquels, en tout lieu, les communautés ont assumé une identité totalement revendiquée dans nombre de cas, mais aussi plus fragile ou hautement contestée au sein même de ces communautés. Alors que les langues juives témoignent tout autant, et avec force, de l’expérience juive du monde des autres. Une telle vision des langues juives fait de Max Weinreich un pionnier, dont on doit bien dire que son modèle reste inégalé, alors que la linguistique des langues juives est devenue, à partir des années 1970, un domaine d’étude de plein droit (Alvarez-Péreyre et Baumgarten 2003). Le texte qu’a publié Uriel Weinreich dans la revue Word en 1954 sous le titre «Is a structural dialectology possible?» nous place à nouveau devant le même type de phénomène que la production de Max Weinreich, avec un léger décalage dans le temps. Max Weinreich ne se réclamait pas du structuralisme. Ceci étant, il a illustré le passage d’un modèle scientifique de type philologique au modèle structural, refusant pourtant de fait la pure et simple substitution du premier par le second; mettant par contre l’accent sur une formulation adéquate, pertinente des phénomènes observés. C’est dans ce contexte que se situe l’invention des notions complémentaires de

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déterminant, de sélection, de fusion et de convergence, qui animent profondément l’Histoire de la langue Yiddish que l’on doit à cet auteur. Uriel Weinreich campe beaucoup plus nettement dans la période structuraliste de la science moderne. Mais il ne faut pas s’y tromper. L’hypothèse d’une dialectologie structurale n’est en rien un affichage servile du côté d’une linguistique synchronique rigide. Déjà parce qu’Uriel Weinreich investit et réinvestit le domaine de la dialectologie, qui est traditionnellement resté, et restera largement à l’écart du courant structuraliste. Quand Uriel Weinreich s’installe du côté de la dialectologie selon une perspective structuraliste, c’est pour proposer des solutions théoriques inédites, dont les prémisses se trouvent chez Max Weinreich. De telles solutions font écho à des préoccupations apparues dès les débuts de la science moderne, pour être prises en charge ensuite dans des domaines aussi variés que les faits de langue, le folklore littéraire ou les répertoires musicaux traditionnels. Cette aventure intellectuelle a pour pivot la notion de diasystème. Elle concerne au premier chef les faits de variation, la catégorisation des faits de société et de culture, autrement dit, l’activité typologique. Les chansons aussi bien que les récits populaires ont été l’objet de tentatives de classement dès la fin du XIXe siècle. Les chercheurs scandinaves – Imre Krohn, Anti Aarne –, puis les Hongrois, les Roumains et les Russes – Bartok et Kodaly, Brailoiu, Propp – n’avaient pas retenu les options philologiques selon lesquelles les formes attestées remonteraient à des états antérieurs ou originels, dont ces formes seraient des manifestations plus ou moins dégradées, tout en manifestant la permanence de principe et l’ancienneté d’un patrimoine intangible. Pour ces chercheurs, les variations d’un même conte ou d’une chanson populaire ne sont pas nécessairement, ou même pas du tout, la pure et simple trace d’évolutions successives d’un texte ou d’un air qui remonteraient plus ou moins loin dans le temps et qui seraient la référence explicite à laquelle il conviendrait de rapporter toutes les évolutions ultérieures. Par contre, les variantes attestées seraient toutes l’expression également légitime d’une trame, d’un modèle, d’une référence implicites. Et c’est à partir des variantes attestées, c’est en tenant compte de l’ensemble des variantes disponibles que l’on pourrait établir cette trame, ce modèle, cette référence. La notion de diasystème serait l’équivalent d’un tel principe, appliqué aux dialectes du yiddish. On est très loin d’une dialectologie des langues romanes, au sein de laquelle les formes attestées selon les siècles

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correspondent à autant d’évolutions advenues à partir d’un point de départ établi, identifié, situé dans le temps. On est loin d’une dialectologie qui, ici ou là, envisagerait les dialectes au nom d’un standard établi comme une norme qui devient la référence par excellence au plan sociolinguistique, et à laquelle il conviendrait de ramener toute parole produite. On est par contre dans l’hypothèse où les formes attestées dans des lieux différents seraient la matérialisation d’une architecture linguistique élaborée quoique implicite, d’une référence essentielle et partagée dont les dialectes sont autant de manifestations qui n’entreront pas dans une hiérarchisation de type sociolinguistique ou structurel. Cette architecture ne serait pas attestée en tant que telle, elle ne serait pas visible à l’œil nu, elle ne serait pas une chose tangible, repérable en tant que telle. Elle ne se dégagerait qu’à la condition d’entendre les variantes ensemble, en percevant qu’elles révèlent ensemble ce principe linguistique qu’elles fondent. La fécondité de la notion de diasystème a débordé le strict cadre des études du yiddish, pour produire des effets durables en linguistique générale. On en veut pour preuve les études qui ont été consacrées au tcherkesse par C. Paris, ainsi que la reconnaissance explicite du destin du concept de diasystème pour la linguistique (Martinet 1969, Dubois et alii 1973, Paris 1992). «Une langue se trouve rarement isolée dans l’espace. Toute communauté linguistique a tôt ou tard des relations plus ou moins étroites avec d’autres communautés linguistiques. Pour désigner ces relations interlinguistiques, le terme contact est couramment employé, surtout depuis la parution du livre d’Uriel Weinreich Languages in Contact. Le contact chez Weinreich suppose le bilinguisme: les langues sont en contact, «si elles sont employées alternativement par les mêmes personnes» [U. Weinreich 1953: 39]. La langue de contact (contact language) est un produit spécial des échanges linguistiques créé pour faciliter la communication entre deux groupes parlant des idiomes différents (sabirs, pidgins).» (Fanny de Sivers, dans: Martinet 1969: 60). Dans le domaine de la sociolinguistique, l’ouvrage d’Uriel Weinreich Languages in Contact (1953) a connu un retentissement certain. Sans invalider les facteurs ou les effets psychologiques et sociologiques du contact, cet ouvrage pose une hypothèse forte au plan de la compréhension des faits linguistiques qui sont concernés par le contact. Il s’agit pour Uriel Weinreich de considérer la rencontre des données de langues distinctes au prisme de l’identité respective des traits et principes structurels qui caractérisent chacune des langues qui entrent en contact. Dans ce contexte,

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ce qui est mis en lumière, c’est la probabilité – pour chacun des systèmes linguistiques concernés et en considérant les différents secteurs d’un système donné – d’une plus grande résistance au changement ou, au contraire, d’une plus grande prédisposition au changement. Ici les probabilités structurelles ne sont pas absolues. Elles ne sont formulables que dans les contextes de la rencontre entre une langue donnée et telle ou telle autre langue. Autrement dit, le type de probabilité sera nécessairement différent, pour une même langue, selon que le contact se fera avec telle langue ou, au contraire, avec telle autre. Dans le contexte de notre bilan actuel, ce rappel s’imposait pour deux raisons. Tout d’abord, il est difficile de ne pas voir la filiation intellectuelle qui peut exister entre l’Histoire du Yiddish, de Max Weinreich (1973), et la théorie du contact linguistique due à Uriel Weinreich. En effet, ce que Max Weinreich étudie, sous les habits du yiddish et plus généralement des langues juives, c’est le comportement des systèmes en jeu, la mise en relation des tendances systémiques profondes et les lois propres à différents systèmes quand ces derniers viennent au contact l’un de l’autre. En même temps, et c’est là la deuxième utilité d’une réflexion sur l’option systémique du contact chère à Uriel Weinreich, ce qui aura été essentiellement retenu de ces thèses pour les situations de contact semble laisser le groupe des langues juives dans une situation singulière. L’extrait cité du Guide alphabétique dirigé par A. Martinet évoque d’un côté les langues de contact, dont une même personne fait usage alternativement; de l’autre la langue de contact, produit spécifique, propre à permettre la communication entre deux entités que caractérisent respectivement des parlers distincts. Or les langues juives ne correspondent pas au second cas cité, pas plus qu’au premier. Au fond Uriel Weinreich a tiré de l’expérience des langues juives, telles qu’analysées par Max Weinreich, un principe généralisable: celui des effets systémiques profonds dans les cas du contact entre langues distinctes. Ce principe des effets systémiques entre en œuvre dans des contextes variés. Et il fonctionne en complément d’autres principes de fond. C’est alors que l’on peut envisager alternativement a) l’usage, par les mêmes personnes, de langues distinctes, avec les effets structurels plus ou moins localisés que cela induit sur des langues qui n’en disparaissent pas pour autant; b) la langue de contact comme produit spécifique qui existe et se développe à côté de celles de ces langues dont elle est issue, tout en permettant la communication entre locuteurs des langues distinctes; c) la langue comme

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produit du contact, qui va devenir l’idiome de communication entre groupes distincts mais aussi la langue de l’un des groupes en présence; ou d) exclusivement la langue d’un des groupes en contact. Dans le cadre d’une telle typologie des possibles, on peut comprendre que les opinions puissent diverger à propos des langues juives: les unes les assimilant à des pidgins ou créoles; les autres récusant une telle opinion. Notons que dans de tels argumentaires – et à côté des analyses les plus fines et les plus dépassionnées sur les versants linguistique et sociolinguistique – les diagnostics relatifs aux langues juives font encore intervenir au moins deux facteurs. L’un, c’est ce que l’on appellera les facteurs de type idéologique, dont le poids et les effets ne peuvent être négligés. L’autre nous ramène aux travaux de Max Weinreich. Ce dernier n’a pas seulement scruté les arguments systémiques dans la genèse et dans l’identité du yiddish comme langue. Il a encore mis en lumière comment un système linguistique peut être habité par des forces – historiques, sociales, culturelles – qui dépassent de loin les frontières du seul système langagier. Or la linguistique de son temps et celle du temps d’Uriel Weinreich se sont absolument défendu d’envisager les choses ainsi. Ce qui peut expliquer qu’il ait été si difficile d’admettre que les langues juives pourraient un jour entrer dans le champ des préoccupations de la linguistique générale. Il est temps d’évoquer maintenant l’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze. Il n’est pas question de s’attacher ici à sa genèse, ni d’en faire un usage au bénéfice d’une compréhension des données sur tel ou tel point. Nous resterons par contre fidèle à la ligne adoptée dans les pages qui précèdent. Nous continuerons à nous concentrer sur une identification des modèles de base auxquels se réfèrent ou qu’élaborent les scientifiques qui ont joué une part si centrale pour la connaissance du monde yiddish. Et à propos de l’Atlas, deux points doivent retenir notre attention. L’un concerne la structure de l’Atlas sur le versant linguistique, l’autre touche à la dimension anthropologique de la même entreprise. Au plan linguistique, l’Atlas du judaïsme ashkénaze semble proche des produits courants de l’activité des dialectologues. Il fait ainsi la part belle aux données phonétiques et aux faits de lexique. Les cartes de ce même Atlas représentent la transposition des données de langue selon un maillage où se repèrent les points géographiques auxquels il faut référer les données linguistiques. Les cartes de l’Atlas donnent, jusqu’à un certain point, une idée des zones de réalisation pour un terme donné, pour un trait phonétique particulier. Les cartes de l’Atlas matérialisent les isoglosses ou le degré de

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variation et de fragmentation linguistiques. Pour toutes ces raisons, l’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze ressemble largement à d’autres atlas à vocation dialectologique. Pourtant, ce même atlas diffère profondément de ses semblables, et ce sur un point essentiel. Traditionnellement, les atlas dialectologiques s’inscrivaient dans une vision atomisée et pointilliste des faits de langue. Les items retenus qui correspondent le plus souvent à l’univers d’une culture rurale, voire agricole, conduisent à la collecte de données linguistiques censées refléter un témoignage aussi ancien que possible de la pratique langagière, dans une relation stricte entre un item de type ethnographique et son correspondant linguistique. En quoi l’Atlas qui nous concerne tranche-t-il dans un tel paysage? Non pas parce que l’univers concerné n’est pas le même. Cette différence-là est induite par les traits sociaux et culturels qui caractérisent les groupes humains concernés. Par contre la structure même du questionnaire explique les différences essentielles. Ethnographique dans sa matière explicite, le questionnaire est, en fait et par essence, construit au nom de la vision systémique et diasystémique que les auteurs ont de la langue yiddish. La visée est bien linguistique, elle n’est pas dialectologique: dans la mesure où les variantes ou dialectes du yiddish étaient référés à une architecture qui les transcende, qu’aucun d’eux ne reflète purement et simplement et qui se révèle dans la considération convergente de chacun d’eux. Là où les atlas dialectologiques des langues romanes, par exemple, sont voués à attester de la fragmentation spatiale et de l’évolution historique des formes linguistiques à partir d’un référent unique et tangible dont elles procèderaient – le latin –, l’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze atteste d’une unité profonde au delà de la variation. Sous les habits d’une activité scientifique qu’il renouvelle en même temps, un tel Atlas témoigne fortement d’un moment clé de la pensée moderne en essayant de rester pertinent vis-à-vis de l’objet qu’il s’est donné pour tâche de documenter. Cela n’interdit pas que le même Atlas rende palpable l’évolution des formes linguistiques dans le temps, ou encore certaines des manières dont les communautés juives témoignent de leurs relations avec les sociétés non juives en Europe. Sur le versant anthropologique, la singularité de l’Atlas du judaïsme ashkénaze commence avec le fait que les données n’ont pas été recueillies sur place. De ce point de vue-là, les cartes sont une fiction, si l’on prend comme norme les atlas des dialectologues, où sont transcrits les dires

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énoncés au lieu géographique même qui est concerné. Les témoignages linguistiques ont été recueillis en général dans un tout autre lieu que celui qui est reporté sur la carte. Ils ont été collectés auprès des informateurs ou témoins disponibles – ceux qui avaient survécu – et non auprès de ceux que le dialectologue va généralement choisir sur la base d’une série de critères préférentiels dont, par dessus tout, la compétence attestée par comparaison avec d’autres témoins possibles. Par delà les raisons qui ont conduit à un tel état de fait, ce dernier fait écho à un principe de base par lequel l’anthropologie du judaïsme ne ressemble pas à une anthropologie classique. Traditionnellement, de façon réelle ou bien au nom d’une fiction propre à cette discipline, l’anthropologue situe son action dans une unité de lieu et de temps, par référence à une société censée être liée à un lieu géographique donné et qui sera considérée d’abord en elle-même, pour elle-même. On aura compris que l’anthropologie des communautés juives est fondamentalement autre. Elle concerne des communautés géographiquement dispersées. Se réclamant d’un territoire symbolique partagé, leur identité est marquée au double sceau d’un corpus textuel, juridique, rituel et philosophique central et d’un principe de variation qui est dû largement au côtoiement de sociétés non juives elles-mêmes particulièrement variées et auxquelles la mémoire juive accorde expressément une place non négligeable (Alvarez-Péreyre 1997). On ne saurait trop souligner combien le lancement du Programme EYDES a ouvert une nouvelle voie, si l’on considère l’histoire des moments qui ont jalonné l’activité scientifique depuis la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. Trois traits caractérisent indubitablement ce programme, du point de vue de ses engagements majeurs. Nous voulons parler des interlocuteurs mobilisés ou visés par un tel programme; du fait que plusieurs supports sont mis en œuvre pour restituer diverses dimensions d’une même culture; des implications que le recours à ces supports représente par rapport aux données de départ et à leur traitement. Reprenons ces trois points. Les travaux de Max et d’Uriel Weinreich, tout autant que l’Atlas linguistique et culturel du judaïsme ashkénaze auront eu et ont pour public la société des scientifiques dont l’activité est fortement liée à la connaissance des faits de langue et de société, leur inventaire, leur organisation, leur signification intrinsèque. On le sait, l’effet des travaux scientifiques en dehors des institutions du savoir est plus ou moins réel, plus ou moins direct. Globalement, il ne constitue pas, il n’a pas constitué, longtemps, un objectif explicite pour les intellectuels concernés, ni un

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critère pour leur évaluation. Bien entendu, nous ne saurions oublier les enjeux sociaux et idéologiques qui étaient attachés à la naissance de la Wissenschaft des Judentums, à la création du YIVO ou de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem. De tels enjeux mobilisaient ceux qui étaient directement concernés, sans que cela ne remette en cause fondamentalement l’activité scientifique comme espace privilégié de connaissance et de savoir. Le changement qu’a introduit le Programme EYDES est de taille puisqu’il s’agit de réinscrire dans la conscience européenne un héritage dont les témoins ont pratiquement disparu, des lieux mêmes et de la pensée sociale. Il s’agit d’inventer et de rendre possible un mode de fréquentation de la culture yiddish là où précisément la fréquentation des êtres n’est plus possible sur place. Il s’agit de restituer une présence là où cette présence n’est plus. Il s’agit au fond de réinscrire dans les cultures quotidiennes ce dont l’espace mental des sociétés concernées s’est vidé. Un tel projet passe par des relais divers: des médiateurs et des agences dont les uns s’inscrivent dans le tissu universitaire, les autres dans différentes sphères sociales attachées à la communication, à la culture comme bien de consommation, mais aussi à la décision politique dans un cadre national et multinational. Il y a donc là des changements d’échelle dont on admettra qu’ils sont inévitables étant donné les prémisses essentielles du Programme et les conditions qui ont conduit à sa mise en place. Ceci est le premier point. S’il y a là rupture, c’est une rupture qui s’inscrit pourtant dans une continuité profonde et durable. Car la matière que le Programme EYDES va prendre en charge et traiter est, ni plus ni moins, une monumentale source de documents amassés par des scientifiques auprès des survivants d’une culture millénaire condamnée, il y a peu, à disparaître purement et simplement. On a déjà évoqué ce que les scientifiques ont mené à bien dans leur domaine propre à partir des matériaux réunis au prix d’enquêtes multiples et multisites., Le Programme EYDES va quant à lui tenir compte de la nature composite des données, par delà leur seul versant linguistique. Il va se donner pour but de rendre palpable et accessible une vision culturelle du monde yiddish. Tout cela en mobilisant des technologies propres à porter les différentes facettes de la culture concernée. Sur ce second point, il convenait de redéployer les dimensions textuelles, ethnographiques, musicales, symboliques, dont les documents enregistrés témoignaient de toute façon. Cela a impliqué le passage par des canaux et des vecteurs pratiques, concrets, dont la nature particulière allait à son tour conduire à un re-travail sur les données de départ. Autrement dit, la

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documentation initiale a fait l’objet d’une série de projections quant à ses utilisations possibles et souhaitées. Elle a fait l’objet de décisions qui visaient des usages à long terme. Dans ce contexte, la médiation, les intermédiaires effectifs allaient être des outils, des interfaces aux contraintes telles qu’il fallait produire, en amont, une réflexion sur la mise en adéquation entre documentation initiale, buts recherchés et interfaces concrètes. On en vient là au dernier des points indiqués ci-dessus. Les matériaux de base, fruits des collectes, sont essentiellement linguistiques dans leur matérialité même, et musicaux dans une faible proportion. Mais ils portent sens de différentes manières. De la culture yiddish, ils disent une multitude de facettes. Les mots en sont le canal privilégié mais les contenus et les effets dépassent le strict cadre linguistique. En fait, il fallait redéployer la matière dense que les mots véhiculent. Il fallait redéployer les mille fils d’une culture donnée, tels qu’ils s’investissent dans les mots mais en continuant à irriguer tout ce qui d’une vie d’homme est au delà des mots, à côté des mots. Cela impliquait de revenir à une théorie de la culture tout en théorisant la mise en œuvre d’un ensemble d’outils aux contraintes propres. Le passage par les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication a impliqué de penser les matériaux bruts et la culture concernée au prisme des vecteurs nouveaux de l’information et de la communication. A l’inverse, il a fallu penser l’outillage informatique au nom d’une réalité donnée, langagière, sonore, dont l’épaisseur dépasse la simple collection des mots et leur succession sur l’axe du temps. Cela signifiait un calibrage réciproque des données et des outils. Un tel calibrage a été à son tour l’occasion d’innovations intellectuelles et technologiques. De telles innovations ont, bien entendu, sollicité voire bousculé des traditions plus ou moins anciennes. Cela, tant du côté du traitement des données linguistiques propres au Yiddish, que du côté de l’outil informatique. Ce dernier devait être adapté à la nature des matériaux de départ et aux implications imposées par les objectifs dans l’ordre de la transmission d’un héritage et de sa réintégration dans la conscience culturelle et sociale d’un continent. La page ouverte par le Programme EYDES est une page qui s’écrit au jour le jour. Elle a mobilisé et mobilise des énergies et des moyens pour lesquels une évaluation rétrospective devrait être tentée en temps réel, tant ce Programme EYDES a généré d’innovations à plusieurs égards. Cette même page produit des effets dont il est très important de tenir la chronique

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au quotidien. Une telle conscience de la page ouverte ne serait que la continuation, par d’autres moyens, en d’autres temps, de cette conscience durable qui a animé les différents artisans d’une continuité indéfectible et nécessaire.

Références bibliographiques Alvarez-Péreyre, Frank 1997 En deça et au delà des évidences: quelle anthropologie du judaïsme? Dans: F. Heymann et D. Storper-Perez (éds.), Le Corps du texte. Pour une anthropologie des textes de la tradition juive. Paris (CNRS Editions), 29–50. Alvarez-Péreyre, Frank et Jean Baumgarten (éds) 2003 Linguistique des langues juives et linguistique générale. Paris (CNRS Editions). Dubois, Jean/ Giacomo, Mathée/ Guespin, Louis/ Marcellesi, Christiane/ Marcellesi, JeanBaptiste/ Mével, Jean-Pierre 1973 Dictionnaire de linguistique. Paris (Larousse). Fanny de Sivers Voir, Martinet 1969 The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (rédacteur en chef), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (éds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Martinet, André (directeur) 1969 Linguistique. Guide alphabétique, Paris (Denoël-Gonthier). Paris, Catherine 1992 Les voyelles du tcherkesse: un exemple d’analyse diasystémique. Dans: Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris 87: 283–343. Weinreich, Max 1973 Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh. 4 volumes. New York (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Weinreich, Uriel 1953 Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems. New York (Linguistic Circle of New York). Weinreich, Uriel 1954 Is a structural dialectology possible? Dans: Word 10: 388–400.

Jean Baumgarten

L’apport des études sur la langue et la culture yiddish du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle au Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry

La question des relations entre la langue et la société a été étudiée par des générations de savants au point de former un domaine spécifique de la linguistique générale.1 La nature de ces rapports est principalement devenue un objet d’étude à partir du XIXe siècle, à l’époque où les langues devinrent un enjeu dans la lutte nationale et la reconnaissance de la culture juive. Selon le point de vue traditionnel, c’est la société qui détermine le langage. L’étude des pratiques langagières et des variantes dialectales, notamment phonologiques et sémantiques, permettent de circonscrire des différences culturelles essentielles afin de particulariser les langues, tout particulièrement le yiddish qui se déploie dans une aire géographique aux dimensions de l’Europe. La langue est donc un fait social ou, comme l’explique William Labov (1976), elle devient «un indice sensible de maints processus sociaux.»2 Une autre perspective, inaugurée par Wilhelm von Humboldt,3 renverse cette conception en affirmant le rôle créatif du langage qui est à l’origine des structures sociales et des catégories culturelles. Le langage n’est plus un «reflet» du social, mais il joue un rôle majeur dans la structuration du langage, dans l’organisation de la culture et dans la formulation des catégories, notamment anthropologiques, qui fondent une société. Les recherches menées, dès le début du XXe siècle, sous l’impulsion de Max Weinreich puis d’ Uriel Weinreich portent la trace des —————

1

2 3

Le terme ethnolinguistics (ethnolinguistique) apparaît en anglais au milieu du XXe siècle en relation à l’ethnologie du langage. Comme le dit André Leroi-Gourhan (1986: 322) «..la vie des mots, leur glissement de sens (…), leur fossilisation enrichissent le tableau ethnologique, de sorte qu’on ne peut concevoir l’ethnologie, comme science historique, sans le concours d’une connaissance de la structure des langues». Voir les numéros spéciaux de la revue Langages 11, 1965 («Sociolinguistique») et 18, 1970 («Ethnolinguistique»). W. Labov fut l’élève d’Uriel Weinreich. Sur la pensée linguistique de Wilhelm von Humboldt, voir Trabant 1999: 47-65.

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réflexions méthodologiques et théoriques propres aux champs de la sociolinguistique et de la dialectologie, tels qu’ils se sont constitués à partir du XIXe siècle. Trois influences majeures peuvent être décelées. D’abord, celle des recherches des savants juifs en Europe centrale et orientale qui, depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, accumulèrent de nombreuses données sur les relations entre, d’un côté, le yiddish et, de l’autre, la vie sociale et les pratiques religieuses.4 Des enseignants de l'université de Marburg influencèrent la thèse de Max Weinreich (1923, 1992) dont Ferdinand Wrede (1927-1956) qui fut l’un des éditeurs de l’atlas linguistique de la langue allemande.5 Arrivés aux Etats-Unis, Max et Uriel Weinreich furent mis en contact avec la sociolinguistique américaine, depuis les travaux de Franz Boas (1911, 1922; 1940) jusqu’à ceux d’Edward Sapir6 et de Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956/1969) qui montrèrent, entre autres, que les catégories grammaticales, les structures lexicales, les champs sémantiques et les systèmes de pensée diffèrent selon les peuples, les aires linguistiques et culturelles. Cette école aboutira aux travaux de Joshua Fishman (1968) qui créa une synthèse originale entre les traditions d’étude de l’anthropologie, la sociologie linguistique américaine et les études des savants juifs concernant la langue yiddish dans ses rapports à la culture ashkénaze. De même que, pour cette génération de savants, la connaissance de la culture se fait par le biais de la langue,7 la compréhension des traits spécifiques de la culture juive ashkénaze doit se faire, entre autres, par l’intermédiaire de l’analyse sociolinguistique et sémantique du yiddish. Le titre même du Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry témoigne bien de cette double orientation méthodologique dans laquelle s’entremêlent les dimensions linguistiques et socioculturelles. On y perçoit constamment, soit de manière directe, soit plus allusive, l’influence de ces différentes écoles de pensée linguistique, qui constituent le fondement théorique de cet imposant monument des études yiddish. Nous voudrions, toutefois, montrer que ce type d’analyse sociolinguistique plonge ses racines dans une ————— 4 5

6 7

Sur l’histoire des folkloristes juifs, on se reportera à l’ouvrage d’Itzik Nahman Gottesman 2003. Sur le contexte américain, voir l’article de Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1996. Sur l’histoire des atlas linguistiques allemands, voir U. Knoop/ W. Putschke/ H.E. Wiegand 1982: 38-92. Marvin Herzog (1965: 274/290, note 3) cite, par exemple, cette remarque d’E. Sapir «C’est le vocabulaire d’une langue qui reflète le mieux l’environnement physique et social des locuteurs» (Sapir 1949: 90 et 94). L'article de Sapir date de 1912. Voir le recueil d’articles de Hymes Dell 1964.

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tradition ancienne de la philologie du yiddish, qu’elle émane de savants juifs ou chrétiens. On fait généralement remonter l’origine de ce type de recherche au XIXe siècle, à l’époque où émerge l’étude scientifique de la langue yiddish, qui est équipée des outils heuristiques indispensables à sa codification et à la détermination de ses structures internes. Je veux parler des dictionnaires, des lexiques et des grammaires (Hutton 1993: 1–57). À la même époque se multiplient les études qui montrent les liens étroits entre l’étude de la langue, de ses dialectes et la connaissance de la société juive. La création du YIVO en 1925 marque le point d’aboutissement et l’apogée de ce type de recherches dans lesquelles Max Weinreich jouera un rôle majeur (Gottesman 2003). La fondation après-guerre de la chaire de yiddish à l’Université Columbia de New York revêtira, de même, une importance décisive dans l’institutionnalisation, la reconnaissance des études yiddish et dans l’approfondissement des recherches débutées en Europe orientale avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, qui aboutiront, entre autres, à la préparation et à la rédaction de l’Atlas. Le Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry est le point d’aboutissement d’une longue tradition d’analyse philologique et culturelle de la langue vernaculaire des juifs ashkénazes. On peut considérer que cette tradition remonte aux Temps modernes, à l’époque où le yiddish, s’étant cristallisé en tant que langue de communication à l’intérieur des communautés juives d’Europe, commença à susciter quelques brèves études lexicographiques, en vue de sa codification, de la fixation de règles orthographiques simples, et des considérations sur les relations entre la langue yiddish et la société juive. Cet intérêt pour le yiddish émane aussi bien de savants chrétiens que de rabbins ou d’érudits juifs qui, tous, accumulent des remarques et des observations sur la langue yiddish, comme accès à la compréhension du monde ashkénaze. Ce ne sont, à cette époque, que des notations souvent brèves, mais qui, déjà, témoignent d’une réflexion sur les catégories sémantiques, les champs lexicaux, les variations dialectales dans leur relation à l’étude de la société juive, de ses coutumes, de ses pratiques et de son histoire linguistique. Il faudra attendre le XIXe siècle pour que prenne naissance une ethnolinguistique du monde ashkénaze, qui aboutira, des décennies plus tard, à la composition des premiers atlas linguistiques (Vilenkin 1931, Beranek 1965, Guggenheim– Grünberg, 1973). Il convient, en fait, de remonter plus loin dans le temps afin de recomposer les prémices des recherches sur la sociolinguistique de

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la langue yiddish. Dès le XVIe siècle, on trouve de brèves considérations sur les liens entre le yiddish et la culture ashkénaze. Ce sont, bien sûr, en premier lieu, les références aux recherches théoriques et aux enquêtes de terrain entreprises à partir de l’époque contemporaine qui restent fondamentales dans la conception du LCAAJ. On observe, toutefois, maintes références à des études antérieures dont il convient de saisir dans quelle mesure elles ont pu influencer la rédaction de parties, certes circonscrites, du Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. Un simple exemple témoignera de l’apport des recherches anciennes. Il s’agit de l’entrée portant sur le terme Sargenes (LCAAJ III, 2000: 248–249, carte 99) dans laquelle est mentionnée le dictionnaire de termes hébreux dans la littérature talmudique et post-talmudique, le Tishby (1541) d’Élie Lévita.8 En pionnier de la linguistique de terrain ou, certes en extrapolant, de l’ethnolinguistique, Élie Lévita déduit des règles grammaticales, consigne des notations sémantiques, lexicales et définit l’étymologie d’un mot à partir d’enquêtes auprès de locuteurs. Il écrit: «les juifs ashkénazes portent durant les trois jours de pénitence un long manteau de lin blanc dénommé sargenes. J’ai beaucoup demandé et j’ai cherché afin de savoir en quelle langue est (ce mot), mais personne n’a pu me le dire, jusqu’à ce qu’un vieux juif français me dise que les juifs en France portent eux aussi (cet habit). C’est une sorte de vêtement très fin, appelé dans leur langue sarga avec un rafe sous le gimel et en yiddish (leshon ashkenaz) aris.9 Ils ajoutent un samekh, comme c’est l’usage dans nombre de mots en loshn la’az (langue romane et en italien)». Élie Lévita reconstitue l’histoire de ce mot qui vient de l’italien sarga ou sargia et du latin populaire sarica, altération du latin classique serica. On trouve aussi l’adjectif substantivé sericus («de soie») qui dérive du mot grec serikos, ser («vers à soie») et sêres («nom d’un peuple d’Asie»). Le Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry témoigne de l’évolution sémantique de ce terme qui est employé en yiddish occidental ————— 8

9

Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 58, 232) on trouve l’expression en yiddish occidental, mentionnée par Élie Lévita dans son Tishby (1541), mishteyns gezogt (expression de pitié, de dérision et de conjuration) qui est traduite par «may it be said of/happen to the stone (and not to me/us)»). On trouve les variantes suivantes dans les principaux dialectes du yiddish: yiddish occidental, mishta:ns gezogt avec /a:/, en yiddish central/aj/ et en yiddish oriental/ej/. Du moyen-haut-allemand, arraz, arras, qui désigne un textile de laine léger, de l’ancien français, Arras, ville du nord de la France où se tenaient au Moyen âge des marchés et foires de textiles et de draps, notamment en lin et en laine.

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moderne (Sargenes10) par opposition au yiddish oriental qui utilise, soit l’hébraïsme takhrikhim, dans le sens de «linceul» et «habit de deuil», soit soyves qui vient de l’hébreu sovev («(linceul) qui entoure (le corps) »). On emploie aussi le terme kittel qui désigne à la fois le linceul et un long vêtement de toile blanche porté par les hommes lors de certaines fêtes, notamment à Yom kippur. Une archéologie de la sociolinguistique ou de l’ethnolinguistique du yiddish, qui aboutira à la rédaction des atlas linguistiques, nécessiterait une longue étude. Nous ne présenterons que certains jalons historiques importants qui témoignent de l’intérêt, dès le XVIe siècle, pour l’analyse de la langue yiddish comme accès à la tradition culturelle ashkénaze. Les plus anciens témoignages se trouvent dans les recueils de responsa rabbiniques dans lesquels les décisionnaires rappellent l’importance de la graphie précise des prénoms, des noms de personnes et de lieux dans la rédaction des actes officiels. Bien écrire les noms propres reste important, notamment dans les actes de divorce (get), afin d'éviter toute ambiguïté qui pourrait entraîner des litiges ou donner lieu à des contestations de la part d’une des parties. Les rabbins reproduisent également des discussions sur la prononciation de termes et des gloses en langue vernaculaire, sur les pratiques religieuses, sur la nourriture, les métiers, les termes techniques ou sur les aires géographiques. En voici quelques exemples parmi un grand nombre d’autres. Moshe Mintz (1617, n°19), discutant de la forme adéquate de prénoms dans les actes de divorce, s’interroge sur le prénom Hanlin, écrit soit avec un khet ou un hey, qu’il rapproche de Hannah. Même discussion au sujet de Rechlin, dérivé de Rahel, qui, selon Moshe Mintz, est en usage dans la province de Saxe où l'on prononce le khet comme un kaf.11 Dans les considérations sur la prononciation des noms propres, Moshe Mintz fait allusion à la coutume du Holekeysh, cérémonie durant laquelle on désigne le nom profane d’un enfant nouveau-né.12 Selon lui, ce terme —————

10

Sur ce mot, voir M. Weinreich 1923: 80; 1993: 59. Les Juifs de la région du Danube, dont surtout Regensburg (Ratisbonne), Nürnberg (Nuremberg) et Rothenburg prononcent le khet comme un kaf. On trouve des remarques similaires concernant la prononciation du khet et du kaf dans Israel Isserlein (1519, entre autres, n° 231). 12 Selon M. Weinreich (1980: 197 et 200), ce mot serait composé de Hole, allusion à la créature légendaire de la mythologie allemande, Frau Holle, et de Kreisch («crier»). Moshe Mintz assimile également Kreisch au cri (en hébreu, tse’akah). Dans le LCAAJ III

11

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dériverait de l’expression hol kryas («nomination ou appellation profane») ou shem ha-hol, par opposition au nom en hébreu (shem ha-kadosh), comme, par exemple, en ce qui concerne Zanwil et Shmuel. Chez Jacob Weil (1549: fol. 46b), on trouve, entre autres exemples, les termes medinat rinus («la province ou la région du Rhin») et galil ha-takhton qui correspond au Rhin inférieur jusqu’à Coblence. On trouve aussi des exemples de termes de la géographie rabbinique dans le Maharil (1556).13 Citons, entre autres, le nom du fleuve Danube, que les gens de Ratisbonne prononcent donau/donou et ceux d’Autriche donay. Le Maharil explique que les Juifs de Ratisbonne (Regenspurk) ont une langue plus pure (leshonam yoter tsah) que ceux d’Autriche (Ostraykh). Le texte des Minhagim est émaillé de nombreux noms en langue juive vernaculaire, afin d’expliciter des notions difficiles ou des termes techniques. Dans un extrait, le Maharil (1556, fol. 12b) fait, par exemple, une remarque concernant Pesah et la cuisson des pains azymes: «Il faut que le four soit assez chaud. Ne pas se contenter de la chaleur de la flamme, qu’on appelle grizel». Ce terme dérive de l’ancien français grediller («flamber, griller»). Ailleurs, pour expliquer le terme ugah («gâteau» en hébreu), le Maharil (1556, fol. 15b) donne l’équivalent en yiddish kuchlin. Nombre de remarques linguistiques concernent le shibbolet phonétique entre les juifs d’Europe occidentale, les bney hey, qui prononcent la gutturale khet comme un hey et les juifs d’Europe centrale ou orientale qui prononcent cette gutturale, dénommés, de ce fait, les bney khet. Parmi les sources dans les responsa rabbiniques, mentionnons, entre autres, ce commentaire14 du Maharil (1556, fol. 111a) en référence au Rosh, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel15 au sujet du terme yahel («ajouter»). Le Maharil rapproche ce mot de mahul non pas avec un khet, mais avec un hey, comme dans le verset: Ta boisson a été diluée dans de l’eau (sabe’ékh mahul ba-mayyim).16 Le Maharil explique que c’est une —————

13 14 15 16

(2000: 58), on trouve Houlekrasch («Namengebung bei Mädchen», en ancien français, «haute la crèche»). Jacob ben Moshe Moellin, Sefer Maharil, Sabbioneta, 1556. L’ouvrage, aussi dénommé Minhagei Maharil, a été compilé par son élève Zalman de Saint-Goar. Il s’agit d’un commentaire de la Mishna, Demai, VII, 4. Il fut un disciple de Meir ben Baruch de Rothenburg, tossafiste, commentateur et un des grands décisionnaires et halakhistes des communautés ashkénazes médiévales. D’après Isaïe 1, 22. Mahul désigne un liquide mêlé, mélangé ou coupé d’eau, une boisson altérée. Dans Isaïe, la dégénérescence du vignoble est une allusion à la situation du peuple d’Israël.

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prononciation typique des juifs de Rhénanie et d’autres régions qui prononcent le khet comme un hey. On trouve une constatation similaire dans le Tishbi (1541) d’Elie Lévita qui concerne l’entrée maha. Elie Lévita explique que maha est rendu par ab vushn («dissoudre, diluer, essuyer») et il ajoute: «Les maîtres d’école (melamedim) veulent différencier entre les deux mots… Et en loshn ashkenaz, mahah, c’est ab mekn. Mais ce n’est pas de la langue vulgaire, mais de la langue sainte, qui est (mal prononcée) confondue dans la bouche des enfants, car les melamedim ne savent pas traduire mehikah («suppression») en loshn ashkenaz, alors ils disent en (utilisant la langue sainte) mehkn et les élèves croient que c’est de la loshn ashkenaz. Ils disent (prononcent) mekn17 et ils ne prononcent pas le khet à la manière des ashkénazim. Il se passe la même chose avec le mot shehtn («abattre»), qu’ils disent shekhtn. Ils pensent que c’est de la loshn ashkenaz, alors que c’est la même expression que shehita.» Dans l’entrée mazag («combiner, mêler, mélanger de l’eau dans du vin») du même ouvrage, Élie Lévita fait une observation concernant l’interférence linguistique. Lévita traduit le mot en hébreu par deux termes en loshn ashkenaz, gemust («mêlé, mélangé») et ayn shenken («remplir un verre, offrir une boisson»). Il ajoute: «Nos sages dénomment le vin mêlé à de l’eau yain mazug, d’où vient l’expression mozgin lo kos sheni («On lui verse un second verre»). C’est aussi ce qu’on dit quand le vin (n’)est (pas) mélangé. En loshn ashkenaz, ayn shenken. De là, chez les juifs allemands, un joli usage, à savoir qu’il dénomme un cadeau (doron), mezigah. Ils se trompent du fait que, dans leur langue, deux mots sont identiques, à savoir shenkn et eyn shenkn et ils pensent qu’en langue sainte aussi, il n’y a qu’un sens». Bien qu’il n’existe pas de relevé exhaustif des gloses et des notations linguistiques disséminées dans les recueils de décisions halakhiques rédigés par des rabbins de l’aire ashkénaze, elles forment un ensemble conséquent de considérations sémantiques, morphologiques et lexicales sur la langue et les pratiques langagières, comme un des accès à la compréhension du monde ashkénaze et à la connaissance des isoglosses du yiddish. Nombre de ces faits linguistiques, certes épars, constituent autant de notations dont on retrouvera des échos dans le Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, avec, bien sûr, une différence évidente. Les rabbins utilisent la —————

17

Franz Haselbauer (1742: 342) traduit le mot hébreu mahak par la forme ausmöken (oysmekn – «effacer»).

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langue vernaculaire dans un dessein exégétique ou dans la perspective de l’enseignement et de l’instruction, afin de préciser le sens littéral de termes bibliques nécessaire à une interprétation juste et claire. Les rabbins se servent également de la langue vulgaire pour les actes officiels et les documents légaux afin d’éviter toute ambiguïté, donc tout litige ou différent. On ne discerne chez eux aucune volonté de systématisation qui aboutirait à des réflexions générales sur les relations entre la langue et société.18 Dans les recherches entreprises à partir du XIXe siècle qui aboutiront à la rédaction du Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, la perspective scientifique est inverse, puisque les faits linguistiques sont ordonnés au sein d’un système général de la langue qui a pour fondement, d’un côté, la démonstration des liens entre les usages langagiers et les données sociales et, de l’autre, la théorisation de la dialectologie de la langue yiddish. Un autre ensemble de textes qui contiennent nombre de notations sociolinguistiques est composé par les traités sur le yiddish rédigés, dès le XVIe siècle, par des humanistes, des hébraïsants et des théologiens chrétiens (Frakes 2007). Au-delà des motivations souvent négatives, dépréciatives, et des déformations dues à l’absence de connaissance précise sur la langue vernaculaire, ces ouvrages comportent de multiples notations philologiques, dont on retrouvera maintes traces dans le Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, certes, une fois de plus, regroupées dans un ensemble systématique, et non plus sous forme de remarques anecdotiques, impressionnistes, sans considérations métalinguistiques ou théoriques. La plupart des ouvrages d’apprentissage de la langue yiddish édités au XVIe et au XVIIe siècles par des savants chrétiens ne visent qu’à donner des notions élémentaires, proches de celles qu’on trouve dans les abécédaires, afin de pouvoir lire, et éventuellement écrire, les caractères en hébreu et de déchiffrer des textes courts. Les petits traités, les chapitres ou les remarques insérées dans des ouvrages en latin ou en allemand présentent, de ce fait, principalement l’alphabet, les voyelles et les diphtongues, et la manière de prononcer les lettres, avec, parfois, de courts lexiques ou des prières traduites en yiddish.19 La plupart des notations n’ont d’autre but que d’enseigner la bonne prononciation «naturelle, utile, ————— 18

Comme c’est le cas chez les commentateurs médiévaux qui furent à l’origine de la grammaire de l’hébreu, voir, entre autres, Nicolas de Lange 2001. 19 L’ouvrage de Paul Helicz (1543) peut être considéré comme le premier manuel de grammaire de la langue yiddish.

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adéquate et harmonieuse.»20 On trouve toutefois de courtes considérations qui témoignent d’une conscience linguistique naissante, concernant les diverses prononciations et l’existence d’aires dialectales du yiddish.21 Ainsi, par exemple, dans l’ouvrage d’Elias Schadäus (1592), le terme Mashiah («Messie») est transcrit Mesiach ou le mot «ville» est transcrit stat, le shin étant utilisé pour rendre le son /s/, le khet pour /ch/; le waw est soit un /f/ comme dans fleisch («viande»), soit par /v/ comme dans le préfixe verbal ver, le pronom personnel mon est rendu par mein et la diphtongue waw-yud par /ü/, comme dans müglich («possible»).22 Ailleurs, Elias Schadäus (1592) explique que les Juifs prononcent les voyelles d’une manière «grossière», notamment, comme dans le dialecte de Nuremberg et de Franconie, le /a/ comme un /o/23. Sans savoir que l’emploi de différents mots pour désigner une même notion correspond à des variantes dialectales, Elias Schadäus pointe des particularités lexicales comme, par exemple, benschen et benedeyen pour «prier, bénir». Johannes Buxtorf (1609), parlant de «formes exceptionnelles de parler qui sont étrangères à la manière commune de parler la langue allemande», mentionne judschen («circoncire»24) construit, selon lui, à partir de la forme utilisée par les Chrétiens, christen

————— 20

Paulus Fagius (1543) à la fin du paragraphe «De variis literarvm figvris sev notvlis». August Pfeiffer (1680: 519) écrit: «Les juifs n’écrivent pas selon une orthographe précise, mais selon le son et l’esprit de chaque dialecte propre». On trouve une remarque similaire dans C. Calvör 1710: 19. Les Juifs n’ont pas d’orthographe normalisée, ils écrivent «selon les dialectes (Dialectus et mundart) des peuples d’Allemagne auprès desquels ils vivent». En tant que «Fremd orientalisch volk», ils ne font pas attention à l’allemand qu’ils considèrent comme la «langue des goyim et des païens» (Goim und Heydensprache). Ils n’ont, de ce fait, pas de grammaire et une mauvaise prononciation corrompue. À partir du XIXe siècle, ces différences seront expliquées par la fragmentation dialectale du yiddish. 22 Waw-yud est aussi /ö/ comme dans söne («fils»). Voir Thomas Blebelius (1594), cité par Jerold Frakes 2007: 143. 23 L’existence de multiples formes «corrompues» et l’idée de «l’inconsistance» de la langue yiddish dont la prononciation varie selon les locuteurs et les lieux sont des stéréotypes qu’on trouve dans de nombreux traités du XVIe jusqu’au XIXe siècle. Voir, entre autres, Johannes Meelführer (1607: 262); Johannes Buxtorf (1609: 651) oppose ainsi les «bonnes» versions allemandes de la Bible en yiddish et les versions «corrompues» de Bohème, Moravie et Pologne (Dans le chapitre «De letteris»). 24 Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 276, carte 111), on note la série de termes bris, brismile, mile, sude, yidishn. 21

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(«baptiser»), beltzen («jeune fille»25), leyen («lire») et, de même, benschen («prier»).26 Parmi les sources chrétiennes sur le yiddish, il convient de citer les ouvrages édités au XVIIIe siècle dans lesquels on trouve nombre de notations qui préfigurent ce que seront les atlas linguistiques du XIXe et du XXe siécle. On pense d’abord au juif converti, Carl Wilhelm Friedrich (1784),27 que Max Weinreich (1923a: 195–221) dénommait «le premier dialectologue du yiddish» (Der erste jiddische Mundartforscher). Dans l’ouvrage de C. W. Friedrich (1784: 48–52), on trouve une classification des dialectes du yiddish, ainsi que de nombreuses formes qui, aujourd’hui perdues, revêtent une importance évidente pour la connaissance de la langue yiddish à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Friedrich, anticipant la typologie du LCAAJ, parle de quatre aires dialectales du yiddish, l’Allemagne du Nord, dont la Prusse, la Souabe, le Saint Empire germanique et la Pologne, la Lituanie et la Russie. Cette division recoupe les isoglosses du LCAAJ, séparées entre le yiddish occidental et oriental. Friedrich accorde une importance particulière à la zone intermédiaire du yiddish du Nord de l’Allemagne, dont il est originaire.28 Comme l’explique Dovid Katz (1988: 45): «le yiddish prussien [sans C. W. Friedrich] aurait été perdu, sans (qu’il ne reste) aucune trace, sinon dans son ouvrage.» Dans son dictionnaire des hébraïsmes du yiddish, C. W. Friedrich (1784: 12–45) fournit nombre d’exemples qu’on retrouvera dans le LCAAJ et qui témoigne de la précision de son étude et de ses intuitions notamment pour particulariser les aires dialectales intermédiaires du yiddish,29 comme la Hongrie et la Tchécoslovaquie (Katz 1983: 1018–1041 le dénomme le Southern Transitional Yiddish), l’Allemagne du Nord (Northern Transitional Yiddish) et le yiddish occidental du sud (le yiddish de Souabe dans la ————— 25

Chez Franz Haselbauer (1742: 241), on trouve Piltzl. Andreas Sennert (1666: 65) cite les mêmes exemples, visiblement repris de livre en livre. Il ajoute l’exemple de oren («prier»), breylefft («mariage»). On trouve le terme breylaff chez Franz Haselbauer (1742: 244) et Brauloft chez Johann Christof Wagenseil (1699: 89). 27 Sur cet ouvrage, voir Dovid Katz 1988: 43-52. 28 C. W. Friedrich vécut à Königsberg et à Prenzlau. 29 Le LCAAJ III insiste sur l’importance des traits distinctifs des zones dialectales intermédiaires du yiddish, voir, par exemple, la différence entre le livre de prières, tfile (yiddish occidental), sider (yiddish oriental) et siderl (yiddish central – 2000: 212, carte 81) ou harle (yiddish occidental), zeyde (yiddish oriental) et deyde (yiddish central – 2000: 214, carte 82). 26

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classification de C. W. Friedrich). Beaucoup de termes appartiennent aux mêmes champs sémantiques que ceux du LCAAJ. On pense, entre autres, aux termes culinaires et liés à la nourriture, comme, entre autres, fleisch/flâsch «viande», berchess (barchess)/hale, «pain du shabbat», lokschen/lekshchlech «nouilles», aux termes de parenté, comme bôbe (Souabe babe), «grand-mère»,30 mame/em «mère», seide/erle «grandpère»,31 voter/ete «père». Nombre de termes désignent des pratiques religieuses, des termes liés aux fonctions officielles dans les communautés juives, dont, par exemple, Matones hakale/Zivlauness (Sivlones) «cadeaux offerts à la fiancée», Rov/rav «rabbin». On trouve aussi la plupart des termes qui servent à différencier, dans les études à partir du XIXe siècle, les aires occidentales et orientales du yiddish, comme, dawenen/oren «prier», nedunje/nedan «dot»32 ou zider (sider)/tefile «livre de prières».33 À cet intérêt pour la langue yiddish chez les philologues et théologiens chrétiens, il convient d’ajouter la longue tradition d’étude du Rotwelsch, la langue des mendiants, des vagabonds, l’argot du milieu et des voleurs, dont on trouve les premières traces dans le Liber vagatorum (Rosenfeld, 1988: 99–103) et des échos dans nombre de traités édités à la Renaissance, dont le Mithridates de Konrad Gessner (1555). Dans ce livre (1555: 71v–72r), l’auteur assimile le Rotwelsch à la langue des tsiganes (zigyner) dans laquelle on trouve des mots yiddish et hébreu comme Adone/Gott («Dieu»), achelen/essen («manger»), gfar/dorff, («village»), lehem/brot («pain»). Il existe, de même, tout un ensemble de traités sur la langue yiddish destinés aux missionnaires dans le dessein de convertir les juifs, édités notamment dans le cadre de l’Institutum Judaicum de Halle.34 La ————— 30 31 32 33 34

Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 194, carte 729), on note l’opposition fra:le (yiddish occidental) et bobe (yiddish oriental). Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 214, carte 82), on note l’opposition entre harle, herle (MHD hërrelin)/ saide, seide (ancien polonais dzed). Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 182, carte 66), on note l’opposition entre nedunye, nedunya (Yiddish occidental) et nodn, nadan (yiddish oriental). Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 212, carte 81), on note l’opposition entre Tefile (yiddish occidental)/ Sider, siderl, ziderl (yiddish oriental). Sur le rôle du yiddish dans la conversion des juifs et chez les juifs convertis, voir Elisheva Carlebach (2001: 159-161, 166-169). Cet Institut fut fondé en 1728 par le théologien protestant et orientaliste Johann Heinrich Callenberg (1694-1760) qui publia des ouvrages sur la langue yiddish. Franz Delitzsch créa en 1882 un institut de théologie (Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum), centré sur l’activité missionnaire auprès des juifs, dans lequel

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conception de l’ensemble de ces traités, qui s’inspirent de la littérature chrétienne imprimée dès le XVIe siècle, est fondée sur l’idée que la langue allemande est, pour les Juifs, une «langue païenne» (Heydensprache), sans orthographe normée, ni grammaire. De plus, les juifs polonais, dont beaucoup viennent dans les pays germaniques pour enseigner aux enfants, altèrent la prononciation de l’allemand. Ils utilisent des mots déformés et tordus (verzupftere, verschrobenere geradbrochenere wörter), comme, par exemple, Eizik pour Isaac, ou des phrases liées à la nourriture comme, am shabbes achle ich gern toffe dogim («le shabbat, je mange volontiers des poissons bouillis»). J. H. Callenberg indique des «mots particuliers», venant soit du vieil-allemand, soit du latin ou du polonais, qui sont typiques dans la bouche des juifs, comme ette, tette, ef («Vater»), belzel, bilzel («Töchterlein, Magd»), breyleft («Hochzeit»), bour, buhr («Ein frecher grober Mensch, ungelehrter), gewaltigen («herrschen»), gewinnen («gebähren»), leinen («lesen»), memme («Mutter»), mouschle («Moses»35). Certains mots viennent du latin, comme benschen («behten, seegnen», de benedicere), nital, nitel («Weynachtsfest» de natalis,36 oren («behten», de orare). Dans le dictionnaire de J. H. Callenberg (1736), on trouve des indications sur la prononciation d’hébraïsmes en yiddish qu’il avait rassemblés auprès d’informateurs juifs, dont, entre autres Ha-arets/hoorets, Kokhav/Kauchov, Hefetz/Cheiphets. Ces vocables donnent des précisions intéressantes sur la manière de prononcer le yiddish, qui corroborent nombre de données contenues dans le Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. Au-delà des considérations apologétiques et prosélytiques qui déforment la perception de la langue yiddish et de sa structure, ces ouvrages contiennent nombre de remarques lexicographiques dont la plupart seront théorisées et intégrées dans la perspective de la ————— on édita des publications en yiddish. Les titres de ces ouvrages sont, entre autres. J. H. Callenberg, Kurtze Anleitung zur jüdischteutschen Sprache (1733); J. H. Callenberg, Jüdisch-Teutsche Grammatik (1750) ; W. C. J. Chrysander, Unterricht vom Nutzen des Juden-Teutschen, Wolfenbüttel (1750); W. C. J. Chrysander, Jüdisch-Teutsche Grammatik (1750). Sur ces ouvrages, voir M. Weinreich 1958, idem 1940: 101-108, et H.P. Althaus 1966. 35 Sur l’histoire de ce mot, qui peut être un prénom ou la désignation du juif, voir H. P. Althaus 2005. 36 Dans le LCAAJ III (2000: 294, carte 118), on trouve nitl-nakht, tole nakht («Noël»), lit. «la nuit du pendu», référence à Jésus le pendu (tole en yiddish occidental), appellation qu’on trouve, entre autres, dans les Toldot Yesh.

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«dialectologie structurale» propre au LCAAJ. Citons quelques exemples qui témoignent de l’importance historique de ces études, toutes circonscrites et déformées par des préjugés religieux qu’elles puissent apparaître. On trouve ainsi beaucoup de termes, notamment des hébraïsmes, concernant les pratiques, les coutumes, les usages, dont tevile («Abwaschung der weiber wegen der monatlichen reinigungen»); telile («Ausziehung. Schimpflische ausziehung des schuhes welche demjenigen wiederfähret welcher seines bruders witwe nicht heyrathen und ihm saamen erwecken will); halitse («Schmähliche ausziehung des schuhes so demjenigen widerfuhr, welcher seines bruders witwe zu heyrathen sich weigerte»); yebeme («Heyrathung der witwe des verstorbenen bruders und erzeugung eines erbens für denselben»). On trouve aussi des noms de fêtes, de cérémonies, dont shemini atseres, d’institutions, de lieux et de fonctionnaires, dont gabé tsdoke («almonensamler»37), haver rabi («College des Rabbi, ein zur rabbinendignität promovirter und den lebzeiten des promotors so genanter.») ou encore beys hayim («Begräbnis»). Les recherches sociolinguistiques et les enquêtes38 autour de la rédaction de le Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry donneront une assise scientifique à la «dialectologie structurale», fondée sur un ensemble de cartes linguistiques destinées à «la représentation de la variation dans une langue et une culture à travers l’espace» (LCAAJ II, 1995: 1) et établies à partir de la «géographie culturelle et linguistique du yiddish». Le LCAAJ reste un monument du patrimoine juif d’Europe, en même temps qu’un mémorial dédié à la culture juive ashkénaze et à ses dialectes, de nos jours, en grande partie, disparus. Cette exceptionnelle recherche, fruit de décennies de travail linguistique de terrain, d’enquêtes auprès d’informateurs «à distance» et de réflexion théorique, reste largement tributaire du travail de collecte et de théorisation des dialectes du yiddish entrepris en Europe orientale, puis aux USA après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. On ne saurait, toutefois, négliger l’apport des travaux sur la langue et la culture yiddish, émanant de juifs et de chrétiens, rédigés depuis le XVIe jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle. Ces études, certes éparses, souvent ————— 37

Notons l’opposition entre parness (yiddish occidental)/ gabe et roschekol (yiddish oriental). 38 À partir du Western Questionnaire portant sur le yiddish occidental, préparé notamment, par Uriel Weinreich, et de l’Ethnographic supplement rédigé après des consultations avec Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg, voir U. Weinreich 1960; LCAAJ I, 1992: 6.

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impressionnistes, sans méthodologie ni cadres théoriques précis, fondées sur des présupposés dépréciatifs et des conceptions religieuses dépassées, n’en constituent pas moins une des pierres de fondation du LCAAJ. Les études concernant la langue et la culture yiddish forment un ensemble de connaissances transmises, enrichies de génération en génération et intégrées au sein d’un continuum historique et culturel. Elles apparaissent, à la fois, multiformes, fragmentées, sans homogénéité et, en même temps, formant une totalité culturelle cohérente, dont on peut faire remonter l’origine aux gloses en judéo-allemand (Le’azim) des rabbins médiévaux et qui se prolonge jusqu’à la rédaction du Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, que l’on peut considérer comme un point d’aboutissement.

Références bibliographiques Althaus, Hans Peter (éd.) 1966 J. H. Callenberg und W. C. J. Chrysander, Schriften zur jiddischen Sprache. Marburg (N.G. Elwert). Althaus, Hans Peter 2005 Mauscheln, ein Wort als Waffe. Berlin (Walter de Gruyter). Beranek, Franz J. 1965 Westjiddischer Sprachatlas. Marburg (N.G. Elwert). Blebelius, Thomas 1594 Compendium Hebraeae linguae. Wittenberg (ex officina Cratoniana). Boas, Franz (éd.) 1911/1922 Handbook of American Indian Languages. 2 tomes, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin. Washington (Smithsonian Institute). Boas, Franz 1940 Race, Language and Culture. New York (Macmillan). Bright, William (éd.) 1968 Sociolinguistics. La Haye (Mouton). Buxtorf, Johannes 1609 Thesaurus Grammaticus Linguae Sanctae Hebaeae, Bâle. Callenberg, Johann Heinrich 1733 Kurtze Anleitung zur jüdischteutschen Sprache. Halle (Buchdruckerey des Jüdischen Instituti). Callenberg, Johann Heinrich 1736 Jüdischteutsches Wörterbüchlein. Halle (Buchdruckerey des Jüdischen Instituti). Callenberg, Johann Heinrich 1750 Jüdisch-Teutsche Grammatik. Leipzig, Wolfenbüttel (Johann Christoph Meisner). Calvör, Caspar 1710 Gloria Christi, Leipzig (J. C. König).

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Carlebach, Elisheva 2001 Divided Souls. Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500–1700, New Haven (Yale University Press). Chrysander, Wilhelm Christian Justus 1750 Unterricht von Nutzen des Juden-Teutschen. Wolfenbüttel (Johann Christoph Meisner). Chrysander, Wilhelm Christian Justus 1750 Jüdisch-Teutsche Grammatik. Leipzig/Wolfenbüttel (Johann Christoph Meisner). Deutscher Sprachatlas (DSA) 1927–1956 Auf Grund des Sprachatlas des deutschen Reichs, fondé par Georg Wenker. Initié par Ferdinand Wrede, continué par Walther Mitzka et Bernhard Martin. Marburg (N.G. Elwert). Deutscher Wortatlas (DWA) 1951–1980 De Walther Mitzka; tome 5 et suivants de Walther Mitzka et de Ludwig Erich Schmitt; tomes 21 und 22 édités par Reiner Hildebrandt, Giessen (Schmitz). Dialektologie 1982/1983 Werner Besch/ Ulrich Knoop/ Wolfgang Putschke/ Herbert Ernst Wiegand (éds.), Ein Handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialektforschung, 2 tomes, Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter). Élie Levita 1541 Tishbi. Isny (Paulus Fagius). Fagius, Paulus 1543 Compendiaria isagoge in linguam hebraeam. Constance (Paulus Fagius). Fishman, Joshua (éd.) 1968 Readings in the Sociology of Language. La Haye (Mouton). Frakes, Jerold 1993 [Voir, Weinreich, Max 1923]. Frakes, Jerold 2007 The Cultural Study of Yiddish in Early Modern Europe. New York (Palgrave). Friedrich, Carl Wilhelm 1784 Unterricht in der Judensprache, und Schrift, zum Gebrauch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte. Prenzlau (Ragoczy). Gessner, Konrad 1555 (1974) Mithridates. Zürich 1555. Réproduction anastatique, introduction par M. Peters, Aalen (Scienta) 1974. Gottesman, Itzik Nahman 2003 Defining the Yiddish Nation. The Jewish Folklorists of Poland, Detroit (Wayne University Press). Guggenheim-Grünberg, Florence 1973 Jiddisch auf alemannischem Sprachgebiet. Zürich (Juris Druck). Haselbauer, Franz 1742 Fondamenta Grammatica, Prague (Typis Universit. Carolo-Ferdinand). Helicz, Paul 1543 Elemental oder lesebüchlen. Hundsfeld, Réproduction Breslau (Verein Jüdisches Museum).

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Herzog Marvin 1965 The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland. Its Geography and History, Bloomington/The Hague (Indiana University/Mouton). Hutton, Christopher 1993 Normativism and the Notion of Authenticity in Yiddish Linguistics. Dans: The Field of Yiddish, Fifth Collection, David Goldberg (éd.), Evanston/New York (Northwestern University Press/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research), 1–57. Hymes, Dell H. (éd.) 1964 Language in Culture and Society. New York/Evanston/London (Harper and Row). Israel Isserlein 1519 Terumat ha-deshen. Venise (Daniel Bomberg). Jacob ben Moshe Moellin 1556 Sefer Maharil [=Minhagei Maharil]. Sabbioneta (Tobias Foa). Katz, Dovid 1988 Origins of Yiddish Dialectology. Dans: Dialects of the Yiddish Language, Dovid Katz (éd.), Oxford (Pergamon), 43–52. Katz, Dovid 1983 Zur Dialektologie des Jiddischen. Dans: Dialektologie [voir ci-dessus], tome 2: 1018– 1041. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 1996 Coming of Age in the Thirties. Max Weinreich, Edward Sapir, and Jewish Social Science. Dans: YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 23, Deborah Dash Moore (éd.), 1–103. Knoop, Ulrich/ Wolfgang Putschke/ Herbert Ernst Wiegand 1982 Die Marburger Schule: Entstehung und frühe Entwicklung der Dialektgeographie. Dans: Dialektologie [voir ci-dessus], tome 1: 38–92. Labov, William 1976 Sociolinguistique, Paris (Éditions de Minuit), (trad. de Sociolinguistic Patterns, Phila delphia, 1972). Lange, Nicolas de (éd.) 2001 Hebrew Scholarship in the Medieval World. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (rédacteur en chef), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (éds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Langages 11, 1965 Sociolinguistique. Langages, 18, 1970 Ethnolinguistique. Leroi-Gourhan, André 1986 L’histoire sans textes. L’Histoire et ses méthodes, Paris, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, 217249.

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Maharil = Sefer Maharil/Minhagei Maharil 1556 Voir, Jacob ben Moshe Moellin. Meelführer, Johannes 1607 Grammaticae Hebraeae compendiosa institutio. Ansbach (Paulus Bohemus). Mishna Voir, par exemple, Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, Jérusalem (Or Meir) 1988. Mitzka, Walther et Ludwig Erich Schmitt [Voir, Deutscher Wortatlas]. Moshe Mintz 1617 Sheelot u-teshuvot. Cracovie (Isaac Prostitz). Pfeiffer, August 1680 Critica sacra. Dresden (Hübner). Rosenfeld, Moshe 1988 Early Yiddish in non-Jewish books. Dans: Dialects of the Yiddish Language, Dovid Katz (éd.) Oxford (Pergamon), 99–103. Sapir, Edward 1949 (1912) Language and Environment. Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality, David G. Mandelbaum (éd.), Berkeley (University of California Press), 90-94. Schadäus, Elias 1592 Mysterium. Strasbourg (Schadaeanis). Sennert, Andreas 1666 Rabbinismus. Wittenberg (Sumptibus Fincelianis). Trabant, Jürgen 1999 Traditions de Humboldt. Paris (Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme). Trier, Jost 1931 Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes. Heidelberg (Winter). Vilenkin, Leyzer 1931 Yidisher sprakhatlas fun sovetn-farband. Minsk (Vaysrusishe visnshaft-akademye). Wagenseil, Johann Christof 1699 Belehrung der Jüdisch-Teutschen Red- und Schreib-Art. Königsberg (P. F. Rhode). Weil, Jakob 1549 Sheelot u-teshuvot. Venise (Cornelio Adelkind). Weinreich, Max 1923a/1993 Studien zur Geschichte und dialektischen Gliederung der jiddischen Sprache: Geschichte und gegenwärtiger Stand der jiddischen Sprachforschung. Marburg (Diss. Université de Marburg). Réédité avec une introduction par Jerold Fakes, Atlanta (Scholars Press) 1993. Weinreich, Max 1923b Shtaplen. Fir etyudn tsu der yidisher shprakhvisnshaft un literaturgeshikhte[!], Berlin (Wostock). Weinreich, Max (éd.) 1958 Chrysander’s Yiddish Grammar of 1750 Reproduced from the Original. New York (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research).

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Weinreich, Max 1940 Yidishe filologye. Algemeyne entsiklopedye, tome 2, Paris (Congrès Juif Mondial), 101– 108. Weinreich Max 1980/2008 History of the Yiddish Language. Trad. du yiddish par Shlomo Noble avec l’aide de Joshua Fishman, Chicago (University of Chicago Press). History of the Yiddish Language [édition complète], Paul Glasser (éd.), 2 vols., trad. par Shlomo Noble avec l’aide de Joshua Fishman, New Haven/London (Yale University Press). Weinreich, Uriel 1960 Vegn a nayem yidishn shrapkh- un kultur-atlas. Dans: Goldene Keyt 37: 47–57. Whorf, Benjamin Lee 1956/1969 Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge (MIT Press) 1956. Trad. française: Linguistique et Anthropologie. Paris (Denoël-Gonthier) 1969.

Jonathan Boyarin

The Atlas Interview in the Age of Its Internet Ubiquity

Here is a sentence, written in English, as it appeared in the rough notes I submitted prior to the May 2005 conference in Berlin announcing the launch of the EYDES website: We are all nodal points, each a producer and consumer of anxiety and comfort, each creator and destroyer of meaning, generators of memory and agents of violent oblivion.

When I spoke briefly at the conference itself,1 I asked that this sentence only be translated into German; indeed, I flattered myself to think that it had the sound of a sentence that might originally have been written in German. However, upon listening (now, some two years later) to a recording of my spoken comments, I find to my dismay that the repeated conjunctive “and” in this Leitmotif sentence has become a disjunctive “oder.” I did not, to be sure, mean anything as simple as the idea that individuals are free at any moment to choose good or evil, nor (even more of a misprision) that some of us are creators of meaning and others destroyers! My point was precisely that each of us, inevitably, inescapably, participates in both the furtherance of life and the imposition of death. What does the sentence above have to do with EYDES? I am in short humbled and inspired by the EYDES project and the imaginative and recuperative possibilities it fosters. There is no doubt in my mind that this project is squarely on the side of the production of comfort, the creation of meaning, and the regeneration of memory. At the same time, EYDES, like the entire project of the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ, more familiarly known in YIVO circles as “the Atlas”), is written squarely and irrevocably under the sign of cultural absence, a kind of skeleton key to a missing plenitude. If each one of us, at the existential level (and I risk repeating myself here, to make sure my meaning comes through ————— 1 This paper is itself a modest revision of the comments I was privileged to present at the May 2005 EYDES conference in Berlin.

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more clearly this time) cannot make our way through life without contributing both to the work of renewal that makes cultural continuity possible in vastly changed circumstances, and snuffing out (in our anxious mimesis of whatever behaviours and expressions seem at any given time to be rewarded with material security and general approbation) precious sparks of creativity from the past that could have burst forth once more in warming fire, perhaps it is fair to say that EYDES evokes an analogous inevitable duality. I am struck, that is to say, by the unity of concentration and dispersal, of recuperation and loss, occasioned both by the conditions under which the original Atlas interviews were conducted and by the re-emergence of Atlas data in this new medium. The Atlas is structuralist in logic (see Weinreich 1954); in that sense, the Atlas is a project of fragmentation. It also seems accurate, on the other hand, to say that the Atlas is in some sense “national” in form: it is a dialect geography of Yiddishland (see Shandler 2006). And it is not clear, at least to me, whether the Atlas as a project (and its new avatar on the internet) ultimately points more forcefully toward, on the one hand, the near-ubiquity of Yiddish in northern, central and eastern Europe, or, on the other, toward the fantastic variety and specificity of its erstwhile locations, like the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea. Is it the body of Yiddish or the fragmentation of its members (the body of Europe or the fragmentation of its members) that is celebrated here? I pose the question not to set up my own answer, but rather to articulate one of the largest topics that EYDES provokes us, once again (yet again!) to consider. I suspect it is likely to take years before we understand the many new possibilities that EYDES on the web offers, but in response to more specific aspects of the working paper circulated to participants, I will suggest here some illustrations of the ultimately unpredictable but potentially foreseeable new kinds of circulation of signs and memories that the EYDES website enables, such as recuperation of the sound of local Yiddish by local residents (Jewish or not) never privileged to hear the Yiddish of that place before. In sum, I want to suggest that the Atlas interview available on the Internet provides further material for reflection on the politics of memory to be rescued from ruins and fragments, a question that has been central to me since I first began studying Yiddish, and reading Walter Benjamin, almost simultaneously in the late 1970s–and more simply, that the EYDES project exemplifies the kind of initiative that strengthens the possibility of continued human existence.

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Let me expand a bit on these ponderous paragraphs. If we view the structuralist discipline and the national pathos as simultaneously present in the Atlas project, these two motives combined might help explain why Uriel Weinreich could have been thoroughly committed to the teaching of klal-yidish, the normatized “school dialect” that is found nowhere on the Atlas maps. Some form of standardization, such as that which resulted in klal-yidish, is doubtless indispensable to the functioning of a modern language, especially as the dialects themselves are in the process of disintegration. The standard provides the form of national identity in unity. Its artificiality is, however, acutely sensed by those who grew up speaking, or even hearing, one of the regional dialects. Thus, the Paris Yiddish scholar Dovid Malki (originally from Lodz) listened to me for a while when I first telephoned him decades ago to try to arrange an interview, and eventually interrupted to ask me where I had learned my Yiddish. When I told him I had studied Yiddish at YIVO, he replied, “zikh lernen yidish in YIVO iz azoy vi geboyrn vern in an inkubator”–to learn Yiddish at YIVO is like being born in an incubator. One wonders what analogy he might possibly have discovered for learning Yiddish over the internet! If klal-yidish provides the form of national identity in unity, then the Atlas provides the form of national identity in diversity, where each phonetic and lexical variant stands guard over the occupation (significantly, of course, non-exclusive!) by Yiddish of a different part of Europe. The Atlas creates for Yiddishland not merely a dialect geography, but a dialectic landscape. I am put in mind of a festive dinner arranged, years ago, in Brooklyn by the local Palestinian émigré organizations, where the highlight of the evening’s program was a fashion show in which women appeared dressed in the typical embroidery of the various parts of that imagined homeland. As the embroidered women paraded, the names were announced – “Beit Hanina!” “Ramallah!” “Jenin!” like a national roll call of memory. So, too, I suggest, the variant mappings of the Atlas, where for example a sabesdiker losn accompanies and (by itself, as it were) evokes Lite and, through this specific part, echoes the entirety of the lost collective.2 It may ————— 2 By using the term “evokes” here I do not mean to suggest that nostalgic essentialism was the goal of the Atlas researchers. On the contrary, the Atlas was emphatically a study of “language in context.” Indeed, I consider Uriel Weinreich and his father Max to be key pioneers of current theories of hybridity. However, it does not seem illegitimate to respond to Atlas records as markers of a once-present, partially recoverable, specifically Jewish

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be that, in a more prosaic way, the use of contrasting pairs, each of which gives meaning to the other, is a valuable resource for explaining why there can be differences among individuals or groups which nevertheless share the same collective name–here, “Jewish.” Something like a folk dialect geography may continue to be reproduced as part of the reinvention of Yiddish. Thus, our child Jonah, some years before his bar mitzvah, used to explain that his mother Elissa Sampson and I speak Yiddish differently, because she’s a native of Brooklyn while I’m from New Jersey. At another level, of course, the linguistic evidence presented in the Atlas is not meant to represent anything else at all–or, if it represents anything, that “anything” is in turn another lexical item. Thus (and I am remembering studies of Atlas maps from nearly thirty years ago as I write this) the caption to one of the maps might bear the legend “small street,” and symbols on various points on the map might be keyed to variants such as likl, gesl. Characteristically, a parody map was created by Atlas researchers at Columbia University, mapping the distribution of the invented term pebltshuk, glossed as “special implement for removing small stones from horses’ hooves.” What does it matter today who said likl and who said gesl? I like to refer to what I call the “germ theory” of Yiddish. Of course, the fully naturalized seed metaphor is somewhat misleading, because what grows from the seed of these heirloom varieties, these dialectal variants, is shaped not only by what is genetically programmed inside them but by the circumstances of its growth as well. Cultural evolution is much more contingent than that. But it is still compelling to imagine the growth of new cultural forms, responsive to new ethical and social demands, out of the traces of old practices and references preserved in the Atlas. Thus, while listening, on a recent Purim morning at the Stanton Street Synagogue on New York’s Lower East Side, to the festive naming of a new baby girl for the first time in too many years, I was reminded that once upon a time, some Ashkenazi Jews knew how to celebrate the arrival of a newborn girl, with the shout “holekresh, holekresh, vi zol dos kind heysn?” Though I was taught, as a graduate student, that this custom was documented for German Jewry (see Max Weinreich 1967), I had myself heard an echo of it years before, from the lips of an elderly ————— and bounded collective identity. Accordingly, the Weinreichs’ analytic, rather than nostalgic, approach does not gainsay different kinds of affect the Atlas interviews have today—especially their iconic potential for representing lost “Jewish places,” which I am stressing here.

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Polish Jew. After the reading of the Purim Megillah, as we began to sing the traditional closing song “shoshanas yakov, tsohole vesomeykho” he turned to me with a smile and said, “shoshanas yakov, tsehole dos maydl–hayb uf dos maydl”–an echo of holekresh, a pun to recall a very old ceremony, but I would not have a clue as to what he meant were it not for the rescue work of the Atlas. And here I was, recalling–recollecting, collecting back together– these fragments of cultural memory, on a Purim morning when a new baby was being named. As I have suggested, we cannot know in advance what similar sorts of new cultural constellations the Atlas on the internet may help to make possible. But I do have a few modest notions of the likely cultural values of this project. First, and most broadly–yet hardest to articulate–is the virtue of making what the convenors of the conference called “the original sound” available (at least in principle) anywhere, at any time. Certainly there is a certain value in the mere archival preservation of sounds that would otherwise be lost; how much more so, al akhas kama vekame, in a medium that simultaneously preserves and circulates these sounds? In the most general sense, that is, I believe it is good for these sounds to be audible, even (if such were the case) without any identifying marks or documentation, or more concretely, even for someone who hears them without any notion of when they were uttered or what they might signify. Like music, they are good sounds. Somewhat more concretely, I think of the relevance of making these interviews accessible to those living now in the places whose local Yiddish they record. The recent documentary film by Menachem Daum, “Hiding and Seeking,” documents the return visit of a Hasidic family to the small towns in Poland where their parents had lived and been hidden through World War II. In one of these towns lives a young woman in her twenties who just happens to be absolutely fascinated and dedicated to the history and the particular culture of that town’s Jewish community. The EYDES project, among many other things that it makes possible, will make it possible for this young woman and others like her to hear the Yiddish of that place. So in a sense, one of the things that the Atlas on the web does is to restore Yiddish back to the many places where it was spoken. Thus, while the technical structure of the EYDES website may be primarily oriented toward analytic research possibilities, I would stress a bit by contrast the holistic possibilities, the possibility of hearing the Yiddish from

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a place. Indeed, one of the concrete uses that I can think of for the Atlas would be in regular and possibly annual symposia or other events where people would come together in a particular place to talk about not just the destruction of the local Jewish community, but the life, the life of local Jewish communities. It may be worth mentioning that in my own forays onto the EYDES website, it’s not clear to me that one has the option of sitting down and listening to, “playing” as we say, an entire interview straight through.3 Indeed one desideratum that may not only be absent from the archive as it stands, but unproducible altogether today, would be a simple taped interview of a monologue or a dialogue of Yiddish conversation from a particular location (without, that is, the interviewer’s interjections and questions). I am suggesting that the EYDES website should be ideally seen as a resource not only for specialists in dialectic geography and historical linguistics, but for all those–genealogists, historians, novelists among them–who are interested in more richly inhabiting a given place in the present through its past. Hence the further developments should be thought of not only in terms of greater analytic manipulability, but also in terms of greater holistic integrability. Along these lines, EYDES can be a more creative, life-promoting nodal point to the extent that it can link the Atlas interview records to other resources, online and otherwise, for evoking the Yiddish culture of a given time and place. Links to JewishGen.org and its “Shtetl Finder” would be obvious, so that an integration of purely linguistic data with personal reminiscences and other “thick descriptions” (in Clifford Geertz’s term (1973: 5–6, 9–10)) of the town would be readily available. The richer our virtual representation of Jewish lieux de mémoire the better. At the same time it is no doubt best that this virtual representation retain the traces of its fragmentary and reconstructive nature. I am put in mind of Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, with three kinds of ruin of the Pueblo Indians who lived there from the 1100s through the 1500s: one excavated and fully reconstructed; one excavated but left as the excavators found it; and one still left under the earth for future archaeologists. Bringing the Atlas material within the purview of those interested in European cultural studies has the potential to stimulate a wide range of new inquiries that, again, can only be hinted are here. Certainly it provides ————— 3 Via the EYDES Repository it is possible to listen to all mp3 files of an interview in a row [editors’ note].

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further material for reflection on the current import of ruined and fragmented memory. More abstractly and perhaps more unexpectedly, in the area of cultural geography and cultures of nationalism and regionalism, the Atlas tapes suggest that we have barely begun to consider powerful associations, usually taken for granted or ignored entirely, between place and aurality. Quite significantly for the project of rethinking the boundaries of “Europe” as a political and cultural entity, perusal of even part of the list of place names next to the web site’s location index brings home very forcefully the historical (and in that sense “contingent” if not arbitrary) nature of the distinction between East and West Europe, a question that remains of vital, not to say mortal, importance. Returning at last to the yidishe gas, the concerns of the Atlas researchers might seem the furthest thing from Yiddish as it is spoken today, especially in contemporary Hasidic communities. It is entirely plausible, however, that members of those communities might have a reverential tie to the specifics of a given Jewish place of memory (the rebbe’s town, for instance) even if their own ancestors did not come from that place. A Bobover Hasid–a few Bobover Hasidim, even!–might be interested in learning how to talk vi a bobover yid. And wouldn’t that be a wonderful, almost miraculous tikn for these traces of the voice of that place and time?

References Geertz, Clifford 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays, New York (Basic Books). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Martinet, André and Uriel Weinreich (eds.) 1954 Linguistics Today. Published on the Occasion of the Columbia Bicentennial. New York (Linguistic Circle of New York). Shandler, Jeffrey 2006 Adventures in Yiddishland. Postvernacular Language & Culture, Berkeley (University of California Press).

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Weinreich, Max 1967 Holekrash: A Jewish Rite of Passage. In: D.K. Wilgus (ed.) Folkore International. Essays in Honor of Wayland Debs Hand, Hatboro, PA (Folklore Associates), 243–253. Weinreich, Uriel 1954 Is a Structural Dialectology Possible? In: Martinet and Weinreich (eds.), 268–280.

Janet Gertz

Audio Preservation and the LCAAJ Archive at Columbia University

1 Introduction In 1995, when the Columbia University Libraries were given the collection of audiotapes of the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry, no one could have imagined how successful EYDES would be a decade later in its international effort to make the interviews available online 1.1 Description of the LCAAJ Audio Tape Collection The Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ) is an extraordinary resource for research in Yiddish studies, ranging over language, ethnography, folklore and music, anthropology, linguistics, Germanic and Slavic studies, and aspects of Central and East European history. It consists of over 5,700 hours of audio tape field interviews with Yiddish-speaking informants collected between 1959 and 1972; there are also some 100,000 pages of accompanying linguistic field notes. 1.2 Creation of the LCAAJ Collection In 1959, Professor Uriel Weinreich, then Chairman of Columbia University’s Department of Linguistics, embarked on an investigation entitled “Geographic Differentiation in Coterritorial Societies,” which continued after his death in 1967 until 1972 under the direction of Dr. Marvin Herzog, Atran Professor Emeritus of Yiddish Studies at Columbia University. A long-range comparative study, its goal was to document the effects of physical, linguistic, and cultural channels and barriers on the geographic fragmentation of the Jewish and diverse non-Jewish populations that coexisted in Central and Eastern Europe before World War II. As the

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predominant language of Jewish society in the region, Yiddish was everywhere in touch with the local languages of the dominant non-Jewish societies. One could hardly design a laboratory better suited to the study of cultures and languages in contact, social dialectology, contextual variation, and cultural and language change. In compiling the archival repository now known as the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry, the investigation was specifically designed to preserve the informants’ actual voices in a vast and rich compendium, as well as to yield a multi-volume publication, Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer; New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1992–2000). The investigation was supported throughout by major research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by gifts from a number of other foundations: the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Atran Foundation, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. The questionnaire was administered during a series of interviews with a total of 603 informants then living in the United States, Israel, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. The informants were mostly elderly immigrants originally from locations in Eastern and Central Europe carefully selected to provide as even a geographic coverage as possible. Interviews yielded from three to sixteen hours of audio material each, the interviews with informants from the Slavic region tending to be the longest. They were conducted by trained interviewers, most of them academic linguists fluent in Yiddish. No verbatim transcriptions of the interviews were made. The tapes were the only record of the often lengthy narrative answers, stories, descriptions of cultural practices, life-history narratives, and even songs and recipes. During the course of the interviews, researchers did make field notes consisting of phonetic representations of specific words as they were pronounced by the informant; thus, the field notes relate almost exclusively to linguistic problems such as pronunciation and meanings of specific words. They were never intended to reproduce the narrative information or continuous text, which is available only on the audio tape. In any case, oral interviews convey their content in an entirely different way from written transcripts, through the actual voices of the speakers with an immediacy and emotional impact available only through sound.

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2 Preserving the LCAAJ Audio Tape Collection In 1995 the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry Archive was donated to Columbia University Libraries by Dr. Herzog, in order to ensure its continued availability for future research. Two years later the Preservation Division of Columbia University Libraries began a project to preserve all of the tapes; the effort finally reached completion in June of 2005. This major preservation project was assisted by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials, and grants from five private foundations, two of which had helped support the original research: Atran, Littauer, the David & Barbara B. Hirschhorn Foundation, the Morris J. and Betty Kaplun Foundation, and the Sheldon H. Solow Foundation. 2.1 Deterioration Mechanisms of Audio Tape The scope of the project was daunting. Audio tape consists of a base topped by a binder that contains particles that are magnetized in a pattern that represents the sound wave. Approximately 5,700 hours of interviews had been recorded on 2,552 reels of tape produced in numerous countries, at a variety of speeds, and under widely varying conditions over the course of fourteen years. More than twenty different brands and sizes of tape stock were used, including both acetate- and polyester-backed tape. The situation was made more complex by the fact that each manufacturer had its own proprietary methods for making tape which it kept secret for the sake of competition. Quality varied from year to year and even from batch to batch as manufacturers experimented with different chemical combinations. Acetate tape is a very impermanent medium, with an average functional life of twenty years, after which it begins to suffer edge curl, cracking and flaking, and binder decomposition, leading to loss of the recorded signal. Acetate tapes suffer particularly from “vinegar syndrome,” caused by chemical break-down of the acetate into acetic acid – essentially vinegar – and other products as it gradually becomes unplayable. Audio tape can also undergo “sticky shed,” which is the result of hydrolysis. Chemicals in the binder react with water vapor, leading to production of a sticky substance that adheres the tape to itself and rubs off

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on tape recorder heads. With both tape stocks, older tapes may stretch or break during playing or storage, splice adhesives may leech to other portions of the tape, and many tape types are subject to print through. With both acetate and polyester tape, once deterioration begins, it cannot be stopped or reversed. The only solution is re-recording, carried out carefully to lose as little as possible of the sound quality. 2.2 Columbia’s Preservation Project In 1997 Columbia University Libraries’ Preservation Division contracted with the Computer Music Center managed by the Columbia University Music School to carry out the work of re-recording. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet was designed to track the original tapes and their brands, ranked by risk of imminent deterioration; the new preservation master tapes as they were produced; and the digital copies on CD-Rs. The spreadsheet documents when each master and copy was recorded, where it is currently housed, and other information relevant to managing both the preservation project and the future care of the materials. The preservation work adhered to internationally recognized preservation practices and technical standards for reel-to-reel recording that had been established by the mid-1990s. At that time high-quality analog recordings were considered the best preservation medium because they reproduced exactly the sound waves and could be stored in cold environments for longevity of fifty years or more. In contrast, digital recording for preservation purposes was at that time still an evolving field, and processes for long-term preservation of digital recordings were not yet widely understood. Creation of reel-to-reel preservation masters was therefore chosen as the best way to prolong the existence of the sound recorded on the original tapes. Following the best practice of the 1990s, the LCAAJ preservation project transferred the sound through analog re-recording onto high-quality, low noise, two-track 1.5 mil polyester tape on 10.5-inch metal reels. The original tapes were transferred in real time at fifteen inches per second to preserve maximum audio fidelity. In order to keep the new preservation master copies as true to the original recordings as possible, no manipulation of the original signal (such as noise reduction, filtering or other signal-

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processing techniques) was undertaken. These preservation masters are considered the archival version for the future. However, in recognition that scholars prefer to use digital formats in order to manipulate the sound, create projects like EYDES, and provide access online, the Columbia University Libraries decided to produce a digital version as part of the preservation effort. Digital copies in Wave format were created simultaneously with the analog version, and stored on high-quality CD-Rs. Beginning in 2001, the CDs were sent to Germany in batches to enable copies to be made for the EYDES Project. Once copying was completed, the CD-Rs were returned to Columbia. In all the preservation project ran for almost eight years. Approximately seven hundred hours were re-recorded each year, generating a final total of 9,792 new preservation master reel-to-reel tapes and 5,170 CD-Rs. The original tapes, the new preservation master tapes, and the CD-Rs are housed in the high-density storage facility maintained by the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium, of which Columbia University is a member. There they are kept secure in a cool, dry environment that meets standards for archival storage designed to promote maximum longevity. The CD-Rs can be made available to researchers at listening facilities provided in the University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Researchers may also purchase copies of the CDs from Columbia. For additional and more detailed information see Columbia’s online site, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/projects/digital/lcaaj/index.html. The site provides a description of the project to preserve the LCAAJ Archive as well as instructions for access to the recordings at Columbia.

3 Audio Preservation in the Twenty-first Century If Columbia were just starting the LCAAJ preservation project today, the process would be very different. Standards for high-quality preservation rerecording in digital format now exist, while archival-quality analog audio tape such as was used for the project is being produced by fewer and fewer manufacturers. Preservation of digital resources has also made great strides in the past decade, advancing from simplistic concern for back-ups to sophisticated digital asset management systems in institutional repositories and long-term digital archives. In its current audio preservation efforts,

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Columbia now produces digital preservation masters rather than reel-to-reel tapes, as is the case with most audio preservation efforts. 3.1 The Importance of Audio Materials for the Future “The 20th century has been characterized by a new, technological form of memory – the sound recording and the moving image.” In this phrase Ray Edmondson, author of Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles, published by UNESCO (2004: 4), sums up the essential value of these materials for both scholars and the general public. Because their essence is personal contact, recordings have become a very popular method for conveying information. Historical audio collections are constantly being mined for use in radio and television programs, cinema, theater, and art installations, as well as for scholarly purposes. Within universities sound recordings have become basic tools of teaching and research in an increasingly wide range of disciplines. The Survey of the State of Audio Collections in Academic Libraries, conducted in the United States by the Council on Library and Information Resources in 2004, found that seventy-eight percent of university librarians reported increased use of sound recordings not only in music and English and foreign languages and literatures, but also in disciplines such as history, anthropology, sociology, even medicine and law (Smith, 2004: 12–13). Routine use of audio in classrooms and distribution of sound over the Internet is reinventing both teaching and research. Fields like oral history that traditionally relied on written transcripts are returning increasingly to the original recordings. Modern researchers know very well that transcripts cannot convey the intellectual and emotional range of the spoken word, the complexities and nuances of conversation. Whole worlds of spoken communication escape the transcription process – subtle emphases, pauses, tone of voice, and other non-verbal cues cannot be conveyed in writing. And of course, for linguists concerned with the sounds of language, no amount of careful transcription can replace the recording as the raw material of study. Sound thus forms an ever-more important part of the documentary heritage for every social group, preserving aspects of communication and culture that cannot be conveyed by writing on paper. Sound deepens our understanding and empathy for the speakers and performers, gives a

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powerful representation of their meaning, and provides a view of the world that no written documents can. As sound recordings have become more important to scholars and the general public, international recognition has grown that these valuable resources are endangered. Historic sound recordings will not survive without intervention to assure their preservation. All of the analog media used to hold these resources suffer from deterioration that is rapid in comparison to paper. The problems inherent in analog tapes were described above. Early phonographic discs are subject to embrittlement and break easily, while vinyl discs warp and delaminate. All suffer from scratching and abrasion during use. There is no mode of sound recording that comes close to the permanence of good paper. Equally important, a substantial portion of the heritage of unique audio recordings is hidden from potential researchers. Intellectual control – catalogs, lists, metadata, and other manual or electronic means of informing scholars that materials exist in libraries and archives – is often lacking. Individual audio recordings that are components within larger archival collections are often not noted in finding aids and therefore not easily discovered by researchers. Even where audio recordings comprise the entire collection, intellectual control may still be seriously inadequate because it is difficult to describe the content of media that cannot easily be listened to in libraries and archives without old-fashioned tape players. There is often a similar and equally debilitating lack of information on who owns the copyrights that govern copying, distribution, and even access to these recordings. The cost of managing historical audio recordings is high, as is the cost of providing intellectual control and physical access. Uncertainty whether recordings may legally be made available to researchers can discourage institutions from addressing cataloging and preservation. Historic sound recording formats are all obsolete or obsolescent, and the same is true of the equipment needed to play them. Due to the inevitable deterioration of the original formats, re-recording is a necessity, but providing it is not easy, as the LCAAJ project illustrates. Few libraries own equipment capable of playing their audio collections, let alone capable of high-quality re-recording, and a limited number of technical experts is skilled in this field. The generation of skilled sound engineers who understand the older recording technologies is growing elderly, and many younger sound engineers learn only about digital technology.

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3.2 Digital Re-recording of Audio Materials As discussed above, current and future projects to preserve sound are purely digital. Best practices for archival-quality conversion to digital format were evolving constantly over the period of Columbia’s project to preserve the LCAAJ archive and have now reached a point of general agreement. Standards, guidelines, and best practices governing the preservation of sound recordings are being developed by a number of organizations, among them the Audio Engineering Society, the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, the European Broadcasting Union, and a number of national libraries. As of the writing of this paper several new guidelines and standards either have recently been published or are in late stages of development. These experts’ consensus recommends creation of Wave files recorded at least at 96 kHz, 24 bits, with no sound manipulation in the master copy, and the recommended archival file format is Broadcast Wave File Format (NINCH, 2002; IASA 2004; IASA, 2005; NRPB, 2006). Furthermore, consensus has also developed concerning the metadata that accompanies the audio file and documents when and how the recording was made (AES 2007). The importance of metadata for identification and longterm management of digital files cannot be overstated. Metadata serves at least four important roles. It describes the content of individual files and collections in such a way that search engines like Google can locate and index the collection. It documents technical characteristics of the analog original and the digital copies as well as data about the digitization process, for instance the speed and length of the original recording, the sampling rate at which the digital copy was made, and the equipment used. It provides the hierarchies and structures that maintain the relationships between, for instance, the files for side one and side two of the original tape, and between tapes one, two, and three of the original interview. Finally, it records ownership and other important administrative information. Given a full set of metadata, the digital files can be successfully accessed by those who wish to hear them, and they can be managed through time so that they are not lost due to accident or inattention. Guidelines for digital conversion are fluid and will change as technology advances. Over time libraries and archives will have to manage digital sound recordings made according to various standards and in many different formats. Unlike high-quality analog recordings that remain stable for decades if stored properly, digital recordings require regular back-up

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procedures and periodic migration to newer formats or they will no longer be able to be used. Their curators must also therefore take steps to remain well-informed about the latest methods for managing digital files over the long term. In particular, they should become well-informed about the development of trusted digital repositories where important digital resources can be deposited with assurance that they will be properly stored, backed up, and migrated forward when necessitated by the evolution of software and hardware (RLG 2002; TRAC 2007). In sum, as scholars, librarians, and archivists plan for enhanced uses of important audio resources like EYDES, it is imperative that they also develop plans for the long-term preservation of the sound. The steps in audio preservation are complex and their success depends on proper organization and technical expertise not only in creating the digital copies but also in management of digital content over time: Clean the original tapes and discs, and if necessary take remedial action to repair damage and deterioration to permit optimal sound transfer, including perhaps baking tapes suffering from sticky shed, removing mold, and similar activities. Carry out digital conversion according to the most recent standards for archival rerecording, including creation of metadata to describe the content and document technical details of the recording process. Create derivative copies (MP3 and other versions) for easy on-line access. Deposit the master copies in a preservation repository established to maintain digital files over the long term. Manage the repository to assure that files are appropriately stored, maintained, and migrated over time so that the ability to access and use the sound files is never lost.

Irreplaceable audio assets must remain available for future generations. Efforts such as PrestoSpace – a project that seeks to “enable any European archive owner, from small collections to the largest, to manage an autonomous and realistic patrimonial policy, including preservation and exploitation of digital assets” – in cooperation with the various organizations mentioned above, are providing guidance to make this possible. 3.3 The Role and Future of EYDES EYDES plays an important role in providing access to the LCAAJ archive by making it easy for anyone with access to the Internet to discover the existence of the materials and listen to them. It is no longer necessary for interested parties to travel to Columbia in order to work with the interviews.

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The EYDES online presentation and specially tailored educational and research features significantly enhance the value of the original sound recordings for scholars and for members of the general public who want to learn more about Yiddish and European Jewish culture. EYDES has created a new research and teaching tool that interfaces with the interviews and any other sound recordings that may be added over time. As such, issues of sustainability and preservation for the EYDES site must be addressed so that it remains available as long as it is of use to students and scholars.

References AES 2007 Draft standard for audio preservation and restoration – Administrative and structural metadata for audio objects. AES-X098 SC-03-06-B. New York: Audio Engineering Society. Edmondson, Ray 2004 Audiovisual archiving: Philosophy and principles. Paris: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco. org/images/0013/001364/136477e.pdf. IASA 2004 Guidelines on the production and preservation of digital audio objects. IASA-TC04. Aarhus: International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, Technical Committee. IASA 2005 The safeguarding of the audio heritage. Ethics, principles and preservation strategy. IASATC03, Version 3. International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, Technical Committee. http://www.iasa-web.org/downloads/publications/TC03_English.pdf. NINCH 2002 Guide to good practice in the digital representation and management of cultural heritage materials. Chapter 7 Audio/video capture and management. Washington, DC: National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage. http://www.nyu.edu/its/humanities/ninch guide/VII/. NRPB 2006 Capturing analog sound for digital preservation: Report of a roundtable discussion of best practices for transferring analog discs and tapes, commissioned for and sponsored by the National Recording Preservation Board, Library of Congress. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub137 abst.html. PrestoSpace 2004 The project. PrestoSpace Consortium. http://www.prestospace.org/project/index.en.html.

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RLG 2002 Trusted digital repositories: Attributes and responsibilities. An RLG-OCLC report. Mountain View, California: Research Libraries Group. http://www.oclc.org/programs/ ourwork/past/trustedrep/repositories.pdf. Smith, Abby / Allen, David Randall / Allen, Karen 2004 Survey of the state of audio collections in academic libraries. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub128abst.html. TRAC 2007 Trustworthy repositories audit & certification (TRAC): Criteria and checklist. Chicago: Center for Research Libraries; Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. http://www.crl.edu/PDF/trac.pdf.

Paul Glasser

Regional Variation in Southeastern Yiddish Historical Inferences

1 Introduction In his works on dialectology, Uriel Weinreich attributes the emergence of various phenomena in Eastern Yiddish in general and in Southeastern Yiddish in particular to the influence of the coterritorial languages. In his “Four Riddles in Bilingual Dialectology” (1963: 339-349), he notes that the features (a) loss of vowel length, (b) loss of phonemic h, (c) loss of sibilantshibilant distinction, and d) loss of final voiced consonants occur in both Yiddish and Slavic, but not in the same areas. He posits that speakers of easternmost Yiddish, i.e., Northeastern Yiddish (NEY) and Southeastern Yiddish (SEY) would pick up a feature as they passed through Poland and would keep it as they moved further east. That would explain why Polish influence on Yiddish phonology and lexicon is greater in the east than in Central Yiddish (CY). According to a second hypothesis (Nydorf 1985, personal communication), Yiddish speakers in the east did indeed pick up these features from Polish, but not in Poland – the urban population in what is now Ukraine and Belarus was largely Polish until World War II, which means that Jews would have associated with Poles, who were urban, more than with Ukrainians or Belorussians, who were rural. In Poland, conversely, where there was a large German population in urban areas and Poles were predominantly rural, Central Yiddish would have undergone less Polish and more German influence.1 A third hypothesis is that of Louden (2000: 101-106). On the basis of Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 129-131, 212), Louden postulates that ————

1

M. Weinreich disputes the influence of German in Polish cities: “Those who say that colonial German had a profound influence on eastern Yiddish must prove it” (1973, II: 182-183; see also 1973, IV: 248).

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Slavic influence on Yiddish was mostly indirect; Yiddish speakers arriving in Eastern Europe encountered Slavic-speaking Jews, known as Knaanic Jews, who spoke various Slavic-based Jewish languages. Although the Knaanic community was absorbed by the Yiddish community, it left a trace in indirect Slavic influence on Yiddish. Louden’s evidence is U. Weinreich’s “riddles” (1963; see also above) where Yiddish appears to have borrowed Slavic features, but not in the same geographical locations where they occur in Slavic. Louden states that the types of changes that take place in Yiddish are simplifying rather than complicating, which is what is expected to take place when language shift is going on. All four of the features that emerge from Weinreich’s riddles are simplifying; all involve loss of features, not gain of features. Incidentally, this is in accord with a statement of Wexler’s (1984, personal communication) that borrowing does not necessarily take place along the shortest phonetic path. For example, we tend to assume that a Slavic-origin place name in Yiddish that has /r/ as the equivalent of Polish rz is older than one that has plain /ž/ or /rž/ in Yiddish, because Polish once underwent a sound change /r’ > rž > ž/. However, Wexler notes that even when Polish had already undergone the sound change /r’ > rž/, Yiddish could still have interpreted /rž/ as /r/ if Yiddish had not yet acquired /ž/. This is exactly the type of simplification that Louden refers to. The history of modern Southeastern Yiddish presumably dates to the aftermath of the Khmelnitski massacres of 1648-49, when over 100,000 Ukrainian Jews were slaughtered and many communities were destroyed. After these communities were reconstituted by survivors and by migrants from other parts of eastern Europe, the dialect came into being.2 Thus SEY is thought to be a derived dialect, born of a mixing of CY and NEY (see, e.g., M. Weinreich 1965: 79). Herzog (1969: 64, 68-70) makes the case that Jewish migrants from northeastern Poland, i.e., the area between Warsaw and Bialystok that forms a narrow wedge between CY and NEY, brought various features of their language to northern Ukraine, which accounts for its distinctiveness from southern Ukraine; he buttresses this by referring to the settlement history documented by Shatzky (1938: 27ff.). Herzog adds, however, that after 1648, “the resettlement of the Ukraine was led by survivors returning to their places of origin.” ————

2

To the best of my knowledge, no evidence of an original dialect of Ukraine is extant.

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2 Regional Components of Southeastern Yiddish In the literature,3 SEY is defined as the area where standard kumen ‘to come’ is /kimen/ and fleysh ‘meat’ is /flejš/. At the outbreak of World War I, most of the territory of SEY was in the Russian empire, specifically the gubernias of Bessarabia, Podolia, Volin, Kiev, Kherson, Chernigov and Poltava; Moldavia was part of Rumania, Bukovina part of Austria. Moreover, the area of /kimen/ and /flejš/ extends into northeastern Poland, specifically, into the wedge-shaped region between Warsaw and Bialystok, where all three dialects of Eastern Yiddish merge. In the context of this paper, it will prove useful to analyze SEY into its regional components. Northern SEY, roughly equivalent to the Volhynia, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions of present-day Ukraine, as well as the “wedge” of northeastern Poland, shows the traces of once having been part of NEY: much of this area has a single I-phoneme, viz., raised /i/, not lowered /I/. This phoneme occurs in northwestern Ukraine, e.g., Rivne, as well as in the “wedge” although not in north-central Ukraine, such as Kyiv.4 Why the collapse of this distinction in the high vowels? Louden’s principle of simplification appears to explain it. All evidence indicates that NEY /u/, as in /kumen/, was retreating in the face of an advance by SEY /I/, e.g., in /kImen/. In this instance, the least common denominator emerged: NEY speakers who said /kumen/ with /u/ and /kind/ with /i/ merged their dialect with SEY speakers who said /kImen, kInd/ (both with /I/). Since NEY speakers had no /i ~ I/ distinction, SEY speakers yielded and dropped their extra high front vowel; on the other hand, SEY speakers could not undo their merger of the vowels in /kImen/ and /kInd/, so NEY speakers yielded and shifted their vowel from /kumen/ to /kimen/. Result: three vowels / u ~ I ~ i/ were replaced by one, /i/.5 Another phenomenon in this area is /lejfn/ for standard loyfn (‘to run’), as in NEY; this pronunciation extends deep into Ukraine. Further evidence that northern SEY was once NEY is the four-way diaphoneme in words like ————

3 4 5

See, e.g., Herzog (1969: 58), citing Birnbaum (1915: 16). Although Kyiv was not a LCAAJ location, other locations, such as Zhytomyr (50280), resemble Kyiv in this respect. Herzog (1965: 211): “We assume that an isogloss moving between an area in which an etymological distinction is maintained and another in which it is not, is normally oriented in the direction of the merger.”

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standard kurts (‘short’) and durkh (‘through’), NEY /kurc, durx/, CY /korec, dorex/, southern SEY /kerc, derex/, northern SEY /kirc, dirx/6 M. Weinreich (1965: 73) calls this area the “Brest strip” because the city of Brest (Litovsk), Yiddish Brisk delite, once solidly part of NEY, has /kirc, dirx/ today. According to Weinreich, as SEY /i/ advanced and NEY /u/ receded, NEY speakers who were shifting toward SEY must have deduced by analogy that, since /kumen/ is becoming /kimen/, /durx/ must become /dirx/. Thus this form is a hypercorrection. Note also the lack of epenthesis in /dirx/--in contrast, CY and southern SEY have epenthesis in this and analogous words (/dorex, derex/). M. Weinreich (1965: 83) calls these old NEY areas that shifted in many features to SEY “a strangely passive language area,” since they gave up their NEY without a fight. The shift to /kimen/ with /i/ is, in fact, a NEY feature, one that results from simplification. So the region of NEY that became SEY did go down fighting. Whereas Weinreich sees this area as homogeneous SEY, it appears to the present writer to be a mix. The most surprising sound change has yielded /i/ in words like flegn ‘used to’, leder ‘leather’, shtetl ‘town’. King (1967: 846–847) makes the point that historical Yiddish u, e.g., in /kumen/ ‘to come’, and i, e.g., in /kind/, should never have merged, because this creates too many homonyms and makes comprehension difficult. Yet it happened anyway. Herzog (1969: 62) notes that when this old /e/ vowel shifted, it remained [I], not [i], because a shift to [i] would have created too many homonyms. And in the Kyiv region, the two high front vowels remained distinct: /kInd/ ‘child’, /shtItl/ ‘town’ have /I/, /lider/ ‘songs’ has /i/. Yet in the western part of the area, the Rivne region, all these have merged into unitary /i/, which yields a great number of homonyms, like /zin/ ‘sun’ ‘son’ ‘see’. So as King (1967: 847–848) remarks, quantitative analysis cannot rule out the occurrence of such mergers. However, this particular sound shift is not an obvious instance of Louden’s simplification; assuming that NEY /e/ encountered SEY /ej/, why would /i/ result? NEY actually has a merger here–/e/ of /štetl/ ‘town’ merged with /e/ of /esn/ ‘to eat’. SEY also has a merger: /ej/ of /lejbn/ ‘to live, life’ (standard lebn) merged with /ej/ of, e.g., /hejs/ ‘hot’. Either one would have required one party to undo a merger, which is not what usually ———— 6

In fact, SEY /e/ actually has two different phonetic renderings (see discussion below).

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happens. Perhaps /i/ arose because it required neither side to undo a merger? In that case, it would be a strange kind of compromise. Grammatical features in the northern part of SEY that also point to a NEY substratum are as follows (see Wolf 1969: 155-203): NEY-associated gender innovations such as new feminines di bet ‘bed’, di broyt ‘bread’, di bret ‘board’, di hemd ‘shirt’, di ey ‘egg’, di likht ‘light, candle’, di hoyz ‘house’ (all historical neuters); new masculines der brik ‘bridge’, der grenets ‘border’, der tsung ‘tongue’, der leber ‘liver’ (all historical feminines), all extend into at least the northern part of SEY. However, other NEY innovations stop at the approximate isogloss between zogn and zugn (which is approximately the current border between Belarus and Ukraine): northern SEY has af der vant, whereas NEY has afn vant (both ‘on the wall’); northern SEY has mostly accusative mikh, zi, whereas NEY has accusative mir, ir (‘me, her’ respectively). So it appears that while, in northern Ukraine, simplification led NEY phonology to be replaced, to a large extent, by SEY phonology, developments went the opposite way as far as morphology and grammar were concerned: there, SEY features were mostly replaced by NEY ones. In the face of NEY innovations like the creation of the so-called intermediate gender and mass gender,7 it is not clear that SEY was triumphant in the “battle” of these two dialects. Oddly, what has resulted is the converse of standard classroom Yiddish, where the phonology more closely resembles conservative NEY, but the grammar more closely resembles conservative CY-SEY. Southern SEY, roughly equivalent to the Chernivtsi, Khmel’nits’ki, Vinnytsya, Odessa, Kirovohrad and Cherkasy regions of Ukraine, can be further analyzed geographically as well. Most of this area has, e.g., /totemome/ for standard tate-mame ‘parents.’ The pronunciation /tote-mome/ prevails in southern Ukraine, Bessarabia and the eastern Rumanian region of Moldavia;8 in Bukovina, the pronunciation is /tate-mame/. In Glasser 1985, I analyzed the pronunciation of stressed /e/ in 67 LCAAJ interviews from the territory of SEY. See Table 1 below for a list of LCAAJ locations from which the data in Glasser 1985 are drawn. The result of this research was the following: whereas northern SEY, like NEY and CY, has mid-e, southern SEY has low [İ] verging on [æ].9 ———— 7 8 9

“Mass gender” is more properly a number, spanning singular and plural. Not to be confused with former Soviet Moldavia, present-day Republic of Moldova, which covers approximately the same territory as Bessarabia The only mention of lowered [İ] encountered in the literature is by U. Weinreich (1958: 223).

Paul Glasser

76 44264 46265 46272 46298 46338

Bucureúti Moineúti Iveúti Tighina Kakhovka

45273 46268 46280 46306 47256

47266 47272 47283 47295 47307 48253 48260 48265 48268 48276 48281 48286 48292 48296 48302 48324 49261 49264

Hîrlău Iaúi Chiúinău Flora Gvozdavka Storozhynets’ Kytayhorod Khotyn Shatava Ozaryntsi Soroca Tul’chyn Bershad’ Teplyk Holoskiv Kirovohrad Sataniv Volochys’k

47268 47277 47287 47298 48200 48256 48261 48266 48272 48277 48283 48288 48293 48297 48309 48337 49262

Brăila Piatra NeamĠ Leova Odesa Gura Humorului Botoúani ùtefăneúti Marculeúti Balta Chernivtsi Zvenyachyn Novoselytsya Kamenets’ Briceva Stara Ushytsya Pishchanka Krasne Pishchana Haysyn Tal’ne Oleksandriya Horodok

45284 46269 46284 46327 47260

GalaĠi Roman Huúi Mykolayiv Dorohoi

47271 47279 47288 47302 48251 48259 48263 48267 48274 48280 48284 48289 48294 48300 48311 49259 49263

Podul Iloaiei BălĠi Unchiteúti Petroverovka Roztoki Yahylnytsya Lipcani Skala Briceni ZguriĠa Dzygovka Nemyriv Verkhivka Tryduby Lyubomyrka Zbarazh Chemerivtsi

Table 1: LCAAJ locations used in Glasser 1985 (with current official names)

This tendency is particularly pronounced where the e vowel occurs in open syllables or in those closed by only one consonant, e.g., in epl (‘apple’). In syllables closed by two consonants, mid-e is most frequent, e.g., in mentsh (‘person’; = [menþ], not [mİnþ]). The ey-diphthong, as in /flejš mit bejner/ ‘meat and bones,’ also has mid-e except in pre-vocalic and final position; thus, in southern SEY, /ey/ is pronounced [İj], /eyer/ [İjer] (respectively ‘egg, eggs’).10 Exceptionally, where /e/ precedes either velar fricative,11 it is rendered with the same lowered [İ] as in other phonetic environments in Bukovina, —————

10

M. Weinreich (e.g., 1973, IV: 374) and Birnbaum (e.g., 1979: 104) seem to be mistaken when they write, for e.g., SEY [bİjn], with open [İ] for standard beyn ‘bone’; the present writer never encountered such a pronunciation in any of the LCAAJ interviews–only [bejn] could be heard. 11 /r/ or /x/.

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Bessarabia, and Moldavia, but with raised [e] in the rest of southern SEY, e.g., /vİrter/, /verter/ respectively, ‘words’ (standard verter).12 Likewise vowel I1, e.g. /lİxt/, lext/ ‘light’ (standard likht). Likewise vowel U1 as well: /dİrex/ in Bukovina, Bessarabia and Moldavia, /derex/ in the rest of southern SEY, /dirx/ in northern SEY ‘through’ (standard durkh). These features help to distinguish northern from southern SEY. One more isogloss running through this area is mentioned in U. Weinreich 1963: the absence of phonemic h in large areas of Yiddish. Phonemic h is absent in nearly all of SEY, from the “wedge” down to the Black Sea, including Bessarabia and Moldavia, but not in Bukovina. What clues to the history of SEY can the phenomena discussed above yield?13

3 Specific Points on the Map of SEY In order to explore these phenomena in detail, three specific geographic points will be compared within the context of Yiddish dialectological classification:14 Chernivtsi (LCAAJ location 48200), Kyiv (no LCAAJ location) and Rivne (LCAAJ location 50264).15 Twenty major features have been selected from the maps in LCAAJ I; one additional isogloss has been added. See Table 2: Typical Yiddish dialect features compared with data from Chernivtsi, Kyiv and Rivne below. 16 Chernivtsi has features in common with both CY and general SEY. It is typically grouped with SEY because it has /flejš/, not /flajš/ (see above section 2). Three of the selected 20 features from LCAAJ I (maps 1, 7, 9–10) are not relevant for these purposes because in these instances, Chernivtsi shares the relevant feature with both CY and SEY. Specifically, Chernivtsi has /koyfn/, /manse/, and /gedekht/, in common with both ———— 12

In Bessarabia, where r is not a velar fricative, but an apical tap, this tendency still holds. Vowel E5 behaves similarly to vowel E2-E3-E4; vowels I1 and U1 behave similarly to E1. 14 Cf. LCAAJ, volumes I–III. 15 For the present paper, I consulted informants who were not interviewed for the LCAAJ collection, but the LCAAJ contains recordings for Chernivtsi, Rivne and for the other locations listed in Table 2 which can now be accessed in the Internet at www.eydes.de (either via the “Sound Archive” or the “Repository”). 16 Data drawn from maps of LCAAJ I, and the informants Beyle Gottesman, raised in Chernivtsi, Rem Frenkel, born and raised in Kyiv, and the late Genia Zac, born and raised in Rivne. 13

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general CY and general SEY; NEY and northern Ukraine do not have these forms. Map no. 1 1 7 7 8

9, 10

13 15 20 23

ey ey

Chernivtsi matches with CY, SEY SEY, NEY

NEY SEY, NEY

manse

mayse

CY, SEY

NEY

dange

dage

dayge

CY

NEY

no (la:kht ~ lakht)

yes

no (laykht CY ~ lakht)

Kyiv: NEY; Rivne: SEY

gedekht, kertser

gedekht, kertser

gedikht, kirtser

CY, SEY

NEY

barik, shtarik

barg, shtark

barg, shtark

SEY, NEY SEY, NEY

khasene, tap

khosene, top

khasene, tap

CY, NEY

CY, NEY

hanue, nuent

(h)anuve, hanoe, nuvnt noent

CY

SEY

shtayn, zayde va:s, ha:nt, gla:kh

shteyn, zeyde

SEY, NEY SEY, NEY

Feature

CY

SEY

NEY

Vowel of koyfn Vowel of fleysh Nasalization of mayse Nasalization of dayge Neutralization of length (laykht ~ lakht) Neutralization before /x, r/ (gedikht, kirtser) Epenthesis in final cluster (barg, shtark) Vowel A1 (khasene, tap) Vowel A2, prevocalic (hanoe, noent) Vowel E2,3 (shteyn, zeyde)

oy ay

oy ey

manse

28

Vowel I4 (vays, haynt)

35

Vowel U1 before /r/ (durkh, burikes)

37

Vowel U4 (moyz, mouz, hoyt) hout

61 66

Palatalized /l/ after /k, g/ Phonemic /h/

dorekh, borikes

yes yes

shteyn, zeyde vays, vas, hant, (h)aynt, glakh glaykh derekh ~ durkh, dirkh, berikes ~ burikes birikes moyz ~ moyz ~ muyz, muz, hoyt hoyt ~ ~ hut huyt (mostly) no no no yes

Kyiv, Rivne match with

CY

NEY

SEY

SEY

CY

SEY, NEY

CY

NEY

CY, NEY

SEY

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Regional Variation in Southeastern Yiddish

67 69 70 71 75 ---

Initial /j/ before /i/ Loss of postvocalic /r/ /h ~ 0/ (lexical ahistorical /h/: harn) /-em ~ -e/: brune(m) /v ~ 0/: ts(v)ogn, ts(v)ishn Vowel I4 before hiatus: dray

Kyiv: CY; Rivne: SEY, NEY

yes

no

no

CY

yes

no

no

SEY, NEY SEY, NEY

yes

no

no

CY

SEY, NEY

brunem

SEY

SEY

neither

SEY

NEY

dray

SEY, NEY SEY, NEY

tsishn, tsugn

brinem krenitse tsishn only

dra:

dray

brine

Table 2: Typical Yiddish dialect features compared with data from Chernivtsi, Kyiv and Rivne

Of the remaining 17 isoglosses drawn from LCAAJ I, Chernivtsi shares 10 forms with CY and 7 with SEY. As for the twenty-first isogloss, /dra: ~ draj/ ‘three’, not drawn from LCAAJ I, Chernivtsi lies on the side of SEY. Which of these features are likely to be old and which recent adoptions? The long vowel in /va:s, ha:nt/ ‘white,’ ‘today’ is likely to be old, since it is unlikely that this, or any other, dialect has added a new phoneme. More probably, either an old phoneme has been lost or the phonetic inventory has been rearranged. Moreover, in transitional areas between dialects, lack of uniformity is common. As one moves east from, e.g., L’viv (49247) through Chernivtsi and Vinnytsya (49282) to Kyiv, it is no surprise that Bukovina fails to be consistent in the way that an area far from dialect borders, such as, e.g., Tal’ne (48309), might be. We see this in the “wedge”, where every few miles a different dialect is spoken (see LCAAJ I, maps 35-43, for example), where historical vowels that we would expect to have the same pronunciation in dozens or hundreds of words do not.17 In Chernivtsi, the rendering of historical vowels is consistent, although the various isoglosses that delimit general SEY from general CY do not overlap. Rather, some veer to the west of Chernivtsi, others veer to the east. ———— 17

“The borders of the three dialects are here clearly defined. On the periphery of each area, with vowel systems in various stages of transition, lie the individual varieties that we have singled out for special mention” (Herzog 1965: 218).

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In Rivne, however, whereas the historical vowel (I2-I3-I4) is /ej/ in /kejfn/ and /lejfn/ ‘to buy, to run’ (standard koyfn, loyfn), it is /oj/ in brojt, rojt/ ‘bread, red’ (standard broyt, royt). Likewise the series exemplified by standard lebn, shtetl: Rivne has /libn, štitl/, but shtern ‘star; forehead; to disturb’ was rendered /štern/ by my informant, not */štirn/, even though theyhave the same historical vowel as /lebn, štetl/. Kyiv and Rivne are also located in a transitional area, between NEY and SEY. Of the 20 selected features from LCAAJ I, Kyiv agrees with both NEY and SEY in 7 instances, Rivne in 8; of the remaining 14, Kyiv agrees with NEY in 8 instances and SEY in 4; of the remaining 13, Rivne agrees with NEY in 7 and SEY in 5; in one case, Kyiv agrees with neither NEY nor SEY; and in one case, both Kyiv and Rivne are unique, agreeing with no other dialect. It is telling that Chernivtsi shares more with CY than SEY, Kyiv and Rivne share more with NEY than SEY. It has already been noted that northern Ukraine was once a part of NEY and relatively recently shifted in some features, but not all, to more general SEY. Bukovina is clearly a transition to CY: it has phonemic /h/, as in /ha:nt/ ‘today’, /hant/ ‘hand’, /ou/ in /arous/ ‘out’, /boukh/ ‘belly’ (standard haynt, hant, aroys, boykh), as well as long /a:/ in /ha:nt/, but /aj /in /draj/ ‘three’. Bukovina has traces of h-hypercorrection, such as ahistorical /h/ in words like /harn/ ‘to concern’ (standard arn) and /ha:ln zex/ ‘to hurry’ (standard ayln zikh), as might be expected in an area that once lacked phonemic /h/, like most of SEY today. Bukovina also displays apparent CY features like /arger/ ‘worse’ (standard erger). Was it originally a region of CY that shifted partly to SEY or vice versa? It seems most likely that it was originally CY, since it shares more of the features we have discussed with CY, in particular long /a:/; as has already been noted, vowel length is more likely to be lost than gained. As for southern SEY, which is characterized by /tote-mome/ ‘parents’ (standard tate-mame), the /o/ of /tote-mome/ could have resulted from a shift that took place after vowel length was lost. Once the length distinction in /laxt/ ‘laughs’ and /la:xt/ ‘light’ (standard lakht, laykht) was lost, too much load was put on the /a/ vowel. The /o/ vowel, whose load had been lightened centuries earlier when /zogn/ shifted to /zugn/, had room to spare. While King (1967) has demonstrated that this cannot be proved, conjecture is warranted. This would point to another recalibration of an old CY-like dialect.

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As for the various pronunciations of /e/, no structural explanation has been forthcoming.

4 Conclusion In the literature, many hypotheses have been advanced for the origin of SEY. It has been variously suggested that SEY has been most influenced by CY, by NEY, or by a combination of the two; most heavily influenced by Polish or Ukrainian; by returnees after 1648 or by migrants from other regions. To this writer, it makes sense to seek different origins for the regionalization of SEY. Analyzing it as a whole hides more than it reveals; no matter what feature is used to delineate it, some important fact is inevitably overlooked. After all, /ey/ in /fleysh/ distinguishes general SEY from CY only; /u ~ I/ in /kumen ~ kimen/ omits the [i] area; /u/ in /zogn ~ zugn/ overlooks the northernmost part of the area, which has /kImen/, but /zogn/; and there is no inherent reason why, for example, the isoglosses delimiting the various pronunciations of /e/ could not delimit various subdialects. SEY, apparently the youngest and least deeply rooted variety among the Yiddish dialect areas, has been expanding at the expense of its older, more deeply rooted neighbors.18 Would that have continued into this century if not for the Holocaust? There is no way to know.

References Birnbaum, S.A. 1966 Praktische Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache. Vienna/Leipzig. Second revised edition, Hamburg (Helmut Buske Verlag). Birnbaum, S.A. 1958 Fun daytshmerizm biz der heyl in der midber yehude. In: Yuda A. Yofe-bukh, Y. Mark (ed.) New York (YIVO Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut), 195–206. Birnbaum, S.A. 1979 Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar. Toronto (University of Toronto). Glasser, Paul 1985 Subphonemic Features in Southeastern Yiddish. Unpublished master’s essay. Columbia University.

———— 18

Cf., again, M. Weinreich 1965, Herzog 1969.

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Herzog, Marvin I. 1965 The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland. Its Geography and History, Bloomington/The Hague (Indiana University/Mouton). Herzog, Marvin I. 1969 Yiddish in the Ukraine. In: The Field of Yiddish. Third collection, M. Herzog/W. Ravid/ U. Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 58–81. King, Robert D. 1967 Functional Load and Sound Change. In: Language 43:4, 831-852. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Louden, Mark L. 2000 Contact-Induced Phonological Change in Yiddish. In: Diachronica 17:1, 85–110. Nydorf, Charles 1985 Personal communication. Shatzky, Yankev 1938 Historish-kritisher araynfir tsum “Yeveyn metsulo.” In: Gzeyres takh, Vilne (YIVO Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut), 5–159. Thomason, Sarah Grey and Terrence Kaufman 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley (University of California Press). Weinreich, Max 1965 On the Dynamics of Yiddish Dialect Formation. In: The Field of Yiddish, Second collection, U. Weinreich (ed.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 73–86. Weinreich, Max 1973/2008 Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh. 4 vols., New York (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut YIVO). History of the Yiddish Language, Paul Glasser (ed.), translated by Shlomo Noble, with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman, and Paul Glasser, 2 vols., New Haven/London (Yale University Press). Weinreich, Uriel 1958 Di klangike struktur fun a podolyer reydenish. In: Yuda A. Yofe-bukh, Y. Mark (ed.), New York (YIVO Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut), 221–231. Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Four Riddles in Bilingual Dialectology. In: American Contributions to the Fifth International Congress of Slavists, Sofia, 1963. The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 335–359. Wexler, Paul 1984 Personal communication. Wolf, Meyer 1969 The Geography of Yiddish Case and Gender Variation. In: The Field of Yiddish. Third collection, M. Herzog/ W. Ravid/ U. Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 102–215.

Eugene Green

The Infix [-ev-] and Initial Accent in Yiddish Verbs

1 The source of the infix and its fusion into Yiddish In their separate analyses of [-ev-], Max Weinreich (1980) and Edward Stankiewicz (1993) discuss and illustrate its source in Slavic and its entrance through the process of fusion into Yiddish. Weinreich (1980: 531) traces [-ev-] to the thematic [-ova-] of Slavic verbs, describes its formal place before [-en] (the German-derived ending for infinitives), and outlines the spread of this infix throughout Eastern Yiddish. At first, in Weinreich’s overview, the infix appeared only with Slavic roots and the Germanic [-en-], as in hodeven ‘to rear’ and zhaleven ‘to begrudge.’ This early stage of fusion also includes Slavic-derived roots, themselves derived from Germanic sources: Yiddish rabeven, Polish rabowaü, German rauben ‘to rob’; Yiddish rateven, Polish ratowaü, German retten ‘to rescue.’ A third feature of [-ev-], once ensconced in Yiddish, is its disparaging overtone for some verbs, their roots directly drawn from German, as shraybereven ‘to write inadequately,’ and from Hebrew, as zikhroyneven ‘to remember foolishness.’ Stankiewicz (1993: 6) examines further modifications found in Yiddish verbs exhibiting the infix [-ev-]. Russian borozdít, for example, has an initial vowel and a final accent different from the Yiddish brozneven ‘to furrow,’ its first two phonemes consonants, its accent initial. In Yiddish žebreven and Polish Īebraü ‘to beg’ both have initial accent (counted as penultimate in Polish) and manifest, respectively, forms of Slavic [-ova-], [-ev-] and [-a-].1 What adds to the contrast between these corresponding Yiddish and Slavic verbs is the feature of primary stress: initial in Yiddish, ————— 1

Schenker (1993: 102) describes several developments for [-ova-]; his infix corresponds to Weinreich’s [-ov-], above. The likelihood is that Yiddish [-eve-] preceded the Polish development of [-a-] from [-ova-].

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penultimate in Polish, variable in Eastern Slavic. A further development, related to connotation but different from the disparaging effects cited above, is due to the use of close variants, such as vinþn ‘to desire’/vinþeven ‘to congratulate’ and šojnen ‘to spare’/šaneven ‘to respect.’ For Stankewicz, the variant with [-ev-] “convey[s] a stronger expressive nuance.”

2 Initial accent on verbs with [-ev-] as a structural element One omission in the analyses already outlined concerns the occurrence of initial accent in almost all tri- and polysyllabic verbs exhibiting the infix [-ev-]. This recurrence of initial accent in verbs–komándeven ‘to be naughty’ is an exception–differs from the variations found in tri- and polysyllabic Yiddish nouns stemming from Slavic.2 As a study of nouns in the Slavic component of Yiddish indicates, initial accent appears in many words, e.g. póvidle ‘stewed prunes’ and póžemkes ‘wild strawberries,’ in Central Yiddish. But in Northeastern and Southeastern Yiddish, dialects that do not distinguish long from short vowels, the occurrence of accent in triand polysyllabic nouns is unpredictable.3 This disparity between dialect differences in accent for nouns but not for verbs invites study and analysis. 2.1 Particles and accent in Yiddish verbs The occurrence of initial accent in verbs containing the infix [-ev-] pervades Eastern Yiddish with few exceptions. Most verbs with [-ev-], such as pluteven ‘to become confused,’ have initial accent even when the place of the accent differs in their Slavic cognate, compare the Ukrainian imperfective plytátsya, for example. Yet this overall statement requires qualification. When prefixed by a particle a verb with infix [-ev-] and initial accent, like tinkeven ‘to plaster’ (e.g. vos tinkevet zi? ‘what is she plastering’), undergo a change in pronunciation. In arúmtinkeven ‘to rough—————

2

3

Stankiewicz (1993: 9) derives komandeven from the noun komande, yet the history of this derivation is not transparent. Whereas komande has in Uriel Weinreich’s dictionary (1968) glosses that range from ‘command’ to ‘gang,’ his gloss for komandeven suggests a derisive connotation that Max Weinreich discusses (1980: 531, see section 1 above). Harkavy (1987) glosses the verb as ‘to command.’ Green 1969: 233-234 and 239.

The Infix [-ev-] and Initial Accent in Yiddish Verbs

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cast’ and ónmapeven ‘to chart, for example, the accent falls not on the first vowel of the verbal stem but on the particle’s first or second vowel. In utterances in which the particle appears separately, say, er tìnkevet arúm di vent ‘he’s rough-casting the walls,’ a secondary accent for the verb falls on its first vowel.4 This qualification, then, suggests that unlike tri- and polysyllabic nouns of the Slavic component, accent in Yiddish verbs with [-ev-] are subject to governing morphologic and syntactic features. 2.2 Disyllabic and tri- or polysyllabic counterparts in Yiddish verbs A second difference that helps to explain accentual variation in tri- and polysyllabic nouns stemming from Slavic, but not in verbs is seen in such pairs as Stankiewicz (Section 1) identifies. Except for a clutch of verbs, as komándeven or perebéndeven ‘to be picky’ (Ukrainian perebiráti) many Yiddish verbs with infix [-ev-] have disyllabic counterparts, but nouns do not. Stankiewicz lists some examples; the materials in the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ) also offer many pairs: e.g. bitlen/bitleven ‘to sift,’ kosen/koseven ‘to mow,’ lodn/lodeven ‘to load,’ muþen/muþeven ‘to torment,’ and vekslen/veksleven ‘to change.’ In these pairs, too, initial accent occurs (see http://www.eydes.de/index/FB/FBidx.html).5 That these matches are not decisive, however, in accounting for initial accent on verbs with [-ev-] is apparent from pairs such as ráteven/ratírn ‘to ————— 4

5

The analysis here follows Jacobs’ assertion that “verb particles are always strong in relation to the verb, which shows secondary stress” (Jacobs 2005: 145). His assertion, however, differs from that in Uriel Weinreich (1968: xxxiv). Weinreich’s account of stress argues that the “symbol ' , if it occurs within the stem, refers to a stress that becomes manifest on a syllable of the verb (other than the next to last) when the complement is separated; e.g. the 1st person plural of the verb listed as oys|fa'rtik|n is fa'rtikn oys.” The issue, both morphologic and syntactic, requires further study (see section 4 below). To find these occurrences in EYDES, click Sound Archive, then Word Index (which,of course, works only for interviews that have been transcribed - it is much more difficult to search and locate such forms as signals in the audio files, without the support of a word index). Instances of the verbs cited were elicited under the following questionnaire numbers, but also may have come up unpredictably in other contexts: bitlen 131.010/.011; bitleven 131.012; kosen 213.080 (also in nearby questions); koseven 213.090 (in nearby questions, too); lodn 155.040 (at 062.080 lodn is a homonym); lodeven 155.040, 155.041; muþen (mutshen in EYDES, according to the YIVO transliteration) 162.060; muþeven (tsh- for -þ- again) 152.060; vekslen 039.032, 052.021; veksleven 039.030.

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rescue’ and pláneven/planírn ‘to plan.’ Here the second member of the pair is trisyllabic (not disyllabic), with syllabic final [-n] and penultimate accent, yet the accent in the verbs with [-ev-] remains on the initial syllable. A final set of matches with verbs in [-ev-] involves verbs with the infix [-en-]. Stankiewicz (1993: 7) says that these verbs exemplify a “reduplicated (or compound) infinitive,” resulting from “weakening or loss of the final n, which took place in older and regional Yiddish [...].” Among Stankiewicz’s examples appear the pairs kormen/kormenen ‘to feed’ and kojlen/kojlenen ‘to slaughter.’ This putative loss of final n in the infinitive and the present plural tense (possibly blurring contrasts with the singular present tense) propelled the forming of the [-en-] infix. Curiously, these verbs with [-en-] form correspondences to some degree, according to evidence in LCAAJ, with those containing the infix [-ev-]. Table 1 below outlines three way correspondences: verbs of the same stem with [-0-], [-ev-] and [-en-] infixes, as found in the LCAAJ. Gloss to torment to feed to mow to pump to load to line to crawl to pasture to plane to become confused to weed to kick to weep

0 affix muþen kormen kosen pompen lodn viren pojzen pašn hublen pluten polen briken planen

[-ev-] infix muþeven kormeven koseven pompeven lodeven vireven pojzeven paševen hubleven pluteven poleven brikeven planxeven

[-en-] infix muþenen kormenen kosenen pompenen lodenen virenen pojzenen pašenen hublenen plutenen polenen brikenen planxenen

Table 1: Initial accent in corresponding Yiddish verbs

The table’s thirteen rows exemplify initial accent as a structural feature in common but do not address issues that bear on the frequency and distribution of the variant verbs. In regard to frequency the LCAAJ records transcribed thus far6 reveal, for instance, that of 164 Eastern Yiddish locations 121 informants use the variant muþen or miþen, seven use —————

6

Therefore, this report should not be taken as conclusive.

The Infix [-ev-] and Initial Accent in Yiddish Verbs

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muþenen or miþenen but only one uses muþeven.7 A different profile attends the variants viren/vireven/virenen ‘to line’: for this verb, twenty-four informants use the disyllabic viren, fourteen vireven, and seven virenen. Moreover, the form ojsviren, occurring in fourteen interviews, outnumbers the seven for oysvireven and the single oysvirenen. While it may turn out that disyllabic variants occur most often, some of the verbs listed in Table 1 appear to favor trisyllabic variants . So the variants planxenen/plankenen, reported twenty-one times altogether, exceed planxen/planen (one each) and the one instance of planeven. Further, the distribution of these variants, some occurring in the same place, seems loosely predictable. One informant, from Krasnosielc (53211) in the Central Yiddish dialect, uses, for example, the variants plankenen, planxenen, and planeven (question 163.010 of the LCAAJ seeks to determine the use of planxenen, but the informant’s response included three variants). Another, from Drohobyc (49235), in the same dialect, reports both viren and vireven, as does an informant from Smorgonie (54265) in the Northeastern Yiddish dialect (question 174.060 seeks the infinitive of the verb for ruling paper). A third from SĊdziswow (50213), also the Central dialect, has the variants ojsviren/ojsvireven (question 174.060, here the informant supplies the prefix). As for the variants muþen/muþeven/muþenen the pattern of distribution differs somewhat again. In the Northeastern dialect muþen/muþenen appear in Krasnopolye (53315) and Virbalis (54226), muþen/muþeven in RoĪana (52249; question 152.060 is a filler – “the horses, sadly, … ”– with variant choices supplied, if need be). A final example is that of kosen/koseven reported from Staraya Ušica (48277, found in the Southeastern Yiddish dialect; question 213.090 focuses on the infinitive of verbs for mowing hay). By and large, the occurrence of these variants suggest that Central and Northeastern Yiddish informants use them somewhat more than those whose dialect is Southeastern. Hopefully a fuller picture will emerge once all forms have been indexed. A statistically revealing profile in the distribution of speakers who use variants as opposed to those who do not may lead to a revised view of the dialects and their speech practices. ————— 7

For notation differences here and in EYDES, see footnote 5. To find listings in LCAAJ for the forms cited here, follow the procedure provided on the preceding page. The forms were elicited under the following questionnaire numbers: miþen and miþenen 152.060; viren, virenen, vireven, oysviren, oysvirenen, oysvireven 174.060.

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3 Possibilities of innovation If the findings in 2.2 argue tentatively for greater frequencies of variants in Central and Northeastern Yiddish, further support derives from words with a relatively high incidence of the infix [-ev-]. The three maps at the end of this article display attested Atlas forms of brikeven ‘to kick’, hubleven ‘to plane’, and drileven ‘to drill’ (Map 1–Map 3) and indicate that the [-ev-] infix occurs, with some regularity, in Northeastern Yiddish. This dialect, as seen in 2.2 above, is hospitable to both disyllabic and tri-syllabic verbs with either the infix [-ev-] or [-en-]. What the maps help disclose, too, is that the variety found in Northeastern Yiddish cannot be ascribed solely to fuller contact with Eastern Slavic. Map 1: Occurrences of brikeven ‘to kick’ in Eastern Yiddish presents a distribution mostly in the Central and Northeastern dialects, with some incidence in Southeast locations. This map, consisting of the [-ev-] variant only, does not display the actual use of briken and brikenen in common with brikeven (all three in some locations). Of the fifty locations for brikeven, twelve also have brikn (this form shows twenty-eight occurrences in all), and thirteen for brikenen (fourteen occurrences altogether). Twenty locations in the Northeastern Yiddish area also report the paired use of other variants: Table 2 outlines the locations and the alternative forms.

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The Infix [-ev-] and Initial Accent in Yiddish Verbs

Location 48248

Variants kulken, kulkenen

Gloss to push a ball

48276

Question 166.030197.090 161.090

kormen, kormenen

48292 49247 49338

155.941 155.041 161.090

loden, lodeven onlodn,onlodeven kormen, kormenen

50213 50248

174.060 161.090

oysviren, oysvireven kormen, kormenen

50248

polen, poleven pilen, pileven

to weed

stenken,stenkenen

52213 52229

213.072213.081 213.072213.081 023.041023.072 025.010 032.030

to feed a child to load to load up to feed a child to draw lines to feed a child to weed

to clear throat to smoke to kick

52251

163.010

53212 53272 54249 54265

039.030 073.010 144.090 161.090

54265 54265 55249

163.010 082.100 149.060

52181 52181

roykhern, roykhenen poyzn, poyzenen poyzeven plankenen, plankhenen vekslen, veksleven pompen, pompenen pasenen, pashenen kormen, kormenen planken, plankhenen tunklen, tunklenen pishtshen, pishtshenen

a

to weep to change to pump to pasture to feed child to weep to darken to chirp

a

Table 2: Variants of di- and tri-syllabic verbs in Northeastern Yiddish

A comparison of these Yiddish variants, all accented on the first syllable of the verb, indicates a complex development, as seen in relation with their Slavic analogues. For Russian brykát’ and Belorussian brykáts’ accented on

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the second syllable, have the sense ‘to kick’, as in Yiddish. But Polish bríkaü and Ukrainian brikáti, with the meaning ‘to prance’, evince a difference in the syllable accented. Yiddish, then, accords with the Russian and Belorussian sense ‘to kick’ but resembles the Polish accent on the first syllable of the infinitive form. Since the initial syllable of the Yiddish variants under study almost always carries primary accent, the likelihood is that brikeven (also briken and brikenen) entered Yiddish in its Northeastern dialect and spread west- and-southward to the other dialects of Eastern Yiddish. Yet the possibility that the Northeastern dialect may be most innovative in the formation of verbs with the infix [-e-] has to be reconciled with developments in other borrowings. One borrowing, for example, that does not obviously support innovation in the Northeast is hubleven ‘to plane.’ Stemming from an earlier form of Modern German hobeln, the Polish heblowaü [xeblóvaü] is not altogether a direct analogue of the Yiddish forms hebloven, hibleven, hubleven, hiblen, hublen, or hublenen. In the distribution of these variants (Map 2: Occurrences of hubleven ‘to plane’ and its vocalic variants in Eastern Yiddish), those with the infix [-ev-] are the most numerous: thirteen in Central Yiddish, six in the Northeastern dialect, one in the Southeast. As for hublen and its vocalic variants with /i/ and /e/, the LCAAJ materials (so far) report only six instances, three in the Central dialect (at 51229, 52192, 51229), two in the Northeastern (at 54226, 54265), and one in the Southeastern dialect (48292). Virbalis (54226) in the Northeast has both hublen and hublenen (in response to question 202.090 which seeks, in part, the infinitive of the verb for making a board smooth). What appears likely is that the diffusion of hubleven and its Yiddish analogues proceeded from Central Yiddish mostly in the direction of the Northeastern area. In the case of these Yiddish variants for a carpenter’s planing, Central Yiddish is the source of development. The Northeastern dialect apparently is more receptive to the verb than the Southeastern. A final perspective on the innovative, distributional, and receptive propensities of the dialects in Eastern Yiddish arises from the verb drileven, not found in the Slavic languages. Different from its German cognate drillen, Yiddish drileven and dreleven nevertheless contain the infix [-ev-], of Slavic origins, yet their incidence in Yiddish is scant, no more than seven tokens reported (Map 3: Occurrences of the verb drileven or dreleven).

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Of these, four appear in the Northeastern dialect, two in the Southeast, one in Central Yiddish. As an item in itself, drileven offers little ostensible evidence of developments concerning the infix [-ev-], yet within the survey undertaken, this verb’s occurrence fits a larger pattern. Northeastern Yiddish, in many instances, is either the innovator or the ready receptor in the diffusion of the infix [-ev-].

4 Conclusion In characterizing Yiddish as a fusion language Max Weinreich (1980: 30) outlines a “process […] continuous and cumulative.” His view of this process makes it internal to Yiddish, different from innovative developments in coterritorial Germanic dialects and Slavic languages. The survey and analysis proposed above reveal one unfolding process in the growth of Eastern Yiddish, the spread of the infix [-ev-] in verbs, primarily from Germanic and Slavic sources. Weinreich and Stankiewicz, in their discussions, provide respectively historical and structural analyses for the occurrence of [-ev-] in verbs. The study offered here places this infix in relation to variants and discusses its occurrence in Eastern Yiddish dialects. The inference drawn from the comparisons presented and from the tracing of the infix’s diffusion suggest a process very much underway at the time of gathering materials for the LCAAJ. The initial accent on these verbs, except for a few such as komandeven and perebendeven, is pervasive. (The one instance of komandeven ‘to be naughty’ occurs in Southeastern Yiddish; response to question 169.080 on children’s rhymes. The oblique forms of perebendeven appear throughout Eastern Yiddish.) The diffusion of the infix points to innovative and receptive developments in Central and Northeastern Yiddish; the occurrence of [-ev-] in Southeastern Yiddish is apparently much less pronounced. These developments, further, find Northeastern Yiddish and Central Yiddish open to innovations in either dialect. Why this process is less inclusive of Southeastern Yiddish remains an unsettled question. One approach to accounting for the relative absence of the infix [-ev-] in the Southeast may lie in Max Weinreich’s observations on its derisive effects (see section 1 above). While Weinreich comments on affective connotations in Yiddish and lists a variety of such forms, like shm- in kontsert-shmontsert, -nik in nudnik, shlimezalnik, and -ekhts in zingekhts

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and shraybekhts (1980: 11), he does not discuss the way in which affective connotations characterize Yiddish dialects. Here the materials of the Atlas may prove useful. Although the LCAAJ does not probe affective attitudes toward the infix [-ev-] directly, it is conceivable that the geographical distribution of its data for this infix reflects regional differences in attitude. The archive of the LCAAJ can also be a spur to reexamine linguistic literature and determine the explanatory adequacy of theoretic positions. One example is the difference between Uriel Weinreich and Neil Jacobs, mentioned above, in their statements on accenting verbs followed by separable prefixes (section 2.1 above, note 4). Jacobs (2005: 135) advances his metrical approach to stress over Uriel Weinreich’s structural framework (1968: xxxiv). Researching the records of spoken language data now available in EYDES may provide new grounds for arriving at a sound conclusion. Finally, the data examined in this article stand in need of further study. One possible study could involve the use of verb variants with –or without– infixes other than [-ev-]. A first glance at the verbs listed in Table 2 suggests that the Northeast dialect is more amenable to the use of variants than Central or Southeast Yiddish is. Is this finding adventitious or does it point to conditions robust throughout the dialects involving a variety of words and affixes? Only a full analysis, through the use of LCAAJ data, will help to settle the issue.

Bibliography Green, Eugene 1969 On accentual variants in the Slavic component of Yiddish. In: The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature, Third Collection, Marvin I. Herzog, Wita Ravid, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.). Harkavy, Alexander 1988 (reprint of 1928) Yidish-English-Hebreisher Verterbukh. Iberdruk fun der tsveyter fargreserter oyflage fun 1928, mit a nayem araynfir fun Dovid Katz, New York (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research/Schocken Books). Jacobs, Neil G. 2005 Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press).

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The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Schenker, Alexander M. 1993 Proto-Slavonic. In: The Slavonic Languages, Bernard Comrie and Greville G. Corbert (eds.), London (Routledge). Stankiewicz, Edward 1993 The Yiddish Thematic Verbs. In: The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature, Fifth Collection, David Goldberg (ed.), Evanston/New York (Northwestern Uni versity Press/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Weinreich, Max 1980 History of the Yiddish Language. Translated by Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua Fishman, Chicago (University of Chicago Press). Weinreich, Uriel 1968 Modern Yiddish-English, English-Yiddish Dictionary. New York (McGraw-Hill/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research).

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Essay on Multilingualism1 In memory of Uriel (Elik) Weinreich

A personal note Some time in 1929 I received a printed invitation to celebrate the founding of “Yung Vilne” in the home of Dr. Max Weinreich. Elik was three years old, his brother Gabi and I were two years younger. The Weinreichs lived a few streets from us, Uriel’s mother Regina was a prominent teacher in the Yiddish school where my mother was the principal; they were very close, both in directing the school and its artistic and theatrical events and personally, till the end of Regina‘s life in the US; and Gabi was my best friend. Uriel, Gabi and I went to the same school. Of course, I read this printed invitation a few years later. Max Weinreich was a leader of the Yiddish scouts movement “Di Bin,” who would go up on the ancient Lithuanian Castle Mount in Vilna and swear devoting their life to the cause of Yiddish. The poet Sutzkever was in “the Bee” and very close to Weinreich, who taught him Old Yiddish, in which Sutzkever wrote some poetry. I suspect that this was the source of the name “Yung Vilne” for a new group of Young Yiddish poets in the late nineteen thirties. Dr. Weinreich had two sacred principles: promoting Yiddish as a modern culture and the responsibilities of “science.” For the first purpose, a young Yiddish generation must be raised – a belief he ceaselessly fought for in Vilna and in his New York years. For the second, Yiddish studies have to work in the methods and standards of general science. Sometimes those two clashed and ideology prevailed, thus he relentlessly fought for a unified, separate and standardized Yiddish language. As an instrument of the scientific effort Max Weinreich (co-) founded and directed the Yiddish Scientific Institute YIVO in Vilna, a kind of scientific academy, which embraced a wide range of disciplines, from literature and linguistics to ————— 1

An earlier version of this essay was published in Harshav 2007: 23-40.

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history and economics, all published in Yiddish.2 For his bar mitzvah Max took Elik to Vienna, to see Sigmund Freud, who agreed to serve on the scientific board of YIVO, and to the world linguistic congress in 1939, hosted by the Danish structuralists in Copenhagen. World War II broke out, Max and Elik fled to the US and eventually the rest of the family followed. Elik (later: Uriel) was his father’s son and continued as a linguist. He resumed his father’s project. However, he revolted against the emphasis on a monolithic language in his study of Languages in Contact, as his first book was called, and in the immense effort at research of the Yiddish dialects after the Holocaust, “archeology at a distance,” as he called it.3 The culmination of that work is the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, later continued by Mikhl/Marvin Herzog and others. At an early age, Uriel was appointed to a chair of Yiddish at Columbia University in New York.4 I was at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, interested in the science of poetry. For the 200th anniversary of Columbia University, Uriel Weinreich published a collection of studies, The Field of Yiddish.5 He invited me to write for that volume and at the age of twenty four I wrote a comprehensive study of free rhythms in Yiddish folklore and in modern poetry. I wrote in Yiddish and Uriel translated it into English, as he later did for my comparative study of the emergence of iambic meters in Europe, published in the Max Weinreich Festschrift. Uriel was a brilliant linguist and opened the way to scientific Yiddish linguistics. Alas, he died of cancer at the age of forty. Marc Chagall claimed that he was not a Jewish painter but a Jew who is a painter. Uriel’s position was similar: he was doing linguistics, proudly using Yiddish material as a treasure trove of multilingual cultural phenomena. Sigmund Freud wrote a general theory of jokes, using many Jewish jokes. Uriel developed a theory of idioms, using many Yiddish idioms. Of course, while working in the contemporary study of language, he —————

2 3

4 5

Now the YIVO Institute for Jewish Studies in New York. Editors' note: Uriel Weinreich seems to have preferred a different term in writing, see his paper “Culture geography at a distance.” (Cf. The Study of Culture at a Distance, Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux (eds.), Chicago 1953.) In: Proceedings of the Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 1962: 27-29; see also Herzog in LCAAJ I, 1992: 3. See Andrew Sunshine’s article in this volume – editors' note. Since that volume four more collections have been published – editors' note.

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simultaneously contributed to the study of Jewish culture. In this spirit and in memory of Uriel Weinreich, I wrote this essay. The ideal of linguistically pure nation-states obscured the fact that most people around the globe are to some extent multilingual, or at least are aware of different language systems. Speakers of Yiddish, by definition, were multi-lingual and understood at least one other language, usually a component language of Yiddish. The joke is: a Jew crossed the border to Prussia and was asked by the guard: “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” [“Do you speak German?”]. The answer came: “A shaale!” (normally: a shayle!) which means: [“What] a question!” [meaning: “of course I do!”]. The Jew assumed that all Yiddish words can be turned into German by using the a vowel, though he used a word of Hebrew origin.

Exuberant Multilingualism The Hebrew novelist Amos Oz, who was born in Jerusalem, described his Polish-Russian Jewish parents as follows: My father could read sixteen or seventeen languages and speak eleven (all of them with a Russian accent). My mother spoke four or five languages and read seven or eight. They would talk in Russian and Polish when they didn’t want me to understand (most of the time they didn’t want me to understand). For cultural reasons they read books mainly in German and English. Their dreams at night were surely in Yiddish. But as for me, they taught me only Hebrew. Maybe they were afraid that knowing languages would expose me too to the temptations of wonderful and fatal Europe.” (A Tale of Love and Darkness, 2004: 6)

The symbol of the revival of spoken Hebrew, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who fanatically refused to speak any language but Hebrew, read the book of Job in French and admitted that his dreams came to him in Yiddish. This exuberant multilingualism was widespread among the first generation of Jews from Eastern Europe who broke out of the small-town shtetl existence, went to the cities and immigrated to the West, to America or Palestine. Multilingualism was a moving force of the Modern Jewish Revolution, the total transformation of the Jews in the modern age, their place in geography and history, their languages, education, professions, behavior, and consciousness.6 ————— 6

See Language in Time of Revolution, Harshav 1993.

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The number of languages usually mentioned by such individuals ranged between five and seven and, in special cases, thirteen or fifteen. The standard case would include Yiddish and Hebrew, Polish and Russian, German, perhaps French, and the new world language English. Individuals who attended yeshivas8 or had private tutors in Hebrew education could read Aramaic; students of a humanistic gymnasium would know Ancient Greek and Latin. That brings us up to ten languages. In particular cases we may add other languages, e.g., Lithuanian (Leah Goldberg, Emanuel Levinas), Italian (Vladimir Jabotinsky, Leah Goldberg), or Czech (as Oz’s mother, who was a student in Prague, had to know). Those who emigrated to South America mastered Spanish or Portuguese; knowledge of the two polar Slavic languages (Polish and Russian) made reading Ukrainian poetry easy; and in Palestine, many Jews studied Arabic. We don’t know exactly in what “ten languages” Oz’s father could declaim poetry, but even if it was an exaggeration, those multilinguals had at least some sense of the grammar, vocabulary, and poetry of several languages, drawn from at least three language groups (Germanic, Slavic, Semitic, Romance). This phenomenon was not unique to intellectuals: “everybody’s” grandfather in New York, Leningrad, or Tel Aviv knew at least Yiddish and some of its component languages: Hebrew, Russian, Polish, German, as well as immigrant English, depending on their life’s itinerary. Many Jews of that generation were born in the Pale of Settlement before the Revolution of 1917, moved to a city in Eastern Europe (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilna, Warsaw, Odessa), emigrated to Germany, then to France, then to America, perhaps trying Palestine in-between. Some went from Ukraine to the US, Canada or Argentina, back to the Soviet Far East to build a Jewish state in Birobidjan, then to Moscow, and eventually to Israel. Other itineraries wound up in South America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, or Uzbekistan. Saul Bellow, whose parents immigrated from Eastern Europe to French Canada, then to Chicago, tells a similar tale: We the children of immigrants had lots of languages to speak and we spoke them with relish. We were prepared, braced, to answer questions in half a dozen tongues. The older children had not yet forgotten Russian, and everybody spoke Yiddish. At the age of three, I was sent to Mr. Stein across the way to learn Hebrew. I was not aware as yet that languages existed. But I soon learned that in the beginning God created […] He did not want all of mankind to speak a single language, it was too dangerous. “Nothing will be

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Yeshivas are academies of advanced Jewish studies – editors' note.

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restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” [explained Rabbi Stein] (Philip Roth, “I Got a Scheme!,” The New Yorker, April 25, 2005: 75).

In medieval Europe, the same phenomenon prevailed on a smaller scale. Whether because of persecutions and expulsions or because of grasped opportunities and lack of “rootedness,” they had self-described “shpilkes” (Yiddish for “pins and needles,” literally: “pins in their ass”), unease in staying in one place, and frequently traveled between territories and languages. Their very existence in the Christian world was defined by the religious opposition: Jew versus Christian. Thus, they acquired a critical perspective of biculturalism and bilingualism, as well as a sense of cultural relativity, flexibility and irony. Typically, Jews specialized in the exchange of goods (trade), signs (languages), and signs of goods (money). In the twentieth century, the age of social sciences, Jews were prominent among American Nobel Prize laureates in economics and in theoretical linguistics and anthropology: Bréal (founder of semantics), Durkheim, Lévy-Bruehl, Lévi-Strauss, Freud, Boas, Sapir, Bloomfield, Jakobson, Chomsky, Lakoff, Derrida – all born on the boundaries of languages.

Basic Concepts Multilingualism is the knowledge of more than one language by a person or a social group and the ability to switch from one language to another in speech, in writing, or in reading. Other terms describing this phenomenon include: bilingualism, polylingualism, plurilingualism, diglossia, languagesin-contact. Recent scholarship in the US favors the term “bilingualism,” derived from the binary problems of immigrants facing American social institutions such as “bilingual education.” The term “diglossia” (suggested by Charles Ferguson) indicates complementary languages, used by the same person for different functions in social communication within a unified community. Uriel Weinreich called his classic book Languages in Contact, thus stressing the linguistic forms of impact one language has on another when used in proximate communities. Multilingualism may be personal, social, or intersubjective. Personal multilingualism refers to the knowledge and verbal behavior of an individual, not necessarily shared by the whole community. Social multilingualism refers to a nation, a tribe, or another social group that sustains two or more languages. When Shmuel Niger, the prominent

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Yiddish literary critic in New York, wrote at the eve of the Holocaust a book in Yiddish Di tsvey-shprakhikeyt fun undzer literatur (“The Bilingualism of Our Literature”), he did not imply that every Jew reads both Hebrew and Yiddish, but that there is a larger, national entity (“our literature”) which includes both, by that time quite separate literatures. In the beginning of the twentieth century, many Yiddishists would not include Hebrew in “our” literature (the literature of “the people”) and the Hebrew culture in Palestine would not include Yiddish in “our” literature. Niger’s book was, among others, a statement of cultural politics, an attempt at saving Yiddish literature as part of secular Jewish culture. Indeed, by that time, most speakers of one Jewish language didn’t know or didn’t read the other. Professor Dr. Yosef Klausner, who occupied the first chair of Hebrew Literature in Jerusalem, wrote a multi-volume History of Modern Hebrew [sic!] Literature, which included detailed biographies of all the Hebrew writers. Yet he did not include the Yiddish texts most of them had written. Thus, he discussed the founder of both Yiddish and Hebrew modern literatures, Mendele Mokher-Sforim (pen name of Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh) books of Hebrew fiction but not their original Yiddish versions. Professor Klausner was a nationalist-Zionist and strove towards one language on one land by one, Hebrew (rather than Jewish), nation. But Mendele’s response would have been: I like to breathe with both my nostrils (Yiddish and Hebrew). Neither Niger nor Klausner included Kafka or Freud in “our” literature, as it is often done today in the US in courses on “the Jewish experience” based on a tacit assumption of diaspora pluralism. In modern times, Jewish society in Eastern Europe included the use of Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Russian, German, perhaps Polish – all in the same community and even in the same family, but not all known by all individuals. Many women, especially of the lower classes, knew Yiddish and some “Goyish” (the local Slavic dialect), though their husbands knew also some German as the lingua franca of trade, and the languages of Jewish learning, Hebrew and Aramaic. Yet the society as a whole knew those five or six languages as “family resemblances.” Hence, we can observe a third, inter-subjective kind of multilingualism, spread among many individuals in a given society, but not obligatory for every one of them. In discussions of multilingualism we face three entrenched stereotypes. First, people tend to base their description of language on the spoken word, hence bilingualism is described as speaking two languages. Yet much of

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culture is preserved in writing and in print, as is the case of the Jewish religious library, and an acquired written language may be overwhelmingly richer then the spoken language. Medieval knowledge in Europe was mostly recorded in Latin, though the scholars spoke in vernacular. Hebrew and Aramaic were the sources of all Judaic knowledge and were taught in the spoken language, Yiddish – a multilingualism based on three languages in two different media (speech and writing). Second, related to this topos is the romantic idea of authenticity in language, “imbibed with the mother’s milk,” i.e., in the mother tongue. Yet this “natural” acquisition of a language in childhood is countered by important learning processes and acculturation at all stages of life. Most Israeli Jews, including most Hebrew writers in the twentieth century and most government ministers, use Hebrew as their primary language, though it was not their mother tongue. Thirdly, the nation-state ideology promoted the ideal: “One nation, one land, one language” (even “one Leader”). Forces of power and/or cultural authority worked to enforce this unity, identifying the ethnic and political boundaries with language borders. And if this national unity did not match the facts, it was imposed upon deviant persons or groups. Thus, many dialects were suppressed or erased in France in order to impose one national language. In Yiddish in the twentieth century, mainly through the school system and mandatory unified spelling, the Yiddishists imposed on its various dialects a unified “standard language.” Similarly, in Palestine in the beginning of the twentieth century, the Sephardi pronunciation was imposed on immigrants who were fluent in various Ashkenazi dialects of Hebrew. Yet the assumption of overlapping identity of nation, land and language is an essentialist fallacy. In history, there was a great deal of asymmetry between those three categories. The language/ ethnic group/ nation/ state identity must be seen not as a fait accompli but as a horizon, a force for the homogenizing of larger social groups, and a goal of nationalist and cultural movements.

The Structure of Multilingualism In a society or a state there is never one language and never language alone. Not one language, because various minorities live among the dominant language group and because the official language itself presides over a

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motley of dialects. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there were many languages and cultures on their own territories in a common state, dominated by the German language. Not language alone, because every language is a repository of cultural values, images and memories (“semiotics of culture”). The boundary between semantics of language and semiotics of culture is fluid: multilingualism shades into multiculturalism. The boundaries between dialects and languages are fuzzy too: there is often a gradual shading from one dialect to the next, until a new language appears on the map. The differences between the German “dialects” of Berlin and Bavaria are perhaps more prominent than the differences between the Russian and Belorussian “languages.” A person speaking both Bavarian and high German is practically bilingual. Yet for historical and political reasons, the first pair are considered dialects of one language and one nation, Germany, whereas the second pair became two languages and two states. In Jewish life, there was intense animosity between Litvaks, Galitsianer, and Polish Jews, based on their different dialects, yet those did not crystallize as languages because of the overarching power of a common religion, alphabet, literature, education, commerce, internal migration, nationalism, and anti-Semitism.

Horizontal and Vertical Multilingualism Societies are multilingual in different ways. To begin with, the participant languages can relate to each other horizontally or vertically. In horizontal multilingualism the participant languages are parallel to each other in their use. They include several modes: Bilingualism proper – two alternative languages are co-extensive: either they reside in the same territory or in the same mind. Typical examples of personal bilingualism are individuals with two parents speaking different languages. Social bilingualism occurs when a “weaker” language is occupied by a “stronger” language, either militarily or culturally (English in India, Greek in Hellenist Eastern Mediterranean); or, the opposite, a “weaker” language immigrates to the territory of a stronger language (Spanish or Yiddish in the USA). Usually such bilingualism is transitional and after a generation or two, the stronger language prevails. In the interim period, however, the weaker language (Spanish) has a sufficient social group of reference (“Hispanics” in the USA) to be dominant in that

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secondary domain. In bilingualism, two languages are synonymous and interchangeable, and are used depending on the addressee and situation. Diglossia – two languages are complementary parts of a unified repertoire. They are both necessary for a person’s verbal behavior but fulfill different communicative functions, covering different semiotic domains. Thus, the immigrant language is used at home, often with one’s spouse or older people, while the dominant language is used at work or with one’s children. Lingua franca – a basic vehicle of communication between separate language communities (Swahili in East African nations, English in former British colonies). It establishes several bilingual interactions with each of the local languages, and diglossic relations when the semiotic functions are complementary (official business versus home). In vertical multilingualism, globally prevalent today, the languages enter hierarchical relations with each other in a three-tier structure: a) local dialects, professional idiolects, or languages of origin, indicating a person’s home language or professional attachment; b) the standardized national language, where all differences are neutralized. From this common base, the speakers can move to any dialect or professional idiolect in synchrony or to any text in diachrony; c) A supra-language for international communication. This vehicle is usually the language of a current or former colonial power (Russian in Chechnya, Ukraine and Kazakhstan), political power (English in the third world or even in the European Union) or cultural power (English in the language of high-tech). Whereas lingua franca covers the intellectually lowest levels of culture and immediate inter-personal communication, the supra-language covers the highest levels of science and culture and is complementary to the national languages. Thus, in contemporary India, a person uses 1) his/her language and often the dialects of the neighbors; 2) the national languages Hindi (in present) and Sanskrit (in the past) and 3) English as the language of education. Thus, English serves both the low and the high: as a basic lingua franca between all Indian “nations“ or “tribes” and as the language of politics, technology, mass communication, and science. In the past, similar functions were filled by Greek, Latin, Arabic, Russian, etc. Printed Hebrew, especially the language of the Bible and prayers, fulfilled a similar function among the scattered Jewish communities speaking different languages around the globe. Each tier in this hierarchy can have several options: several interacting

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local languages, several competing national languages and several competing supra-languages (English competing with Russian in the states of the former Soviet Union). Worldwide, academic reading and writing use the supra-language (mostly English), while creative writing and national culture are in the national language. Thus, the language of Israel is not Hebrew alone, but a tri-lingual structure: Hebrew as the language of national identity and separateness, the language of the literary tradition and of statehood, law and the bureaucracy; English as the supra-language of science, international culture and international media; and the languages of immigrant groups (rather than dialects), speaking Russian, Georgian, Arabic, French, Hungarian, Yiddish – with their own publications and daily newspapers. In this complex horizontal and vertical grid of languages, there are obvious influences of languages in contact upon each other – and a large scholarly literature investigating it. In many societies, there is a perennial struggle against foreign words imported into their national language (“Le drugstore” in Paris, in the so-called Franglais) and, on the other hand, incessant importations of such expressions – to match the knowledge and cultural distinctions obtained in other languages. The rapid growth of modern Yiddish and modern Hebrew was enmeshed in this process.

Relations Between Languages and their Users A state of multilingualism may be achieved naturally – a person grows up with two parents speaking different languages, or is a member of a minority, or lives in a multi-lingual community – or acquired later in life, through immigration or learning. The media of discourse in each participant language may vary: conversation, writing, reading, symbolic systems. Those don’t necessarily overlap. Thus, in the Jewish religious tradition, the law is given in Hebrew texts, its discussion and explication – in Aramaic texts, and the process of interpretation, study, and education – in the spoken Yiddish (or spoken modern Hebrew, English, etc.). The functional relations between the complementary languages in a multilingual situation are divided by the implied addressee (learned discourse in Latin or Hebrew versus family correspondence in the vernacular) and by the semiotic domains addressed (religious texts versus

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daily life, or social behavior versus science). Except for cases of precise bilingualism, there is asymmetry between the participant languages. Usually one of the languages becomes a base language, which provides the syntactic frame of the multilingual discourse. From this base, the speakers may depart into other languages, invoke historical layers of the “same” language, quote texts scattered in geography and history, or unfold professional and scientific idiolects. The earliest base language may be a person’s first language, the so-called mother-tongue (in Yiddish: mame-loshn), intimate and emotive. But with time, the relationship may invert and an acquired language take its place as the base language of a person or a whole society. We may distinguish between the base languages of an individual, a society, and a text. Not every individual shares the base language of the society and an individual may write a text not in his own base language. There are constant attempts to match those with each other, according to the principles of mirroring and asymmetry.9 An individual will try to mirror the base language of a society by eliminating asymmetries between them. Or, on the contrary, a creative text or a social group may deviate from the standard language and, in the process, create new asymmetries. The scope of a person’s knowledge of each language may vary greatly, along the following scale: a) “mastering” the language with its textual tradition and a large, pan-historical vocabulary; b) competence in the rules of syntax of the current language and confidence in its use; c) elementary communication; d) traces of that language in the form of words and expressions included in the syntax of another language (Hebrew and Yiddish words in American English; Russian words in Israeli Hebrew fiction).

International Semiotic Discourse Intersecting with the grid of languages in a multilingual society, there is a semiotic grid of human knowledge, which offers international discourses or secondary “languages” (in the metaphorical sense). Such are the discourses of religion, Christianity, psychoanalysis, physics, politics, yoga, the form of the sonnet, etc. Those are “languages” of culture, or discourses: they originate in a specific language in a specific cultural situation and are then ————— 9

See in Harshav 1993: 93.

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transported into other languages. The spread of the new discourse occurs either by the adoption of its terminology in new languages or by coining calques for the original terms. The growth of a natural language is determined by its absorption of such domains of discourse. Most of the knowledge in our national dictionaries is international, though adapted to the phonetics, morphology and lexicon of each particular language. Thus, the international word “telephone” (part of the discourse of communication technology) coined from two Greek roots, was first adopted in German, then pushed out for more Germanic roots: “Fernsprecher” (“distance-speaker”) without changing its semantics. In Hebrew, the word telefon is preserved but it is adapted to Hebrew spelling (using almost only consonants: TLFoN). Furthermore, from the noun, the necessary verb is coined: leTaLPeN (“to call by phone”), according to the rules of Hebrew morphophonemics (P is equivalent to F) and matching Hebrew morphology (TiLPaNti – tilpánti or the colloquial TiLFaNti – tilfánti, “I called by phone” and TaLFeNli talfénli, “call me”). In Yiddish, the same word takes on a German-derived verb form: telefonírn. Both Yiddish and Hebrew grew immensely in the last century to a large extent through such acquisitions of large semiotic domains. At first, the original term was included in the target language, then a substitute, based on a Hebrew or Yiddish root, was often invented (e.g., Eliezer Ben-Yehuda‘s invention: mivréshet from the Yiddish barsht 'brush'. Thus, in Hebrew, “culture” was first called kultúra, then it became tarbút. Even when the foreign word is preserved, there are modes of secondary adaptation. Yiddish and, in its wake, Hebrew coined tragédye, komédye with penultimate stress, as in Russian, rather than the French stress on the last syllable of these words and the English on the first. This process occurred subconsciously in the Jewish languages in the modern age, which absorbed a large international vocabulary primarily via its Russian forms. It usually entered first the Yiddish discourse of political speeches, “publitsistika” and newspaper culture, and then was taken over by Hebrew. In this multilingual situation, an international network of words, idioms, and other expressions emerged, that have equal signifieds (semantics) but different signifiers (sound structure, morphology, lexical roots). This layer of multilingual discourse, embedded in all languages, was enhanced by the international nature of the genres of discourse: the language of a sonnet, of a newspaper news item, an editorial, or a romantic letter are inter-national within the framework of Euro-American culture. Culture is anything but the

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monolingual existence of isolated monolithic social groups; the unity of language is not in one morphology but across languages, in one semiotic discourse.

Multilingualism in Jewish History The Jewish national myth is based not on one cradle or homeland but on a bi-polar pattern. From one place they were either exiled or fled into another, opposite place, positive (exodus from Egypt, celebrated every Passover) or negative (exile from the Promised Land). With the fall of the First Temple they were exiled from Palestine to Babylon. This national tragedy was remedied by the return of the nation to the Holy Land. A similar pattern was repeated with the fall of the Second Temple and exile of the Jews from Eretz Israel to the Diaspora (Galut), scattered around the globe. Exile to the Diaspora echoed the exile of Adam and Eve from Paradise. The foundational event of this territorial bipolarity is recorded in Genesis Chapter 12: the Lord sends the father of the Jewish nation, Abram, from his native Mesopotamia (“Aram Naharayim”) “to the land I will show you,” the land of Canaan, occupied by Canaanites. This chapter was perceived as a Zionist message, sending Abram to the Promised Land. Yet it is also the first expulsion of the Jews as a nation; for the Lord commands Abram: “Go forth from your land and your birthplace and your father’s house.” In the ears of Diaspora Jews, “Moledet” (birthplace) meant also “homeland” in the national sense: Abram was expelled from his homeland. And “Lekh-lekho” (“Go forth!”) with its repeated harsh sounds, was expressive of the coarse command: “Get out!” Sholem Aleichem finishes his saga of Tevye the Milkman with the chapter “Lekh-lekho.” The expression “the chapter of Lekh-lekho arrived,” meant in Yiddish: the time of expulsion came (in this case: expulsion of all Jews from the Russian villages), rather than a messianic promise. With the Second Exile, the Jews scattered, in several stages, around the world. As all immigrants do, they adopted everywhere the local spoken language and some of them acquired the dominant language of culture or the language of power. In Palestine, in the first centuries of the common era, the masses spoke Aramaic, the elite spoke Greek, and the learned carried on the knowledge and writing of Hebrew. Thus the term for a Hebrew liturgical poet was paytán, derived from Greek poietan. Adjusted by

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Hebrew morphology, the poetry was called piyút: a Greek cultural term, describing poetry written by an Aramaic-speaking Hebrew writer. Micah Joseph Berdichevsky, who studied the Aramaic Talmud at the elite Volozhin yeshiva in Lithuania with other liberal-minded students, became a prominent Hebrew secular fiction writer, lived in Berlin and wrote criticism and essays in Yiddish and German, defined this essential Jewish bilingualism in his essay “Hebrew and Aramaic,” which uses the story of Jacob and Esau as a metaphor: “Two nations in your womb, [two peoples from your loins shall issue]” (Genesis 25: 23) “still clash within us, and our tongue became two languages – Hebrew and Aramaic.” (Berdichevsky 1987: 101). He claims it is immaterial whether the nation of Israel, that came from Aram, first spoke Aramaic, then learned in Canaan to speak Hebrew, and later returned their language to its Aramaic origins, or whether Hebrew preceded Aramaic and the Israelites learned the latter in their political and cultural contacts with their Aramaic speaking neighbors. “The fact is that we deal with two languages which, though neighbors, are radically different from each other, not in words and expressions but in their soul… We are Hebrew-Aramaic in our language.” (1987: 102). This pair was supplanted by the Hebrew-Yiddish bilingualism in Eastern Europe, fulfilling a similar functional division (see Sh. Niger 1941, 1990). Even in the days of their independence in ancient Canaan, the Jews were a small nation on the crossroads between Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia and were in contact with the neighboring languages (there are Aramaic texts in the Hebrew Bible). Yet the full complexity of Jewish multilingualism has developed in the Diaspora. It combined their own languages (Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic) with the local dialects, on the one hand, and the language of the majority and of power, on the other hand. In addition, they shifted from the language of their “old country,” to the language of the new land where they went in their wanderings. Thus the Ashkenazi Elye Bokher (Elias Levita, 1469-1549) moved from Germany to Rome and Venice, was a teacher to cardinals, wrote a grammar and versification treatise in Hebrew, and epic romances in Italian ottava rima in Yiddish, and published a fourlanguage dictionary: German-Latin-Italian-Hebrew, reflecting his origins and his two homelands. In their cultural heritage, the Jews absorbed elements of the languages and modes of discourse which they acquired from other languages in the past. Thus, Arabic metrics, adopted by Hebrew poetry in ninth-century Spain, continued to be mandatory in Hebrew poetry in Christian Spain and,

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from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, in Italy, where there were no Arabs and no Arabic knowledge. Nevertheless, unlike Arabic, the prevalent rhyme gender in medieval Hebrew poetry in Christian lands was feminine (penultimately stressed), as prevalent in the poetry of their Romance language neighbors. The special trait of the Jewish Diaspora was the unprecedented preservation of a Jewish community throughout history, in spite of the repeated expulsions, migration, and assimilation. In every new language territory, the second generation adopted the new, non-Jewish language, but kept traces of the previous language. The so-called “Jewish languages” (Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Greek, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-German), which Jews spoke among themselves for generations, were not really different from the dominant language but were marked variants of it. The new formation was marked as a Jewish language in several respects: 1) it preserved some expressions of the earlier language; e.g., Romance words (kreplakh, tsholent) and names (Yentl from Gentilla) were preserved in German-based Yiddish. 2) Some Jewish cultural markers were included in the new languages (the tradition of the Bible, Hebrew poetry, “Jewish” cuisine, Yiddish words, semantics of proverbs, etc.). 3) Only part of the scope of the new language was assimilated in the Jewish version. Large parts of German (the language of philosophy, high poetry, bureaucracy, etc.) never visited Yiddish. 4) Jewish languages were written in the Hebrew alphabet. The Jews did not disappear in history, because they kept their holy language Hebrew for written communication, unharmed by the spoken, external and changeable vehicles. This split of communicational vehicles according to media contributed to the preservation of the “Holy Tongue” (Hebrew and Aramaic) throughout the ages. It was founded on a complex and detailed network of religious beliefs and behavior, based on the Book of Books and a library of texts and commentaries, studied in mandatory education. The spoken vehicle, however, absorbed cultural elements from the surrounding languages, folklore and verbal behavior. This was not an accidental but an essential multilingualism which enabled the functioning of the Jews in a bifurcated existential situation.

Internal Multilingualism The languages known to Eastern European Jewry were of three kinds:

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Internal languages,11 external languages, and the internalized multilingualism of Yiddish. The autonomous stratification of Jewish social institutions within the larger state was implemented in Ashkenaz in three internal languages, all written in the same Hebrew alphabet: Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic. Yosef Klausner, a leader of the modern revival of Hebrew and the first professor of Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, maintained that Hebrew is not one language but four: Biblical, Mishnaic, Tibbonite12 and Modern; any speaker of one language would not understand the other. Indeed, we could add several more Hebrew languages: the innovative language of Palestine liturgy of the Byzantine period; or the neo-Biblical language of Spanish Hebrew poetry. We must also mention Ashkenazi Rabbinical Hebrew – a “synthetic” language, combining words from several historical layers of Hebrew with some Aramaic quotations; it was alive in writing from Rashi to Mendele Moykher-Sforim. These Hebrew “languages” appeared in history in spurts and isolated developments, without the continuity of a spoken language. Jewish Aramaic too was at least three languages: a) the variants of classical Aramaic of the Bible and Bible translations; 2) the colloquial Aramaic of Talmudic discourse; 3) the artificial medieval Aramaic of the thirteenth-century Zohar – the classical book of the Kabbalah, and shorter texts, such as the Kaddish or the Had Gadya, a European pattern song, translated from German into Aramaic, and sung at the Passover seder. Aramaic was the Yiddish of an earlier millennium, it mediated between the spoken and the written world. With its demise as a spoken language among the Jews it was sanctioned as part of the Holy Tongue. Yiddish tried but never achieved this status in print, but compensated for it in the educational process. Learning was conducted in Yiddish dialogue discussing the Aramaic dialogue about the Hebrew monologues of the Bible. But from the position of religious learning, hence the position of Yiddish, all those historical variants of Hebrew and Aramaic are one language, Loshn-koydesh (“The Holy Tongue”), kept in one library and often on one page. What brings them together are the unique identity of ————— 11

In my book The Meaning of Yiddish I called it polylingualism, stressing the fact that we are dealing not with complete languages but with a polyphony of glimpses in several language directions. For more details, see Harshav 1990: 8-26. 12 The medieval Spanish-Provençal scientific Hebrew, influenced by Arabic.

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nation and religion, their validity as arbiters of both daily life and theology, their unifying Hebrew alphabet, separate from all neighboring writing systems, and the scholarly settings in which texts in all those languages were discussed as one continuum. On one page of the Talmud you encounter separate texts in Biblical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, Ashkenazi Rabbinical Hebrew, classical Aramaic and Talmudic dialogical Aramaic, all organized as a highly controlled, graphically deployed and canonized mosaic. On a stratified page of a later-day family Torah, you encounter Biblical Hebrew, two Aramaic translations, Rashi and Rabbinical Hebrew of the major commentaries, and Yiddish translations of both the Bible and commentaries. Nevertheless, new writings had distinguished between the different languages which compose Loshn-koydesh. Since the components of the Holy Tongue were not spoken, they kept their independence in writing, as separate genres of discourse. Aramaic was much quoted in Yiddish, but rarely written in independent sentences and texts. Books, correspondence, community chronicles and legal proceedings were written in a Hebrew framework, with embedded Yiddish and Aramaic phrases. Hebrew poetry throughout the ages was predominantly Biblical. In some realistic Hebrew fiction in the period of Revival, Aramaic represented the spoken language of the characters, Yiddish (Mendele/Abramovitsh, the narrative poems of YaLaG, Judah Leib Gordon), realistic prose used a synthetic language, including many Aramaic expressions (Joseph Haim Brenner) beside European and Yiddish imports. Selected chapters of the Torah and prayers – in printed (rather than written) Hebrew – were studied in heder, the elementary school, mandatory for all boys from the age 3 or 4 until bar mitzvah at 13. The more difficult Aramaic was studied by boys in their teens in yeshivas – the elite academies that produced certified rabbis for hundreds of communities and became the breeding ground of modern, secular Hebrew literature.

External Multilingualism In the middle ages the Jews were expelled from most European states and concentrated in the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, as well as in parts of Italy and some German towns, and on the Mediterranean shores of the Ottoman empire. Few in numbers, they were always outsiders and a small

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minority. They kept their internal languages in writing and acquired to various degrees the spoken dialects of their neighbors as well as the “King’s language” of the state. Few medieval Jews read the Latin alphabet, hence the need to write German texts in Hebrew letters. With time, those German texts became separate enough and had the hallmarks of a new language, Yiddish, but the boundary between the two is fuzzy and meandering. In the nineteenth century, in the Russian “Pale of Settlement” (the former territories of the Polish kingdom), most Jews did not live among Russian speakers but among speakers of local dialects or minority languages. Jews were exposed to Byelorussian and Ukrainian (the language of the peasants), Polish (the language of the landlords), Russian (the language of the state) and German (the language of culture and yearly fairs, that could be seen as an extension of their internal Yiddish). This situation encouraged the preservation of their own spoken language, Yiddish. Living on the interstices of languages and nations, they could communicate with the Low (the colloquial language) and the High (the language of power and culture). Their knowledge of those languages was incomplete and primarily oral, but they had a foothold in several languages, conspicuously belonging to several different language families.

Internalized Multilingualism: Yiddish According to the great historian of the Yiddish language, Max Weinreich, Yiddish was born in the Carolingian empire at the end of the first millennium. Indeed, from a Yiddishist ideological position in the twentieth century, there is one continuum of a spoken language going back to the tenth century. The earliest extant Yiddish texts are from the end of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, notably a manuscript of a German romance in Hebrew letters, found in the Genizah in Cairo, Egypt. Some mature literary texts were written since the fifteenth century, notably the European romances Buovo d’Antona [Bove Bukh] and Paris and Vienna, written in Italy in the early sixteenth century in Yiddish/German in Hebrew letters and in ottava rima strophes by the multilingual scholar and poet Elias Levita/ Eliyahu Bakhur/ Elye Bokher. Looking, however, from the past forward, we can see in these Yiddish texts little difference from German, except for the use of certain Hebrew expressions and a few Romance language words. The Jews behaved as other

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immigrants and adopted the language of their host nation. The critical difference from other dialects was found in writing, in the use of a separate, Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet opened the gates to the other partner of Jewish multilingualism, the library of books, prayers and rabbinical judgments in the Holy Tongue. This Jewish-German language (Juedisch-Deutsch) lived on the margins of German and only in the eighteenth century, it seems, was it customarily called Yiddish (Juedisch – M. Weinreich 1980: 319). When Yiddish wandered to Venice or Amsterdam, it lived there basically for one generation, until full assimilation ensued. The radical change occurred when Yiddish settled in Slavic territories, in a language environment that is not similar to Yiddish. Here Yiddishspeaking Jews preserved their language for many generations. The earliest Yiddish texts in Poland, where the majority of world Jewry lived, are from the sixteenth century. It stands to reason that the Jews who lived in Slavic lands beforehand spoke Slavic languages, old Czech or proto-Ukrainian. In the sixteenth century, a new influx of Jews from Germany, supported by a Jewish religious and moralist revival, imposed the Yiddish language as the language of Jewish autonomy in Poland. The earlier spoken Slavic languages served as a substratum to the Germanic Yiddish, much as spoken Romance languages underlay the Germanic vocabulary of the Jews in the beginnings of Yiddish. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a unique phenomenon in Jewish history occurred: the Jews became a majority “on a polka-dotted map” over a vast part of the Russian Pale of Settlement (encompassing what is today Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and more). Of course, in absolute numbers the majority population were peasants, but the peasants were hardly an economic force; they were serfs, attached to their villages until 1861. The Jews, mobile, well-connected through a network of trade and full of initiative, constituted two thirds of the population of all towns and at least a third or a half of the population of the larger cities. Though deprived of citizen rights, they built and owned most of the local small industries, banking, and local as well as international trade. In medieval German cities there was a Judengasse, the Jewish street, whereas in the Pale most of the town was Jewish, except for the Russian administration, police, and churches serving the whole area. The Yiddish language served as the cement and communicational network of this nation, as well as an identity mark. Its Russian and German components served as a natural bridge to the

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language of power, Russian (earlier: Polish), and the languages of culture, Russian and German. Yiddish is German-based: most of its vocabulary is of German origin, though in many cases there is a Hebrew or Slavic subtext in the semantics of the ostensibly German words. One can write pure sentences in Yiddish using only the German, but not any other component. The secondary, but stylistically decisive partners are Slavic languages (Czech, Polish, Russian), the Holy Tongue (Hebrew and Aramaic), and a large international vocabulary. As Max Weinreich argued, Yiddish is a language of fusion: it uses components of several languages and melts them in one linguistic system. Thus, shlimeza’lnik [unfortunate one (male)] is composed of three elements: schlimm + mazl + nik (German + Hebrew + Russian origin) and the general European “doctor” gets a Hebrew plural: doktóyrim. But this fusion is not as complete as an independent Yiddish ideology would have liked to have it. Americans hardly pay attention whether an English word comes from one source or another, whether legal and loyal are from Latin and French, nation is French, and right is Anglo-Saxon, or vice versa. But in Yiddish there is high consciousness of the component languages and the literature uses their differences for stylistic purposes. Yiddish speakers lived among the Slavs in a Hebrew library and were close to Germany. The fusion of Yiddish is not as complete and the different components behave often according to the grammars of those languages. Thus, the Hebrew-stemming mókem has a Hebrew-origin plural form: mekóymes (rather than the more common Yiddish plural: mókems). Furthermore, while the process of fusion in English was accomplished, Yiddish never had strict boundaries. Yiddish is to some extent a language of fusion but it is also an open language; its speakers can easily roam in the reservoirs of the Holy Tongue, German or Polish and Russian and bring in whatever concept or expression is needed at the moment. People of learning will use more expressions from the Holy Tongue, acculturated Europeans will use more German, there is more German in Lodz or Silesia Yiddish and more Slavic expressions in the Ukraine. Yiddish has a core, common to all its users, a wider circle of component-conscious words, and an open frontier into its component languages. Yiddish is in its nature a multilingual language and its speakers are by definition multilingual (as poor as their grammar in those languages may be). The open borders of Yiddish, which allow a massive influx of words

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from all its component languages and the modernization of the language in the modern age, also serve as a bridge in the other direction. Yiddish speakers could easily adapt to speaking German (Yiddish minus Hebrew and Slavic words) and Yiddish speakers revived modern Hebrew. Thus Yiddish was the bridge between the internal tradition, on the one hand and European culture, on the other, between internal and external multilingualism. The expressionist Yiddish poet Perets Markish wrote in a poem: Himlen vi bloye blekhene tshaynikes [skies like blue tin teapots]

The image compares the sky to a creased, old blue teapot, thus domesticates the holy and romantic sky. Though the root himl stems from German, a plural form is only marginal there; the Yiddish plural himlen is more likely to come from Hebrew [actually dual, but from the Yiddish perspective shamayim sounds plural for there is no dual in Yiddish]. This plural creates a surreal image, throwing many teapots in the sky. A sound pattern bl ties the two epithets into one expression: bloye blekhene, which is juxtaposed to the Slavic dactylic tshaynikes. The Yiddish line is strong and expressive because of the “juicy,” long Slavic word, rare in the mundane Yiddish verbal environment. How much stronger are the tshaynikes than “teapots” and stronger than the same word in a Russian context, where it would be trivial. Culturally, this is a fusion from several language sources; but those discordant words also open up for us the worlds of the Hebrew shamayim and the Slavic home world of tshaynikes. Yiddish is a fusion language and an open language, but also a transparent language, leading us to multilingual and multicultural situations. With the abandonment of both Yiddish and the exuberant multilingualism of a wandering people, the Jews became “normal”: as everybody else, they use one base language and one or two acquired languages of learning (Hebrew and English, English and French, etc.), depending on a person’s profession and context.

References Berdichevsky, Micah Joseph 1987 Hebrew and Aramaic [in Hebrew], Poetry and Language. Selected and edited with an introduction and notes by Emanuel Bin-Gorion, Jerusalem (Bialik Institute).

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Grosjean, Francois 1982 Life with Two Languages. An Introduction to Bilingualism, Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press). Harshav, Benjamin 1990 The Meaning of Yiddish. Berkeley (University of California Press). Harshav, Benjamin 1993 Language in Time of Revolution. Berkeley (University of California Press). Harshav, Benjamin 2007 The Polyphony of Jewish Culture. Palo Alto, CA (Stanford University Press). Holquist, Michael 2003 What is the Ontological Status of Bilingualism? In: Doris Sommer (ed.), Bilingual Games: Some Literary Investigations, New York (Palgrave Macmillan). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Niger, Shmuel [Sh. Charney] 1941 Di tsveyshprakhikeyt fun undzer literatur [The bilingualism of our literature]. Detroit, MI (Louis Lamed Foundation for the Advancement of Hebrew and Yiddish Literature). Niger, Samuel [Shmuel] 1990 Bilingualism in the History of Jewish Literature. Translated from the Yiddish by Joshua Fogel, Lanham, MD (University Press of America). Oz, Amos 2002/2004 Sipur al ahava ve-hoshekh [A Tale of Love and Darkness]. Jerusalem (Keter). Translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange, New York (Harcourt). Weinreich, Max 1973 Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh. 4 volumes, New York (YIVO). Weinreich, Uriel 1953 Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. New York (Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York – Number 1). Weinreich, Uriel (ed.) 1954 The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature [First Collection], New York (Linguistic Circle of New York).

Neil G. Jacobs

A code of many colors: Deciphering the language of Jewish cabaret

1 Introduction This paper focuses on the use of language in Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret, primarily as performed in North America.1 The main tasks of the present —————

1

The present paper has its origins in my research on Hermann Leopoldi (see Jacobs 1992, 2002), which has expanded to include the broader field of Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret. A preliminary version of the expanded research was presented at the Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (see Jacobs 2003). Further developments were presented in invited lectures during April and May 2005 at Oklahoma State University, the University of California Irvine, and the University of California Los Angeles, December 2005 at Wayne State University, and March 2007 at Stanford University. I am indebted to several individuals for their encouragement in this area of research, especially to David Neal Miller, Dagmar C.G. Lorenz, David Fertig, and Theodore Bikel. I thank the Melton Center for Jewish Studies at The Ohio State University for support of a research trip to the sound archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research during June 2002. I also thank the students in my Jewish cabaret courses, taught at The Ohio State University during Autumn quarter 2003 and Autumn quarter 2004, whose enthusiasm and insightful class discussion helped me clarify many of the relevant issues. I had access to many of the recordings used in the present study through the sound archives of the YIVO Institute, to which I express my thanks. I also thank Lorin Sklamberg, sound archivist at the YIVO, for his generous help in this regard, especially as we sat listening to and discussing several of the works analyzed in the present paper. For access to several of the Hermann Leopoldi recordings I thank Leopoldi’s son, Ronald Leopoldi. I also thank Mr. Charles Samberg for access to several song recordings by his father, Benny Bell (Benjamin Samberg). I am indebted to several individuals for helpful and insightful discussion of specific concepts. I thank Bruce Heiden for discussion on the use of lists in the classical tradition, and in later work by Rabelais. I thank Harry Vredeveld for discussion of lists in Christian Shrovetide plays. I thank David Neal Miller for valuable conceptual discussion which helped me formulate discussion of the notion of “outing” as a crucial element in the use of other Others, as well as on ludic portrayals of Jewish themes. I thank Arnold Zwicky and Joan R. Jacobs for discussion concerning the perceived linking of lisp and sexual markedness in America. Errors of commission or omission are the sole responsibility of the author.

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paper are the following. First, I will discuss elements of “Jewish” cabaret which seem to make it distinct from “general” cabaret. Second, I provide a discussion of the use of language in Jewish cabaret, and relate this discussion to broader issues in the ethnography of Ashkenazic speech. Third, I propose that a distinction is to be made, based on whether the matrix language in Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret performance is Yiddish or language(s) other than Yiddish. It will be shown that a key feature– performative code-switching–patterns is based on this distinction. Data for discussion will be drawn from the works of several performers. These performers span several decades of the twentieth century, as well as several styles, countries, and languages.

2 General and Jewish cabaret Cabaret arose in the context of European modernity. General European cabaret is frequently seen as dating to 1881, and the opening of the Chat Noir in Paris.2 From there, the phenomenon spread quickly through Europe; even the name ‘Black Cat’ (cf. Chat Noir) sometimes carried over to the new locations. Throughout Europe there arose many distinct cabarets, serving distinct target audiences. Nevertheless, these cabarets frequently overlapped in their orientations and their audiences. The specific settings and formats of cabaret could vary, but there was typically a somewhat intimate setting, where performances included songs (original, as well as parodies), short skits, and the like. Cabaret typically provided a setting wherein performers and audience examined, and frequently challenged, the foundations and premises of modern society, holding “people, events and situations up to the light of critique, pathos and satire” (Jacobs 2003a: 203). To accomplish this, cabaret pieces would often intentionally transgress the boundaries of the social constructs of modern society. For example, commonly-held notions of the immutability of race, gender, ethnicity, etc., could be confronted by purposely using performers of one group to portray (“inappropriately”) members of another group.3 Identifiably non-Jewish —————

2 3

Of course, the development of cabaret was not a single, linear event. Its origins are a complex intertwining of several performance types; see, e.g., Jelavich 1993: 1-35. The late nineteenth century was a period in which the immutability of race was a hot topic for many. This was the period in which the modern form of (racial) anti-Semitism became articulated. In Erdman (1997) it is shown that popular entertainment in the United States of

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performers could be employed to portray stereotypical Jewish characters, while Jewish performers could be used to portray stereotypical non-Jewish characters.4 Since language functions within society as a medium through which speakers can mark and identify group membership and nonmembership, solidarity, ethnicity, social class, gender, etc., language use became, in and of itself, an important theme in cabaret. It is in this milieu that Jewish cabaret arose.5 However, some clarification of the term “Jewish cabaret” is required. First, Jewish cabaret is to be seen within the general context of European cabaret. Although European cabaret was not exclusively a Jewish phenomenon, the Jewish involvement in cabaret was considerable, both in production and performance, and as audience. Cabaret offered an outlet for expression for that segment of Ashkenazic Jewry which was adopting the paradigms of modernity. While other doors to modern European society were often still closed to Jews, those of cabaret were open. This was especially so in the capitals of the emerging and re-emerging European nation-states.6 Second, Jewish cabaret was rarely called (at least overtly) “Jewish,” even if this brand of cabaret featured mostly Jewish performers in front of largely Jewish audiences.7 These “Jewish” cabarets largely dealt with the issues and problems of a broader modern society–yet, at a basic level, these were the issues and concerns of Jews making attempts at acculturation–and thus, we may speak of a uniquely Jewish form of expression arising.8 Third, Jewish cabaret in this broader, generalist sense–and based in the languages of the —————

4 5

6

7

8

the late nineteenth century focused largely on the supposed immutability of AfricanAmericans (in the form of minstrel shows) and Jews (variations on performances of Shylock and La Juive). Thus, for example, Jewish and Irish performers would frequently play the “wrong” characters (i.e., one another) in American vaudeville. See also Bohlman 2002, especially in reference to Viennese Jewish cabaret. Discussion of the music of Jewish cabaret is beyond the scope of the present paper. The reader is referred to Bohlman’s essay. See Teller 1982. See also accompanying booklet in the CD Draaien, altijd maar draaijen. Originele opnamen uit de archieven van Theater Instituut Nederland (1995); Jelavich 1993; 1999. This point needs to be nuanced further, sensitive to specific geographic locations (cities), and even to specific venues. Thus, Jelavich (1993: 6) notes situations of Berlin cabaret with many Jewish entertainers and “audiences that were primarily Gentile.” This reminds one of Rozenblit’s (1983: 195) observation about Viennese Jews adopting “the cultural tastes and styles of Austro-German society, but…in the company of other Jews. They thus gave the whole process of assimilation a Jewish cast.”

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dominant societies, rather than in Yiddish–frequently did not present overtly Jewish material, often avoiding any direct mention of Jewish themes, avoiding even the word “Jewish.”9 It thus becomes our task to identify the structural features, styles, and forms which permit us to label this type of cabaret as Jewish.10 For the following discussion, the term cabaret will be used in the broader sense, which includes not only performances in cabaret settings, but also performances in film, at resorts, and recordings (made as such, to be purchased and then played at home).11 Three main structural features may provisionally be identified as setting apart Jewish from general cabaret. These pillars of Jewish cabaret are: (1) Jewish name rap; (2) the use of other Others as ersatz-Jews; (3) the use of a special type of performative code-switching. A few words of clarification about these features are necessary. First, the list is not necessarily exhaustive; other features are likely to be identified. Second, at issue here is how a given feature functions structurally within Jewish cabaret, rather than the existence of the feature elsewhere, out of context. Third, as will be shown in the discussion of performative code-switching, a feature might not occur in all types of Jewish cabaret; this will lead us to posit a typology of Jewish cabaret.

—————

9

Though see Teller 1982: 18. Teller’s Jewish Political Cabaret was indeed overtly “Jewish” in name and repertoire. Teller (1982: 20) writes of his work in Vienna in the 1920s: “zum ersten Mal bekam ein jüdisches Publikum aggressive Satiren in eigener Sache zu hören.” See, as well, for the pre-World War I period, the overtly Jewish work of Dr. Fritz LöhnerBeda, discussed in Teller 1982: 22. 10 Conversely, the use of a Jewish theme in a song or skit in otherwise non-Jewish cabaret does not make that cabaret suddenly “Jewish.” We thus must look to the overall context and structures, rather than to individual performance pieces out of context. A similar point was made in Jacobs (2003a) concerning the use of Yiddishisms in Viennese cabaret. The mere presence of Yiddishism is not necessarily a “Jewish” usage; it must be sorted out which Yiddish-origin words are part of general Viennese urban German speech, and which are used specifically as Jewish markers. By way of correction, in Jacobs (2003a: 207) I noted that Leopoldi, on a number of occasions, inserted his original surname–Kohn–into songs in his repertoire. However, I mistakenly wrote that he did this in the song “Das Märchen vom Bernhardiner.” 11 The boundaries between cabaret in situ and cabaret elements spreading to other realms are fluid. Thus, Teller (1982: 21) notes that the success of his Jewish Political Cabaret (founded in 1927) led to the publication and (successful) sale of a collection of the songs from the group’s first revue in 1930.

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3 Jewish name rap Jewish name rap is the rapid-fire recitation of names on a list. Recitation of names can surely be found elsewhere; e.g., , in the “Catalogue of Ships” which appears in Book II of Homer’s Iliad,12 as well as the listing of the sisters of Thetis in Book XVIII; see also the enumeration of individuals, clans, and tribes in the Old English poem “Widsith.” In ancient Jewish scripture, we find the list of genealogies in Genesis. However, at issue here is the specific use of name rap in Jewish cabaret song. As opposed to other name lists (such as those mentioned above), which are rather straightforward, the use of Jewish names is marked: the importance lies not in identifying “who” the individuals are, but rather in “what” they are–Jews. Of possible relevance here is the use of enumerative lists in German Fastnachtspiele (Christian Shrovetide plays). In these, the lists frequently consisted of a series of crude vulgarisms. The lists became used as pejorative markers referring to the peasant class.13 Whatever the historical lineage may be, our present concern is the use of lists/name rap in cabaret. With one possible exception (though see also below), I have thus far not found the use of name rap in non-Jewish cabaret contexts. The exception is an “Irish” song involving Irish names. Versions of this may be observed in the song “Dear Old Donegal” (1942; Steve Graham; Leeds Music Corporation), prominently performed by Bing Crosby in the 1940s (the song was also known under the title “Shake Hands with your Uncle Mike”). However, caution must be exercised here. This seems to be a piece of American popular music, rather than a traditional Irish song. Connections with the vaudeville tradition should be investigated. American vaudeville was a setting of heavy interaction between Irish and Jews. Thus, the “Irishness” of this as a performance tradition can be questioned.14 Name rap, where it occurs, constitutes a distinct sub-part of —————

12

This is a list of towns and places from which the ships originated, followed often by the number of ships (Bruce Heiden, personal communication). 13 Harry Vredeveld, personal communication. Examples may be found in Catholy 1961. Further research is required to determine the relationship, if any, between the use of lists in the Shrovetide plays and in name rap in Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret. 14 Similarly, caution must be exercised when examining the “authentic Irishness” of earlier performance in England involving stereotypical Stage Irish. On the other hand, a very limited recitation of (five) Irish names is found in the song “Tribute to Newfoundland” (1970; performed by “Little” Johnny Cameron and the Sons of Erin).

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the entire song. It is typically preceded and followed by non-rapped text. Some examples of Jewish name rap follow. In the song “Soirée bei Tannenbaum”(1930)15 Hermann Leopoldi describes a party hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Tannenbaum, Viennese Jewish middle-class social climbers. Mrs. Tannenbaum invited alle Damen vom Jour, ‘all the ladies of the day,’ while Mr. Tannenbaum hat sich beschränkt auf die Geschäftsfreunde nur. Und es kamen… ‘limited himself only to his business acquaintances. And there came…’, enumerated by a list of Jewish surnames: Frank und Singer, Rosenstock und Gundelfinger, Blum, Merores, Spitzer, Schilling, Rosental und Wassertrilling, Ellenbogen, Beer, Genendel, Fuchs und Löwy, Wolf und Mendel, Pollak, Popper, Brunner, Breier, sieben Kohn und zwanzig Meier.

Allan Sherman provides an example of Jewish name rap in his parody of the above-mentioned “Irish song.” Under the title “Shake Hands with your Uncle Max,” the song deals with a traveling salesman who returns to his family home in Brooklyn. The main segment of the name rap consists of:16 Meet Meyrowitz, Berowitz, Handelman, Shandelman, Sperber and Gerber and Steiner and Stone. Moskowitz, Lupowitz, Aronson, Berenson, Kleinman and Feinman and Friedman and Coh(e)n. Smallowitz, Wallowitz, Teitelbaum, Mandelbaum, Levin, Levinsky, Levine and Levi. Brumberger, Shlumberger, Minkus and Pinkus. Stein with an “e-i” and Styne with a “y.”

The name-rap tradition is so established in Jewish cabaret that the list may consist of items other than Jewish names. The structure itself is (was? see below) likely understood by the audience as a Jewish marker, and the new items were understood as coded place-holders for Jewish names. This involves the second pillar of Jewish cabaret, the use of other Others as —————

15 16

Text given in Weiss and Leopoldi 1992: 111. From the LP My Son the Folk Singer, released as Warner Bros. album WS 1475, October 1962; recorded live on August 6, 1962. I have not been able to see an authoritative copy of the lyrics. Thus, the spellings given here are not necessarily those written down by Sherman. While there can be much variation and caprice in the spelling of Ashkenazic surnames in English, I have tried to provide here spellings commonly used in North America. Many on-line websites which provide song lyrics give spellings which may or may not be authoritative. The on-line listings of the lyrics to this song appear to stem from a single source. Some of the spellings are likely incorrect, or extremely rare. Thus, “Tidelbaum” is given for the name most commonly spelled in America as Teitelbaum. Some other names given on the web sources I hear differently; thus, where “Boskowitz” is given, I hear Moskowitz; similarly, where “Lubowitz” is given, I hear Lupowitz.

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coded ersatz-Jews. Thus, the song that became Danny Kaye’s Broadway breakthrough, “Tchaikovsky” (1941, in Lady in the Dark, by Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, and Moss Hart), includes a name rap of Russian composers.17 While several of the composers named are Jewish, many are not. Perhaps more importantly, they are overtly called “Russian,” not “Jewish”–but the whole structure/context is a Jewish one. Similarly, in post World War II Viennese cabaret, the Jewish cabaret artist Georg Kreisler performed a song on Austrian television, “Telefonbuchpolka,” where he sang a list of all his “friends,” as found in the Vienna telephone book–and all under the letter “V”; all the names were ethnic Czech surnames:18 Vondrak, Vortel, Viplaschil, Voytech, Vozzeck, Vimladil, Viora, Vrabel, Vrtileck, Viglasch,Vrazzeck, Vichnaleck, Vregga, Vrba, Vickodill, Vrablich, Vutzemm, Viskocil, Vochedecka, Vuggelic, Vrtatko, Vukasinowitsch, Vorrak, Vondru, Vorlicek, Voralek, Vosmik, Vorlik, Vrba,Vrtl, Vodrupa, Vozenilek, Vrinis, Vostarek, Vrtala und Viplacil, Vrzala und Vistlacil, Vouk, Vudipka, Vitschesal, Vrazdil, Vrana, Vimmedall, Vrbizki, Vrbezki,Vranek…

The items used as coded Jews in name rap do not even have to be human beings. Consider Tom Lehrer’s song “The Elements” (1959), sung to Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Major-General’s Song” from The Pirates of Penzance (1879). Lehrer name-raps the elements of the periodic table. He has acknowledged publicly several times that this was his response to Danny Kaye’s performance of “Tchaikovsky.” Food items are name-rapped in “Essen,” a song performed by Lee Tully (1947; with Bernie Share Orchestra; Jubilee 3501) about activities at a Jewish resort in the Catskills. More recently, Animaniacs, a popular animated television series for children, makes frequent use of name rap, including songs listing names of countries, words in the dictionary, ingredients found in a candy bar, etc. While this cartoon series was not aimed exclusively at a Jewish audience, one might suppose that some of the individuals involved in the show (several Jewish baby-boomers, including producer Steven Spielberg) were familiar with the Jewish cabaret tradition of name rap through exposure as children to the recordings of Allan Sherman and others. This last example

—————

17

It has been claimed that “Ira Gershwin based this lyric on some light verse he had published in Life in 1924 under the pen name of Arthur Francis;” the piece was then called “Music Hour” (Ewen 1966). 18 This song is also included in the CD “Georg Kreisler: seine bösten lieder.”

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(Animaniacs) should thus be seen as an instance not of Jewish cabaret per se, but rather, of the diffusion of Jewish name rap into a general context.19

4 Other “Others” as ersatz-Jews The second pillar, the use of other Others as coded stand-ins for Jews, is a frequent feature in American Jewish humor.20 There exist numerous anecdotes where the punch-line involves the outing of the AfricanAmerican, Asian, Arab, Latino, etc. as a Jew. The outing can take several forms, and it may be overt or covert. For example, Mel Blanc, who served as the voice of Bugs Bunny and many other cartoon characters, performed the following comic routine on television. He sat wearing Mexican clothing, including a large sombrero. An English-speaking tourist (played by Jack Benny) approached the “Mexican,” and asked him a series of questions. To the increasing frustration of the American tourist, the “Mexican” answered each question with a single utterance of si ‘yes’. Then came the punch-line. When the tourist asks his name, the “Mexican” replies “Sy.” At least in the mid-twentieth century, this is identified as a Jewish proper name; it is a short form of “Seymour.” The other Others to be outed as Jews do not have to be humans. Thus, one anecdote has American astronauts landing on Mars, and encountering ————— 19

Other examples of the extension of name rap into non-Jewish contexts may be given. In the Jewish cabaret course I taught (Autumn quarter 2003), one student reported that a type of name rap was used in her childhood Christian youth summer camp. Finally, a list song “I’ve been everywhere,” came out in Australia, by Geoff Mack (1960), and using local Australian place-names. It has been redone in subsequent decades by other artists in other countries, adapted to local place-names, including, in America, by Hank Snow and Johnny Cash. This song presents the most direct challenge thus far to the claim that name rap is solely found in Jewish cabaret or extensions therefrom. 20 Here, as elsewhere in this article, we must keep in mind generational differences in Jewish cultural literacy. As concerns the issue at hand, it seems safe to say that American Jews born between the early part of the twentieth century up to the early part of the baby boom years were familiar with the use of other Others as stand-ins for Jews. Not unrelated to the issue of other Others is the phenomenon of Orientalism, and here, a Jewish version of Orientalism, as a response to modernity. On an extreme case of Jewish Orientalism, see Reiss 2005. See also Kun (1999, especially pp. 364-365) on the parodies by Mickey Katz in the context of mid-twentieth century ethnicized American popular music. My discussion of the notion of “outing” as a crucial element in the use of other Others stems from conversations with David Neal Miller.

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Martians. After the “Martians” have answered a series of questions about life on Mars, the astronauts’ final question is answered with “Only us Jews.” As mentioned above, the feature of other Others may be used in combination with name rap, and here we can find anything from the elements to food items used as coded place-holders for Jews. The use of other Others is perhaps the key feature from which to understand Jewish cabaret.21 Jewish cabaret served as an important “report card” by which acculturating, assimilating Ashkenazic Jews in Europe and in the Ashkenazic diaspora could measure the successes and failures of emancipation, modernity, and inclusion in the broader general surrounding society. The anecdote which, in my opinion, most clearly demonstrates this dynamic is the following.22 An out-of-work actor, an observant Jew, has no luck finding any acting job. Finally, he is so desperate that he answers an ad from the local zoo, which needs someone to wear a gorilla suit and pose as the real gorilla which the zoo cannot afford. The actor takes the job, and dons the gorilla suit. However, trained for serious theatre, he is despondent, and sits on a rock, glumly eating a banana. A few zoo visitors stop to observe the gorilla. Ever the trouper, the actor begins a series of grunts. More visitors stop to observe. The actor stands up, and beats his breast. Even more people come to watch. The more the audience increases, the more the actor grows into his gorilla role. Word spreads about the wonderful new gorilla at the zoo. Within a couple of weeks, crowds in the thousands arrive daily. By this point the gorilla puts on a marvelous show, swinging on vines, eating bananas, and letting out mighty yells. One day, the vine breaks mid-swing, and the gorilla sails into the lion’s den. The lion races menacingly toward the gorilla. The gorilla–the observant Jewish actor–realizing his time is about to be up, recites the Shema prayer, “Shema yisroel…” The hovering lion responds “Borukh shem-kovoyd…” Immediately, from the next penned-in area, the giraffe calls out: “Shut up you idiots! You’ll get us all fired!” As this–and so many other anecdotes– ————— 21

Outside our focus on Jewish cabaret, the work of Karen R. King (2000) suggests that several early 20th century Jewish anthropologists in America, by focusing as they did on Native American culture, found in this a “safe Other” stand-in for their own Jewishness. 22 In several instances, I simply am unaware of the “original” source for many of the anecdotes discussed here. They seem to have become part of a general cultural repertoire, and have been repeated and passed along as such. If any of the popular anecdotes discussed here may in fact be traced to specific individuals, I apologize to those individuals for the oversight.

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makes clear, the main point of using other Others was as a comment on Jewish acculturation attempts. Frequently, at least in cabaret and popular humor, this typically began with the individual successfully “passing” as a non-Jew, but ultimately being exposed as a Jew. Whether as a gorilla (in the song “If you could see her through my eyes” in the Broadway musical Cabaret; premiere 1966), an element in the periodic table, a food item, etc., the use of surrogates to comment on continued Jewish otherness was a regular theme. For example, among Dutch Jews in the modern period there arose a coded way of one Jew asking another if s/he was a Jew–Bent u Mexicaan? ‘Are you a Mexican?’ Finally, otherness must be contextually defined. Thus, Russians cannot be used as ersatz-Jews in Russia, but can be so used in America, where Russianness is no longer the default, unmarked ethnicity of the dominant culture. Alexander (2001) devotes one third of his book Jazz Age Jews to consideration of the public performances of Al Jolson. Jolson is most remembered for performing in blackface, a continuation of the practice from minstrel shows. American minstrelsy in the nineteenth century involved stereotyped, racist portrayals of African-Americans. However, in Jolson’s work, we also see the use of African-Americans as stand-ins for Jews. Alexander (2001: 135) writes: “Moreover, Jolson’s minstrelsy had a particularly Jewish twist that had been absent in earlier American blackface performance.” However, it is not merely that individual African-Americans are used as stand-ins for Jews. Rather, an imagined version of the AfricanAmerican narrative is appropriated, rewritten, and reimagined as a Jewish narrative (Alexander 2001: 137). Alexander (2001:136) writes: “By the 1910s and 1920s, Al Jolson and other Eastern Jews in America had taken over the American project of depicting African-Americans, and had done so in their own unique way and for their own ends.” It is not only in American Ashkenazic culture as lived out in English that this occurs. This rewriting of the African-American experience is a prominent theme in some American Yiddish poetry of the same period as well.23 An additional level of complexity is perhaps at play in the movie The Hebrew Hammer (2004), a parody of the so-called “blaxploitation” films of the 1970s, most notably the movie Shaft. Here, the character of the Hebrew Hammer arguably represents an instance of Jew-as-Black-as-Jew. —————

23

See Colleen McCallum-Bonar 2000.

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Alexander’s analysis captures the Jewish appropriation and reimagining of the African-American narrative as a Jewish one. However, this is only one specific example of a more general structural feature in modern Ashkenazic culture–the use of other marginalized Others to represent Jews.24 The use of African-Americans as stand-ins for Jews is clear from numerous anecdotes, films, etc., where, for example, in an American setting, African-Americans speak proper Yiddish, whereas AngloAmericans do not. However, this is found to be the case more generally with various other Others. Thus, at the beginning of the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles (1974), the Native-American chief (played by Brooks) speaks authentic American Yiddish (mixed with English),25 whereas the Anglo character played by Harrison Ford in the movie The Frisco Kid (1979) pointedly cannot pronounce correctly the single Yiddish word he has learned from his Jewish travel companion. Significantly, in Allan Sherman’s (2005) parody of My Fair Lady, the acquisition of proper Jewish-English speech by the Eliza Doolittle character is only achieved when she crosses over ethnically as well. (She is elected president of Hadassah.) From examination of many recorded popular entertainment songs26 it becomes clear that a whole range of other Others may serve as placeholders for Jews and the Jewish experience. Consider the song “Salty Saul Peter” (performed by Willie Howard with Ruby Melnick’s Orchestra; Jubilee 3507 mx. JR-58, ca. late 1940s). This song is about a sailor who travels the world, and has a girlfriend in every port. Verse by verse, the sailor describes each of his romances in vivid and often vulgar detail. The matrix (i.e., “home”) language for the entire song is, for the most part, ethnically unmarked English.27 However, at the point in each verse where the sailor/narrator describes the girlfriend and/or her family, they are represented by Yiddish (or pseudo-Yiddish) sung with the stereotypical —————

24

See also Kun’s (1999: 364-365) discussion of Mickey Katz’s parodies of ethnicized popular music. 25 On code-switching as a regular, integral feature of spoken American Yiddish, see Peltz 1990. 26 My access to several of these songs was at the YIVO sound archives. 27 The matrix language is a variety of New York English of the period, perhaps even a New York English that was identifiable to the audience as Jewish English. However, in this song, the English is presented as an unmarked given. On defining New York English and New York Jewish English, see Thomas 1932.

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accent of the location–i.e., Scottish, French, Chinese, etc. Thus, it is the “exotic” otherness that triggers use of Yiddish, albeit in a merged guise.28 Another song performed by Willie Howard, “Tyrone Shapiro (The Bronx Caballero)” (Willie Howard with orchestra conducted by Harley Dainger; Gala 1001 mx. 119-1A, ca. 1940s), makes the same point. The song is sung in English, which, although identifiable as New York Jewish English, is unmarked. The lyrics begin: “I’m Tyrone Shapiro–the Bronx Caballero. I just came from Old Mexico.” However, the word “Mexico” is pronounced with an exaggerated velar fricative [x]. The exoticness and otherness/elsewhereness of Mexico is here highlighted by exaggeration of a sound that is not found in general American English, but which is common to Mexican Spanish and Yiddish. Several songs performed by Eli Basse in the 1940s provide further examples of the generalized use of other Others, for example: (1) “Kun-yiland (Coney Island Calypso)”–Jew as Calypso; (2) “Since Chana came back from Havana”–Jew as Latin-American; (3) “Number 4 Hoomintosh Lane”– Jew as African-American. In all of these songs, the use of other Others involves a mixing or blending of stereotypical features of Jewish culture and the non-Jewish “Other” culture. Thus, the song “Kun-yi-Land” paints a picture of an imagined tropical paradise. The beginning of the song includes references to “Rio de Shapiro,” “Havana gubernye” and “Trini-drerd.” These all involve reference to “tropical” places which become appropriated as Jewish. Within the body of the song itself, the narrator tells Mr. Gutman29 to bring a boxed lunch to Kun-yi-land, but not to bother seasoning “the carrots and peas; the garlic and cheese in the ocean breeze.” While the overt references are to the tropical paradise of Kun-yi-land, the data examples provided (including the menu of food items) clearly make it Jewish Coney Island. Similarly, “Number 4 Hoomintosh Lane” [homentash ‘triangular Purim pastry filled with poppy seeds and honey or plum preserves’] provides a wealth of examples of blending. The setting is an idealized black Old South as typically portrayed in minstrelsy. The song begins with a few bars from “Oh, Susannah,” followed by [English translations in square brackets]: ————— 28

See also use of Yiddish and/or pseudo-Yiddish to represent other languages in several short films by the Three Stooges. 29 The narrator obtains the attention of Jewish Mr. Gutman by calling out with a stereotyped Scottish “Hoot man, hoot man! Hello Mr. Gutman!”

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Southland, Southland–ikh benk aheym [I long homeward]. For that gehakte leber [chopped liver] and that–that tsuker-cane [sugar-cane]….Southland, Southland–I’m gonna see my cousin Shleym [Solomon]. So give me six-dollars’ worth on an eybershte [upper] Pullmanberth. I’m gonna khap [grab] a hop on that halb-nokh-zibn [half-past-seven] train…becausin’ I miss my Mammy’s latkes [potato pancakes], my Daddy in his gatkes [underwear]. I miss that gefilte fish [gefilte fish] and that khreyn [horseradish]…I’m goin’ back where life’s a bubble and the magnolias smell from knobl [garlic], at number four Hoomintosh Lane...

Throughout the song, the framework for the setting is an imagined and stereotyped black Old South in which the Jewish features occur, thus appropriating the whole setting as a rewritten Jewish one. For example, the song includes references to coming home and seeing: “that untervesh [undergarments] hanging on that Mason-Dixon line”; the narrator’s grandmother “Dixie Lee Lapidus…sewin’ up the derma for the Kishke [stuffed derma] Festival…” Reference to sugar cane is a blended Yiddishand-English tsuker-cane. All of the Eli Basse songs mentioned here are performed entirely in the style considered (stereotypically) appropriate for that non-Jewish culture which serves as a referential outer shell. This use of the non-Jewish culture as shell is also seen in Allan Sherman’s “Shake Hands with your Uncle Max.” The Jewish name rap (see above) is surrounded by a non-Jewish (or at least not markedly Jewish) shell. The song begins: I sell a line of plastics and I’m always on the road and I have a case of samples which believe me is a load. Every night a strange café, a strange hotel, and then–early in the morning I am on the road again. When the season’s over and my lonesome journey ends– that’s the only time I see my family and my friends…

It is only at this point that a clear Jewish element is introduced: I drive up Ocean Parkway, and before I stop the car, my Ma leans out the window, and she hollers ‘Here we are…’

The reference to Ocean Parkway signals Brooklyn. In the recording, this reference brings the first noticeable laughter by the audience, which has recognized this reference as a Jewish marker. The name rap portion of the song is clearly Jewishly-marked. The end of the song returns to the nonJewish shell in which the Jewish text is housed. It is couched in Irish tenor style; the final words of the song, “Welcome home!” are sung mimicking a full Irish accent.

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For some performers, in at least some of their songs, there is not only a cultural and linguistic blending, but a musical mixing as well.30 Thus, the Allan Sherman parody “Tennessee Frelich” is a faithful rendition of the musical style of the original “Tennessee Waltz,”31 but intersperses a section with straightforward klezmer music. This musical mixing is found elsewhere; e.g., in many of Mickey Katz’s parodies of American popular songs.32 Consider briefly a song performed in German by the Viennese artist Hermann Leopoldi, “Schnucki, ach Schnucki.”33 The backdrop of the song is a love duet sung by a two Native Americans–a Sioux brave and a squaw.34 Relevant here is that the Native American backdrop is used in other Other fashion to comment on Viennese social relations. For example, the Sioux brave is described in stereotypical Viennese terms–short and bald, with a beer-belly. Standard Austrian German and Viennese dialect are used throughout the song in ways which appropriately reflect the sociolinguistics of German in Vienna (Jacobs 2003a: 205). While this song does not refer to Jews, we may ask whether the use of other Others to represent Viennese life constitutes, in itself, use of a performance feature of Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret, now extended to a context of general Viennese cabaret. The way to —————

30 31

32

33

34

I distinguish between mixing, where elements of separate origin are used within a single context, but remain distinct, and blending, where a new fused form has arisen. “Tennessee Waltz” music by PeeWee King, lyrics by Redd Stewart, became a number one hit as recorded by Patti Page in 1950. The Allan Sherman parody, recorded by Sylvia Froos, was released on the 1962 LP More Folk Songs by Allan Sherman and His Friends (Jubilee JGM-5019). The songs included in the 1962 LP were reissues of material recorded several years earlier. While discussion of the mixing or blending of musical styles is beyond the scope of this paper, there is much to be looked at in this regard. See, for example, blending of Jewish and African-American musical styles in the song “Utt-Da-Zay” performed by Cab Calloway & his Orchestra on the CD From Avenue A to the Great White Way: Yiddish & American Popular Songs from 1914-1950 (2002), Sony Music Entertainment. Kun (1999) provides in-depth discussion of the musical context of Mickey Katz’s song performance. Music by Hermann Leopoldi, text by Rudolf Skutajan. From the collection Hermann Leopoldi in Amerika. Preiser Records. Leopoldi was in America from 1939-1947. Some of the songs in this collection were originally broadcast on radio (United Broadcasting Co., Chicago). For discussion and analysis of Leopoldi’s works, see Jacobs 2002. The song is all over the map, literally and figuratively, in its references to Native Americans. The first words in the song are “Minnesota, Hiawatha.” The squaw’s father is referred to as the chief of the Comanches, who resides in Idaho; the refrain refers to drinking champagne in the Pampas (Argentina).

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evaluate this hypothesis is to ascertain whether there are other similar instances in general Viennese cabaret which employ the use of other Others as coded Viennese, and if so, under what conditions, from what sources, etc. One presumably clear example of the use of other Others in a non-Jewish context–and thus, a counter-example to my claim–is “The Mikado” (1885) by Gilbert and Sullivan, where a Japanese backdrop is used to comment on British society. However, whereas the use of other Others in non-Jewish public performances seems to be quite rare, it is a basic element in Jewish cabaret.

5 The Ashkenazic speech milieu Traditional Ashkenazic society operated in a linguistically complex milieu. In simplified terms we can say that Yiddish served as the everyday vernacular, while Hebrew and Aramaic–collectively called Loshn-koydesh in scholarship on Ashkenazic Jewry–were used for liturgical and other religious or formal functions. Thus, there was a division of labor between these (see M. Weinreich 1980, especially figure, p. 173). However, the boundaries were not impermeable; over the centuries Yiddish and Loshnkoydesh exerted mutual influences (see M. Weinreich 1980: passim; Noble 1958). M. Weinreich calls the symbiosis of Yiddish and Loshn-koydesh in traditional Ashkenaz “internal Jewish bilingualism.” Moreover, since Yiddish has, from its inception, been spoken in a situation of universal coterritoriality with other language(s), Ashkenazic Jews have typically possessed (varying degrees of) competence in the languages of the neighboring non-Jewish populations. M. Weinreich refers to this as “external Jewish bilingualism.” Both internal and external Jewish bilingualism were relevant factors which must be taken into account in consideration of the Yiddish speech community in traditional Ashkenaz. This linguistic complexity was not random or chaotic; rather, it became codified and organized in specific, structured ways. Proper navigation within this multilingual complexity became a significant fact of the ethnography of Ashkenazic speech.35 One of the facts of internal Jewish bilingualism in traditional Ashkenaz was the continuation of a Jewish cultural practice dating back to pre————— 35

It is beyond the scope of the present paper to discuss more fully the respective roles of Yiddish and Loshn-koydesh in Ashkenaz. The reader is referred to M. Weinreich 1980.

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Ashkenazic times: the targum tradition of reading the weekly portion of the Bible in Hebrew (twice), followed by immediate translation into the vernacular (Judeo-Aramaic; see M. Weinreich 1954: 82). This practice originated at a time when a large portion of the Jewish population spoke (Judeo-) Aramaic as its vernacular. A Hebrew passage would thus be read and immediately translated into the vernacular, so that the populace might better understand it. This practice became embedded and ritualized in Jewish culture. Centuries later, in traditional Ashkenazic study (lernen), the carry-over of the targum tradition meant that a Hebrew and/or Aramaic passage was read in the original, followed by a translation and discussion in Yiddish (see Heilman 1981: 230). The process of modernization among significant portions of the Ashkenazic population (dating roughly from the second half of the 18th century C.E.) entailed changes in the overall linguistic milieu in which modern Jews operated. For many, especially the secularized, competence in Hebrew/Aramaic increasingly became a fossilized knowledge of specific words and phrases, rather than comfort and facility in the linguistic systems of Hebrew and Aramaic. Furthermore, for many Jews, competence in the dominant non-Jewish vernaculars was on the increase. Indeed, the Jewish participation in European modernity led, in several instances, to the emergence of new post-Yiddish Jewish ethnolects of the dominant nonJewish vernaculars: Jewish German, Jewish Dutch, etc.36 While modernity often brought with it specific changes in the overall linguistic milieu for Ashkenazic Jews, there was nevertheless a carry-over of traditional structures of internal and external Jewish bilingualism, in modified form. That is, the rules which had governed the linguistic complexity in traditional Ashkenazic society served as a type of template for the newly-emerging linguistic milieu, even as the constellation of specific languages had changed. As discussed in Heilman (1981), this template was carried over to a setting of Talmud study among modern orthodox Jews in America. Here, a Loshn-koydesh passage would be read, followed by a Yiddish translation, followed in turn by elaboration and —————

36

See Jacobs 2005: 303ff. Max Weinreich (1923) was perhaps the first to recognize the importance of the study of post-Yiddish Jewish ethnolects (specifically, Jewish German) to Yiddish linguistic scholarship. On Jewish German, see Matras 1991 and Jacobs 1996. On Jewish Dutch, see Beem 1967, 1974, van Ginneken 1914, Voorzanger and Polak 1915, van Praag 1947, Jacobs and Hinskens 1997, and van de Kamp 2005. On Jewish English, see Thomas 1932 and Gold 1986.

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discussion in English. Heilman (1981) describes the systematic use of code switching among modern Orthodox in Talmud study. He demonstrates that the template governing this code switching traces to the targum and lernen traditions, even as the population he studied consisted of native speakers of English who were now coming into this milieu as adult learners. The point is that even in a modern setting (here, orthodox) there was a carry-over of a codified manner of code-switching. This tradition carried over not only to religiously observant modern Jews, but to secularizing Ashkenazic Jewish society as well, and not surprisingly, surfaces in Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret. This modified template may be referred to as the Ashkenazic verbal code, thus keeping this concept distinct from traditional internal and external Jewish bilingualism (see Jacobs 2000; 2005: 306). This is not to say that code switching in modern Ashkenazic speech communities is something which cannot be discussed as part of larger, more general discussions about code switching. Rather, this is just to say that in the transition from traditional to modern, certain structures were carried over, although in modified form, to fit the changing circumstances. The languages available in the mix may change, and the status of the languages involved may change over time and location, but a type of traditional template governing the integrated use of speech-community-internal multilingualism continues. This can be seen in studies of specific Jewish speech communities, for example, in Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s (1972) description and analysis of code switching as a regular part of narrative performance in the Toronto Jewish speech community. On other patterns of Jewish conversational style, see Tannen (1981).

6 Ashkenazic speech and Yiddish linguistics Yiddish is thus a crucial point of departure for the broader consideration of Ashkenazic speech, across its spectrum of manifestations. At one end of the spectrum, of course, is the Yiddish-dominant speech community. While many of these Yiddish speakers were not exclusively monolingual (see discussions of internal and external Jewish bilingualism, above), the majority can be characterized as Yiddish-dominant. Furthermore, these speakers’ competence typically included an awareness of differences within

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“Yiddish” based on dialect, register, and style.37 At the other end of the spectrum are Ashkenazic Jewish speech communities who speak the language of the dominant, non-Jewish society and, to varying degrees, possess competence in a variety of that language which may be seen as identifiably Jewish. This may range from a full-fledged ethnolect markedly distinct from the non-Jewish varieties, to full “bilingual” competence in the Jewish and non-Jewish varieties (see, for example, Beem’s 1974: 34 discussion of Ashkenazic Jewish Dutch), to monolingual speakers of the non-Jewish variety who nevertheless exhibit substratal features which trace back to earlier Jewish speech. An example of this is seen in the presence of certain phonological features which may be traced back to Yiddish among English monolinguals from Long Island, New York.38 Jewish speech communities at this end of the spectrum exhibit a range of knowledge of Yiddish from nearly nothing beyond a few lexical items of Yiddish origin to fluency in Yiddish. Furthermore, the competence in Yiddish often contains a diachronic dimension. For example, the North American post-Yiddish Jewish English speech community, for the most part, may be said to have had more knowledge of Yiddish two generations ago than it has today.39 Following the line of thought found in Max Weinreich (1923), the study of Ashkenazic speech, including post-Yiddish Ashkenazic speech, is thus a proper sub-field of Yiddish linguistics. This encompasses full Yiddish speech, situations of regular code-switching and diglossia, and monolingual non-Yiddish speech containing residual Yiddish features. Further entering into the mix are issues of direct relevance to Yiddish dialectology and sociolinguistics. For example, one may observe preferences for specific dialect forms of Yiddish-origin lexical items in Jewish English in North America, e.g., chutzpah (and not chitzpah) tukhes over tokhes ‘backside’, and so on. While this end of the spectrum of Ashkenazic speech–namely, post-Yiddish ethnolects of monolinguals–is arguably the furthest removed —————

37

Several examples can be given; for example, hypercorrections based on the interface of dialects, or dialect speech with emerging standard models, etc. See U. Weinreich 1952, Herzog 1965 and Jacobs 2005, as well as several maps and accompanying discussions in the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. 38 It can be argued here, however, that such features–their Yiddish origin notwithstanding– have now crossed over to become simply features of this variety of English. 39 This is not the case for speakers of “Yeshivish” (a term used to describe types of English currently employed in American orthodox communities, characterized by significant use of Hebrew- and Aramaic-origin elements); see Benor 2004.

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from Yiddish speech proper, it thus still requires that investigation of this speech be informed of issues in Yiddish grammar, dialectology, sociolinguistics, and language history. This is all the more so important for Ashkenazic speech residing elsewhere on the spectrum of Ashkenazic speech. Access to original Yiddish speech representing geographic and other variation is thus important for the investigation of Ashkenazic speech in the broadest sense. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ), designed by Uriel Weinreich, and brought to publication stage in several volumes by a team of scholars under the leadership of Marvin I. Herzog, constitutes the prime resource and repository of geographicallybased Yiddish speech data. The atlas has thus far seen publication of three volumes (LCAAJ I-III). More recently, the work of Ulrike Kiefer and Robert Neumann has put the LCAAJ archives into electronic format, and made them available on-line through the EYDES project. The EYDES archives thus make real dialect data for the whole LCAAJ available and accessible to researchers, as well as makes possible computerized analysis of real spoken features in ways reaching far beyond the original design and scope of the LCAAJ. The implications for the researcher in Yiddish linguistics proper are clear. However, the potential importance of the EYDES electronic archives for research in Ashkenazic speech in the broader sense, including post-Yiddish Jewish ethnolects, is also quite significant. Some quick examples can be given here. Data can be quickly accessed and tested for issues related to intonation, fast-speech phenomena, and other features which can be useful in linguistic discussion of language shift (see, e.g., Tannen 1981, U. Weinreich 1956).

7 Language and Jewish cabaret The use of language in Jewish cabaret reflects the complexities of modern Ashkenazic Jewish life. Language styles, register differences, code switching, even choice of language–all these and more were portrayed in nuanced detail by the performers, and this linguistic complexity was fully understood by the audiences. Thus, it was crucial that the writers and performers of Jewish cabaret portray the linguistic complexity accurately– even if in exaggerated, lampooning fashion.

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Benny Bell’s rendition of the “Four Fancy Kashes” (Zion lp 126 Kosher Comedy by Benny Bell; a 1960 reissue of a Bell 78 from the 1940s)–the four questions asked at the Passover seder–offers an excellent piece for discussion. This song involves a contentious and rude exchange between a son and his father. For the satire to function, i.e., to be accepted by the audience, the structural frame must ring true. Bell was the son of a cantor, and he sings the four questions with accurate traditional melody, and adds authentic cantorial embellishments. The structure of the questions and the responses also reflects traditional practice as regards sociolinguistic complexity. Bell’s characters move seamlessly from Yiddish to English (because the setting is America) to Loshn-koydesh, and back again, something common at an Ashkenazic seder. Poetic rhyme is maintained throughout the piece, where one line is sung in Loshn-koydesh, and the following line is sung in Yiddish, with the final words of each line rhyming. The song thus preserves the structure of the targum tradition of saying an utterance in Loshn-koydesh, and then immediately calquing it–to a point. It is the structure, but not the content, which is preserved in this song. It starts out true to both form and substance, with the son singing: Text: 1. Yiddish: Oy tate, ikh gey dikh fregn di fir kashes. 2. Loshn-koydesh: Manishtono halaylo haze 3. English [calque]: Why is tonight different from other nights? 4. Loshn-koydesh: Shebekhol halayloys 5. Yiddish [calque]: ale nekht fun a gants yor… Translation: 1. Oh Father, I shall ask you the four questions. 2. Why is this night different 3. Why is tonight different from other nights [English]. 4. On all other nights 5. All nights of an entire year…

It is here that the parody diverges in content, while maintaining traditional form. The son asks why, on all other nights, Father goes out and tries to pick up women on Delancey Street, while tonight Father stays at home and

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looks lovingly at Mother; why, on all other nights, Father goes out to a “Friendship Club” to make dates with “lonely-heart chickadees,” while tonight he wants to “makhn a deyt [make a date] with your ever-loving vaybele [little wife]”; why, on all other nights, Father wants to play pinochle and poker, while tonight he wants to have sex; why, on all other nights, Father speaks to Mother sitting up, while tonight he speaks to her reclining. The father’s response also maintains traditional form, while breaking content. He thus begins the traditional response to the four questions by singing in Loshn-koydesh: (Oy,) Avodim hayinu lefaroy bemitsrayim ‘(Oh,) ‘We were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt…’ However, this is followed not by a calque of the Loshn-koydesh line, but rather, by a Yiddish line warning the son that if he doesn’t watch what he is saying, he’s going to need a new head (“a kop a nayem”). The father continues berating his son, using the appropriate Loshn-koydesh line taken from the Haggada, followed immediately by a rhyming line in Yiddish which has no connection to the Loshn-koydesh line. The song concludes with the father singing a Yiddish parody of the khad gadyo song. Within this single song we can observe many features of the linguistic (and cultural) complexity of modern Ashkenazic society. The code switching is not macaronic. Rather, it is highly structured, and furthermore, it appears to follow the calquing template. Indeed, much of the humorous effect of the song resides in the simultaneous use and violation of the traditional template. However, Ashkenazic popular culture, cabaret, and folk songs frequently exhibit other instances of code-switching which do not derive from the “vertical” tradition (i.e., traceable as a linear development within Jewish history, here, the diachronic chain of Jewish vernacular speech; see M. Weinreich 1980). For example, we can find songs with macaronic code switching between Yiddish and external, coterritorial languages (U. Weinreich 1950; Rothstein 1993). Often, the code switching itself is highlighted by using it specifically to rhyme the final words in lines from different languages. This type of code switching, while corresponding to M. Weinreich’s external Jewish bilingualism, is similar to the more general bilingualism found in other groups as well. For example, it is not uncommon to find conscious use of code-switching in the songs of other second-generation immigrant groups in the United States. Two main types of code switching are typically discussed in the linguistic literature: situational and metaphorical (tracing back to Blom & Gumperz 1972). Situational code switching refers to code switching which

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is triggered by context: with whom, about what, where the conversation is taking place, etc. For example, the sociolinguistic context triggers whether a Viennese German speaker uses Standard Austrian German, Viennese dialect, or something in-between. Metaphorical code switching is used to add an editorial comment, provide a “spin”, or otherwise express an attitude about the utterance or the situation; it is thus more of a conscious act. An example of this is when English speakers insert a French or Yiddish phrase into their English speech for effect. In our discussion of language use in Jewish cabaret, we will have to consider a third type of code-switching, which may be called performative code-switching. Performative code-switching goes beyond adding a metaphorical comment. Rather, it is the code-switching itself which is foregrounded as the primary message. An important distinction may be made here, based on the matrix language of the performed piece (song, monologue, etc.). At issue here are performed pieces which exhibit significant code-switching between Yiddish and a language other than Yiddish. Based on the (mostly North American) pieces I have examined, if the matrix language (the unmarked language frame for the piece; the “home” or “base” language in which the piece is situated) is Yiddish, then performative code-switching is not found. However, if the matrix language is a language other than Yiddish, performative code-switching frequently occurs (Jacobs 2003b). The following discussion involves pieces where the non-Yiddish matrix language is English. While I have examined many Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret pieces in languages other than Yiddish, these pieces have not contained significant code-switching into Yiddish.40 Thus, whether the limits on the occurrence of performative code-switching are more general (“any matrix language other than Yiddish”), or specifically limited to English as the matrix language, remains to be determined empirically. A single performed piece–e.g., a song or a monologue–may be seen as creating a “reality” which is valid for the duration of that one piece. Consider, for example, Johnny and Jones (Nol van Wesel and Max Kannewasser), two Dutch Jews who teamed up in 1936, and performed jazz and swing material. When singing in Dutch, they typically used a strong American accent (e.g., in “Mijnheer Dinges weet niet wat swing is”; or in ————— 40

For example, the occasional use of a (marked) Yiddishism within songs sung in German by Hermann Leopoldi may be accompanied by a slight change in voice quality. However, these examples are quite limited, and do not provide enough evidence from which to make generalizations.

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the Dutch half of the lyrics of “Penny Serenade”).41 This was done to create an overall “American” ambience for these pieces, even as they were sung in Dutch. This is not an uncommon phenomenon in song performance, and is not exclusively a Jewish one. The point here is that when Johnny and Jones used an American accent with Dutch lyrics in a given song, the accent remained consistent for the duration of the song.42 This may be seen as the unmarked “norm” against which performative code-switching can be described. Typically, a change of voice in the middle of a song, whether by vocal quality, accent, speech variety (dialect, ethnolect, etc.), is understood by the audience as a switch to a different character/person. Thus, let us briefly consider two songs–examples of general cabaret, rather than Jewish cabaret–performed by Spike Jones and His City Slickers. The song “Der Fuehrer’s Face” (1942; words and music by Oliver Wallace) satirizes the Nazi German leadership. The song is played in “Dutch band” (“oompah”) style. A stereotyped German-accented English is the norm throughout the song; it is thus the matrix variety for this song. However, at one brief point in the song there is a clear and identifiable change in voice. The chorus sings, in the exaggerated German-accented English: “Iss ve not der ————— 41

The Johnny and Jones songs discussed in the present paper are found on the CDs: Johnny and Jones: Two Kids and a Guitar (1938-1940), and Johnny and Jones: Maak het donker in her donker (1938-1944). 42 When singing American jazz songs in English, Johnny and Jones often attempted an African-American Vernacular English accent (e.g., in “Jeepers Creepers”). Johnny and Jones performed regularly on Dutch radio from 1937-1940, the latter year marking the German invasion of the Netherlands. They remained in Amsterdam, and in line with German-imposed restrictions, performed exclusively at Jewish venues, e.g., Jewish weddings. They were eventually interned at the Westerbork camp (October 9, 1943). While they appeared only one time (March 1944) in the camp’s German-language revue, the duo performed frequently in the Kaffee Haus and between the barracks. In August 1944 Johnny and Jones were sent for the day from Westerbork to Amsterdam on a work assignment. During that day they secretly recorded their song “Westerbork Serenade,” which they had performed in the cabaret in Westerbork. The song is in Dutch, with some code-switching into German. Poignantly, it is devoid of the put-on American accent typical of so much of their pre-captivity work. Weeks later, on September 4, 1944, Johnny and Jones were transported to Theresienstadt, and from there to Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Ohrdruf, and finally to Bergen-Belsen. Jones (Kannewasser) died on March 20, 1945; Johnny (van Wesel) on April 15, 1945 (the day the camp was liberated by Allied forces). Information and dates taken from several sources, including, http://gemeentearchief.amsterdam.nl/schatkamer/300_schatten/tweede_wereldoorlog/ john ny_en_jones/, from which some of the above has been translated.

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Supermen? Aryan pure Supermen? Ya! ve iss der Supermen[.]” This is followed by a response recognizable to an American audience as stereotyped American gay male speech, with higher pitch and a hint of a lisp: “Super, duper Supermen!”43 The clear change in voice signals a change in character–i.e., it is a new person singing. Similarly, the song “Pal Yat Chee”–a parody of the opera Pagliacci–provides an example of a sudden change of voice. The linguistic matrix is stereotyped Cowboy English. The action revolves around cowboys hitching up their horses and purchasing tickets to see the opera “Pal-Yat-Chee,” which they mistakenly believe to be a movie. Like the stereotyped German-accented English in “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” the Cowboy English remains consistent throughout the song; it thus does not undermine itself as representing the reality as given within the song. The two interludes of a differing linguistic reality clearly signal the introduction of a different character. Preceding the first such instance, the cowboys sing: “We couldn’t understand ’em ’cause they spoke a foreign tongue, but we can give you some i-dee of what we think they sung.” This is followed by a straight operatic rendition of Pagliacci singing, in Italian, “Ridi, Pagliacco, Sul tuo amore’in fronto.” The song then returns to the cowboys, and their matrix Cowboy English: “All at once there’s a fat guy in a clown suit.” The reality established for the duration of a song may violate the audience’s assumptions about the “real world” outside the song; however, the counter-reality remains true unto itself. Thus, “Truck Drivin’ Song” (1999), performed by “Weird Al” Yankovic, tells the story of a crossdressing truck driver. Everything about the song–except for the cross dressing–stays true to form, both in terms of musical style, and the stereotypical hyper-masculine speech of the truck driver. Yankovic —————

43

The origins of the identification of lisping as a feature of gay male speech requires further research. The identification of this particular feature with gay speech is culture-specific. A possible link to consider are (nineteenth-century and earlier) European descriptions of stereotyped Jewish speech. For example, a non-Jewish description of Jewish Dutch claims that Jews lisp. Medieval non-Jewish depictions of Jewish Polish have Jews mixing up hushing and hissing sounds (see Brzezina 1979). This identification of lisping as a “Jewish” feature, when linked to nineteenth-century European anti-Semitic discourse on Jews and their supposed deviant sexuality, may possibly have been generalized in America to be regarded as a stereotyped feature of gay male speech. However, this requires further research before the claim can be made. See Arnold Zwicky (personal communication) and Joan R. Jacobs (p.c.) for discussion concerning the perceived linking of lisp and sexual markedness in America.

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maintains a deep “macho” vocal quality throughout the song, and uses appropriate trucker vocabulary. He does not change vocal quality, pronunciation, or otherwise mark linguistically at those points in the song where he switches from “ridin’ twenty tons of steel,” “got these eighteen wheels a rollin’,” “jamming gears and haulin’ freight” to “crotchless panties,” “nipple rings,” or “feather boas with sequins and chiffon.” Consistent with cabaret style, Yankovic breaks common assumptions and stereotypes about the outer world by juxtaposing macho and cross-dressing. However, within the song, he remains consistent to the alternate reality he has established. Only one person is narrating, and we thus hear only one “voice.” The examples given above from Spike Jones and “Weird Al” Yankovic happen to represent non-Jewish performers and performances.44 However, the principle: change of voice = change of character is found, as well, in Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret when the matrix language is Yiddish. Thus, in Mickey Katz’s “Hershele at the Wedding” (RCA Victor 25-5091 ca. 1940s), the matrix language is authentic American Yiddish. It includes frequent code-switching into (Yiddish-influenced) English. Whether in Yiddish or English, Katz’s linguistic super-system remains consistent throughout the piece–with one exception. On his way to the wedding at a fancy hotel, Katz/the narrator encounters an elevator operator. Audiences at the time understood this to mean an African-American man.45 Within his monologue Katz gives two lines which are supposed to represent the direct speech of the elevator operator. In both lines, spoken in Yiddish, Katz changes his vocal quality and his accent. As with the “non-Jewish” performances of Spike Jones and Al Yankovic, different voice signals different character, and different character requires the introduction of a different voice. Let us now consider Jewish cabaret pieces where the matrix language is English, rather than Yiddish.46 It is here that performative code-switching is a frequent occurrence. In instances of performative code-switching the voice of the narrator/character is all over the linguistic map. Here, however, —————

44

Mickey Katz, a Jewish performer, played with Spike Jones’ group before striking out on his own. In many ways, several of Katz’s Jewish pieces were Jewish versions of the types of pieces played by Jones. 45 Reflecting the racial condescension of the times, Katz uses the borrowed English term “elevator boy” in his Yiddish monologue. 46 Again, it is my expectation to find that this will extend more generally to other matrix languages. The crucial point here is that the matrix language = “not Yiddish.”

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change in voice quality, language variety, even language choice, does not signal a change in character. Rather, it is precisely the linguistic shapeshifting that is the point here. In full view of the audience, a single character morphs into and out of multiple linguistic identities, while maintaining the same persona. Invariably, one of the linguistic identities is that of a stereotypical Ashkenazic Jew. This is manifested by use of Yiddish, Yiddish-influenced English, or both. Thus, whatever the text of the performed piece, the common subtext in performative code-switching is Yiddish itself, and all that that language entailed: traditional Ashkenazic culture vs. modernity, emancipation, acculturation and assimilation. No matter how successful the Jew is in adopting the outer form of the dominant society, s/he eventually exposes himself/herself as a Jew. While the use of other Others involved an outing of ethnicity, in performative code-switching the outing is linguistic. Performative code-switching served as a Jewish critique on the limits of emancipation. Jews could change their names, dress, occupations, languages, and lifestyles, as well as cut their beards and their noses, and still not be welcome in the country clubs and family circles of the dominant society.47 These assimilated Jews, who had made the language of the dominant society their own native language, felt that they had played by the rules, and were now being cheated. By use of performative code-switching, these assimilated Jews were dismantling the components of linguistic identity, and reassembling them at will. If not on the public street, then at least in cabaret, Jews could assert a modicum of control over their own situation. Consider the following examples of the use of performative code-switching. “Professor Pierre Marquette” is a spoken comic piece by Willie Howard (with Henry Tobias as “Al ‘Doubletalk’ Kelly”; 78rpm Jubilee 3507 mx. JR-59). The matrix language is English, spoken with a stage French accent. “Professor Marquette” tells the audience that he can teach them all perfect French in thirty easy lessons. He maintains the matrix stage French accent throughout, except when he morphs into and out of a Yiddish accent. Thus, in promoting his French instructional methods, he says: [French accent] “and believe you me…” followed by [Yiddish accent] “you ken be tokn ez —————

47

Non-Jewish opponents of Jewish integration into general society also saw Jews as incapable of attaining anything but an imperfect imitation of dominant-culture forms and norms. It remains for future research to compare systematically the similarities and/or differences in how the Jew is “outed” linguistically in non-Jewish vs. Jewish cabaret.

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gud ez I’m tokn.”48 “Professor Marquette” immediately morphs back into his stage French accent, until he mentions that his book includes instruction on “how to clean a chicken” (Yiddish-accented tšikn), from there back to stage French accent, until he mentions (in Yiddish accent) the chicken’s “pipek–English translation, pupek.” The humor here depends on the audience knowing both the meaning of the word pipek/pupek ‘gizzard’, and the sociolinguistic import of the two variants used. Pipek is characteristic of the southern dialects of Eastern Yiddish, though it may here represent common pronunciation norms of the Yiddish theatre; pupek is characteristic of Northeastern Yiddish, as well as of emerging Standard Yiddish pronunciation. Thus, the sociolinguistically lower form is here associated with Yiddish, the higher form with English. Throughout the piece, “Professor Marquette” morphs into and out of linguistic identities representing different social and ethnic “types,” yet maintains his persona. A type of performative code switching is also found in Willie Howard’s song “Salty Saul Peter.” As discussed above, the narrator sings of his girlfriends around the world. The matrix language for the song is English. Howard breaks into Yiddish or pseudo-Yiddish that is appropriately accented (Scottish, French, Chinese, etc.) to represent the exotic otherness of each girlfriend. In one sense, this would seem to reflect the principle: change in voice = change in character, as found in, for example, “Pal Yat Chee,” or “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” or “Hershele at the Wedding.” However, the impression I got listening to these interludes in “Salty Saul Peter” is that Howard’s narrator remains present throughout the song, and that it is the narrator who is reproducing the speech of the Other. Thus, while this example seems a bit more problematic, it may represent an occurrence of performative code switching. A possible counter-argument to my claim is found in Seymour Rockoff’s parody of the oft-recorded (Al Jolson, among others) “A khazn(dl) oyf shabes” (English title of the parody: “Three Professionals on a Probe”). In this Yiddish-matrix song Rockoff uses change of vocal quality to signal change of character–as expected. However, he also includes some contextual shape-shifting. For example, one of the characters–an entertainer–changes vocal quality and language ————— 48

It could be argued that this represents situational or metaphorical code-switching. The code-switching occurs precisely when certain topics are brought up: speaking well; chickens. However, the character is not just exhibiting the type of everyday register change normally exhibited by a single person. Rather, he is performing ethnic shapeshifting, exposing to the audience multiple types of “self.”

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style according to the demands of the various parts of his (the entertainer’s) performance repertoire. Another character–a dentist–morphs briefly into the sound of a dentist’s drill, and then back again. The matrix variety in Allan Sherman’s “Jake’s Song” (1951), a parody of “Sam’s Song” (1949), is American English. However, the song is rife with performative code-switching. At various times, Sherman’s English will move back and forth between a noticeable Yiddish accent, no Yiddish accent, and points in between. He also occasionally employs Yiddish loanwords, as well as longer strings entirely in Yiddish. As expected, when producing Yiddish-accented English, Sherman will use a Yiddish back [R] within the English string; e.g., he opens with: “He[R]e’s a h[ɽ]ppy song…something’s w[R]ong..” More interesting is his use of an American [r] with Yiddish words. Thus, as Sherman code-switches from (unaccented) English to Yiddish: “So forget your tsu[r]is, and zo[r]g zakh nit…” The use of the Yiddish word tsuris here can easily be seen as a borrowing into (Jewish) English, and the presence of an American [r] is unexceptional. However, in this English frame, the American [r] is carried over as Sherman code-switches to Yiddish. Sherman’s “Tennessee Frelich” (a parody of the “Tennessee Waltz”; see above) has English matrix, with code-switching to Yiddish. Singer Sylvia Froos’s English changes repeatedly throughout the song–from mild Yiddish accent to mock Southern accent, and back again. However, she remains in character throughout the song. Mickey Katz’s “Take me back tzu die Prairie” (a parody of “Red River Valley”; Yiddish lyrics by Mickey Katz; RCA Victor 25-5094 ca. 1940s) is sung in a mixture of Yiddish and English. While more Yiddish is used than is English in this song, I argue that Yiddish nevertheless is not the matrix language. In part, I am pressured to make this argument because of my hypothesis linking non-Yiddish matrix language and performative codeswitching. However, the matter goes deeper than mere comparative word count. Katz is all over the map linguistically throughout this song. He morphs–frequently in the middle of a line, sometimes even in the middle of a word–from unmarked Yiddish to ludic Yiddish to Yiddish with an American cowboy accent to unmarked American English to Yiddishaccented English, and back again and again. Clearly, this is shape-shifting via performative code-switching. However, what motivates me to classify the matrix language here as “not Yiddish” is the marked, self-conscious way Yiddish is used in this song. Most particularly, Katz here presents Yiddish in ludic fashion–i.e., where the use of the language itself is portrayed as

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intrinsically funny (and marked by an identifiable, exaggerated comic vocal quality). This is something that I have not observed in pieces where Yiddish is the matrix language, whether performed by Katz or by others. This is not to say that a ludic voice is not occasionally inserted into a Yiddish-matrix piece. However, in these instances, the ludic voice is clearly linked to the subject matter of the lyrics or monologue (e.g., at various points in Katz’s “Herhsele at the Wedding”). In Theodore Bikel’s (1966) rendition of the song “Kalt vas[s]er” ‘Cold Water’ (song by Sholem Secunda), Bikel employs a marked vocal quality for comic effect. However, what is being made fun of is the Litvak ‘Lithuanian Jew’ and his Northeastern Yiddish accent, not Yiddish as a language, or Jews as a people. Put simply, in songs or pieces where Yiddish is the matrix language, it is, understandably, not portrayed as intrinsically funny. When Yiddish is the matrix language, one variety of Yiddish serves throughout the piece (as with the matrix language in non-Jewish cabaret). Furthermore, in Yiddish matrix pieces with codeswitching to English, it is to one variety of English (be it Yiddish-accented, unaccented, etc.), not to an unmappable, shape-shifting English.

8 Ludic versus non-ludic frame: Changing cultural literacies The term ludic is used here to refer to instances where someone or something is portrayed as intrinsically ludicrous, lacking seriousness and respectability.49 Thus, it is not what the person does, or what events involve the thing, which makes the situation funny; rather, it is the essential nature of the person or the thing that is viewed as funny. The following discussion will focus primarily on the ludic portrayal of Jewish speech in Jewish cabaret, as well as on ludic representations of “the Jew” and Jewishness. It is beyond our present concern to consider ludic portrayals of Jews in nonJewish literature, theatre, cabaret, medieval intermezzi, etc. Certainly there is a rather long history of the disparagement of Yiddish– both by non-Jews and Jews. Much of this arose in the context of European modernity, where Yiddish came to be a hot-button issue on the possibility or impossibility of the full acculturation and assimilation of Ashkenazic Jews into general society. Much has been written about this, and will not be rehashed here. Yiddish came to be a quick and convenient signifier of ————— 49

The following discussion of ludic portrayals of Jewish themes grew from conversations with David Neal Miller.

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Jewish outsider status and insufficiency vis-à-vis the dominant/referent society. To portray a character in literature or on stage as speaking like a Jew was enough for the readership or audience to classify that character immediately and fully. The use of marked Jewish varieties of German, Dutch, English, Polish, etc., served as ready and fully adequate stand-ins for Yiddish, and thus, for Jewish otherness. Our present task is to understand how Jewish speech is portrayed within Jewish cabaret. Based on the pieces I have examined, I will offer a few tentative observations. In the Yiddish-matrix pieces I have examined, neither Yiddish nor other Jewish speech is portrayed as ludic in and of itself. This is understandable; in this yiddophone milieu, Jewishness and Yiddish are unmarked. An individual or a specific sub-group (such as the Litvak in the song “Kalt vaser,” mentioned above) may be portrayed as ludic, but these in no way are taken to represent all Jews, or Yiddish. However, in the Jewish cabaret pieces I have examined thus far which have a non-Yiddish matrix language, the situation is more complex. While ostensibly an in-group activity (for Jews, by Jews), the frames of reference can be Jewish-internal, external, or mixed. Here we are dealing with Jewish attempts at linguistic acculturation (to normative, non-Jewish varieties of German, Dutch, English, Polish, etc.), as well as with Jewish self-awareness about this process. These Jews were acutely aware of the otherness–here, linguistic–that identifiably Jewish speech made clear, since they were living significant portions of their lives with their ears attuned and eyes focused on the prize–normative German, Dutch, English, Polish, etc.50 One can observe in non-Yiddish matrix pieces a range of representations of Jewish speech, from fully unmarked, to marked non-ludic, to ludic. For example, in Willie Howard’s “Salty Saul Peter,” or Benny Bell’s “Pincus the Peddler,” the matrix language–New York Jewish English–is unmarked, in no way ludic. Another way to state this is to say that the use of Jewish English was not the point of the song; its use was simply a given, rather than self-conscious. However, there are other English-matrix songs where the use of Jewish English can constitute a major part of the point of the piece. It is here that one finds an opening to the portrayal of Jewish speech as ludic. As a first step toward describing the ludic portrayal of Jewish speech in Jewish cabaret, let us consider some relevant illustrations from the works of —————

50

Thus, Herzog (1978) notes the development of a monotone English speech among some Jews in North America as a strategy to avoid identifiable Yiddish intonation.

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three artists who performed in America: Benny Bell (1906-1999), Mickey Katz (1909-1985), and Allan Sherman (1924-1973). As any performing artist must be, these three were sensitive to the tastes of their audiences. One can observe as well how these three artists responded to the changing Jewish literacies–linguistic and cultural–of their audiences. I suggest that it is precisely here–in the changing Jewish linguistic and cultural literacies of the audiences–that one can best observe how Jewishness and Jewish speech came to have a ludic portrayal in some Jewish cabaret. The works I have examined by these three artists largely span a period reaching from the 1940s into the 1960s.51 Three main groups may be identified: (Group 1) First-generation immigrants. These were native Yiddish speakers who acquired English as a non-native language. (Group 2) Second-generation Yiddish-English bilinguals, who typically spoke Yiddish exclusively as their first language at home, and who acquired English first upon entrance into the public school system. They frequently grew up to be fluent speakers of both (Jewish) English and Yiddish, fully educated and literate in English; those sent to Yiddish schools also attained some level of literacy in Yiddish. (Group 3) Third-generation English-dominant speakers, with knowledge of Yiddish often limited to common catch phrases, expressions, vulgarisms, etc. (see Gans 1953). In performance situations, pieces could be performed in Yiddish, in English, or employ code-switching. This reflected American Jewish realities of the period (roughly, 1930s-1960s). As Jewish linguistic literacy in America shifted over time, the use of Yiddish became more of a (self-) conscious act. In this sociolinguistic milieu it became common for comedians to set up a joke in English, but deliver the punch-line in Yiddish. Group 1 laughed if the content of the punch-line was funny. Group 2 also laughed at the content of the punch-line. However, the laughter of Group 2 was at least in part sensitive to the context of the code-switching. They laughed because the content was funny, but also because the sudden switch into Yiddish highlighted the complex nature of their identities as Jews and as Americans. This was a generation that spoke English natively, and which was often ashamed of their parents’ Yiddish-accented English. Thus, for ————— 51

Benny Bell and Mickey Katz began performing many years earlier. Bell’s repertoire contained many Jewish-themed pieces throughout his career. Katz became known as a general musician. He took on comic roles with Spike Jones and His City Slickers, beginning in 1945, before striking off on his own with Jewish-themed comedy performances in the late 1940s; for autobiography, see Katz 1977.

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Group 2, the punch-line in Yiddish carried both content and other baggage. Group 3 often had only limited proficiency in Yiddish. For them, it was a short step to seeing Yiddish itself–not the content of the punch-line delivered in Yiddish–as the trigger to laughter. What made something funny was not so much the content; rather, it was the shift into Jewish mode that came to be seen as the humorous point. It is worth noting that both Allan Sherman and Mickey Katz enjoyed crossover popularity in their Jewishthemed songs among non-Jewish audiences in America. Benny Bell is virtually unknown to non-Jewish audiences, with one exception. His song “Shaving Cream”–recorded in 1946, and which became a hit through the “Dr. Demento” radio program in 1975–is entirely non-Jewish in theme. Benny Bell wrote, performed, and self-produced a large repertoire, ranging from traditional Jewish liturgical songs to sentimental songs to risqué songs. While the liturgical songs were sung in Hebrew, the bulk of Bell’s songs were performed in Yiddish, English, or a mix of the two. Bell’s songs could include ludic figures. However, Jewishness or Jewish speech as such were not portrayed as ludic. Bell’s repertoire was unashamedly Jewish, and could parody, satirize, or lampoon Jewish traditions, customs, etc., but Jewishness itself was not the punch-line. Illustrative of this is a comparison of Bell’s piece “Bar Mitzvah Boy,” performed in Yiddish, with the version of the same piece performed by Lee Tully, in English. (Both versions employ some code-switching.) The piece is a humorous bar mitzvah speech in which the young man of the hour berates relatives for their poor selection of gifts. The two versions of the song differ not only in matrix language, but also in tone and ultimately in how Jews and Jewishness are presented. Bell’s version is unashamed of Jewish tradition. It opens with a few notes of traditional melody, followed by words of chanted Hebrew prayer, performed with no hint of humor or irony. In Tully’s version, which begins with a flashy, general American show-biz opening, much of the focus is on puberty and sex. Jewishness is much more marked in Tully’s version; rather than being a background given, it occurs more as part of the humorous point to be made. Jewish literacy is also more exotic and external; Tully’s bar mitzvah boy announces that he will now be able to understand the formerly inaccessible Hebrew texts, which he assumes must hold information about sex. Tellingly, in Bell’s version, the bar mitzvah announces that today he is a man–a big man, while in Tully’s version he is not a big man, but rather, just a little man.

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Bell’s performed pieces are uniformly from a Jewish perspective . That does not mean that Jewishness is monolithic in Bell’s songs. Bell’s repertoire of songs in Yiddish, English, code-switching, and even a trilingual song in English, Russian, and Yiddish, attests to that. Thus, Bell’s songs are aimed at a Jewish audience that is culturally and linguistically literate, and one where this literacy is multi-dimensional. Bell’s songs deal with marginal figures, ridiculous figures, sex, gambling addiction, violence, radio hucksters, and more. Individuals may be portrayed as ludic (e.g., in “Moishe Pipick”). However, neither Jewishness nor Jewish speech are portrayed as ludic. In the work of Mickey Katz one can observe a rather clear division between non-ludic Yiddish-matrix pieces, and pieces which were mostly English-matrix, and usually ludic.52 Consider Katz’s “Hershele at the Wedding” (discussed above). In this Yiddish-matrix monologue, the Yiddish is never ludic, nor is the code-switching into English. The language Katz uses here authentically represents the linguistic world of his American yiddophone audience: fluent Yiddish freely employing a spectrum of Yiddish registers, and with code-switching into English, as well as into Loshn-koydesh. A ludic quality is evident (based on a clear and marked shift in vocal quality) in the portrayal of the rabbi reciting formulaic Ashkenazic Hebrew as part of the wedding ceremony. However, it is the rabbi, not Hebrew or Jewishness, that is ludic. In contrast to the Yiddishmatrix pieces, many pieces in Katz’s English-matrix repertoire involve ludic portrayals of Jewish speech and/or Jewishness. Typically in these works, Katz signals Jews and/or Jewish themes with a marked comic vocal quality. As pointed out by Gans (1953), the Yiddishisms that Katz employs in these pieces are typically clichés and lowest-common-denominator expressions likely to be most understood by an audience possessing only residual competence in Yiddish. Further evidence of the markedness of the yiddishisms in these pieces is seen in how and where they are used. They are frequently inserted at the end of a line, and often make little or no sense within the line or stanza. They are used for marked comic effect, and are employed to rhyme with an often equally pointless word at the end of another line. This marked use of Yiddishisms can be described in structural terms, based on analogy with the analysis of syllable structure commonly ————— 52

For a very different analysis of Katz’s songs, see Kun 1999.

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employed in scholarship in metrical phonology. In this analysis, the syllable (ı) is divided into an onset (O) consisting of zero to n consonants, and a rhyme (R), which in turn is subdivided into a vocalic nucleus (N) and a consonantal coda (C).53 This may be represented schematically as follows: ı / \ O R /\ N C Extending this by analogy to lines in a song, the main division is between the onset of the line (i.e., the introductory material), and all subsequent material in the line, which may be called the rhyme. The rhyme, in turn, consists of non-terminal material and terminal material (in metrical analysis of the syllable, these correspond to the vocalic nucleus and the consonantal coda, respectively). The difference from syllable structure here is that–when speaking of lines in a song–it is the terminal material (the “coda”)–the final word or words in the line, which is set up to rhyme with the “coda” in another line; e.g., “snow” rhymes with “go” in the song “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Why “snow” and “go” rhyme with one another may be explained in terms of the syllable rhyme. The analogy with syllable structure is used here only to distinguish among positions of strings/units within a line: initial, medial, and terminal. Where Yiddish is presented as the ludic punch line, the Yiddish elements frequently occur in line-coda position. This is often the case in Katz’s ludic employment of Yiddish. One example is Katz’s “Ces Tzi Bon,” a parody of the French-language song “C’est si bon” (1950; French lyrics by André Hornez; English lyrics by Jerry Seelen; music by Henri Beltti and André Hornez; made popular in America first by Johnny Desmond in 1953, and by Eartha Kitt.) in which Yiddish is portrayed as ludic. The parody consists largely of words and phrases which bear little or no semantic relationship from word to word and from line to line. Many of the lyrics are in French-accented Yiddish, and typically, these occur as the punch line (coda position), often with exaggerated vocal quality for comic effect, e.g., Madame Piaf–gut yont[á]f ‘Madame Piaf–happy holiday;’ la Pipík ‘the gizzard;’ koy[á]kh ‘strength’ (examples from “Ces tzi bon”). —————

53

Ignored here are language-specific constraints on syllable structure, syllable types, etc.

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In Katz’s Yiddish-matrix pieces, the Yiddish is typically unmarked, nonludic, and can occur anywhere in the line. Furthermore, reflecting the sociolinguistic reality of that speech community (the Yiddish-English bilingual audience), the code-switching into English is generally not ludic, and can likewise occur structurally anywhere within a line or utterance unit (as in “Hershele at the Wedding,” discussed above). Consider the opening lines in Katz’s Yiddish-matrix “Downtown Strutter’s Ball” (a parody of “Darktown Strutter’s Ball” 1917; words and music by Shelton Brooks): 54

Ikh vel kimen far dir in a taxi, Khane . Better be ready zeyger halb nokh akht.

To my ear, the Jewishness in this song seems marked, but not ludic. Furthermore, not all of Katz’s English-matrix songs present Yiddish as ludic, but rather as marked–for example, in much of his parody version of “Sixteen Tons.” In terms of the ludic, Katz’s repertoire seems to me not to allow for all-or-nothing classification, but rather, to provide a spectrum. Let us now turn to the works of Allan Sherman. Sherman enjoyed huge crossover success beyond Jewish audiences; his song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! (A letter from camp)” became a national hit in the United States (winning a Grammy award), and his album My Son, the Folk Singer (1962) enjoyed phenomenal success. He regularly was asked to perform many of his Jewish-themed parodies on national television, went on tour in North America, and gave two concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York.55 Sherman’s songs are not easily categorized as concerns the portrayal of Jews and Jewishness. Socially, Sherman’s songs portray Jews and ————— 54 55

Sometimes given as “Honey” in line with the original English lyrics. See Mark Cohen’s front material to the six-CD set Allan Sherman. My Son, The Box (2005), which also contains the following on Sherman’s cross-over appeal (pp. 5-6): “‘Sarah Jackman’ spurred the sale of My Son, The Folk Singer and kicked off one of the most sensational winning streaks in American comedy. By early November 1962, three weeks after it appeared, Folk Singer had sold 300,000 copies and was one of the fastestselling albums in history. By the end of the month, sales hit half a million, and in late December surpassed a million. When the album sold big in Atlanta, Georgia, Billboard had to admit it was out of its depth. America was changing” … “His songs gave a voice to Americans who had been too embarrassed to call attention to themselves. They spoke offkilter English, worked low-class jobs, had large, unruly families, and were crazy for bargain merchandise. This was also Sherman’s appeal to the many non-Jewish buyers who made the album a national sensation. Their parents, too, spoke nonstandard English and struggled to make a buck.”

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Jewishness across a range: from (1) basically unmarked, to (2) marked, nonludic, to (3) ludic. Sherman’s songs were very good at offering up microcosms of assimilated American Jewish life of the 1960s; thus, the relatives discussed in “Sarah Jackman” include a Peace Corps volunteer, an attorney, a civil-rights Freedom Rider, etc. The Allan Sherman songs I have examined all have non-Yiddish (English) matrix. Linguistically, Sherman’s songs range from basically unmarked (Jewish) English (e.g., “Shake Hands with Your Uncle Max”), to marked (but native) Jewish English (e.g., “Sarah Jackman”), to Yiddishaccented English (e.g., “Jake’s Song”). Some songs contain Yiddish loanwords, other songs exhibit code-switching into entire Yiddish phrases. Some of the pieces in which Yiddish is the least natural, most marked, and possibly ludic, seem aimed strictly at Jewish audiences. For Sherman’s assimilated, English-dominant (in many cases English-monolingual) Jewish audience, Yiddish indeed represented that stigmatized thing they simultaneously revered as “heymish” and feared as exposing their “otherness” in white America. It is significant to note that the songs which became the cross-over hits, and which were put onto the albums of the 1960s, could contain Yiddish-accented English, but no Yiddish strings. His earlier songs–not included in the later albums–could contain Yiddish words and longer Yiddish strings, e.g., one part of “Sam’s Song” contains whole sentences in Yiddish. Though separated by very few years, if any, the songs which enjoyed crossover success were of a different time, for a different audience. Sherman’s songs frequently reveal interesting features in the varieties of Jewish speech portrayed. For example, his song “Sarah Jackman” (1962) contains the line “How’s by you the family?”, with what appears to be normative American English vowel [æ] (the word is pronounced with syncope of the penultimate vowel: [fæmli]). However, the following line is: “How’s your sister Emily,?” realized as [æmli], and thus reveals a hypercorrection by speakers who were trying to avoid the Yiddish-influenced merger of /æ/ into /e/ in their English. Of course, the use of “by you the family” is clearly Jewish English. Sherman’s earlier songs could show multiple varieties of Jewish English within a single song, e.g., “Sam’s Song”–something indicative of performative code-switching. In terms of line structure, Sherman’s songs show a range in the use of Yiddishisms and/or Jewishly-marked elements. Line position of the Yiddish/Jewish elements frequently patterns according to the ludic/non-

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ludic distinction, discussed above. Thus, in Sherman’s “A Satchel and a Sack” (1951; a parody of “A bushel and a peck,” 1950; words and music by Frank Loesser for the musical “Guys and Dolls”), the Yiddishism or Jewishthemed word is frequently in line-terminal position, or at least, highlighted to rhyme (though here, with English colloquialisms). The song is sung as a duet (Sherman [AS], and Sylvia Froos [SF]), and both employ this patterning of use of Yiddishisms, e.g., ….. [SF] I love you – a satchel and a sack (= [sİk])… A satchel and a sack and a kitsl on the neck… [AS]

A kitsl on the neck and a bagel in a box… A bagel in a box and a fertl pound of lox…

[Both] About you… [AS]

Alzo nu…

[SF]

There’s no use in squawking... Listen to me talking… I love you–a pepper and a zalts…

[AS]

You bet your pretty haldz I do…

[SF]

I love you–a farfl and a zup A farfl and a zup and you knock me for a loop…

[AS]

You knock me for a loop like a gopl on a tish… A gopl on a tish and you got me all tsemisht…

The Yiddish/Jewish words are marked, and do not fit organically into the context of the stanza. They seem thrown into the lyrics primarily for the sake of rhyming with the next extraneous Yiddish/Jewish line-terminal element. Here, again, Yiddish/Jewish serves as the essential punch line; it is not the semantic content of the words, but rather, their Yiddishness/Jewishness which is the humor point to be derived. Yiddish/Jewishness is ludic here. In contrast to this is Sherman’s early parody “Tennessee Frelich,” as recorded by Sylvia Froos (discussed above). Here, the Yiddishisms are

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typically not in line-terminal position (coda). They may occur in line onset or nucleus, as follows:56 1. I was dancing with my Mendl to the Tennessee Frelich When Naomi I happened to see. 2. I introduced her to my Mendl, and zol ikh azoy lebn [by golly; lit. ‘I should live thus’]– Naomi stole Mendl from me. 3. Ikh gedenk [I remember] very plainly the Tennessee Frelich, Now I know how fardreyt [mixed-up] life can be. 4. For ’twas I who made a shidekh [match] for my Mendl and Naomi To the Frelich they call “Tennessee.” Æ Spoken text followed by klezmer interlude 5. Ten years later I was dancing to the Tennnessee Frelich And my heart was tserisn [torn]–and sad. 6. All of a sudden, standing dortn [there]…Could it be? It was Mendl. After ten years he looked–not so bad! 7.

I said Mendl, oy Mendl, where is she–Naomi?

8. He said, “Ikh hob ir in bod [to hell with her; lit. ‘I have her in the bath’] –she was false.” 9. So from now on I’ll be dancing with my Mendl, my darling To the Frelich called “Tennessee Waltz.”

In this song, the Yiddish words and phrases are not the punch line. Furthermore, in terms of semantic content, they constitute integral and organic parts within the line, the phrase, and the stanza. They are not ludic. The issue of the ludic is complex, and cannot always be described solely in terms of features or structures. Often it has to do with an overall attitude which the piece conveys, and the underlying assumptions involved. Context is crucial, and can be perceived differently by different audiences at different times. For example, Hans Moser (1880-1964), a popular nonJewish Austrian cabaret artist and actor, was famous over several decades ————— 56

Yiddishisms are given in italics (though Frelich is spelled as given in title sources for this song; YIVO romanization is freylekh); English glosses of the Yiddish given in square brackets. “Lines” are parsed in terms of how they fit into the musical frame of the song. Though the song is sung with varying accents, Standard American English spelling is given here unless otherwise specified.

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for his repertoire of dialect humor. He portrayed various “types” to be found in Vienna. One such “type” was “the Jew.” The piece I examined has to do with a Jewish man (originally from Czernowitz, but residing in Vienna) on a visit to a doctor. In this piece the Jew speaks stereotypical Jewish German, with Yiddishisms, grammatical “mistakes” (i.e., Yiddish rather than German syntax), Yiddish intonation, etc. I found the piece offensive, since it involved well-worn negative stereotypes about Jewish behavior: the Jew wanted the doctor to falsify a medical form in order to collect disability insurance; the Jew tried to cheat the doctor out of payment for the office visit, etc. However, I have also met several Viennese Jews who remembered fondly Moser’s Jewish dialect humor.57 Viennese Jews constituted a significant portion of Moser’s pre-World War II audience. Thus, a full analysis of Moser’s performance of Jews must include a nuanced understanding of the world in which he and his ethnically-mixed audiences operated.58 The complex nature of the ludic is similarly seen through consideration of the song “Since Henry Ford Apologized to Me,” which is performed in ludic-style Jewish/Yiddish-accented English (in the two-CD set From Avenue A to the Great White Way: Yiddish & American Popular Songs from 1914-1950. [2002]). The song is a duet by two stereotypical Jewish figures rejoicing over Henry Ford’s public recanting of his anti-Semitic statements. While the linguistic medium is ludic, the content is bitingly strong, and to the point. It mocks Jewish over-eagerness to forgive and to cozy up to Ford, and thus directly addresses and condemns the reality of Jewish vulnerability. While ludic voice is employed, here it is a sympathetic rather than unsympathetic voice. To evaluate stereotyped portrayals of Jews and Jewishness, we must take into account the changing background atmosphere over time. In discussing the portrayal of Jews and Jewish themes in the early (World War I era) films of Ernst Lubitsch, Jelavich (1999:234) notes: “The fact that Lubitsch’s wartime films were so successful among Jewish and gentile —————

57

Moser was active in pre-war Viennese cabaret in venues which had many Jewish performers. Moser was married to a Jewish woman who was in hiding during the Nazi years. He remained married to her. 58 On performing stereotypes of Jews before audiences consisting of Jews versus general audiences, see Jelavich (1999: 216-218, and 225). Concerning Berlin cabaret, Jelavich notes that in 1926 “Jewish organizations held massive protest meetings to protest the telling of jokes about Jews by Jewish cabaret performers.”

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audiences alike suggests that the mounting anti-Semitic agitation had not yet been able to poison the general public’s positive enjoyment of a genre of ethnic humor that was an accepted form of entertainment in the Imperial era.” Finally, comparison of two Jewish-themed parodies of the “Tennessee Waltz” can be of value to a discussion of the ludic portrayal of Jews and Jewish themes. The first parody–“Tennessee Frelich”–is the one by Allan Sherman, discussed above, as performed by Sylvia Froos. While Sherman’s/Froos’s intended audience certainly had access to the original “Tennesee Waltz,” the parody was straightforward, and respectful unto itself. Froos performs the song with varying Jewish accents–from Yiddish, to American-Jewish, to Jewish pseudo-Southern, and certainly comic effect is intended and achieved through this. However, her singing is beautiful, onkey, respectful to the music and the lyrics. She movingly tells us her heartfelt story of her love for Mendl. Another version of “Tennessee Waltz” was performed by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. The duet–performed by a man and a woman–basically follows the lyrics of the original. The singers employ a strong Yiddish accent, with exaggerated comic vocal quality. More tellingly, they sing the entire song off-key–from the music, and from one another. The effect is one where the listener is looking at Jews, rather than listening to Jews.59 The examination of Jewish themes in performed pieces must thus address the role of (variable) context. Each song, monologue, or dialogue must be analyzed not only in terms of the piece itself, but also in terms of how the piece is performed, by whom, for whom, when, attitudes conveyed. That is, we must consider not only texts, but subtexts. The same text can convey quite different messages to different audiences. Furthermore, an audience which views Jewishness as intrinsically funny will be receptive to certain types of songs, and not to other types. Thus, as concerns the songs of Mickey Katz and Allan Sherman, the division into songs which became general cross-over hits versus those which did not is not random. It is likewise not random that the same audiences which came to love Benny Bell’s rather insipid song “Shaving Cream” for the most part knew absolutely nothing about his vast repertoire of Jewish-themed songs– including some, such as “Pincus the Peddler,” which could be regarded as —————

59

Spike Jones and his City Slickers similarly recorded “Chinese Mule Train” (1949), an offkey, ludic parody of the contemporaneous hit “Mule Train,” sung by Frankie Laine.

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classics.60 Moreover, enthusiastic about “Shaving Cream,” they did not have the curiosity to investigate Bell’s work further. The audiences for Katz’s and Sherman’s cross-over hits typically sought out more works by these performers, though, tellingly, not the earlier pieces, which contained more Yiddish.

9 Concluding remarks This paper is intended to serve as the first step toward a more comprehensive investigation of Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret. Ashkenazic Jewish cabaret, while certainly part of the larger picture of cabaret in general, merits focused examination and analysis. In this paper I have outlined some major structural features which characterize Jewish cabaret as distinct from general cabaret, and presented a discussion of selected artists and analysis of some of their performance pieces. Much of the current discussion has focused on American performers. Jewish cabaret was an important sounding-board for Jewish attempts at transition to modern society. This transition has taken many forms, and this diversity is reflected within the diversity of Jewish cabaret itself. Jewish cabaret thus needs to be examined on its own terms, and not solely as specialized sub-areas– unrelated to one another–of Berlin cabaret, Amsterdam cabaret, Vienna cabaret, etc. Cohen (2005: 10), in his front-material essay to the Allan Sherman CD-set, writes: “Lists are common devices in Sherman’s songs, and they serve him as they do many American writers, from Walt Whitman to Henry Miller, when the pressing stimulation of life demands an unhinging of the gates and a loosening of the valves to accommodate a roaring flow of impressions and experiences.” This may be, but it orphans Sherman’s use of lists in songs, and misses the connections to a more general phenomenon of Jewish name-rap in Jewish cabaret. Cohen (ibid.) also discusses a column Sherman wrote, as a student at the University of Illinois, in the student newspaper: “Sherman wrote a column and packed it with satire, parody, wisecracks, fictional football games, and apropos-ofnothing references to the Moscow Art Theater. The rest of us learned what it meant 21 years later in October 1962.” Rather than “apropos-of-nothing,” we might instead look to a broader, deeper Jewish cabaret context that encompassed the works of Willie Howard and his “Moscow Art Players,” as ————— 60

Bell regarded “Pincus the Peddler” as his best song. It is sung in English.

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well as to the list songs performed by Hermann Leopoldi, Lee Tully, Danny Kaye, Tom Lehrer, and others, and which resurfaced in television’s Animaniacs. Furthermore, the pseudo-German, pseudo-Italian, etc., performed on television in the 1950s by Sid Caeser, were also not an orphan phenomenon; they can be linked to a tradition of performative codeswitching in Jewish cabaret, as practiced by many performers in many locales. Additionally, the theme of other Other as Jew is a pervasive one in Ashkenazic Jewish culture in the modern context, and thus, is frequent in humor and cabaret. Finally, there is a need for a comprehensive study of the history of Jewish cabaret, both within the context of a general history of cabaret, and within a Jewish-specific framework. Within the latter, we must seek to identify the connections–thematic, cultural, and personal–that linked performers, audiences, and Jewish history in a period of monumental transitions.

10 References Alexander, Michael 2001 Jazz Age Jews. Princeton (Princeton University Press). Beem, Hartog 1967 Sjeëriet. Resten van een taal, Woordenboekje van het Nederlandse Jiddisch, Assen (Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V.). Beem, Hartog 1974 Uit mokum en de mediene. Joodse woorden in Nederlandse omgeving, Assen (Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V.). Benor, Sarah Bunin 2004 Second Style Acquisition. The Linguistic Socialization of Newly Orthodox Jews, (Ph.D. dissertation) Stanford University. Blom, Jan-Petter, and John Gumperz 1972 Social Meaning in Linguistic Structures. Code Switching in Northern Norway. In: John Gumperz and Del Hymes (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics. The Ethnography of Communication, New York (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston), 407-434. Bohlman, Philip 2002 Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano. Jewish Cabaret, Popular and Political Songs 19001945, [Essay accompanying music CDs.], Cedille Records, Chicago. Brzezina, Maria 1979 JĊzyki mniejszoĞci narodowych w tekstach literackich i folklorystycznych. Vol. 1, Poludniowokresowa Polszczyzna ĩydów, Uniwersytet JagielloĔski, Warsaw/Cracow. Catholy, Eckehard 1961 Das Fastnachtspiel des Spätmittelalters. Gestalt und Funktion, Tübingen (Max Niemeyer).

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Cohen, Mark 2005 Front material to booklet to six-CD collection: My Son, the Box. Rhino, Santa Monica, California. Erdman, Harley 1997 Staging the Jew. The Performance of an American Ethnicity 1860-1920, New Brunswick, New Jersey (Rutgers University Press). Ewen, David 1966 American Popular Songs from the Revolutionary War to the Present. New York (Random House). Gans, Herbert 1953 The Yinglish Music of Mickey Katz. In: American Quarterly 3: 213-218. Gold, David 1986 An Introduction to Jewish English. In: Jewish Language Review 6: 94-120. Heilman, Samuel 1981 Sounds of Modern Orthodoxy. The Language of Talmud Study. In: Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Never Say Die!.The Hague/Paris/New York (Mouton Publishers), 226-253. Herzog, Marvin 1965 The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland. Its Geography and History, Bloomington/The Hague (Indiana University/Mouton). Herzog, Marvin 1978 Yiddish. In: Herbert Paper (ed.), Jewish languages. Theme and variations. In: Proceedings of the Regional Conference of the Association of Jewish Studies Held at the University of Michigan and New York University in March-April 1975, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Association for Jewish Studies), 47-58. Jacobs, Neil 1996 On the Investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish Speech. Ideology and Linguistics. In: American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 8 (2): 177-217. Jacobs, Neil 2000. The Ashkenazic Verbal Code and the Linguistic Negotiation of Modern Jewish Identity. Distinguished Lecture Series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. New York (YIVO). Jacobs, Neil 2002 Soirée bei Kohn. Jewish Elements in the Repertoire of Hermann Leopoldi. In: Zutot, 200208. Jacobs, Neil 2003 Matrix Language and Code Switching in Jewish Cabaret. Yiddish versus ‘not Yiddish’. Paper presented at Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference [GLAC 9], SUNY Buffalo, April 25-27, 2003. Jacobs, Neil. 2005. Yiddish. A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press).

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Jacobs, Neil and Frans Hinskens 1997 Reconstructing Jewish Dutch. Characteristics and Conceptual Framework. Paper presented at Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference, April 25-27, 1997, University of California, Los Angeles. Jelavich, Peter 1993 Berlin Cabaret. Cambridge, Massachussetts (Harvard University Press). Jelavich, Peter 1999 Performing High and Low. Jews in Theater, Cabaret, Revue, and Film. In: Emily Bilsky (ed.), Berlin Metropolis. Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918. New York (The Jewish Museum), 209-235. Katz, Mickey 1977 Papa, Play for Me. The hilarious, heartwarming autobiography of comedian and bandleader Mickey Katz, as told to Hannibal Coons, Foreword by Joel Grey, New York (Simon & Schuster). King, Karen 2000 Surviving Modernity. Jewishness, Fieldwork, and the Roots of American Anthropology in the XXth century. (Ph.D. dissertation) University of Texas, Austin. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 1972 Traditional Storytelling in the Toronto Jewish Community. A Study in Performance and Creativity in an Immigrant Culture, (Ph.D. dissertation) Indiana University, University Microfilms. Kun, Josh 1999 The Yiddish are Coming. Mickey Katz, Antic-Semitism, and the Sound of Jewish difference. American Jewish History 87.4: 343-374. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Matras, Yaron 1991 Zur Rekonstruktion des jüdischdeutschen Wortschatzes in den Mundarten ehemaliger ‘Judendörfer’ in Südwestdeutschland. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 58.3: 267-293. McCallum-Bonar, Colleen 2000 Black Ashkenaz. Depictions of African-Americans in Selected Yiddish Poetry. (Unpublished M.A. thesis) The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Noble, Shlomo 1958 Yidish in a hebreishn levush. In: Shloyme Bikl and Leybush Lehrer (eds.), Shmuel Niger bukh. New York (YIVO), 158-175.

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Peltz, Rakhmiel 1990 Spoken Yiddish in America. Variation in Dialect and Grammar. In: Paul Wexler (ed.), Studies in Yiddish linguistics. Tübingen (Max Niemeyer), 55-73. Reiss, Tom 2005 The Orientalist. Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life, New York (Random House). Rothstein, Robert 1993 Geyt a yid in shenkl arayn. Yiddish Songs of Drunkenness. In: The Field of Yiddish. Studies in language, folklore, and literature, Fifth Collection, David Goldberg (ed.), Evanston/New York (Northwestern University Press/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research), 243-262. Rozenblit, Marsha 1983 The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914. Assimilation and Identity. Albany (State University of New York Press). Tannen, Deborah 1981 New York Jewish Conversational Style. In: International Journal of the Sociology of Language 30: 133-149. Teller, Oscar 1982 Davids Witz-Schleuder. Jüdisch-Politisches Cabaret: 50 Jahre Kleinkunstbühnen in Wien, Berlin, London, New York, Warschau und Tel Aviv, Darmstadt (Darmstädter Blätter). Thomas, C. K. 1932 Jewish Dialect and New York Dialect. In: American Speech 7 (5): 321-326. Van Ginneken, J. 1914 Handboek der nederlandse taal. Deel II. De sociologische structuur. In cooperation with Willem Kea S.J, Nijmegen (L.C.G. Malmberg). Van Praag, Siegfried 1948 Hoe ze spraken. In: Maandblad voor de Geschiedenis der Joden in Nederland. Onder Redactie van Dr. J. Meyer, Amsterdam, Aflevering VIII: 225-230. Voorzanger, Jonas and Jonas Polak 1915 Het Joodsch in Nederland. Aan het Hebreeuwsch en andere talen ontleende woorden en zegswijzen, verzameld en togelicht, Amsterdam (H. van Munster & Zoon). Weinreich, Max 1923 Shtaplen. Fir etyudn tsu der yidisher shprakhvisnshaft un literaturgeshikhte[!], Berlin (Wostok). Weinreich, Max 1954 Prehistory and Early History of Yiddish. Facts and Conceptual Framework. In: The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature [First Collection], Uriel Weinreich (ed.), New York (Linguistic Circle of New York), 73-101.

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Weinreich, Max 1980/2008 History of the Yiddish Language. Translated from the Yiddish by Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman [2 of 4 vols.], Chicago (University of Chicago Press). History of the Yiddish Language, Paul Glasser (ed.), translated by Shlomo Noble, with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman, and Paul Glasser, 2 vols., New Haven/London (Yale University Press). Weinreich, Uriel 1950 Di forshung fun mish-shprakhike yidishe folkslider. In: YIVO-bleter 34: 282-288. Weinreich, Uriel 1952 Sábesdiker Losn in Yiddish. A Problem of Linguistic Affinity. In: Word 8: 360-377. Weinreich, Uriel 1956 Notes on the Yiddish Rise-Fall Intonation Contour. In: For Roman Jakobson. Essays on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Morris Halle/Horrace G. Lunt/Hugh McLean/ Cornelis van Schooneveld (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 633-643. Weiss, Hans and Ronald Leopoldi 1992 In einem kleinen Café in Hernals … Hermann Leopoldi und Helly Möslein, Eine Bildbiographie, Vienna (Edition Trend S). Music, film, and stage references A khazn(dl) oyf shabes Parody by Seymour Rockoff. English title of the parody: “Three Professionals on a Probe.” A Satchel and a Seck. Originally “A Bushel and a Peck” By Frank Loesser, parody by Sherman. From: More Folksongs by Allan Sherman and his Friends. Jubilee lp JGM (compilation of late 1940s-early 1950s material). Bar-Mitzvah Boy By Benny Bell. On album: Kosher comedy by Benny Bell. Bar-Mitzvah Boy Version by Lee Tully. From YIVO Sound Archives. Blazing Saddles, 1974 film Directed by Mel Brooks; written by Andrew Bergman, Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Richard Pryor, Alan Uger. Cabaret 1966 musical Book by Joe Masteroff; lyrics by Fred Ebb; music by John Kander. Ces tzi bon, Parody of C’est si bon, 1950 French lyrics by André Hornez; English lyrics by Jerry Seelen; music by Henri Beltti and André Hornez. Made popular in America first by Johnny Desmond in 1953, and by Eartha Kitt. Parody by Mickey Katz and his orchestra. 1950s. On album: The hits of Mickey Katz and his orchestra. Chinese Mule Train Vocal by Homer and Jethro. March 10, 1950. Included in CD: A Proper Introduction to Spike Jones and his City Slickers: Thank you music lovers. Beckenham, Kent (Proper records Ltd.). 2004.

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Dear Old Donegal (1942; Steve Graham; Leeds Music Corporation), prominently performed by Bing Crosby in the 1940s. (The song was also known under the title “Shake Hands with your Uncle Mike.”) Der Fuehrer’s Face Performed by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. 1942. Downtown Strutter’s Ball (Parody of Darktown Strutter’s Ball, original sheet music and lyrics by Sheldon Brooks). Vocal by Mickey Katz. On album: Most mishige. Capitol T1102. Draaien, altijd maar draaijen Originele opnamen uit de archieven van Theater Instituut Nederland. (1995.) The Elements Tom Lehrer. Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan. (The Major General’s Song, from The Pirates of Penzance, by Gilbert & Sullivan, 1879). From: An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer (1959). Reprise / WEA. Essen Lee Tully with Bernie Share Orchestra. (Parts 1 & 2) (S. Demay). Originally 78rpm Jubilee 3501 mx. JR-38/JR-39. Four Fancy Kashes Benny Bell. From Zion lp Kosher Comedy by Benny Bell. (1960 reissue of Bell 78 from the 1940s.) The Frisco Kid 1979 film. Directed by Robert Aldrich; written by Michael Elias, Frank Shaw. The Hebrew Hammer 2003 film. Written and directed by Jonathan Kesselman. Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A letter from camp) Words by Allan Sherman. Music from Ponchielli’s “Dance of the hours” from La Gioconda. [Versions included on My Son, the Box. 2005]. Hershele at the wedding Mickey Katz and his Kosher Jammers. RCA Victor 25-5091 (ca 1940s). I’ve been everywhere Geoff Mack. Festival Records, label number Festival FX-10, 4885. 1960. Jake’s Song Allan Sherman and “Son Jake” with orchestra. Originally Sam’s Song by Elliot Quadling, parody by Sherman. From: More Folksongs by Allan Sherman and his Friends. Jubilee lp JGM (compilation of late 1940s-early 1950s material). Johnny and Jones: Two kids and a guitar 18 opnamen uit de periode 1938-’40. (Panachord.) Johnny and Jones: Maak het donker in het donker. Opnamen uit de perioode 1938-’44. Nederlands Jazz Archief.

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Kun-yi-land (Coney Island Calypso) Eli Basse and the Larkin Sisters with Bobby Kroll and orchestra. Laff L 507. New York (ca 1940s). Kalt vasser By Sholem Secunda. Vocal by Theodore Bikel. On CD: Yiddish Theatre and Folk Songs. 1966. Mijnheer Dinges weet niet wat swing is Performed by Johnny and Jones. Included on CD: Johnny and Jones: Two kids and a guitar, as well as on CD Draaien, altijd maar draaijen. Moishe Pipick By Benny Bell. On album: Kosher comedy by Benny Bell. Moscow Art Players Willy Howard with orchestra conducted by Harley Dainger. Gala 1001 mx. 117 A (ca 1940s). My Son, the Box Six-CD collection of recordings by Allan Sherman. Santa Monica, CA (Rhino). 2005. My Son, the Folksinger. Recorded live on August 6, 1962, in Hollywood, California. Number 4 Hoomintosh Lane. Eli Basse and Rhythmasters with Bobby Kroll and orchestra. Songcraft PS-402. New York (ca 1940s). Oh, Susannah Words and music by Stephen Foster. Pal Yat Chee Performed by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Penny Serenade Version by Johnny and Jones. On CD: Johnny and Jones: Two kids and a guitar. Pincus the Peddler Benny Bell and his Agony Trio. Bell 523 (ca 1940s). Professor Pierre Marquette with Al “Doubletalk” Kelly (Henry Tobias) Willie Howard with Ruby Melnick’s Orchestra. Originally 78rpm Jubilee 3507 mx. JR-59. Salty Saul Peter Willie Howard with Ruby Melnick’s Orchestra. (Henry Tobias.) Jubilee 3507 mx. JR-58 (ca late 1940s). Sarah Jackman, Allan Sherman Parody of Frère Jacques. Vocal by Allan Sherman, with Christine Nelson. On album: My Son, the Folksinger. 1962. Shaft 1971 film directed by Gordon Parks. Shake Hands with your Uncle Max Allan Sherman. From The Best of Allan Sherman. Warner Bros; originally released on My Son, The Folksinger.

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Shaving cream Written and performed by Benny Bell. Recorded in 1946; re-released in 1975. Since Chana came back from Havana Eli Basse with Bobby Kroll and Orchestra. Songcraft PS-403. New York (ca 1940s). Since Henry Ford apologized to me Performed by duet Billy Jones & Earnest Hare. New York, August 24, 1927. On CD: From Avenue A to the Great White Way: Yiddish & American popular songs from 1914 – 1950. 2002. (Sony Music Corporation.) Soirée bei Tannenbaum (1930) Music by Franz Liszt, arranged by Hermann Leopoldi; Words by Arthur Rebner. On the album: Hermann Leopoldi: 15 Erfolgsnummern aus den Jahren 1928-1934. (Preiser Records.) Swingin’ the Alphabet Performed by The Three Stooges (Moe Howard [Harry Horwitz], Jerome Howard [Jerome Horwitz], Larry Fine [Louis Feinberg]), in the short: Violent is the Word for Curly (1938). Directed by Charley Chase. Take me back tzu die Prairie Yiddish lyrics by Mickey Katz. Mickey Katz and His Kosher Jammers. TCA Victor 255094 (ca 1940s). Tchaikovsky Music by Kurt Weill, words by Ira Gershwin. From play “Lady in the Dark,” by Moss Hart. Performed 1941 by Danny Kaye; recording sample: Adolph Green. Telefonbuchpolka Parody by Georg Kreisler. On CD: Georg Kreisler: seine bösten Lieder. Tennessee Frelich Sylvia Froos. Parody by Allan Sherman of “Tennessee Waltz” by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart. From: More Folksongs by Allan Sherman and his Friends. Jubilee lp JGM (compilation of late 1940s-early 1950s material). Tennessee Waltz by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart. Tennessee Waltz Parody version by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Vocal by Doodles Weaver. Broadcast March 31, 1951. Included in CD: A Proper Introduction to Spike Jones and his City Slickers: Thank you music lovers. Tribute to Newfoundland (1970). Performed by “Little” Johnny Cameron and the Sons of Erin). Truck Drivin’ Song Al Yankovic. Ear Booker Music, BMI. On CD: Running with Scissors. 1999. New York (Zomba Recording Corporation). Tyrone Shapiro (The Bronx Caballero) Willie Howard with orchestra conducted by Harley Dainger. Gala 1001 mx. 119-1A (ca 1940s).

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Utt-Da-Zay (That’s the way) Performed by Cab Calloway and his orchestra, New York, July 17, 1939. On CD: From Avenue A to the Great White Way: Yiddish & American popular songs from 1914 – 1950.

Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann

Der Jiddische Sprach- und Kulturatlas als explorierbares Gedächtnis

1 Vorgeschichte – personelle Konstellation Einem Hinweis auf den New Yorker Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas (Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry = LCAAJ) begegnete Robert Neumann erstmals Ende der 1970er Jahre in Marburg, im Zuge informatischer Arbeiten am Atlas Linguarum Europae (ALE). Während der Entwicklungen für eine computative ALE-Kartographie war er auf eine Publikation Uriel Weinreichs aus dem Jahr 1963 gestoßen, in der dieser die Nutzung des Computers bei der Erstellung linguistischer Atlanten propagiert hatte.1 Weinreich hatte empfohlen, die linguistischen Anteile von Enquête-Daten maschinell zu erfassen, um computative Sortiermöglichkeiten zur Datenaufbereitung nutzen zu können. Er hatte auch auf die bereits angelaufene Anwendung und positive Erfahrung mit maschinellen Verfahren beim jiddischen Atlasunternehmen hingewiesen.2 Da auf diesem Hintergrund jedoch keine weiteren Publikationen zu verzeichnen waren, blieb zunächst unklar, ob und in wieweit sich Weinreichs Impulse für das Unternehmen des Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas hatten realisieren können. Auskunft dazu erfolgte erst in den späten 1980er Jahren, als, vermittelt über Ulrike Kiefer, die direkte Verbindung zur linguistischen Abteilung der New Yorker Columbia Universität zustande kam.3 Marvin —————

1 2

3

Machine Aids in the Compilation of Linguistic Atlasses, siehe Weinreich 1963/1995. Durch die Publikation Putschke/Neumann 1982 über den Einsatz der Informatik zu Kartographiezwecken wurde Ulrike Kiefer während ihres damaligen Dissertationsvorhabens an der New Yorker Columbia Universität zu einer jiddisch-deutschen lexikalischen Geographie auf die Marburger Initiative aufmerksam. Robert Neumann war zu dieser Zeit Leiter der Linguistischen Datenverarbeitung am Institut für Deutsche Sprache (IDS) in Mannheim. Ulrike Kiefer war aus New York an das IDS gebeten worden, um eine Publikation der Jiddischmaterialien im Deutschen Spracharchiv vorzubereiten.

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Herzog, der Nachfolger Uriel Weinreichs nach dessen frühem Tod 1967, suchte für die Publikation der jiddischen Atlasmaterialien nach Unterstützung bei der computativen Datenaufbereitung und Kartographie. Mit der Zusage Robert Neumanns entstand eine langjährige fruchtbare Zusammenarbeit. Ergebnis sind die computergestützte Publikation von bisher drei Atlasbänden und vier Beiheften, insbesondere aber EYDES, das Archiv und Projekt des Jiddischen Sprach- und Kulturatlas als frei zugängliche elektronische Datenbank im Internet.4

2 Die Archivlage Ende der 1980er Jahre Die New Yorker Anfrage nach informatischer Unterstützung erfolgte unter schwierigen Bedingungen. Während der wissenschaftliche und kulturelle Wert des Archivs als unbestritten galt, war die Neugier der jiddischsprachigen Öffentlichkeit an dem Projekt erlahmt. Auch das allgemeine Interesse an Dialektologie und Linguistik war weitgehend im Schwinden begriffen, und die Columbia Universität schloss in der Folge ihre linguistische Abteilung. Innerhalb der Mainstream-Linguistik hatte sich ein Paradigmenwechsel vollzogen, weg von einer auf Sprachsammlungen bezogenen Forschung hin zu einer theoretisch orientierten und auf Sprachkompetenz ausgerichteten Forschung.5 Öffentliche Fördermittel für die Aufbereitung und Erschließung großer Datensammlungen wurden zunehmend eingestellt. Auch für das jiddische Atlasunternehmen waren die Fördermittel weitgehend versiegt. Bisherige Geldgeber erwarteten Publikationen aus dem Archiv, aber der zur Publikation vorgesehene Verlag zögerte nach revidierter Einschätzung der Marktlage, die Produktionskosten zu tragen, und zog sich bald vollständig aus dem Unternehmen zurück. Nach gemeinsamer Überlegung kristallisierten sich zwei Aktionsrichtungen heraus, um dem Projekt des jiddischen Atlas im Sinne seines Initiators Uriel Weinreich zur Wirksamkeit zu verhelfen: kurzfristig die Vorbereitung und Fertigstellung der vorhandenen Kartenskizzen und Manuskriptteile zum Druck und, mittel- und langfristig, die Aufbereitung des Archivs zur öffentlichen Nutzung und Produktivität. —————

4 5

Unter der URL www.eydes.de. Siehe etwa die Auseinandersetzung mit der generativen Grammatik in McEnery/Wilson 2005, dort insbesondere Kapitel 1.3.

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Der kurzfristige Handlungsstrang ist inzwischen weitgehend abgearbeitet: drei von vier der ursprünglich geplanten Atlasbände liegen vor, das Erscheinen des vierten Bandes ist für 2010 anvisiert.6 Dieses Ergebnis wurde durch den Aufbau und Einsatz einer auf die speziellen Archivbedingungen zugeschnittenen Datenverarbeitung ermöglicht, durch die die Herstellung beschleunigt und der Produktionsaufwand soweit verringert werden konnte, sodass die Herausgeber dem Verlag ohne Inanspruchnahme weiterer Ressourcen druckfähige Folien liefern konnten. Die Verbesserung der Datenverarbeitung betraf die Materialaufbereitung, die Textherstellung und die Kartenherstellung. Sie wurde durch das Zusammenstellen einer geeigneten Systemarchitektur, die Auswahl geeigneter marktgängiger Softwarekomponenten und zum Teil durch spezielle Programmierungen erreicht.7 Auf dieser Grundlage erklärte sich der Niemeyer-Verlag bereit, das verlegerische Risiko ohne die Einforderung von Druckkostenzuschüssen zu tragen. Im Rahmen des kurzfristigen Handlungsstrangs wurden als Begleitung und Ergänzung zu den Atlasbänden zudem vier Beiheftbände herausgegeben.8

3 Langfristige Zielsetzung: die Archivöffnung und –nutzung Seit seiner Konzeption und Begründung durch Uriel Weinreich in den 1950er Jahren stand der Jiddische Sprach- und Kulturatlas im Zeichen unterschiedlicher Bedeutungszusammenhänge. Als Ressource für jiddistische und linguistische Forschung geplant und eingerichtet, ist er sprach- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Zielen aus der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts verpflichtet. Uriel Weinreich konkretisierte und präzisierte den Traum seines Vaters Max von einer Erfassung jiddischer Dialekte nach dem Vorbild des deutschen Sprachatlas', den dieser während seiner Dissertationsstudien an der Universität Marburg kennen gelernt hatte, im dortigen dialektologischen und sprachgeographi—————

6 7 8

Siehe LCAAJ, Band 1-3. Zu den Details siehe LCAAJ, Band 2, S. 14–19. Siehe die LCAAJ Beiheftbände; zusammen mit dem vorliegenden Band sind fünf Beihefte zu verzeichnen.

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schen Forschungszentrum.9 Die Referenz auf die großen europäischen Sprachatlasunternehmungen als Vorgänger10 kann als Indiz gelten, dass das Archiv als jiddistischer Beitrag zum europäischen Konzept der Nationalsprache zu sehen ist. Konzipiert und organisiert von einem jungen und früh renommierten Forscher der namhaften Linguistikabteilung der Columbia Universität war das Atlasunternehmen in der Diskussion und Entwicklung der internationalen modernen Linguistik um 1950 verankert.11 Die von New York aus initiierte Datensammlung sollte materielle Basis zur Erforschung der strukturellen Eigenschaften des Jiddischen in seiner Beziehung zu den mit dem Jiddischen koterritorialen Sprachen sein. Sie sollte Grundstein für eine strukturell begründete Dialektologie und systematische Sprachgeographie werden und dazu dienen, linguistische Theoreme empirisch zu überprüfen.12 Zehn Atlasbände sollten dazu die Grundlage bieten.13 Mit Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges war aber auch einschneidend klar geworden, dass eine Dokumentation des Jiddischen in Europa unter traumatisch veränderten Bedingungen stattfinden musste und für eine Kultur sprach, die an ihren Schnittpunkten zu dieser Zeit bereits zerstört war. Was eben noch als selbstverständlich und alltäglich galt, war kostbar geworden - es konnte nur mit größter Anstrengung aufgespürt und als —————

9

Max Weinreich 1923: 30-37, insbesondere 33. Im Beitrag von Bina und Uriel Weinreich aus dem Jahr 1950 in diesem Band, dem ersten Dokument zum jiddischen Atlasvorhaben, wird auf den deutschen, französischen, italienischen und schweizerischen Sprachatlas verwiesen (ebd. Sektion I). 11 An der Columbia Universität waren in den 1940er und 50er Jahren so namhafte Forscher wie Roman Jakobson und André Martinet tätig. Edward Sapir hatte früher an Columbia studiert und von der innovativen Anthropologie-Abteilung unter dem aus Deutschland stammenden Franz Boas entscheidende Impulse für seine Forschungsarbeit erhalten. Die Verbindung von Linguistik und Anthropologie an Columbia (und zum YIVO-Institut hin, vgl. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1996) bot auch für Uriel Weinreich fruchtbaren Grund. In den 1960er Jahren und mit der Betreuung durch Weinreich, gelangte William Labov (siehe dessen Artikel im vorliegenden Band) von Columbia aus zur Berühmtheit. Zur frühen Anerkennung Uriel Weinreichs selbst siehe den Artikel von Andrew Sunshine in diesem Band. 12 Siehe die grundlegende Thematisierung Uriel Weinreichs (1954) einer strukturellen Dialektologie. Programmatische Überlegungen zum Sprachwandel sind präsentiert in Weinreich/Herzog/Labov 1968. 13 1991 übergab Marvin Herzog dem Verlagshaus Max Niemeyer eine Liste für zehn avisierte Atlasbände als Planungsgrundlage; die entsprechenden Titel sind zitiert LCAAJ I: 16. 10

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Zeugnis festgehalten werden. 14 Die Dringlichkeit der Dokumentation war ein Gebot der Stunde und musste durchgeführt werden, solange noch Überlebende zu befragen waren. Der engagierte Einsatz Weinreichs und das starke gesellschaftliche Echo sind Hinweis auf die zentrale Bedeutung des Atlasarchivs als Monument einer vernichteten Kultur und eines kollektiven jüdisch-jiddischen Gedächtnisses.15 Erste Versuche, Mitstreiter und Geldgeber zu finden, um die linguistischen Zielvorstellungen Uriel Weinreichs, Marvin Herzogs und der mit dem Archiv verbundenen Linguistengruppe umzusetzen, stießen auf ein geringes Interesse. Den Herausgebern der Reihe wurde deutlich, dass sich das internationale, mit Jiddisch verbundene Interesse zu weit von strukturell-dialektologischen Unternehmungen weg bewegt hatte, um den Aufwand für eine Weiterführung der Publikation im traditionellen Sinn zu gewährleisten. Das Herausgebergremium war jedoch von der Dokumentationskraft und kulturellen Relevanz des Archivs überzeugt und sah es als gesellschaftlich bedeutsam an, sich für eine Aufbereitung der Inhalte einzusetzen. Das Archiv bezeugt Jiddisch als genuine Komponente europäischer Kulturentwicklung. Fällt die Kenntnis davon dem Vergessen anheim, so nimmt die europäische politische Kultur schaden. Unter dieser Voraussetzung suchten die Herausgeber nach Möglichkeiten, das Archiv so aufzubereiten, dass es der breiten Öffentlichkeit ohne Aufwand zugänglich ist und im Kulturbetrieb weltweit wirksam werden kann. Sie sahen sich in einer doppelten Verpflichtung: Das Archiv sollte wissenschaftlich brauchbaren Zugang zu den Materialien bieten und zugleich dem nicht primär wissenschaftlich orientierten Kulturbetrieb offen stehen. Nachdem für das Vorhaben keine Einbindung in universitäre oder institutionelle Einrichtungen gegeben war, gelang es, einen Förderkreis engagierter Bürger ————— 14

Dies im Sinn der vielzitierten Passage aus Weinreich 1962: 27: „... what is familiar in one year may be thrust to the brink of oblivion in the next ... What was too obvious for study only yesterday has suddenly become precious. … what we do not collect in the coming decade or so will be lost forever.“ 15 Auf den Atlas als notwendige Ergänzung zu dem ‚mit so großem Eifer und so viel gesellschaftlicher Beachtung’ betriebenen Großen Wörterbuch der Jiddischen Sprache verweist Uriel Weinreich (1960: 47) in der damals weit gelesenen Zeitschrift Di goldene keyt. 1990 erklärt die Israel National Commission for UNESCO, dass ihre Ziele der „sustenance and reclamation of the cultural values created by the Jewish communities of Eastern and Central Europe in the centuries before their destruction“ durch die Bewahrung, Erforschung und Entwicklung des LCAAJ-Archivs befördert werde.

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zu bilden, die die Einschätzungen der Herausgeber teilten und die Einwerbung öffentlicher und privater Mittel beförderten.16 Zu den institutionellen Förderern gehören neben anderen die Stiftung NRZ Pressehaus, das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen, die Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung und die Direktorate X und XIII der Hohen Kommission der Europäischen Union.

4 EYDES – Prämissen Als Tonarchiv entsprechend dem Stand der Technik der 1960er Jahre, das seit 1995 von der zentralen Bibliothek der Columbia Universität erhalten und gepflegt wird,17 gelten für den New Yorker Atlas die üblichen Verfahren für die Nutzung der Archivalien. Benutzer können die Kataloge, Indexe und Manuskripte dem Stand ihrer Dokumentation nach an Ort und Stelle einsehen und auf Rechnung Kopien von einzelnen Interviews bestellen. EYDES wurde unternommen, um die gesprochene Sprache des Tonarchivs in seiner Gesamtheit zugänglich und recherchierbar zu machen. Unabhängig von der archivierten Sprache – Jiddisch – ist die Bereitstellung einer so umfangreichen und aufbereiteten Tonsammlung ein Novum in der Forschung. Seit der Junggrammatik gelten Sprechen und gesprochene Sprache als Primat sprachwissenschaftlicher Forschung.18 Dennoch blieb die Wirkung von Ton-Spracharchiven in den Wissenschafts- und Kulturbetrieb hinein bisher gering, die Forschung litt am aufwendigen Zugang zu den Archiven. An die Stelle des Originaltons trat meist die Abstraktion einer Transkription, die gemessen am Original bei aller Sorgfalt nur ein Surrogat darstellt. Die eigentliche Sprache blieb – auch im Zeitalter immer elaborierterer Tontechnik – auf Archivregale verbannt und spielte für die Forschung eine nur geringe Rolle. —————

16

Förderverein für Jiddische Sprache und Kultur e.V., Düsseldorf. Zum Selbstverständnis vgl. die Stellungnahmen von Klaus Schütz (Vorstandsvorsitzender) und Heinrich Meyer bei der EYDES-Tagung in Berlin anlässlich der feierlichen Eröffnung des elektronischen Archivs http://www.eydes.de/berlin/dinner/Tischrede-Schuetz.html und http://www. eydes.de/berlin/dinner/Tischrede-Meyer.html). 17 Siehe den Beitrag von Janet Gertz im vorliegenden Band. 18 Vgl. Reiffenstein 1982: 25 und passim; Knoop 1982; Metzler Lexikon Sprache 2005: 229.

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Direkter Zugang zu natürlich gesprochener Sprache aber erlaubt weitgespannte Recherchemöglichkeiten und die Anwendung vielfältiger linguistischer Methoden. Um das Potential eines elektronischen Tonarchivs zu erschließen, müssen einem Tonarchiv aber geeignete Strukturen unterlegt und Schnittstellen eingerichtet werden, um solche Strukturen von außerhalb nutzen zu können. Die erforderlichen Methoden müssen hinsichtlich ihrer Strukturierungsfähigkeit sowie Offenheit für die Benutzer leistungsstärker sein als zum Beispiel klassische Kataloge und Verweis auf den Standort in einer Bibliothek. Vor diesem Problem stehen keineswegs nur Ton- sondern auch Textarchive. Innerhalb der Sprachwissenschaft hat sich die Korpuslinguistik als Disziplin herausgebildet, die sich mit geeigneten Methoden auseinander setzt und den Begriff „Korpus“ als Fachterminus geprägt hat für eine strukturierte Sprachsammlung, die von außen zugängliche Methoden zu ihrer Exploration enthält. 19 In diesem Sinne ist EYDES folgenden Weg gegangen: Die ursprünglich auf Magnetband aufgenommenen Interviews, also die originalen Tondokumente, begreifen wir als Sprachobjekte und bezeichnen sie in Anlehnung an eine Kunstsammlung als die 'Artefakte' des Archivs. Sie werden den Benutzern uneingeschränkt und zusammenhängend als kontinuierlicher Sprechstrom zugänglich gemacht. Die Artefakte werden in strukturierter Form präsentiert. Inhärent strukturierende Elemente sind die Belegorte der ursprünglichen Enquete und die Fragen aus dem Enquete-Fragebuch. Mit einem Zugang zum Originalinterview in Gänze bietet jeder Ort eine Bandbreite an Datenvarianz. Die vorgegebenen Standardfragen, die durch den interessengeleiteten, vorrangig linguistisch und ethnographisch orientierten Fragenkatalog angereichert sind, enthalten bereits Themen und Kategorien, zu deren Untersuchung die erhobenen Daten dann Information liefern. Mit Navigationsmöglichkeit innerhalb der Ort-Frage-Koordinaten bietet EYDES die „Verzettelung“ früherer Spracharchiv-Arbeiten in virtueller Form und erleichtert damit bereits sehr wesentlich den Zugang zum Archiv. Über die in der ursprünglichen Archiv-Initiative im vorhinein geplanten Strukturen hinaus sollen die Interviews auch im einzelnen inhaltlich erschlossen werden, denn sie enthalten neben den durch das Fragebuch —————

19

Vgl. McEnery/Wilson 2005; Sampson/McCarthy 2005.

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evozierten Sprechsequenzen hinaus ausgedehnte Anteile eines ungezwungenen Gesprächwechsels, spontane Rede und freie Erzählung. Als Oral History und Ethnotext bieten diese in nicht vorhergesehener und nicht vorherzusehender Weise Quellen der Information mit Relevanz für weitgesteckte Themenbereiche wie zum Beispiel Narratologie, Performanzund Pragmatikforschung, Soziologie, Politik, Geschichts- oder Religionswissenschaft. Sie sind zudem reichhaltige Quellen für Erkundungen im Rahmen des öffentlichen Kulturbetriebs – in dieser Funktion kommt das Archiv den Zielsetzungen eines Museums nahe. Da solche Interviewteile nicht im Voraus geplant waren, ist auch im Vorhinein nicht einzuschätzen, wann und wo sie auftreten. Um den genannten Anforderungen Rechnung zu tragen, braucht das Archiv Navigationsmöglichkeiten anhand der Inhalte der Interviews. Mit diesem Weg folgt EYDES korpuslinguistischen Zielsetzungen und transformiert die Tonsammlung des Jiddischarchivs in ein Korpus gesprochener Sprache. Dabei bestehen für EYDES zwei Anforderungen, die innerhalb der Sprachwissenschaften erstaunlicherweise nur selten offen diskutiert werden: Zum einen muss das elektronische Archiv hinsichtlich der Erstellungs- und Unterhaltkosten „preiswert“ sein, um Realisierungschancen zu haben und eine zumindest mittelfristige Existenzsicherung zu erreichen. Selbstverständlich hat sich in einer demokratisch verfassten Gesellschaft auch ein Sprachkorpus wie EYDES hinsichtlich der Geldsummen, die es einfordert, zu legitimieren. Zum anderen sind einfache und intuitiv einsichtige Prozeduren für die Archivnutzung vorzusehen, um die Schwierigkeitsschwelle für den Zugang niedrig zu halten und die Benutzung zu befördern. Der Zugang sollte nicht zum Privileg einer Fachwissenschaft ausgestaltet sein. Eine möglichst hohe Benutzerzahl dient dem Archiv auch im Hinblick auf potentielle Finanzträger, aus deren Sicht sich der Erfolg eines Archivs an der Anzahl der Benutzer und der Menge der abgeholten Informationen misst.

5 EYDES: die informatisch-linguistische Umsetzung Voraussetzung für die mit EYDES ins Auge gefasste Erschließung des Jiddischarchivs und den unter oben 4 genannten Prämissen war die

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Überführung der archivierten Tonaufnahmen in eine computer-verarbeitbare Form.

5.1 Digitalisierung der Interviews Zur computativen Aufbereitung des Tons war die Digitalisierung der Magnetbandaufnahmen notwendig. 1997 wurde die Digitalisierung von 500 Stunden Tonaufnahmen mit Kostenübernahme durch das Ministerium für Bildung und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein–Westfalen initiiert. Dabei wurden in einem ersten Schritt die originalen Bandaufnahmen von Toningenieuren der Columbia Universität auf DAT-Bänder (Digitale Audio Tapes – digitale Magnetband-Kasetten) umgespielt und anschließend von Mitarbeitern des Fördervereins als Wave-Dateien auf CDs gebrannt. In der Folge übernahm die Bibliothek der Columbia-Universität die Kosten für die Digitalisierung des Gesamtarchivs im Rahmen ihrer Bestandssicherung durch die Preservation Division (siehe den Beitrag von Janet Gertz im vorliegenden Band). Entsprechend dem Fortschritt der Digitalisierung überstellte die Columbia Universität dem Förderverein das Archiv in Portionen von ca. 50 Stunden auf abspielbaren Audio CD-Kopien im Red Book-Format.20 Durch den Förderverein wurden die Audio CDs dann in computer-verarbeitbare Dateien vom Typ Wave21 umgesetzt und im Yellow Book-Format auf Daten-CDs (CD-ROMs)22 gespeichert. Die Kopien der Audio-CDs gingen an die Columbia Universität zurück. ————— 20

Red Book-Format: entspricht dem ANSI-Standard, der 1982 von Sony und Philips definiert wurde. Es legt die Organisation von Daten auf einer Audio CD fest (physikalische Struktur, Kodierung, Fehlerkorrektur, Sektoren). Die angefertigten und beim Förderverein angelieferten CDs entsprechen diesem Format: Sie sind in 2352 Byte großen Sektoren gespeichert und über Zeitangaben adressiert. Die Adressinformationen sind in Sub-Channels gespeichert, die außerdem Fehlererkennungs- und FehlerkorrekturCodes (CIRC) enthalten. Sie enthalten mindestens eine und maximal 99 direkt anspringbare Spuren. Eine Aufnahme entspricht einer Spur („Track“). Die maximale Laufzeit einer CD beträgt 74 Minuten. 21 Wave-Format: Containerformat zur digitalen Speicherung von Audiodaten. Es entspricht dem von Microsoft für Windows-Betriebssysteme festgelegten Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF). 22 Yellow Book-Format: Sony und Phillips legten 1984 das Yellow Book-Format fest, das dem ANSI- Standard für Daten-CDs entspricht. Unsere CDs sind im sogenannten Mode 1

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Die Daten-CDs waren zum einen Datenträger für die Tonlieferung an die Transkribenten (siehe unten 6.3.2 Transkription zwecks Indexierung). Zum anderen dienten die Daten-CDs während der Projektlaufzeit dem Förderverein zur Sicherung des Datenbestandes. Zu Projektbeginn in den späten 1990er Jahren bestanden unter Tondokumentaren noch Bedenken in Bezug auf Qualitäts- und Originalitätsverlust, wenn analoge Tondaten in digitale Zustände überführt werden. Daher wurde die Entscheidung, die Wave-Dateien mit einer Samplerate von 42.000 Hertz und einer Bit-Tiefe von 16 Bit zu erzeugen, erst aufgrund von rund 150 vergleichenden Hörtests getroffen. Beim Hörtest wurden Aufnahmesequenzen von ca. 3 Minuten Dauer der Audio CDs mit korrespondierenden Sequenzen von unterschiedlich gesampelten WaveDateien mit unterschiedlichen Bit-Tiefen verglichen. Die Tabelle unten zeigt die Testanordnung. Für die nicht eingegrauten Tests wurden keine Qualitätsunterschiede mehr festgestellt. Inzwischen ist die Speicherung wissenschaftlicher Tondaten im Wave-Format unbestritten. 6DPSOH5DWHLQ    +HUW]%LW7LHIH



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Tabelle 5-1: Versuchsanordnung der Hörtests

————— organisiert. Die Spuren der Audio CD (Tracks) werden dabei in Dateien umgesetzt. Die Daten-Sektoren enthalten 2048 Bytes. Am Anfang eines jeden Sektors stehen genaue Adressinformationen, so dass innerhalb eines Sektors adressiert werden kann. Die Sektoren enthalten zusätzlich Fehlererkennungs- und -korrekturmechanismen (CIRC, Layered EDC/ECC). Eine Archivaufnahme stellt jetzt eine Datei dar; zum direkten Adressieren innerhalb einer Aufnahme kann die Laufzeit genutzt werden. Auf den neugebrannten CD’s wurde jeweils das Joliet-Dateisystem eingerichtet. Das Dateisystem Joliet von Microsoft erweitert das ISO-9660-Format und erlaubt Dateinamen mit bis zu 64 Zeichen.

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Im Hinblick auf die im Internet zu handhabenden Datenmengen war die Distribution der Aufnahmen über das Internet zu Projektbeginn noch nicht ausreichend praktikabel. Pro Sekunde Ton entsteht folgendes Datenvolumen: 42.000 Sampelrate X 16 Bits = 672.000 Bits pro Sekunde Ton. Bei Projektbeginn war davon auszugehen, dass gut ausgestattete Benutzer über Datenübertragungsraten von 64.000 Bit pro Sekunde verfügen. Dies hätte Datentransferzeiten im Verhältnis von 1:10 ergeben, also eine Minute Ton hätte mindestens 10 Minuten Übertragungszeit benötigt. Wir haben daher eine Reduktion der Datenmengen der Wave-Dateien mithilfe des MP3-Verfahrens23 durchgeführt, das Gehöreigenschaften modelliert und entsprechend der Dynamik des Tonsignals gehörneutral Daten reduziert. Reduziert wurde mit dem Lame-Programm unter folgender Parametrierung: lame -v -mm test.wav test LAME version 3.86 (www.sulaco.org/mp3) Using polyphase lowpass filter, transition band: 4490 Hz - 4623 Hz Encoding test.wav to test Encoding as 11.0 kHz VBR(q=4) single-ch MPEG2 LayerIII ( 9.0x estimated) qval=2 Wir erzielten für unser Archiv damit eine Datenreduktion von ca. 70 %. Wir haben die in Tabelle 5-1: Versuchsanordnung der Hörtests abgebildeten Tonsequenzen wiederum Hörtests unterzogen und konnten keine Beeinträchtigung der Hör- und Erkennbarkeit der gesprochenen Sprache feststellen. Durch das Reduktionsverfahren und aufgrund verbesserter Übertragung durch ADSL können Tonsequenzen jetzt im Verhältnis von etwa 1:0,3 (Echtzeit: Transferzeit) im Internet übertragen werden. Somit sind Online-Datenhaltung des gesamten Archivs und Internet-Distribution größerer Tonsequenzen gut praktikabel.24 —————

23 24

MPEG 2.5 Audio Layer III, entwickelt unter Federführung der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. Es ist anzumerken, dass es möglich ist, auf den Ton im ursprünglichen Digitalisierungsformat zuzugreifen, falls wissenschaftliche Spezialuntersuchungen dies erfordern sollten. Wenn auf Eigenschaften des Tons rekurriert werden soll, die durch die Kaskadierung der oben beschriebenen Digitalisierungsmethoden wider Erwarten verloren

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Die folgende Abbildung zeigt die Stadien des Tons vom originalen Tonband hin zur MP3-Tondatei.

Abbildung 5-1: Abfolge der Digitalisiermethoden

5.2 Die EYDES-Struktur Nach den oben genannten Prämissen für die Bereitstellung und Strukturierung des elektronischen Atlasarchivs wurden die sprachlichen Artefakte als Datenobjekte definiert, die durch Indexe erschlossen werden. Die in der originalen Archivkonzeption bereits enthaltenen Strukturierungen durch Ortsnetz beziehungsweise Belegortliste und der Fragenkatalog wurden digital umgesetzt und mit den korrespondierenden Tonsequenzen verbunden. Damit entstand für die rund 5000 Stunden Interviewaufnahmen zu den rund 600 von der ursprünglichen Enquete erfassten Orte ein interaktiver Orts-Index und zur detaillierten Recherche der während der ursprünglichen Interviews gestellten rund 3000 Fragen ein FragebuchIndex. Die angestrebte inhaltliche Erschließung der Tondokumente bedurfte spezifischer Verfahren. Das in den Dokumentationswissenschaften herkömmliche Verfahren der Verschlagwortung und Erweiterung zu einem Index, wurde für den Jiddisch-Atlas verworfen. Eine Verschlagwortung der Interviews wäre Gefahr gelaufen, die Vielseitigkeit und Detailliertheit der ————— gegangen sein sollten, können die gewünschten Daten online im EYDES-Archiv identifiziert und im Wave-Format angefordert werden. Die Bibliothek der ColumbiaUniversität kann die Audio CDs und letztlich wohl auch Originaltonbänder zur Verfügung stellen.

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Toninhalte entweder nicht weitgehend genug 'abzubilden' oder aber die Themen des Fragebuch-Indexes zu wiederholen. Zudem wäre auch für ein Verschlagworten das Abhören des gesamten Tons erforderlich gewesen. Angesichts des beträchtlichen Aufwands, für die inhaltliche Erschließung die gesamten 5000 Stunden Ton in dialektalem Jiddisch abhören zu müssen, erschien eine Wort-für-Wort-Verschriftung des Tons als beste Lösung. Die niedergeschriebenen Wortketten sind mit den zugehörigen Tonsequenzen verbunden (aligniert) und als Indexe eingerichtet. Über die so entstehenden inhaltlichen Pfade in das Archiv wird der monolithische Originalton aufgebrochen und nach Bedeutungszusammenhängen zugänglich, die durch die Archivbenutzer definierbar sind. Verschriftung in diesem Sinn ersetzt also nicht den Ton sondern leitet gerade zu ihm hin und erschließt ihn. Erst durch die so gebildeten Pfade wird der hinsichtlich seiner Thematik bisher nicht einzusehende Ton navigierbar. Über die Verschriftung gesprochener Sprache ist viel diskutiert worden. Auch im Umfeld des EYDES-Projektes selbst wurden zum Teil heftige Debatten über die Vertretbarkeit der hier realisierten Lösung geführt. Schließlich ist das Atlasarchiv auf Variation hin angelegt und fächert mit seinen mehr als 600 Interviews die dialektale Landschaft des Jiddischen auf. Sollte nicht eine Transkription der archivierten Sprache gerade diese Vielfalt spiegeln? Traditionell haben alle Verfahren, gesprochene Sprache abzubilden, das Ziel, mit dem schriftlichen Bild die Flüchtigkeit mündlicher Rede dingfest zu machen. Ursprünglich war ja das Schreiben auf Papier die einzige Möglichkeit überhaupt, einen Laut zu dokumentieren. Das heutzutage universell gebräuchliche und für die elektronische Verwendung auch kodierte Internationale Phonetische Alphabet geht auf eine über 200jährige Entwicklung zurück, die zwischen dem Streben nach Exaktheit der Zeichen und der Sicherstellung ihrer Lesbarkeit einen Ausgleich fand. 25 Durch Rahmen und Zielsetzung unterscheidet sich die Verschriftung mündlicher Texte in EYDES allerdings grundsätzlich von den in der Linguistik meist üblichen. In EYDES dient die Verschriftung gesprochener Sprache der Hinführung zum Originalton. Nicht Abbildung per se sondern Orientierung im Ton und Zugriff darauf ist ihr Ziel. In dieser Funktion soll sie einem möglichst weiten Benutzerkreis und nicht nur Linguisten zur —————

25

Vgl. Schiefer/ Pompino-Marschall 1996.

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Verfügung stehen. Und sie soll es den Archivbenutzern ermöglichen, breite, nicht nur linguistische, Recherche-Interessen zu verfolgen. Entsprechend dieser Zielsetzung wurde für EYDES eine Transkription in normaler jiddischer Schreibung festgelegt. Da sie den Ton nur begleitet, der das zentrale Artefakt des Archivs bleibt, geht die Differenzierung zwischen standardsprachlich transkribierter Form und dialektaler Sprechvariante nicht verloren, im Gegenteil. Anders als eine interpretierende phonetische Transkription bleibt die orthographische Verschriftung dem Originalton gegenüber neutral und schränkt den Informationsgehalt der Tonartefakte nicht ein.26 Für die inhaltliche Erschließung des Archivs bietet eine Transkription in normaler Schreibung alle Vorteile eines Orthographiestandards: eindeutige Identifizierung und allgemeine Verständlichkeit der transkribierten Wörter; Möglichkeit der Identifizierung von Einträgen mit Hilfe von Wörterbüchern oder anderen Hilfsmitteln, etwa für Nicht-Muttersprachler oder Nicht-Jiddisten; keine Notwendigkeit zu einem speziellen Training für die Ausführenden - jeder Muttersprachler oder guter Sprachkenner kann orthographisch transkribieren; darüber hinaus besteht die Möglichkeit zum Rückgriff auf vorhandene Kompetenz im Maschineschreiben. Unter solchen Bedingungen erscheint selbst die Transkription von 5000 Stunden Ton nicht als unrealistisch.27 Für eine möglichst weitreichende Nutzung des Archivs —————

26

Zur Transkription als theoriegeleitete linguistische Interpretation von Lautfolgen, siehe Reiffenstein 1982. Der Autor verweist auf die „große Gefahr“ von „tot[bleibend]em Archivmaterial“ durch unzureichende Aufarbeitung, die durch das Unterbleiben von „unverzüglichen“ und „zutreffenden“ Transkriptionen bei der Archiverstellung bedingt sei (1982: 32). Reiffenstein spricht hier ein zentrales Problem an, das viele großangelegte und mit erheblichem Aufwand erstellte Archive betrifft, die jahrzehntelang brachliegen und der Öffentlichkeit nicht zugeführt werden (so etwa die Erfahrungen bei der Durchführung des ALE, siehe Putschke/Neumann 1989). Während Reiffenstein zur damaligen Zeit, mit anderen Ausgangsdaten und bei anderer Zielsetzung, noch für phonetische Transkriptionen plädiert, ist dies bei einem Archiv wie EYDES von mehreren Tausend Stunden nicht nur keine Lösung, sondern mit Blickpunkt auf die möglichst weitreichende Nutzung des Archivs auch nicht wünschenswert (siehe im folgenden). 27 Für phonetische Verschriftungen wird ein Aufwand vom 10- bis sogar 100fachen der Zeit angesetzt, den die zu transkribierende Tonsequenz selbst dauert. Dadurch potenziert sich der Bedarf an Personal wie an Kosten für die Anfertigung phonetischer Repräsentationen. Bei so großen Tonmengen wie dem Atlasarchiv wäre der immens hohe Aufwand für eine phonetische Verschriftung aller Interviews finanziell und personell kaum zu bewältigen gewesen. Das EYDES-Archiv ist nicht primär auf phonetische Zielsetzungen hin ausgerichtet; es

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nicht nur durch linguistisch vorgebildete Fachleute, sondern auch vonseiten interessierter Laien aus den verschiedensten Bereichen, ist eine orthographische Verschriftung sogar Bedingung.

6 Eine Datenbasis, verschiedene Sichten EYDES bedient die verschiedenen Verwendungszusammenhänge, indem es verschiedene Sichten (Views) auf die Artefakte des Archivs anbietet, die geeignet sind, den jeweiligen Interessen nachzuspüren. Neben dem technischen Funktionieren und der wissenschaftlichen Verlässlichkeit des Datenbestandes ist der Zuspruch eines breiten, hinsichtlich seiner Interessen weit gefächerten Publikums Voraussetzung für die Produktivität des Archivs. Dies erfordert, besondere Sorgfalt darauf zu verwenden, für die Nutzer den ihren Interessen entsprechenden Zugang zum Archiv zu gestalten. Die Abbildung unten zeigt die bereitstehenden Benutzersichten. Sie werden in der Folge vorgestellt.

————— erleichtert solche Arbeitsvorhaben aber entscheidend durch den gezielten Zugriff auf eine große Menge an originalem Tonmaterial, den es zur Weiterverwendung bereitstellt. Anders als geplant konnte die Transkription im bisherigen Projektverlauf nicht für das gesamte Archiv durchgeführt werden, sondern nur für etwa die Hälfte des Originaltons (ca. 2500 Stunden Ton-Artefakte). Der Engpass war bedingt durch die erheblichen Schwierigkeiten, geeignete Transkribenten zu finden, mit genügend sprachlich-dialektaler sowie Computerkompetenz. Zum Ersatz beschloss die Projektleitung, einen Teil der Interviews (etwa 1000 Stunden) in reduzierter Form, beschränkt auf die Fragebuchfragen annotieren zu lassen. Der verbleibende Teil (1500 Stunden) wurde in gleichmäßige Zeitscheiben unterteilt., um sie im Internet über Zeitindexe zugänglich zu machen,

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Abbildung 6-1: Präsentationsmethoden

6.1 Das Repositorium Das EYDES-Repositorium archiviert und verwaltet die Ton-Artefakte des EYDES-Archivs, die Transkriptionen und die strukturierenden Indexe. Es ist inkrementell erweiterbar. Es verwaltet eine Sammlung von Funktionen, mit denen die Benutzer Auszüge der Archivdaten auf ihren eigenen PC kopieren und dann bearbeiten können. Das Repositorium kann Ergebnisse dieser Programme wiederum in das Repositorium integrieren.28 Abbildung 6-2 veranschaulicht die genannten Möglichkeiten.

—————

28

Diese Fähigkeit des Repositoriums ist derzeit der Verwaltung des Repositoriums vorbehalten und für die Benutzer nicht freigegeben.

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Abbildung 6-2: Datenstruktur im Repositoriums Das Repositorium ist einerseits ein Server im Internet, andererseits stellt es Clients bereit, die die Benutzer auf ihre PCs laden können. Die Clients stellen für die Benutzer die Views auf die Archivdaten her und bieten Funktionen zum Umgang mit den Daten, wie in Abbildung 6-3: Benutzerschnittstelle Repositorium illustriert. Warum werden eigene Clients bereitgestellt, anstatt die für den Benutzer entwickelten Recherchefunktionen in übliche Web-Browser wie den Microsoft Explorer zu integrieren? Die Möglichkeiten, die entsprechende Internetbrowser bereitstellen, sind aus unserer Sicht zu wenig flexibel, um eine Benutzeroberfläche wie im Repositorium oder im statistischen Labor bereitzustellen. Des Weiteren werden, um die Daten und den Dialog mit dem Benutzer zu gestalten, Ressourcen des Computers des Benutzers benutzt. Ein Client macht für den Benutzer durchschaubar, was auf seinem Rechner läuft, während Internetbrowser dies eher dem Blick des Benutzers entziehen. Die ist ein Sicherheitsaspekt, der uns veranlasst hat, Clients bereitzustellen und nicht alle Leistungen unter den Browser zu subsumieren.

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Abbildung 6-3: Benutzerschnittstelle Repositorium 6.1.1 Funktionen und Benutzeroberfläche Das Repositorium bietet seine Funktionen den Benutzern in fünf Blöcken an, und die Benutzeroberfläche modelliert den Arbeitsablauf in fünf „Schritten“.29

Abbildung 6-4: Die Funktionsblöcke des EYDES-Repositoriums Das Archiv wird auf unterschiedliche Weise angeboten: —————

29

Diese „Schritte“ bezeichnen Datenselektionen aus dem Archiv. Getätigte Selektionen sind solange im entsprechenden „Schritt“ präsent, bis dort eine neue Selektion getätigt wird.

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als Archiv(form) mit original jiddisch geschriebenen Transkriptionen beziehungsweise Indexen

als Archiv(form) mit automatischer Transliterierung der Indexe und Transkriptionen. Ein „Korpus“ bezeichnet alle Dateien, die sich auf ein und denselben Belegort beziehen. Das Interview eines Ortes dokumentiert als Textsammlung ein durch das Fragebuch linguistisch beschriebenes Segment des Jiddischen. Die Archivorte insgesamt sind die in sich definierten Einheiten des jiddischen Sprachkontinuums im geographischen Raum. Eine „Tondatei“ ist das digitale Äquivalent zum ursprünglichen Teil der kontinuierlichen Tonaufnahme auf (analogem) Tonband. Ein „Topos“ ist eine Frage des Fragebuchs. „Topoi“ sind also nur für Dateien angezeigt, die transkribiert oder nach Frage-Ort aligniert sind. Zusätzliche Fragen des Interviewers zu Themen, die sich im Interviewverlauf ergeben haben und in dieser Form nicht im Fragebuch vorgesehen waren, sind als „new“ gekennzeichnet.30 Die „Schneideliste“ definiert die Tonsequenzen aus einer oder unterschiedlichen Dateien, die ausgeschnitten und als kontinuierlicher Ton in einer neuen Datei abgespeichert werden können. Benutzer operieren in zwei Fenstern.31 Im linken Anzeigefenster erscheinen die Einheiten und Daten, die – unter Berücksichtigung der bisherigen Arbeitsschritte – zur Bearbeitung bereit stehen. Ausgewählte Daten werden über die Buttons zwischen beiden Fenstern ins rechte Bearbeitungsfenster transferiert. Dort können die Benutzer −

−

die Einträge aus der Auswahl herausnehmen (ausblenden, nicht im Archiv löschen!),

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über den im Fenster referentialisierten Datenobjekten Programme starten,

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mit oder ohne Filterung den nächsten Funktionsblock aufrufen.32

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Daten können aus den aufrufbaren Applikationen heraus in Datenverzeichnisse des Benutzer-PC’s geladen (exportiert) werden.

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30

Im „Ortsindex“ sind die zusätzlichen Fragen bzw. Themen unter der betreffenden Fragebuchfrage subsumiert. 31 Die in den Fenstern erscheinenden Spalten sind windows-typisch sortierbar, ausgenommen die Schneideliste im rechten Fenster. 32 Dateien können danach gefiltert werden, ob Transkriptionen vorhanden sind oder nicht.

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Die möglichen Aktionen zur Bearbeitung stehen als Buttons rechts vom rechten Fenster.33 Folgende Funktionen stehen bereit: −

Informationsfunktionen „Elemente“))

für

die

gewählten

Dateien

(„Info“,

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Fremdapplikationen, mit denen aktivierte Dateien bearbeitet werden können. („Transcriber“34, „XML-Anzeige“,„Player MP3“).

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Anzeige und Abhörmöglichkeit der Transkriptionssegmente und der mit ihnen verketteten Tonsequenzen als „Endlosrolle“ („Graf(ischer) XML-Viewer“)

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Anzeige und Exportmöglichkeit der Transkriptionen in XMLKodierung mit Hilfe des Editors („XML-Anzeige“)

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Abhör- und Exportmöglichkeit des Tons („Player MP3“)

−

˶Die Funktion „Suchen“ steht bei den „Topoi“ von transkribierten Tondateien zur Verfügung, mithilfe der nach einem Wort in den Transkripten gesucht werden kann. Durch diese Suchfunktion können in den Interviews die durch Transkriptwörter konstituierten Themen und Inhalte aufgespürt werden, die über das Fragebuch selbst nicht zu entdecken wären.

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Die Funktion „Schneiden“ ist für die Tonsequenzen von aktiven Topoi verfügbar – sie realisiert eine neue MP3-Datei mit der durch das Fragebuch festgelegten Datenstruktur.

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Die Funktion „Schneiden“ ist auch für die über „Suchen“ in den Transkripten lokalisierten Wörter und zugehörigen Tonsequenzen verfügbar.

Das Repositorium −

ist das Instrument, um das EYDES-Archivs aufzubauen,

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um dem Benutzer die Artefakte in ihrem Zusammenhang zu zeigen,

−

und es verwaltet EYDES im laufenden Betrieb.

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33

Aktionen, die aufgrund der aktuellen Datenauswahl im rechten Fenster nicht ausführbar sind, sind ausgegraut. 34 Der eingebundene „Transcriber,“ Produkt des Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur (LIMSI) Paris, ist vorerst der Verwaltung des EYDES-Archivs vorbehalten.

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Das Repositorium besteht aus folgenden Komponenten: Eine Front-end Programmeinheit AAClient vermittelt die Kommunikation zwischen dem Nutzer und dem Server über das Medium Internet. Sie erzeugt die Benutzeroberfläche und die Präsentation der Daten in dieser Oberfläche. Sie startet die von den Benutzern eingestellten Fremd-Applikationen (Media Player, XML-Editor, usw.). Der Server verwaltet das EYDES-Archiv. Er −

initiiert und verwaltet das Archiv mit den Tondateien und zugehörigen Indexen: Orts-Index, Frage-Index und Wort-Index,

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importiert Dateien in das Archiv,

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standardisiert das Textformat der Transkriptionen,35

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exportiert und verteilt angefragte Ressourcen über Computernetzwerke („wide areas“) an die Nutzer,

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sichert die Datenkonsistenz (Erzeugungsdatum, MD5 Prüfsummen durch „elektronische Fingerabdrücke“36, und anderes mehr),37

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Als Beschreibungssprache wird Extensible Markup Language (XML) genutzt. XML „is a simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere,“ zitiert nach www.w3.org/XML/, 29. Mai 2008. Die benutzten Beschreibungskategorien orientieren sich an den Empfehlungen der Open Language Archive Community (OLAC, „an international partnership of institutions and individuals who are creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources by: (i) developing consensus on best current practice for the digital archiving of language resources, and (ii) developing a network of interoperating repositories and services for housing and accessing such resources,“ zitiert nach www.language-archives.org, 29. Mai 2008. 36 MD5 message-digest algorithm „takes as input a message of arbitrary length and produces as output a 128-bit ‘fingerprint’ or ‘message digest’ of the input. It is conjectured that it is computationally infeasible to produce two messages having the same message digest, or to produce any message having a given prespecified target message digest.“ Zitiert nach: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1321.html (RFC1321), 29. Mai 2008. 37 Die komplexe und sich durch Bearbeitung, Korrektur, usw. verändernde Archivsituation schafft ein Konsistenzproblem: Haben verschiedene Tondateien immer identischen Inhalt? Welche Transkriptionsdateien sind welchen Tondateien zuzuordnen? Welche Dateien sind mit welchen Programmen und welcher Parametrierung von welchen Dateien ausgehend erzeugt worden? Der SprAServ hat einerseits Kenntnis über die aktuelle Applikation, mit der Daten bearbeitet werden, und deren Parametrierung beim aktuellen Programmlauf. Mit der Zusammenführung von Applikationen, Parametrierungen und Daten durch den SprASer wird es möglich, die Konsistenz des EYDES-Archivs zu gewährleisten.

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190 −

integriert und verwaltet Fremdapplikationen, wie z.B. den MP3 Player zum Abspielen der Tonsequenzen,

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startet die angeforderten Applikationen und parametriert sie mit den voreingestellten Parametern,

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integriert die durch Applikationen erzeugten „neuen“ Daten (Datenvarianten),

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recherchiert in den Dateien, die die Tondateibeschreibungen enthalten,

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gibt Informationen über die im Archiv vorhandenen Daten,

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zeigt den Inhalt der Tonbeschreibungsdateien an, graphisch und in einem Editor

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schneidet die Suchergebnisse (Trefferliste) aus Tondateien und Tondateibeschreibungs-Dateien und fügt sie in neuen Datei-Paaren (Wave- plus XML-Datei) zusammen,

−

bildet Suchausdrücke, die auf die Tonbeschreibungsdatei angewendet werden; der Server schafft auf diese Weise eine durch die Archivinhalte begründete, virtuelle Datenstruktur.

6.1.2 Offengelegte Schnittstellen Das Repositorium ist eine Dienstleistung in einer weiten und ständig expandierenden Datenverarbeitungslandschaft. Es ist offen dafür, seine Leistungen auch anderen Clients als dem AAClient anzubieten, denn es verfügt über offengelegte und gut zu bedienende Schnittstellen; die Benutzer können eigene Clients erstellen und autark auf das Archiv anwenden.38 Zwei Schnittstellentypen existieren derzeit: −

Die Schnittstellen zwischen dem SprAServ (Programmname des Servermoduls) und den AAClients (Programmname der Clientmodule). Sie sind realisiert als TCP/IP-basierte Datenströme in ASCIIFormat. Sie gewährleisten die Kommunikation zwischen den Programmeinheiten; sie enthalten einfache, offengelegte und

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Die Methode wird in der Computerlinguistik als „harvesting“ und entsprechende Clients als „harvester“ bezeichnet. Wenn im Rahmen der Open Language Inititiave Schnittstellen für höhere Funktionen des „harvesting“ ausreichend normiert sind, können sie in Eydes adaptiert werden, so dass mit diesen Normierungen konforme Clients automatisch auf EYDES zugreifen können.

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dokumentierte Befehle bzw. Befehlsrückgaben. Sie können z.B. mit Telnet als Referenzprogramm geprüft werden. TCP/IP-basierter Server – Client-Dateienaustausch: Der SprAServ stellt den Programmen, die er startet, Daten in Dateien bereit und holt von diesen Programmen erzeugte Dateien. Die Tonbeschreibungsdateien sind OLAC-konform XML-kodiert. Die Tondateien selbst sind im Mpeg3-Format gehalten. Die folgende Abbildung illustriert die TCP/IP-basierte Server–Client Schnittstelle: −

Abbildung 6-5: Die TCP/IP-basierte Server-Client Schnittstelle Die nachfolgende Abbildung 6-6: Befehlssatz des Repositoriums zeigt einen Auszug. Der Förderverein überlässt Interessenten auf Anfrage hin den kompletten Befehlsatz und die weiteren für die Nutzung der Schnittstelle notwendigen Informationen.

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Abbildung 6-6: Befehlssatz des Repositoriums

6.2 Eine Applikation auf der Grundlage des Repositoriums Um zu testen, mit welchem Aufwand spezielle, thematisch akzentuierte Beiträge aus dem EYDES-Archiv heraus geleistet werden können und um zu zeigen, wie weit gespannt der thematische Bogen des Archivs ist, wurde auf der Basis des Repositoriums eine Applikation entwickelt - der „Jiddischkurs.“ Dieser Kurs führt inhaltlich weit gefächert in jiddische Sprache und Kultur ein. Unter Einbeziehung kulturkundlicher Aspekte zum Jiddischen präsentiert er thematisch interessante Interviewabschnitte aus dem EYDESArchiv als ‚Sprachkurs’ und bietet Tests, mit denen der Kursteilnehmer seinen Lernerfolg und neuen Kenntnisstand prüfen kann. Er enthält Entertainment-Elemente, die die Beschäftigung mit Jiddisch durchaus vergnüglich gestalten. Der Kurs steht nun bereits seit sechs Jahren mit ungebrochen großem Zuspruch im Internet unter „www.jiddischkurs.org.“

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6.3 Indexe Die Indexe sind über die üblichen Webbrowser zugänglich. Sie fungieren als „Clients“ und machen Indexe unmittelbar im Web über www.eydes.de und dort über den Klick „Tonarchiv“ zugänglich. Eine Folge von browsertypischen Klicks führt zum Abspielen einer Tonsequenz. Das Navigieren in den Indexen wird unterstützt durch eine klickbare Version des Fragebuchs und durch ein klickbares Ortsnetz mit Grundkarte. Wie oben in 5 EYDES: die informatisch-linguistische Umsetzung ausgeführt, liegt den Indexen zum einen das Ortsverzeichnis der Enquete, zum anderen das Fragegerüst des ursprünglichen Fragebuchs zugrunde. Dritte Komponente ist ein Wortformenindex, der auf der Grundlage von transkribierten Interviews entstanden und in zwei Formen zugänglich ist, in Originalschrift und in einer auf der Basis der Originalschrift automatisch erzeugten lateinischen Umschrift. Damit aus diesen Erschließungsgerüsten Indexe wurden, war eine Verkettung mit den korrespondierenden Tonsegmenten notwendig, die entsprechend durch „Alignment“ ausgezeichnet wurden. 6.3.1 Segmentierung und Alignment Der inhaltlich bestmögliche Zugriff auf die Sprachartefakte wird durch einen wortweisen Zugang zum Ton erreicht. Dies erfordert wortweise Segmentierung und Auszeichnung des Tons.39 Dies maschinell zu erreichen würde voraussetzen, dass der Computer die Sprachsignale ‚versteht’, aus denen ein Interview besteht. Verstehen meint hier, eine Signalfolge einem bedeutungstragenden Symbol (Wort) zuordnen zu können. Eine solche Verstehensleistung (speech recognition) leisten Computerprogramme jedoch erst rudimentär, und vorhandene Programme könnten auf unsere stimmlich und dialektal breit gefächerten —————

39

Während wortweiser inhaltlicher Zugang wünschenswert ist, ist ein wortweises Alignment zum Ton im allgemeinen nicht sinnvoll. Wortweises Segmentieren des Tons erschwert beim Hören die Verständlichkeit des Wortes, denn das akustische Ereignis von isolierten Wörtern ohne Kontext ist zu kurz und kaum begreifbar. Sollte sich für Forschungszwecke ein Bedarf für wortweises Alignment ergeben und Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten vorhanden sein, können entsprechende Arbeiten ohne Systemveränderungen durchgeführt werden. Wortweises Alignment ist durch nachträgliche Anwendung von Methoden der „erzwungenen Spracherkennung“ (forced speech recognition) zu erreichen und das EYDES-System ist offen, entsprechende Methoden zu integrieren und zu verwalten.

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Archivdaten nicht mit Erfolg angewandt werden. Eine Adaption der vorhandenen Technik an das auf Variation hin angelegte Jiddisch des Archivs würde zudem einen viel zu hohen Trainingsaufwand der Spracherkennungsprogramme erforderlich machen.40 6.3.2 Transkription zwecks Indexierung Symbolische Zuordnung zu den Audiosignalen, also das Verketten von Signalsequenzen mit Symbolsequenzen, wurde in unserem Fall durch manuelle Transkription erreicht, die mit Computer-Unterstützung, auf einer Transcription Workbench (TWB) erfolgte.41 Die Umsetzung in orthographischen Text mithilfe der TWB erlaubte es, ein Verfahren zu implementieren, das dem „Schreiben nach Diktat“ nachgebildet ist: Der Ton wird während des Hörens quasi fortlaufend mitgeschrieben. Das Programm beobachtet Abhörgerät (AudioPlayer) und Tastatur und verkettet laufende Tonsequenzen mit laufendem Text. Die Verkettung geschieht mit Hilfe von Zeit-Angaben.42 Die Verkettung der Sprachsignale mit den zugehörigen Orten und Fragen des Fragebuchs wird durch die Transkribenten mithilfe von Funktionstasten vorgenommen. Die Tonsequenzen sind danach ausgezeichnet, ob sie dem Interviewer zuzurechnen sind oder Äußerungen des Probanden darstellen. Wenn der Gesprächsverlauf über das durch die Fragebuchfrage initiierte Thema hinausgeht und zu neuen Fragen des Interviewers führt, setzen Transkribenten ein Sub-Label „new“. Die Probanden sind nach Männer- oder Frauenstimmen ausgezeichnet; zusätzlich antwortende Personen werden durch entsprechendes Alignment ausdifferenziert.

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40

Solche Adaptionen rechnen sich für Sprachen mit internationalem ‚Markt’ und weit gespanntem ökonomischenPerspektiven. Dabei gilt: Um so normierter die Sprache, umso geringer sind Fehlerquote und Trainingsaufwand. 41 Die TWB wurde 1997–99 im Rahmen eines Konsortialprojekts entwickelt mit Förderung durch die Europäische Union und das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen unter Konsortialführung des Fördervereins für Jiddische Sprache und Kultur e.V., Düsseldorf, in Zusammenarbeit mit Helmut Schnelle am Sprachwissenschaftlichen Institut der Universität Bochum. 42 Das zugrunde liegende Verfahren wird fachsprachlich Alignment, Labelung oder auch Etikettierung genannt. Alignment im engeren Sinne bezeichnet die Verkettung von Transkriptsequenz und Tonsequenz.

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Interview- und Transkriptionssprache ist in der Regel (Ost)Jiddisch (etwa 460 von 600 Aufnahmen).43 Unter den das Westjiddische repräsentierenden Aufnahmen, überwiegen bei weitem die auf Deutsch gehaltenen Interviews (etwa 120).44 Da die Transkiption im utf8-Code (ISO 8859) erfolgt, sind anderssprachige Anteile - auch innerhalb ein und desselben Interviews - in ihren je eigenen Zeichensätzen einschließlich der korrekten Schreibrichtung kodiert.

Abbildung 6-7: Alignment und Transkription der Tondateien Etwa die Hälfte der Tonaufnahmen des Archivs wurde auf diese Weise aligniert und transkribiert. Als im Projektverlauf sichtbar wurde, dass für die Transkription aller Aufnahmen nicht in ausreichendem Maße Transkribenten zur Verfügung stehen würden, wurde eine Methodenvariante entwickelt, die auf das Transkribieren verzichtet und ausschließlich ein Alignment nach Ort und Frage durchführt.

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Diese Interviews repräsentieren Jiddisch als gesprochene Sprache – ihnen lagen die umfangreichen Stabilized Master Questionnaires zugrunde (LCAAJ II: *9-*76) – die Interviews umfassen 10-15 Stunden. 44 Bei ihnen lagen die viel weniger umfangreichen Western Questionnaires zugrunde (LCAAJ II: *77-*87) – die Interviews umfassen nur 1-2 Stunden. Unter den geographisch westlich verankerten Interviews befinden sich auch solche, die zwar auf Französisch oder Niederländisch gehalten sind, denen jedoch die ausführlichen Stabilized Master Questionnaires zugrunde liegen (etwa 10-20).

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Abbildung 6-8: Alignment der Tondateien ohne Transkription Die Anfertigung der Indexe selbst geschieht im wesentlichen automatisch auf der Grundlage der Transkriptionen oder des Ort-FrageAlignments. Nicht-transkribierte und nicht frageweise alignierte Interviews werden durch einen zusätzlichen Index auf der Grundlage des OrtsAlignments mit einer Zeitrasterung zugänglich, sodass sie in etwa einminütigen Sequenzen abgehört werden können. Im Wortindex ist der Wortbestand der Interviewer-Fragen nicht enthalten; der Index gibt die Sprache der Probanden wieder. Indexe, die in jiddischer Schrift gehalten sind, schließen NichtMuttersprachler oder Nicht-Jiddisten in der Regel von deren Benutzung aus. Deshalb wurde durch Transliteration in das lateinische Alphabet ein zusätzlicher Index gebildet. Er ist anhand eines Regelsatzes automatisch erzeugt. Ein spezielles Problem für eine regelgeleitete, automatische Transliteration der jiddischen Orthographie stellen hebräischstämmige Wörter und Wortanteile dar, für die ihre traditionelle Schreibung (nicht ‚phonetisch’) beibehalten wurde. Da eine lautlich standardisierte Realisierung der hebräischstämmigen Wortanteile im Jiddischen nach höchst differenzierten Regeln erfolgt, wäre es mit einem nicht vertretbaren Aufwand verbunden gewesen, deren automatische Transliterierung anhand von Regeln zu programmieren. Das Problem ist durch eine spezielle Liste gelöst, in der die auftretenden hebräischstämmigen Einträge im Laufe des Projekts gesammelt und dem Computer die adäquate Umschrift bei der automatischen Transliteration einzeln, also sozusagen „per Hand“, zugewiesen wurde.

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6.4 Ein statistisches Labor In EYDES steht ein statistisches Sprachlabor bereit, mit dem Untersuchungen durchgeführt werden können, die auf den Transkripten basieren. Wie oben (6.3.2) dargelegt, dient die Transkription der Interviews dem Indexieren der Archivinhalte. Sie bietet aber mehr als dies: Indem die Transkription die lexikalischen Einheiten der gesprochenen Sprache identifiziert und Zugang zum kontinuierlichen Text der Interviews gewährleistet, offeriert sie eine geeignete Grundlage, um lexikalischmorphologischen und lexikalisch-semantischen Fragestellungen nachzugehen. Das EYDES-Labor liefert dazu ein flexibles Instrumentarium. 6.4.1 Randbedingungen Bei der Bewertung statistischer Untersuchungen sind mögliche Transkriptionsfehler in Betracht zu ziehen. Allerdings werden nicht-syste matische Fehler, wie Hör- oder Tippfehler z. B., durch statistische Verfahren relativiert. Diese bieten als Ergebnis eben nicht die Bewertung einzelner Wortformen, sondern werfen statistische Schätzungen über große Datenmengen aus. Die für die Relevanz statistischer Untersuchungen zentrale Frage nach der Repräsentativität der Daten stellt sich für das Atlasarchiv in zweierlei Hinsicht: Mit Blick auf die repräsentative Varianz des gesprochenen Jiddisch können wir uns auf die Entscheidung Uriel Weinreichs über die Festlegung des Ortsnetzes und die Auswahl der Probanden verlassen. Im Hinblick auf die Validität der statistischen Auswertungen müssen wir sicher sein, dass die Datenmengen für die jeweils genutzten Untersuchungen ausreichen. „Ausreichen“ in diesem Zusammenhang heißt, dass die Gesamtmenge des Korpus als „Population“ die statistischen Eigenschaften enthält, die systemische Eigenschaften der Sprache darstellen. Ein Sample im EYDES-Labor enthält die Transkriptionsabschnitte zu einem Ort. Die Sample-Mengen, also die Daten des Archivs nach Untereinheiten subsumiert, müssen ausreichend umfänglich und sorgfältig genug zusammengestellt sein, um dem gewählten Verfahren zu genügen. Um diese Eigenschaft des Korpus zu sichern, haben wir die Sättigung der aufwachsenden Population hinsichtlich ausgewählter statistischer

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Eigenschaften überprüft. Besonders geeignet schien die Verteilung hochfrequenter Wörter in Verbindung mit der folgenden Hypothese: Wenn die Verteilung von hochfrequenten Wörtern mit dem Aufwachsen der Population mehr und mehr stabil wird, so bedeutet dies die statistische Sättigung des Korpus. Wir haben entsprechende Tests für die 53 höchst frequenten Wörter mit positivem Ergebnis durchgeführt ( von abzw. ˋ, mit einer relativen Häufigkeit von 0,052467 bzw. 0.051101, bis hobn bzw.ʩʮʰʭ mit einer relativen Häufigkeit von 0,003556 bzw. 0,003). Uriel Weinreichs Sammlung jiddischer Sprachaufnahmen bestätigt sich damit als linguistisches Korpus, das mit empirischen Methoden untersucht werden kann. 6.4.2 Das linguistische Konzept Das EYDES-Labor ermittelt typische Wortverteilungen in den Sprechsequenzen der für das Atlasarchiv befragten Jiddischsprecher. Die ortsweise verankerten dialektalen Sprachprägungen werden statistisch gegeneinander ausdifferenziert, um wortbezogene Variation im Sprachgebrauch aufzuspüren. Des Weiteren können die Sprachverwendungen der Probanden mithilfe statistischer Verfahren auf typische Wortumgebungen hin untersucht werden. Das Labor weist die im laufenden Text ermittelten Kollokationen und korrelierenden Wörter zur weiteren Analyse und Bearbeitung aus. Empirische Verfahren zur Analyse der Wortverteilung im gesprochenen Kontext erscheinen uns als besonders geeignete Mittel bei der Untersuchung und Aufarbeitung der im Archiv enthaltenen Jiddischmaterialien. Der Aufschwung von Sprachtechnologie und computativer Linguistik hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten als zunehmend hilfreich für sprachliche Analysen erwiesen. Die nach ingenieurswissenschaftlichen Prinzipien arbeitende Industrieforschung etwa nutzt heuristische Methoden zur Spracherkennung, Termsubstitution und automatischen Übersetzung, sowie für terminologische Entwicklungen.45 In der universitären Forschung ist es mithilfe sprachlicher Korpora und dem Durchbruch der Korpuslinguistik in der Praxis möglich geworden, dem —————

45

So geht auch das in der Folge beschriebene EYDES-Labor auf ein Produkt der SAFIR GmbH zurück, das im Rahmen eines Forschungsauftrags zur Gewinnung von Information aus großen Textmengen mit zeitlicher Dimension in Zusammenarbeit mit weiteren Firmen entwickelt wurde.

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Diktum Ludwig Wittgensteins (1970: 35) zu folgen, nach dem „die Bedeutung eines Wortes [...] sein Gebrauch in der Sprache“ ist. Sprache lässt sich danach als das fassen, was Menschen zwecks Kommunikation miteinander vereinbaren, indem sie Wörter in ähnlichen sich wiederholenden Kontexten verwenden und so Bedeutung konstituieren. Das Verhalten der Wörter im aktuellen Text und Kontext liefert die Indizien für das Zustandekommen von Bedeutung und die Beschreibung verbaler Verständigung. „Language comes to life only when functioning in some environment“ (Halliday 1974: 28). In konsequenter „Orientierung auf die gesprochene Sprache“ hin hat die Schule des Kontextualismus Bedeutung als Funktion im Kontext formuliert, realisiert in sprachlicher Handlung und eingebettet in einen Situations- und Kulturkontext.46 Das Verhalten der Wörter in ihren Wortumgebungen ist somit Angelpunkt bei der Beschreibung von sprachlicher Bedeutung und Grammatik.47 Um die Sprache des Jiddischarchivs transparent zu machen, insbesondere im Hinblick auf unvermutete, spontan auftretende Inhalte, deren Art und Ort im Interview vom Enquete-Design her nicht vorherzusehen sind, erscheint eine Analyse der Wortumgebungen als fruchtbarer Ansatz. Allgemein hat sich das Augenmerk linguistischer Untersuchungen in den letzten Jahrzehnten wieder mehr auf die tatsächliche Sprachverwendung hin ausgerichtet und die notwendige Auseinandersetzung mit empirischen Daten betont, über die Beschränkung auf deren illustrative oder exemplifizierende Rolle in Einzelzitationen hinaus. Das Pendel ist zurückgeschwungen.48 Welchen Impetus die Beschäftigung mit quantitativen Methoden in der sprachlichen und kognitionswissenschaftlichen Forschung inzwischen erfahren hat, lässt sich unter anderem an der Publikation des umfassenden internationalen Handbuchs zur quantitativen Linguistik 2005 bei Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, abschätzen das neben dem Druck auch online zugänglich ist.49 —————

46

Vgl. Steiner 1983: 168 und 275. Dies wird exemplifiziert etwa durch das von John Sinclair initiierte Korpus der Collins Birmingham University International Language Database (COBUILD), inzwischen als umfassende „Bank of English“ die Grundlage für die von HarperCollins publizierten Cobuild Wörterbücher und Grammatiken. 48 Siehe oben 2 Die Archivlage Ende der 1980er Jahre, und McEnery/Wilson 2005, insbesondere Kapitel 3-5; Sampson/McCarthy 2004: 3f. 49 Siehe Quantitative Linguistik / Quantitative Linguistics 2005. 47

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Basiert auf gezielte Feldforschung im sozialen Kontext und der Anwendung empirischer Methoden zur Feststellung quantitativer Evidenz hat der ehemalige Weinreich-Schüler William Labov schon seit den 1960er Jahren eine Linguistik entwickelt, die explizit von dem ausgeht, was Menschen im alltäglichen Leben wirklich sagen.50 Es war ein Meilenstein, als Uriel Weinreich, William Labov und Marvin Herzog in einer gemeinsamen Studie 1968 die Notwendigkeit empirischer Begründung für die Beschreibung von Sprachstruktur und Sprachentwicklung hervorhoben.51 Im Gegensatz zur damalig vorherrschenden Vorstellung von in sich homogenen Sprachsystemen wird auf die vorauszusetzende inhärente Variabilität jeden Sprachsystems verwiesen, die eine adäquate linguistische Definition abzubilden in der Lage sein muss. „One of the corollaries of our approach is that in a language serving a complex (i.e. real) community it is the absence of structured heterogeneity that would be dysfunctional“ (Weinreich/Labov/Herzog 1968: 101). Die für die Definition strukturaler Variabilität erforderliche formale Präzision muss den Autoren nach auf empirischer, quantitativer Evidenz beruhen: „A linguistic variable must be defined under strict conditions if it is to be a part of a linguistic structure; otherwise one would simply be opening the door wide to rules in which „frequently,“ „occasionally,“ or „sometimes“ apply. Quantitative evidence for covariation between the variable in question and some other linguistic or extralinguistic element provides a necessary condition for admitting such a structural unit. Covariation may be opposed to strict co-occurrence, or co-occurrence may be conceived as the limiting case of co-variation. Proof of strict co-occurrence relations may in fact emerge from a quantitative investigation of the type which provide proof of covariation.” (Weinreich/Labov/Herzog 1968: 169).

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Im Interview mit M. Gordon führt Labov (2006) aus: „... that I would develop an empirical linguistics based on what people actually say. […] So the question is, on what database do you form your conclusions? How do you know when you’re right and how do you know when you’re wrong? […] There were people behaving as if there was no need for doubleblind experiments, as you have in medicine, and that you could produce the data and theory from your head at the very same time. So I thought that it was possible to move this field into a more scientific basis by grounding it on the use of language in everyday life.“ Labovs Beitrag in diesem Band nimmt Bezug auf die Daten des Atlas of North American English, siehe Labov/Ash/Boberg 2006. 51 Der Titel ist Programm: Empirical Foundations to a Theory of Language Change, siehe Weinreich/Labov/Herzog 1968. Weinreich, der den ersten Entwurf verfasste und darin Arbeitsmaterialien der drei Autoren basierend auf Erhebungen zum Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry und zum Englischen in New York City integrierte, revidierte die Studie bis zwei Tage vor seinem Tod, aber erlebte die Publikation selbst nicht mehr.

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Die Möglichkeit, den Jiddisch-Atlas nun für empiriebezogene Studien heranziehen zu können, schätzen wir als Weiterentwicklung des Archivs im Sinne Uriel Weinreichs ein. Das EYDES-Labor mit seinen ausgewählten statistischen Methoden ist mit Hilfe eines frei verfügbaren Client nutzbar, der auf den EYDES-Server zugreift. Die Server-Client-Struktur ist in der folgenden Abbildung angezeigt.

Abbildung 6-9: Architektur des statistischen Labors Das Labor besteht aus fünf funktionalen Blöcken (FB), in denen die fachlichen Verfahren anwendungsbezogen gebündelt sind. Folgende Annahmen liegen dabei zugrunde: 1. Besonderes Interesse rufen Wörter mit statistisch auffälligem Verhalten hervor – auffällig in Bezug auf ihre ortsweise Verteilung. Diese Wörter sind Kandidaten für die weitere linguistische Analyse. 2. Sind solche Auffälligkeiten gefunden, so interessiert deren Umgebung in diesen Orten aber auch außerhalb der Orte mit auffälliger Verteilung. Das Labor bietet Suchen nach typischen Wortumgebungen, den Kollokaten. 3. Sind die Glieder solcher typischen Wortumgebungen, gefunden, so interessiert als nächstes, in wieweit sich diese Kollokate durch die Texte hindurch untereinander gruppieren lassen. Kommen Kollokate zu einem

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Wortkandidaten eventuell paarweise vor, korrelieren sie also? Unterscheiden sich solche Korrelationen ortsweise? 4. Weiterhin interessiert es herauszufinden, ob sich korrelierende Wortpaare zu größeren Gruppen verketten lassen, das heißt. ob verschiedene Korrelationspaare dieselben Wortglieder aufweisen. Jeder dieser Schritte fördert als Ergebnis eine Wortliste zutage, die zum Hilfsmittel für eine linguistische Einordnung und Bewertung werden kann. Diesen Weg durch die Daten bietet das Labor an, im Zugriff auf den EYDES-Server. Die Daten können in einer Pipe52 durch die Funktionsblöcke geleitet werden; das Datenergebnis eines Funktionsblocks wird – gemäß der Erfordernis des jeweiligen Untersuchungsziel modifiziert oder unverändert - Eingangsdatensatz für den nächsten Funktionsblock.

Abbildung 6-10: EYDES-Labor: Funktionsblöcke und ihre Leistungen 6.4.3 Lexikon Auf Server-Seite wird während des Aufbaus des Datenformats für das Labor ein Lexikon angelegt, das alle Wortformen der Transkriptionen enthält, inklusive der Angaben zur relativen und absoluten Häufigkeit der einzelnen Wortform bezogen auf das Gesamtkorpus.53 Dieses Lexikon kann —————

52

Pipe im Sinne von pipeline ist die Bezeichnung für einen linearen Datenstrom durch mehrere Programme hindurch. 53 Der EYDES-Server baut dieses Lexikon inkrementell auf, fügt also die Wörter neuer Transkriptionen automatisch hinzu.

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übergreifend in allen Arbeitsphasen konsultiert werden. Die Ansicht des Lexikons ist konfigurierbar hinsichtlich des angezeigten Umfangs und hinsichtlich der angezeigten Informationen.

Abbildung 6-11: Lexikon des statistischen Labors 6.4.4 Kandidatensuche Die Methode basiert auf der Annahme, dass sich linguistische Eigenschaften von Texten in den Wörtern und Wortverteilungen dieser Texte spiegeln. Treten in Texten unterschiedliche Wörter oder Wortverteilungen auf, so deutet dies auf unterschiedliche linguistische Eigenschaften hin. Da unsere Texte Orte im dialektalen Raum repräsentieren, können solche unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften als Merkmale einer räumlichen Strukturierung gelten. Laborbenutzer bestimmen die zu untersuchenden Ortsgruppen und eine Testreihenfolge (siehe unten 6.4.7). Das Labor begreift die definierten Ortsgruppen als statistische Samples. Die Population ist die Gesamtmenge der Samples. Das Labor testet die Daten der festgelegten Ortsgruppen (Samples) auf ihre Zugehörigkeit zur Population hin in der zuvor festgelegten Reihenfolge. Weichen die statistischen Eigenschaften der Daten einer Ortsgruppe zu weit ab von den statistischen Eigenschaften der Population, so sind die verursachenden Wörter statistisch auffällig. Sie werden damit zu sogenannten Kandidaten bei der Suche nach Kriterien für die Feststellung dialektaler Ausdifferenzierung.

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Die Schärfe des Tests wird durch die Angabe einer Sicherheitswahrscheinlichkeit festgelegt. Die Kandidatensuche liefert als Ergebnis eine Kandidatenliste. 6.4.5 Kollokationsanalyse Die in der Kandidatensuche ermittelten Kandidaten können – in Gänze oder selektiv – auf ihre typischen Wortumgebungen, auf ihre Kollokate hin untersucht werden. Darüber hinaus kann jeder beliebige Eintrag des Lexikons als Kandidat deklariert und in die Kandidatenliste transferiert werden, um die dazu gehörigen Kollokate herauszufinden. Die jeweilige Wortumgebung gibt Aufschluss über die grammatischen und semantischen Verknüpfungen, in denen der jeweilige Kandidat im Kontext der Rede auftritt. Je nach Untersuchungsziel ist dabei die Position der Wörter vor oder hinter dem zu untersuchenden Wort von Bedeutung. Der Berechnung der Kollokate liegt folgendes Verfahren zugrunde: Die von einem Benutzer im Internet per Parameter zu definierenden Umgebungen des zu prüfenden Wortes werden vom Labor als statistische Samples begriffen. Die Samples werden gegen die Population, also die Daten der vom Benutzer definierten Ortsgruppe getestet. Die Samples erweisen sich dann entweder als Teil der Population oder aber nicht als Teil der Population. Sind die verursachenden Umgebungswörter im Sample überrepräsentiert, so werden sie als Kollokationen ausgewiesen.54 Die Schärfe des Tests wird durch die Angabe einer Sicherheitswahrscheinlichkeit festgelegt. 6.4.6 Wilcoxon-Test versus t-Test Als Testmethoden stehen konkurrierend der Wilcoxon-Test und der t-Test zur Verfügung. Der t-Test fordert, dass Stichproben (Samples), welche auf ihren Erwartungswert hin getestet werden, einer Normalverteilung gehorchen. In unserer Modell-Annahme ist diese Eigenschaft erforderliche Voraussetzung. Die Verletzung der Modellannahme führt vor allem bei selten vorkommenden Wörtern zu weniger zuverlässigen Ergebnissen. —————

54

Mit dem Verfahren können auch Negativ-Kollokationen nachgewiesen werden, das heißt, Umgebungswörter sind seltener, als ihre statistischen Eigenschaften in der Population erwarten ließen. In bestimmten Zusammenhängen mag es linguistische Fragestellungen geben, in denen eine solche Analyse bedeutsam ist.

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Der Wilcoxon-Test benötigt die Modellannahme der Normalverteilung nicht, er gilt als robust gegenüber der Normalverteilung und ist deshalb sicherer für die Bewertung von selten vorkommenden Wörtern. Beide Tests finden statistisch auffällige Wörter in den Transkriptionen. Die Verfahrensvarianten des t-Tests arbeiten schneller als die des Wilcoxon-Tests. Der Wilcoxon-Test liefert mit Wahrscheinlichkeit genauere Ergebnisse. Allerdings muss beachtet werden, dass der Wilcoxon-Test nicht nach Unter- oder Überrepräsentation differenziert; dies schränkt seine Verwendung bei der Kollokationssuche ein. Die verschiedenen Methoden, das Archiv zu durchsuchen, bilden zusammen mit den Parametrisierungsmöglichkeiten ein, wie man sagen könnte, differenziell-diagnostisches“ Instrumentarium. 6.4.7 Reihenfolge des statistischen Abgleichs Den Benutzern des Labors sind drei Verfahren zur Bildung der Samples an die Hand gegeben: „Vergleich“, „Scannen“ und „Scannen mit festem Vergleich.“ Der Vergleich ist das Kernverfahren. Die beiden anderen automatisieren spezielle Abfolgen des Kernverfahrens. Sie bilden SampleMengen seriell, um sie den implementierten statistischen Methoden zu unterwerfen. Vergleich: Das Verfahren gleicht zwei vordefinierte Reihen von Interviews ab, also zwei Gruppen von Orten. Der „Vergleich“ wird empfohlen, wenn man die Sprache von zwei dezidierten Ortsgruppen kontrastieren möchte und dazu nach Kandidaten sucht. Die Ortsgruppen können entweder durch Angabe des jeweiligen Startund Enddokuments ausgewählt werden oder durch Klicken der gewählten Orte auf der ins Labor integrierten Karte. Scannen mit festem Vergleich: Dieses Verfahren ist dann geeignet, wenn die Sprache in sich vergrößernder Distanz zu einem vorgegebenen Areal untersucht werden soll. Eine Ortsreihe wird definiert und für die Bildung der jeweils zweiten Ortsreihe eine Schrittweite festgelegt. Das Verfahren teilt die zum Vergleich anstehende Ortsreihe entsprechend der Schrittweite in weitere Ortsreihen auf und gleicht jeweils die fixierte Ortsreihe mit allen entsprechend der Schrittweite gebildeten Ortsreihen ab (Abbildung 6-12).

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Abbildung 6-12: Kandidatensuche - Scannen mit festem Vergleich Scannen: Dieses Verfahren ist zu empfehlen, wenn die Sprache in einem ‚Wandern’ über das Sprachgebiet untersucht und Kandidaten ermittelt werden sollen, die auf sprachliche Diskontinuität in benachbarten Arealen hindeuten. Für das Verfahren ist die Definition einer Ortsreihe erforderlich, die gescannt werden soll, und das Festlegen einer Schrittweite zur weiteren Untergliederung der Ortsreihen. Anhand der Schrittweite wird die definierte Ortsreihe in kleinere Ortsreihen aufgegliedert und jede so entstandene kleinere Ortsreihe mit der ihr vorausgehenden statistisch abgeglichen (Abbildung 6-13).

Abbildung 6-13: Kandidatensuche - Scannen

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Die drei Verfahren können jeweils mit dem t-Test und mit dem WilcoxonTest durchgeführt werden. Die Parametrisierungsoptionen für beide Tests decken sich; sie geben die Möglichkeit, das Labor als Experimentalsystem in verschiedenen Anwendungszusammenhängen zu nutzen. 6.4.8 Kandidatenprüfung Diesen Funktionsblock könnte man als zentralen „Schreibtisch“ des Labors bezeichnen. Hier werden die automatisch gefundenen Kandidaten aus Funktionsblock FB 2 als Listen abgelegt. In Funktionsblock FB 3 erhalten Benutzer die volle Kontrolle über die Kandidaten, um sie für ihren jeweiligen aktuellen Informationsbedarf weiter zu bearbeiten. Sie können hier verändert, ergänzt oder auch völlig neu definiert werden. Der Client stellt an diesem Ort weitere Verfahren bereit, die den Benutzern Flexibilität für eine sozusagen maßgeschneiderten Arbeit mit den Archivdaten geben (Abbildung 6-14).55 Es können die „Zeitreihen“ berechnet werden, die auf unterschiedliche Weise darstellbar sind und in üblichen Diagrammen visualisiert werden können. Es können Prüfungen durchgeführt werden und festgestellt, ob Belegwörter den Anforderungen an „Kandidaten“ entsprechen und in welchen Orten sie als überrepräsentiert oder unterrepräsentiert ausgewiesen sind. Erwiesene Kandidaten können, bezogen auf die durch die Prüfung ausgewiesenen Orte unmittelbar übernommen und für ausgewählte Orte der Kollokationsanalyse unterzogen werden. Kandidatenlisten können ediert, abgespeichert und geladen werden. Kollokationsberechnungen und Korrelationsberechnungen können parametriert und initiiert werden. Die Kandidatenprüfung ist der Ort, in den weitere Leistungen integriert werden können, z.B. zusätzliche Kartierungsmöglichkeiten.

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Die detaillierte Ausgestaltung des „Schreibtisches“ ist im Benutzerhandbuch zum EYDESLabor beschrieben. Das Benutzerhandbuch kann von der Webseite geladen werden und steht dass unter der Hilfefunktion des Clients bereit.

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Abbildung 6-14: Der „Schreibtisch“ im Labor 6.4.9 Experimentelle Anwendung In der folgenden Anwendung des EYDES-Labors vergleichen wir zwei Gruppen von Erhebungsorten in unterschiedlichen Bereichen des Sprachgebiets. In den Interview-Transkripten dieser Orte lassen wir nach Belegen suchen, deren Verhalten sich in den beiden Ortsgruppen signifikant unterscheidet. Statistisch formuliert ermitteln wir Wörter, die in ihrer Verteilung beim Vergleich der beiden Gruppen in der einen oder anderen überrepräsentiert oder aber unterrepräsentiert sind. Da solche Wörter eventuell Hinweise auf eine sprachliche Differenzierung liefern und sie sich daher zur weiteren Beschäftigung anbieten, nennen wir sie „Kandidaten.“

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Abbildung 6-15: Gruppe zentraljiddischer Orte

Abbildung 6-16: Gruppe nordostjiddischer Orte

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Über den Wilcoxon-Test, angewendet mit den in der Abbildung eingeblendeten Parametern, erhalten wir folgende Liste an Kandidaten:

Abbildung 6-17: Die Kandidaten Wir vergewissern uns diesen Ergebnisses mit Hilfe der statistischen Zeitreihenanalyse, die in unserem Fall die Analyse einer Ortsreihe darstellt.

Abbildung 6-18: Ortsreihen-Analyse zu holt ‚lieb’

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Die hoch ausschlagende Kurve auf der rechten Seite des Diagramms spiegelt das starke Auftreten von holt in der nordostjiddischen Gruppe wider und steht in augenfälligem Kontrast zu dem schwachen Auftreten in der Gruppe zentraljiddischer Orte.56 Im nächsten Schritt ermitteln wir die Kollokationen zu holt mit den in die folgende Abbildung integrierten Parametern.

Abbildung 6-19: Kollokate zu holt ‚lieb’

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Die „leeren“ Orte auf der x-Achse zeigen in den meisten Fällen an, dass sie nicht in die Untersuchung einbezogen waren – sie können aber auch Nullmeldungen sein, also anzeigen, dass holt in ihnen überhaupt nicht auftritt.

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Die zentraljiddische Ortsgruppe zeigt nur ein einziges Kollokat zu holt, während sich für die nordostjiddische Gruppe zahlreiche Kollokate ergeben. Der Beleg holt trennt also die untersuchten nordostjiddischen Orte von den zentraljiddischen und erweist sich als dialektdifferenzierendes Merkmal. Das Ergebnis der berechneten Kollokationen bestätigt damit den Befund der vorherigen Kandidatensuche und Ortsreihenanalyse. Zwei andere Varianten von Kollokationsanalysen sind in der Abbildung 6-20: Ausgehend von der Verbform fleg/flegt57 führen wir eine positionsabhängige Suche für die Wortumgebung links (-1 = ein Wort links) und rechts (+1 = ein Wort rechts) durch und erhalten das dargestellte Ergebnis. Es wird deutlich, wie eine positionsabhängige Suche nach Kollokaten vor allem syntaktische Phänomene im Umfeld des ausgewählten Kandidaten beleuchtet. Eine positionsunabhängige Kollokatermittlung zeigt dagegen eher semantisch gewichtete Ergebnisse, wie in den ermittelten Kollokationen zum Nomen fish ‚Fisch’ zu sehen ist. Wie oben in 6.4.2 ausgeführt steht hinter dem Konzept der Kollokation die Hypothese, dass Bedeutung und Grammatik eines Wortes in der jeweilig aktuellen Wortumgebung evident werden. Es wäre wünschenswert, dass sich dieser korpuslinguistische Ansatz mithilfe des EYDES-Labors auch bei der Exploration des Jiddischarchivs als fruchtbar erweisen kann.

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Verbalform zum Ausdruck habitueller Vergangenheit und wortverwandt mit deutschem pflegt.

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Abbildung 6-20: Kollokationsanalysen mit eher syntaktischer oder eher semantischer Ausrichtung

7 Weiterentwicklung Wir beobachten mit Genugtuung, wie stark EYDES frequentiert wird. Ein beachtlicher Anteil der Archivdaten wird auf heimische PCs transferiert. Überschlagsweise ist der Ton des Archivs inzwischen schon mehr als verfünffacht worden – nicht an einem Ort, sondern weltweit verstreut. Entgegen der vielerorts üblichen Handhabung von Archivalien ist eine solche Verbreitung ganz in unserem Sinn. Wir sind überzeugt, dass für das Archiv Mehrwert zustande kommt, indem EYDES strukturierten Zugriff auf die Archivinhalte erlaubt und Explorationsmethoden mitliefert. Durch eine

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weitgespannte Distribution der Archivartefakte wird dieser Mehrwert nicht geschmälert sondern intensiviert. Wie die New Yorker Columbia-Universität als Eignerin des Originalarchivs setzen auch wir dabei als selbstverständlich voraus, dass die für Publikationen verwendeten Archivdaten gemäß wissenschaftlicher Gepflogenheiten ausgewiesen werden. Wir möchten das intensive Interesse der Benutzer auch zukünftig befördern und sehen weitere Entwicklungen in mehrfacher Richtung vor: Einbindung des Repositoriums in eine dem Englischen angepasste Benutzeroberfläche Einrichtung einer steten Fehlerbehebung: −

Fehlerhafte Transkriptionen sollen berichtigt werden.

−

Die fehlerhafte Verbindung von Indexen und Tonsequenzen ist zu korrigieren.

−

Fehlerhaftes Alignment, das heißt die fehlerhafte Zuweisung von Interviewsequenzen (Anfänge, Schlussstücke) zum Ton ist zu korrigieren, wo immer sie bei der Benutzung entdeckt wird.

Erweiterungen: −

Weitere Techniken zur kartographischen Darstellung sollen integriert werden.

−

Das statistische Labor ist zu erweitern um die Orte bzw. Interviewaufnahmen, von denen neue Transkripte vorliegen.

−

Die im Labor bisher unterstützte Testreihenfolge soll erweitert werden, da sie nur unzureichend der Zweidimensionalität des geographischen Raums angepasst ist. Die Programmierung bereits vorliegender Konzepte darüber, wie die Eigenschaften des zweidimensionalen geographischen Raums in die Samplebildung und Bildung der Testreihenfolgen einbezogen werden können, war bis dato ein Finanzierungsproblem.

−

Komplementär zu den vorhandenen Wortlisten streben wir die Darbietung von Listen mit Wortkontext an.

−

Darüber hinaus beabsichtigen wir, EYDES dialogfähig zu machen. Nutzergetriebene Daten sollen Teil des Archivs werden, indem die

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Benutzer Zusatzinformation und eigene Bearbeitungen der Archivinhalte, Bewertungen, Interpretationen, Transkriptionen etc., in das Repositorium überführen. Die auf diesem Weg angestrebte Teilhabe und Diskussion wäre sowohl auf akademisch-wissenschaftlicher Ebene wie auf eher populärem, den Anforderungen des Kulturbetriebs zugeneigten Sektor wünschenswert und ein Beitrag zur Transparenz und Demokratisierung von Wissenschaft und Kultur. Informatisch-linguistisch gesehen ist EYDES für eine solche Entwicklung vorbereitet und der Förderverein ist willens, sie zu befördern.

Bibliographie Dialektologie 1982/1983 Ein Handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialektforschung, Werner Besch/ Ulrich Knoop/ Wolfgang Putschke/ Herbert Ernst Wiegand (Hgg.), 2 Halbbände, Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter). Israel National Commission for UNESCO Final Report, Jerusalem 1990: 21-22. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 1996 Coming of Age in the Thirties: Max Weinreich, Edward Sapir, and Jewish Social Science. In: YIVO Annual 23, Deborah Dash Moore (ed.), 1-103. Knoop, Ulrich 1982 Das Interesse an den Mundarten und die Grundlegung der Dialektologie. In: Dialektologie, 1. Halbband, 1–23. Labov, William 2006 Interview with William Labov. Matthew J. Gordon (interviewer and transcriber). In: Journal of English Linguistics 34/4, December 2006, Sage Publications, http://eng.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/34/4/332. Labov, William, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg 2006 Atlas of North American English. Phonology and Sound Change, Berlin/New York (Mouton de Gruyter). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). McEnery, Tony/Andrew Wilson 2005 (=2001) Corpus Linguistics. 2nd edition (reprint), Edinburgh (Edinburgh University Press).

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Putschke, Wolfgang/Robert Neumann 1982 Automatische Sprachkartographie. In: Dialektologie, 1. Halbband, 749-778. Putschke, Wolfgang/Robert Neumann 1989 Atlas Linguarum Europae (ALE). Aus der Sicht der automatischen Kartierung. In: Sprachatlanten des Deutschen, Laufende Projekte, Werner H. Veith/Wolfgang Putschke (Hgg.), Tübingen, 15–77. Reiffenstein, Ingo 1982 Das phonetische Beschreibungsprinzip als Ergebnis junggrammatischer und dialektologischer Forschungsarbeiten. In: Dialektologie, 1. Halbband, 23–38. Rieger, Burghard 2002 Bedeutungskonstitution und semantische Granaluation. In: Inge Pohl (Hg.), Prozesse der Bedeutungskonstruktion. (Sprache, System und Tätigkeit 40), Frankfurt/Berlin/Bern/ Paris (Peter Lang), 407-444. Schiefer, Lieselotte und Bernd Pompino-Marschall 1996 Phonetische Transkription. In: Hartmut Günther/Otto Ludwig (Hgg), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung, 2. Halbband, Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter), 1583-1591. Quantitative Linguistik / Quantitative Linguistics 2005 Ein internationales Handbuch / An International Handbook. Reinhard Köhler/Gabriel Altmann/Rajmund G. Piotrowski (Hgg.), Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter). Sampson, Geoffrey/Diana McCarthy 2005 (=2004) Corpus Linguistics. Readings in a Widening Discipline (reprint), London (Continuum). Steiner, Erich 1983 Die Entwicklung des britischen Kontextualismus. (Diss.) Heidelberg (Julius Groos). Weinreich, Max 1923 Shtaplen. Fir etiudn tsu der yidisher shprakhvisnshaft un literaturgeshikhte[!], Berlin (Wostok). Weinreich, Uriel 1960 Vegn a nayem yidishn shprakh- un kultur-atlas. In: Di goldene keyt 37: 47–57. Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Machine Aids in the Compilation of Linguistic Atlases. In: Year Book of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 622 – 625. Weinreich, Uriel 1954 Is a Structural Dialectology Possible? In: Word 10: 388-400. Weinreich, Uriel/Marvin Herzog/William Labov 1968 Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. In: W.P. Lehmann/ Yakov Malkiel (eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics, A Symposium, Austin/London (University of Texas Press), 95-195. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1970 (1958) Philosophische Untersuchungen. G. E. M. Anscombe/R. Rhees (Hgg.), Frankfurt a.M. (Suhrkamp). Übersetzung durch G. E. M. Anscombe der englischen Ausgabe von 1958, Oxford (Basil Blackwell).

William Labov

Is a Structural Dialectology Practical? Re-deploying Weinreich’s Approach to Diasystems

In the series of papers written before his death in 1967, Uriel Weinreich formulated the major questions on the intersection of linguistics and dialect geography: what are the causes of linguistic divergence? what determines the expansion, contraction or stability of boundaries between dialects? How do the interrelations of linguistic structure affect the transmission and diffusion of linguistic change? (Weinreich 1954, 1958, 1963; Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968). To understand better the implications of Weinreich’s contribution to my own work, I have been re-reading my student notes from the course Linguistics 212: Yiddish Dialectology, taught by Weinreich in the fall of 1960 at Columbia University. The course included a wide range of information on the distinguishing features of Yiddish dialects, set in a structuralist perspective. In many ways, the course was an expanded development of Weinreich’s “Is a Structural Dialectology Possible” published in Word six years earlier (1954). The structuralist point of view has also guided the completion of the major project that Weinreich initiated. The LCAAJ has not neglected this aspect of Weinreich’s contribution to dialectology: Weinreich’s unpublished notes are summarized and fully referenced in the introduction to Volume I as OYDD. The description of the various vowel systems of Central Yiddish, Northeastern Yiddish, Southeastern Yiddish, etc., maintains the structuralist orientation of Martinet 1952, 1955 and Weinreich 1954. There is, however, one feature of Weinreich’s 1954 contribution that does not seem to be represented in the LCAAJ, and that is the construction of diasystems showing commonalities and differences among dialects. Among the examples he constructs is the juxtaposition of a system 1 with three front vowels and a similar system 2

William Labov

218 with four:1 (1)

1,2

/i ~ e ~ æ/ ≈a ≈o 2 /i ~ e ~ ε ~ æ/ 1

Here the double tilde indicates oppositions that are common to both systems, and the single tilde oppositions that are unique to each. Weinreich is tentative on the schema used here. He might not object to identifying the high front and low front vowels in each system in the style of (2), and restrict the differences in opposition to the front mid vowels. (2)

1,2

i≈

/e / ≈æ≈a≈o 2 /e ~ ε / 1

As a matter of fact, this is what has happened with Swedish vowels, where dialects differ in the number of front short vowels. Those with three members correspond to those with four members in just the fashion shown in (2): the Stockholm dialect has a merged mid category that corresponds to the upper mid and lower mid vowels of Northern dialects (Janson and Schulman 1983). The main point that Weinreich stresses is that structural oppositions must be foregrounded. One thing is certain: In the study of language contact and interference . . . a clear picture of differences in inventory is a prerequisite. Weinreich 1954: 394.

In proposing the diasystem notation, Weinreich pointed out that other efforts to enlarge dialect descriptions to a “pan-dialectal” level lose the central theme of structural identity or difference. In particular, the Trager and Smith (1957) notation could be seen as a transcriptional arsenal of terms which could mask structural identity. Thus Midland English /æw/ would be the Trager and Smith notation for the vowel of house in the Midland, which is structurally equivalent to /aw/ in the North. A map that ————— 1

I have modified Weinreich’s technique of indicating diasystems with large double slashes in favor of the large angled brackets employed in Microsoft Word’s Equation Editor.

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shows the distribution of [æw] and [aw] is of course revealing and important, but a structural dialectology will also show that these two areas are in another sense ‘the same.’ Given this criticism of the T&S approach, Weinreich was hopeful enough to say that “the remaining step towards the establishment of a phonemic diasystem is not difficult to visualize” (1954: 395). To what extent does the LCAAJ carry us along this road? Though the LCAAJ does not make explicit use of the diasystem notation, an overview of the relations of five dialects is provided in Table 3 of Volume 1 (reproduced below as Figure 1; WY = Western Yiddish; NEY = Northeastern Yiddish; Co = Courland; SEY = Southeastern Yiddish; CY = Central Yiddish).

Figure 1: Realization of Proto-Vowels (LCAAJ I: 31, Table 3)

The table compares the modern realizations of four ProtoYiddish vowels. It makes it evident that Weinreich’s diasystem notation is not designed for comparison of an array of this size, so much as for a pair-wise comparison. If we focus on the relations above of the three largest dialects, NEY, SEY, CY, a set of three diasystemic statements would appear as in (3)2. The ————— 2

As important as the Western Yiddish data is for the reconstruction of Yiddish, the loss of Yiddish in the intervening area of Germany means that we cannot study the boundary between WY and other dialects, and the main employment of diasystem notation to be developed here is on the study of boundary conditions.

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distinction between E2,3 and E4, and O2,3 and O4 (based on original length in ProtoYiddish) is not relevant in comparing these three dialects, so we can simply combine the first and second as “E”, and third and fourth columns as “O”. (3)

a)

b)

c)

SEY / CY

eyE ≈ oyO ayE

NEY / SEY

ey E ,O ey E ~ oyO

NEY / CY

ey E,O ay E ~ oyO

The diasystem notation of (3) suggests that there are two different types of relations involved here. SE and CY differ in only the realization of the front long vowels, but share development of the back long vowels. On the other hand, NEY has a more complex relation to both SEY and CY, since neither front nor back long vowels can be identified as ‘the same’. The merger of E and O in NEY means that from a structural point of view, there is no equivalence. The notation of (3) shows two degrees of structural differentiation: NEY is maximally different from CY in the reflexes of the long mid vowels since its /ey/ is to be identified with neither of the CY phonemes /ay/ and /oy/. On the other hand, SEY here differs from CY only in the phonetic position of the nucleus of E2,3 and E4, and (3a) might well be rewritten as (4), indicating structural equivalence of these two dialects. (4)

SEY / CY

ey /ayE ≈ oyO

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The matter of structural equivalence assumes considerable importance as we begin to focus on the boundary area, and the possibility of diffusion of one dialect pattern into the area of the other. Trudgill’s gravity model predicted the influence of one city on another as proportional to their populations and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, (1974) but was also forced to incorporate a structural factor indicating degrees of compatibility. However, this factor has not been specified beyond its mere existence. The most general factor operating proceeds from the principle that mergers cannot be reversed by linguistic means. The geographic corollary, best illustrated by Herzog’s (1965) study of Yiddish in Northern Poland is given as (5): (5) Herzog’s Corollary: Mergers expand at the expense of distinctions. Thus the situation shown in (2) is most likely to be accompanied by the expansion of dialect 1 into the area of dialect 2. The expansion of mergers is based upon the fundamental principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. To reverse a merger requires learning a whole new vocabulary, and reentering each word with a new underlying form. It is not yet clear what the mechanism is for the acquisition of a new merger, but it involves no such word-by-word re-learning. The likelihood of the expansion of individual sound changes will vary according to whether or not they are aligned in the direction of change in progress (Labov, Yaeger & Steiner 1972, Labov 1994). Thus if we were able to examine the boundary between SEY and CY represented by (3a), we might be able to observe the continued lowering of /ey/ to /ay/ that is part of the history of Yiddish.3 As we have seen, the clearest and most useful form of the diasystem notation is to show differences in inventory for two neighboring dialects, and so make inferences about the possible progress of sound change along this border. Given the fact that only a few Western Yiddish communities could be studied in situ, and the limited age range of the LCAAJ informants, there is little direct evidence of change in progress in the data. ————— 3

See Labov 1994 for the exceptional position of Yiddish among Germanic dialects, where the diphthongization and lowering of MHG i: to /ay/ did not involve the /ey/ diphthong. The explanation put forward is that Yiddish /ey/ had a peripheral rather than a nonperipheral nucleus. But as LCAAJ I Table 3 shows, the shift of /ey/ to /ay/ is not uncharacteristic of Yiddish.

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Since I have never achieved the control of the data that would allow me to pursue the issues that Weinreich first raised in Yiddish dialectology, I would like to follow up on these questions with recent data from the Atlas of North American English [Labov, Ash and Boberg 2006, henceforth ANAE]. Here we have enough age differentiation to detect change in apparent time, and for some areas, real time evidence to confirm the indications of change in progress.

Mergers and chain shifts in North America The overall pattern for the North American vowel system used by ANAE is closer to that of Bloch and Trager than the Trager and Smith configuration criticized by Weinreich. As displayed in (6), it has less time depth than the LCAAJ notation, since it is based on the initial position at the time of the settlement of North America. (6) Initial position of North American vowels in ANAE. Short Front upgliding V high mid low

front i e æ

back u ^ o

front iy ey

Vy back

ay

Long Back upgliding front iw

Vw back uw ow aw

Long and ingliding front

Vh back oh

ah

This vowel inventory is disrupted by an unconditioned merger in roughly one half of North American dialects: the low back merger of /o/ and /oh/ in cot and caught, Don and dawn, collar and caller, etc. This merger is dominant in Canada, the West, Eastern New England and Western Pennsylvania (ANAE Ch. 9). The boundary between merged and unmerged areas might appear as the diasystem (7), embracing Canada and the Inland North:

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Is a structural dialectology practical? (7)

CA,IN

i ≈ e ≈ æ ≈^≈ u ≈

/oh /o,oh /o / ~ /oh /

(7) does not show all the vowels of the diasystem, but only the set of five short vowels before the last item. The merger in question is the result of the shift shown as (8): the checked short vowel /o/ moves from the set of six short vowels to the set of long and ingliding vowels (which for most dialects consists primarily of /oh/ in caught, law, etc. and /ah/ in father, pa, taco, etc.). We know that the merged phoneme /oh/ is a member of the long and ingliding system since it has members in both checked and free position, while the short vowel system can have only checked vowels. (8) Shift i e æ

u ^ o

iy ey

iw ay

uw ow aw

oh ah

The diasystem (7) might be elaborated to show this history as (9), in which the directionality of the merger is added. (9)

CA,IN

i ≈e ≈æ ≈

/o → oh / /o / ~ /oh /

A structural analysis must predict the possible consequences of the movement across subsystems shown in (8), which disturbs the equilibrium of the short vowel systems in creating a case vide in low back position (Martinet 1955). In fact, this is what has happened in many areas of North America in response to the low back merger. In Canada, the low front vowel /æ/ has responded to this hole in the pattern by shifting to the back. and /e/ has followed behind, shifting down and back (Clarke et al. 1995, ANAE Ch. 15). This chain shift is suggested in the modification of (9) that appears as (10).

William Labov

224 (10)

CA,IN

i≈

[ε]e /e /

≈

[a]æ /æ/

≈

/oh /o,oh /o / ~ /oh /

These phonetic details, indicated in square brackets, have no place in a purely structural diagram. Yet they underline the main point of the diasystem, which is that the mismatch of categories is not confined to the merger alone. The net effect of the phonetic shifts of (10) might be trivial if it were not for the development in the Inland North of the Northern Cities Shift, a rotation of the short vowels that removes the vowel system of the Inland North considerably further from that of Canada. The first three stages of the Northern Cities Shift are shown as (11). We observe the unrounding and front shifting of /o/, along with the extreme fronting and raising of /æ/ to become an upper mid ingliding vowel. (11) The Northern Cities Shift: stages 1-3.

The alignment of Canada and the Inland North will then appear in the diasystem notation of (12). Instead of the opposition of one low back vowel against two, as in the right hand member of (10), we see a systematic mismatching of two sets of vocabulary items which share the same sound but share no lexical membership at all. (12)

CA,IN

i≈

/eh /æ

≈

/a /æ /oh /o,oh ≈ /a /o /oh /

225

Is a structural dialectology practical?

While Inland North short-o is fronted to match the Canada short-a class, the Inland North short-a is further fronted to become an upper mid ingliding vowel /eh/, which does not correspond to any Canadian phoneme.4 The diasystemic display of (12) indicates a minimal tendency for one or the other of these systems to expand into the territory of the other. This in turn feeds into a Diffusion Hierarchy which has emerged from our studies of linguistic boundaries in North America: (13) Least easily diffused Chain shift Split

Single sound change

most easily diffused Lexical change

Merger

The position of mergers at the high end of the diffusion hierarchy has been well supported by many empirical studies beyond Herzog’s demonstration in Northern Poland (1965). ANAE shows the steady expansion of many mergers beyond the level shown in the Linguistic Atlas records fifty years earlier (Kurath and McDavid 1961): the merger of /w/ and /hw/ in witch and which; of /iw/ and /uw/ in dew and do; of /i/ and /e/ before nasals in pin and pen; and the low back merger of /o/ and /oh/ discussed here. New mergers are appearing and expanding: the merger of /i/ and /iy/ before /l/ in fill and feel; of /u/ and /uw/ before /l/ in full and fool; and the merger of /i/ and /iy/ before intervocalic /r/ in mirror and nearer. The fact that many mergers do expand does not lead to the conclusion that all mergers will expand. On the contrary, the geographical juxtaposition of chain shifts with mergers as in (12) produces a stable situation with no indication of expansion of the merger. The stability of chain shifts indicated in (13) is strongly supported by the ANAE evidence. The opposition shown in (12) describes the situation in which the Canadian dialect of Windsor is located directly across the Detroit River from the Inland North dialect of Detroit. The calculations of the gravity model predict an enormous influence of the metropolis Detroit on the small city of Windsor, but no such influence is found (Boberg 2000). Last year I received a message from Mr. David Schultz, who had heard about the massive vowel rotations of the Inland North on a television ————— 4

Such vowels appear as allophones of /æ/ before nasal consonants for most Canadians, but in the Inland North, all words of the short-a class are in this position.

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William Labov

broadcast reporting ANAE results. He described the parallel situation in the relations between the major city of Buffalo New York and his home town in Canada. I grew up in the town of Fort Erie, Ontario . . . just across the Niagara River from Buffalo. I've always been intrigued by the fact that there could be such a dramatic difference in the accent between two communities that were so closely linked. In many ways, Fort Erie is a suburb of Buffalo and the border has always been a minor inconvenience to movement back and forth between the two communities. Most importantly, in the pre-cable TV era (when I grew up), virtually all of our television came from Buffalo. During the summertime, many thousands of Buffalo-area people would take up residence in the cottage communities of Fort Erie (Crystal Beach, Crescent Park, etc). In some parts of the Fort Erie area, the American population far exceeded the number of native Canadians, in some cases by ratios of 5-1 or maybe even 10-1. But, surrounded as we were by all of these constantly shifting vowels, the “Buffalo accent” never seemed to be able to make it across the border.

This is indeed what the ANAE maps show. There is one case where the Northern Cities Shift has spread across the North-Midland boundary: the diffusion from Chicago to St. Louis along Route I-55. But close examination of the vowel systems along this corridor shows that this represents the borrowing of individual sound changes in an unsystematic manner, rather than the importation of the shift itself (Labov 2007).

The emergence of structural contrast The diasystemic notation is essentially bound by contrast. Like phonemic notation generally, it is conservative: it uses the minimum number of symbols needed to express the contrasts being made in a given dialect. Fine phonetic distinctions like that in (10) are to be avoided. Thus a distinction between /aw/ and /æw/ is generally below the level of diasystemic notation, even though this phonetic distinction serves very well to divide all North American dialects into two groups.5 It is therefore illuminating to discover a situation where such a distinction is forced upon us. In the dialect region of the South, the nuclei of short-o and long open-o occupy identical positions in phonological space. The distinction between these two phonemes is in the development of a back upglide. Thus cot is ————— 5

More precisely, the Northern dialects can be defined as those in which the nucleus of /aw/ is backer than that of /ay/.

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phonetically [kǘt] and caught is [kǘot], which would require phonemically a distinction between /kot/ and /ǚwt/, since /ow/ is occupied by the phoneme of go, boat, road, etc. (ANAE 18: 254). This is the only contrast in the modern system which requires an /ǚ/ nucleus opposed to /o/, a nucleus not present in the initial position (6). This complex situation is, however, not a stable one. There is a strong tendency for the nucleus of this vowel to become unrounded, so that the vowel of caught might best be noted as /kawt/. The /aw/ notation is however used for the back upgliding vowel in now and south. Given this situation, the fact that now and south are phonetically fronted to [nİ:o] and [sæoԦ] provides a phonemic motivation for the rewriting of this vowel as /æw/ instead of /aw/. In the Midland, initial position /aw/ is as strongly fronted as in the South (Map 12.3).6 However, there is no contrast with a back upgliding vowel in the initial /oh/ category, and no phonemic motivation to rewrite that /aw/ as /æw/. We thus have the diasystemic contrast of (14), comparing Midland [M] and South [S]. Here the subscripts indicate that the different phonemic notations identify the same lexical classes.

(14)

M ,S

uw ≈ ow ≈

/aw / /oh / ≈ /æ w /aw /aw /oh

This contrast of Midland and South is quite different from that of Canada and the Inland North in (11), where the incompatibility of the two systems is evident. If we consider diasystemic notation as a way of estimating the permeability or stability of boundaries, (13) indicates a one-on-one mapping that would favor expansion of one or the other. In fact, various reports indicate a widespread tendency for the back upglide to be dropped, with a consequent extension of the Midland system into the South. This review of the applications of Weinreich’s diasystemic notation indicates that it is a practical and useful tool for comparing dialects in a pairwise fashion. It allows us to focus upon the nature of the boundary between two dialects and make predictions about future developments along that boundary. We are now engaged in testing such predictions by more ————— 6

In fact, Kansas City, Missouri shows the most extreme development in this respect.

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William Labov

fine-grained investigations of the North American boundary types discussed here.

References Boberg, Charles 2000 Geolinguistic Diffusion and the U.S.-Canada Border. In: Language Variation and Change 12: 1-24. Clarke, Sandra, Ford Elms and Amani Youssef 1995 The Third Dialect of English. Some Canadian Evidence. In: Language Variation and Change 7: 209-228. Herzog, Marvin I 1965 The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland. Its Geography and History, Bloomington/The Hague (Indiana University/Mouton). Janson, Tore and Richard Schulman 1983 Non-distinctive Features and Their Use. In: Journal of Linguistics 19: 321-336. Kurath, Hans and Raven I. McDavid, Jr. 1961 The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States. Ann Arbor (University of Michigan Press). Labov, William 1994 Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume I: Internal Factors, Oxford (Basil Blackwell). Labov, William 2007 Transmission and Diffusion. In: Language 83: 344-387. Labov, William, Malcah Yaeger and Richard Steiner 1972 A Quantitative Study of Sound Change in Progress. Philadelphia (U. S. Regional Survey). Labov, William, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg 2006 Atlas of North American English. Phonology and Sound Change, Berlin/New York (Mouton de Gruyter). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Martinet, André 1955 Economie des changements phonétiques. Berne (Francke). Trager, George L. and Henry Lee Smith Jr. 1957 An Outline of English Structure. Washington, DC (American Council of Learned Societies).

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Trudgill, Peter 1974 Linguistic Change and Diffusion. Description and Explanation in Sociolinguistic Dialect Geography. In: Language in Society 3: 215-246. Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov and Marvin Herzog 1968 Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. In: W.P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics, A Symposium, Austin/London (University of Texas Press), 95-195. Weinreich, Uriel 1954 Is a Structural Dialectology Possible? In: Word 10: 388-400. Weinreich, Uriel 1958 A Retrograde Sound Shift in the Guise of a Survival. An Aspect of Yiddish Vowel Development. In: Miscelánea homenaje a André Martinet, Estructuralismo e historia, T. II, Editada por Diego Catalan, Biblioteca Filologica, Universidad de La Laguna, 221-267. Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Four Riddles in Bilingual Dialectology. In: American Contributions to the Fifth International Congress of Slavists, Sofia. The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 335-359.

Steven M. Lowenstein

The Language and Culture Atlas - Reminiscence and Reflections

My coming to the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ), which probably was the decisive factor in the rest of my professional life, came about because of a series of co-incidences, which a traditionalist might interpret as “the reward for observing the Sabbath.” In the fall of 1963 when I was not yet 19 years old, I was in Prof. Adolf Leschnitzer’s class in German literature at City College of New York (CCNY). Most of the students in the class, like me, were the children of German Jewish refugees who had settled in the German Jewish neighborhood of Washington Heights1 just before World War II. Prof. Leschnitzer was also a refugee from Nazi Germany. At the end of the semester he invited the class to his home for a Friday evening party, which I didn’t attend because I was a Sabbath-observer. He asked my classmates why I hadn’t come and they explained the reason. The following day in class, he invited me to his house alone for a discussion and refreshments. I remember sitting and talking for hours. At the end, he asked me “how would you like to work on a project about Yiddish?” Prof. Leschnitzer’s colleague at CCNY was Prof. Max Weinreich, whose son Uriel was the director of the Language and Culture Atlas. At the time I knew nothing about Yiddish and wasn’t quite sure what was wanted of me, but I went to be interviewed by Max Weinreich who then sent me for a second interview with Uriel Weinreich and Mikhl Herzog at Philosophy Hall on the Columbia University campus. It was a cold day in February 1964 and I remember Prof. Herzog sitting in his winter coat during the interview. I soon found out that the reason I had been “chosen” was because I came from the Orthodox German Jewish community of Washington Heights and was descended from South German village Jews. Weinreich and Herzog presumed that if remnants of Western Yiddish were still to be found among ————— 1

The northernmost section of the borough of Manhattan [editors' note].

Steven M. Lowenstein

232

German Jews, they would appear among immigrants from South German villages. They asked me to find informants and to interview them using the new Western supplement to the Atlas questionnaire which they were devising. My first informant was my maternal grandmother and the second was my father. I then branched out to my parent’s friends and fellow congregants. Eventually the pool was expanded by advertising in the German-Jewish newspaper “Aufbau”2. Each interview took about two hours and was conducted in German (that is my school High German mixed with my family’s Jewish-tinged Franconian dialect). I worked on interviewing after school and on weekends for about two years. I remember schlepping around the 20 pound (or so it felt) Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder. I also remember frequently walking the mile from the CCNY to the Columbia campus. My parents’ apartment had shelves full of empty tape reels. When I graduated from CCNY in 1966 my brother Marvin took over the interviewing from me. The early years of work at the Atlas were a huge learning experience for me. I learned that there was such a thing as Western Yiddish. I learned some of the outlines of linguistics and dialectology which Marvin Herzog patiently explained to me. I became skilled at German geography and learned how to transcribe interviews using the IPA-based Atlas coding system3 rather than the home-made English-based phonetic system I had originally used. I remember Uriel Weinreich listening to my first interview with my grandmother and remarking with great interest that she pronounced Synagoge /sinago:x/. When I repeated this observation to my family they replied with the German proverb “Er hört Gras wachsen” (he can hear the grass grow, i.e. he hears what’s not there). I became aware of many aspects of the way my family spoke that I had not been aware of. To my surprise, and I suspect to the surprise of Uriel Weinreich and Mikhl Herzog, many informants remembered a great deal. I remember once mapping the results of a number of interviews on a few maps and hearing Uriel Weinreich’s delighted remark “who could believe that after so many years we can still map such clear patterns.” It was remarkable to me that these two professors didn’t treat me like the little boy I was, but included me in their deliberations and trusted my interviews. In May 1965 I was invited to give a ————— 2

3

Founded in 1934 and published in New York City; from 2005 onward it is published in Zurich [editors’ note]. A proprietary coding format created for later automatic data processing [editors’ note].

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paper at the Yiddish Dialectology conference at Columbia and YIVO on the preliminary findings of the Atlas among German Jews. This article eventually appeared 1969 in revised form in Field of Yiddish III4. It is my first publication. After finishing my graduate school classes (while working on my thesis on French Huguenots in the 17th century), I returned to work for the Atlas full-time at its office in an apartment at 560 Riverside Drive, the high rise faculty apartment building overlooking the Hudson River. My work at the Atlas during this second period of employment (from 1968 to 1972) involved editing and evaluating, much more than interviewing. Although the Atlas pioneered in the use of computers to sort the information from each interview by question,5 we drew all the maps by hand. The computer work involved a woman who worked as a card puncher laboriously typing the answers from the questionnaires onto computer cards. The many boxes of cards were processed by a computer programmer whose name was John Margolf who periodically appeared with boxes of cards containing his program. The results were then sorted by question and made available on oversize-format printouts.6 A fascinating and changing staff of fellow editors, transcribers and commentators worked at the Atlas at the time. Mordkhe Schaechter who insisted on speaking Yiddish to me eventually got me to become a fluent speaker of standard Yiddish. Vita Ravid, an Israeli woman with a British accent, worked on population data to accompany the Atlas. Graduate students like Jim Haynes, Meyer Wolf and Eugene Green worked on Atlas material for various periods. (I later met up with Meyer Wolf again when we belonged to the same synagogue in Los Angeles). Probably most unforgettable was Vera Lockwood, the vivacious miniskirted daughter of a British linguist who had himself written about Yiddish.7 Her strong powers of analysis, calligraphic handwriting and knowledge of linguistics helped correct and reinterpret the sloppy maps I drew of the Western Yiddish material and what we began to call the PanAshkenazic continuum. Vera later married Praveen Baviskar, an Indian born pharmacist, whom I met again many years later, long after Vera’s ————— 4 5 6

7

Cf. Lowenstein 1969. See U. Weinreich 1963. The various “Printouts” of the first stages of LCAAJ data processing can be consulted at the archive collection of the Columbia University Libraries [editors’note]. William Burley Lockwood; 1995 he published his “Lehrbuch der modernen jiddischen Sprache. Hamburg (Buske) [editors’ note].

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tragic early death in 1987. Tragedy seemed to dog many of those involved in the study of Yiddish in those years. Uriel Weinreich’s death from cancer at the age of 40 was a great blow to the project as was the death a few years later of Shmuel Lapin, the 43 year old director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. I worked mainly on the material collected, by myself and my brother, from interviews of Jews in Germany, Austria and the present-day Czech Republic. Although the amount of useful linguistic and cultural evidence which had survived into the 20th century exceeded everyone’s expectations, the western material presented many more difficulties than were presented by the more straightforward interviews with Jews speaking Eastern European Yiddish. Except for the Alsatian Jews interviewed by Richard Zuckerman in the early 1960s, and a few Dutch informants interviewed in Israel by Uriel Weinreich, none of our informants had a conscious sense of speaking Yiddish. All considered themselves to be German-speaking (except one or two whose main language was Czech), and there was great variation in the degree to which their speech was influenced by local German dialects or by old Jewish linguistic habits. Some of our interviewees were highly assimilated and had extensive education in German secondary schools and universities. Many of these spoke only "High" (Standard) German and knew relatively little about Jewish holiday customs, folk practices or words of Hebrew or Yiddish origin. Interviewees from small towns, especially if they were from religiously traditional families or had been in the cattle business (whose participants had their own Jewish trade jargon) often had a wealth of knowledge about folk traditions and vocabulary. Some, but not very many, also spoke German with traces of the old Western Yiddish pronunciation. Certainly none of them spoke the kind of “full” Western Yiddish still found among interviewees from Alsace and Western Hungary for whom the full atlas questionnaire had been used (administered often–in part or not– in languages other than Yiddish, like French, Dutch or Hungarian) Analysis of what the “German-speaking” informants told us, and presenting them in map form, raised many difficult issues. I remember comparing the analysis to archeology, since the remnants of Yiddish were often “buried” among German materials (both standard and dialectal) which appeared on the surface. In part we were trying to reconstruct an earlier period (before the lifetime of most of our informants) when a “fuller” form of Yiddish had been spoken in the various German-speaking lands. We

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usually had to reconstruct the former pronunciation of Western Yiddish from the mainly Hebrew-origin words that survived, since the Yiddish pronunciation of words of German origin had mostly been suppressed by the time our informants were born. It was easier to find “reliable” informants from some regions (like South Germany and Posen) than from others. Differences of secular education and religious traditionalism among the informants often had as great an effect as geographic variety on the information that we could cull from the interviews. The fact that a particular trait was absent might indicate the absence of traditionalist informants more than the absence of the trait in an earlier period. I often wish I had known as much about Yiddish dialects and linguistics and about German-Jewish settlement patterns then, as I do now. Listening to the interviews I conducted makes me embarrassed about my German pronunciation and grammar. Although Uriel Weinreich constructed his western questionnaire based on written evidence in earlier publications,8 we often did not “know what we were looking for” in as precise a way as did those investigators exploring Eastern European Yiddish. Were we looking for as many new “Jewish expressions” as possible or were we looking for pronunciation variation in a smaller number of expressions? Were we interested in the degree to which our informants had adjusted to Standard German and local German dialects or were we only interested in eliciting responses that deviated from German? What exactly was a “Jewish” or a “Yiddish” expression within the speech of our informants? Only a word of Hebrew origin, or also a word of German origin with a Jewish nuance in pronunciation or meaning? It took me a long time to realize that not every deviation from Standard German was Yiddish. How does one differentiate the influence of local “Christian” dialects from “authentic” remnants of Yiddish? How much did the patterns we seemed to find represent idiosyncrasies of our informants and how many were authentically “geographic”? Would that it were possible to go back to informants today with the knowledge gained in the meantime! But of course, by now, there are no surviving informants who remember even a small fraction of what informants still remembered in the 1960s. ————— 8

There actually are two parts to the questionnaire for Western Yiddish: The Western Questionnaire and The Ethnographic Supplement; both are published in LCAAJ II, 1995: *77-*87 [editors’ note].

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In drawing the maps and commenting on them, we were faced with issues of presentation and authenticity. I felt strongly that (at least for the lesser known Western materials, but probably for all) it is vital to document every location for which information is available with a symbol. Maps on which lines are drawn and in which only exceptional locations are marked with a symbol often project clarity which is not present in the original. A related question was what to mark on the map. How should we distinguish spontaneous answers from answers which had to be elicited by direct prompting, sometimes with considerable difficulty? This was a special problem, because many of our informants rarely were able to answer without prompting. Then there were answers which did not seem “authentic.” Since Western Ashkenazic culture was such a small minority of the American Jewish way of life, our informants were often influenced by Eastern European Yiddish. How was one to decide if an answer of “parve” or “davenen” (instead of expected Western “minich” and “orn”) was an inauthentic answer learned in America, or an authentic datum of local pronunciation? Should we reject the “inauthentic” answers based on what we “knew” from literature, especially if further questioning could not shake the informant’s belief that one had used the EY term in Europe? What did we do with responses that said an expression or practice was “rare” in the locality? When I drew maps, I often needed to express these issues through notes in the margin while mapping the most “plausible” response we had received. Because there was so little previous knowledge of what the geographic patterns should be, we had less guidance in judging the authenticity of the patterns we found in our informants’ answers. Given all these caveats it is remarkable, that many questions (though certainly not all) received mappable responses. It is only now that I realize how much German Jewish settlement patterns affect the kinds of geographic configurations within Western Ashkenazic Jewry. First of all, the Jewish population was much more thinly spread in Germany than in Eastern Europe. Until the 19th century many areas of Germany had hardly any Jewish population. This was true of a large swath of territory on both sides of the Elbe River stretching from the North Sea to the Czech border and then continuing in eastern and southern Bavaria. There were only scattered (though sometimes important) Jewish communities (such as Dessau, Hamburg, Halberstadt, Dresden) in this area of low Jewish population. Many German cities were settled by Jews at a very late time (after 1800) including such major communities as

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Nuremberg, Cologne, Munich, and Leipzig. Our choice of informants would probably have been better had we avoided the newer communities which were settled after the “demise” of Western Yiddish (like Leipzig, Munich and Nuremberg) and the regions with very sparse Jewish population (such as the area near the Elbe in Prussia and Saxony, rural Austria outside Burgenland, or the eastern section of Bavaria) and had concentrated on thicker coverage of areas with heavier (and older) Jewish populations. As it is, our geographic coverage of the “German-speaking” area is somewhat random and haphazard and certainly less dense than the Atlas’ coverage of Eastern Europe. I hope the time will come when I will be able to return to active work on the results collected by the Atlas in Germany and neighboring lands. There is much material that needs to be analyzed. Although there is little evidence about syntax or morphology, there is very rich data on the lexicon, on folk practices and on aspects of the phonology of Western Ashkenaz (see the Western Yiddish Questionnaires in LCAAJ II: *77-*87 or www.eydes.de, Fragebuch/ Questionnaire, Frage/Question 221.010 (3225) –Frage/Question 247.103060 (3840)). One feature which particularly interests me right now is Western Yiddish phonology. Although Dovid Katz’ pioneering work on Yiddish dialects9 includes much valuable material on the pronunciation of Western Yiddish dialects, there has been too much application of general rules and too little analysis of the many exceptions which may call some of the rules into question. I have also had increasing doubts about how well Max Weinreich’s pathbreaking system of proto-vowels applies to Yiddish west of the Elbe. I would like to use as my example the middle vowels as pronounced in southern German Jewish speech. (Some examples of this phenomenon can be found, for instance, in Richard Zuckerman 1969, esp. sections 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12). Most of my examples are words of Hebrew origin since we have little evidence on the German-origin pronunciation. The proto-vowels 12/1310 have already been recognized by Max Weinreich (1973, vol. II, chapter 9, especially sections 178.1, 179.1, and vol. IV: 175,) as differing from each other in some Western Yiddish, with originally medieval long a pronounced o:/u: (as in šo:f, jo:r; no:x; standard Yiddish sheps ‘sheep’, yor ‘year’, nokh ‘after’) and medieval short ————— 9 10

See e.g. Katz 1979; 1983. The system of Yiddish proto-vowels is described in LCAAJ I: 11–12 [editors’ note].

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a which has been lengthened still pronounced a: (za:gn ‘to say’, ta:g ‘day’; Standard Yiddish zogn, tog). Such Hebrew-origin examples as ra:f, a:f, ka:l (Standard Yiddish rov ‘rabbi’, ov ‘(the month)’, kol ‘Jewish community’ (Hebrew kahal) could be made to fit into this system. But, it turns out, in Western Yiddish, the vowel situation is more complicated. In fact some words with vowel 12 vary between o: and u: in the Jewish dialects of Southern Germany, while others vary between ou/au and o:. (In general the first type of pronunciation refers to the Hessian-Rhineland area and the second to Franconia, with Alsace varying between the two). Examples of the first group include ro:še/ru:še ‘evil man, antisemite’, xo:xem/xu:xem ‘wise man’, ko:cn/ku:cn ‘rich man’, so:tn/su:tn ‘Satan’, raxmo:nes/ raxmu:nes ‘pity’, xo:sn/xu:sn ‘bridegroom’, lo:šn/lu:šn ‘language’. (Standard Yiddish roshe, khokhem, sotn, rakhmones, khosn, loshn (kotsn does not seem to be used as a synonym for gvir in Standard Yiddish). Examples of the second type include xaroute/xaro:te, koušer/ko:šer, ganouvem/gano:vem, šloufn/šlo:fn, jou/jo:, dou/do: (Standard Yiddish kharote ‘regret’, kosher ‘(ritually adequate)’, ganovim ‘thieves’, shlofn ‘to sleep’, yo ‘yes’, do ‘here’). Up to now I have not been able to establish the principle on which this split occurred. The vowel, in words of the second type, seems to have merged with vowel 42 as in toure/to:re “Torah’, mouše/mo:še “Moses’, moure/mo:re ‘fear’, mouce/mo:ce ‘(the piece of bread cut off to make a blessing)’ (Standard Yiddish toyre, Moyshe, moyre, moytse). In areas of South Germany where medial -g- is pronounced -x- we find such homonyms as /bro:xes/ (modern Hebrew berogez/parochet/ brachot, EY broygez ‘angry’/paroyches ‘cover of the Holy Ark’/brokhes ‘blessings’). Many words with vowel 12 are interpreted as vowel 42. According to Uriel Weinreich (1964) some dialects of Western Transcarpathian Yiddish take the Eastern Yiddish pronunciation of that vowel as in doj ‘here’, joj ‘yes’, mojn ‘poppy seeds’, šlojfn ‘to sleep’ (Standard Yiddish mon, shlofn). Developments in the opposite direction are rare. In Franconian Yiddish I can think of them only in words which have a Hebrew hey or ayin: xalemu:d (Hebrew xol ha mo’ed) ‘(the intermediate days of a holiday)’ and mu:l ‘ritual circumciser’ (Hebrew mohel). Similar complications are found in the front mid vowels, where there seems to be a partial merger of vowels 22 (usually ej/e: in South Germany) and 25 (e:/i:). It is unfortunate that we can no longer find living informants who can elucidate these developments. It may not be possible to settle these “vowel questions” in depth, but we can certainly find much illustrative material

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both in published texts in Western Yiddish in Hebrew and Latin script from the nineteenth century and in the electronic EYDES archive of the Atlas. Returning from this possible research agenda to the years of my personal experiences at the Atlas, I regret that the publication of the maps of the Atlas have been delayed so many decades. In the meantime, of course, the technical possibilities, whether on-line sound archives, computer-drawn maps, and communication in cyberspace have created a host of new ways to work with the materials. I personally hope, that beyond the rich materials now available in the EYDES archives and accessible in audio and electronic form, the future will also bring further in print presentations not only of general structural characteristics of Yiddish but also of distinct lexical items, distinct items of folk culture, the distribution of pronunciations in specific words with emphasis on “exceptions to the general rules.” I know everything is now available in some form or other on the internet, but nothing will further analysis and further theoretical advancements than the concrete data that only maps of discrete items in print can provide. I look forward to the continued analysis and publication of Atlas materials in a multiplicity of different forms, so that the potential created by Uriel Weinreich, Marvin Herzog and the other pioneers of the LCAAJ project can continue to provide food for thought in the future.

References Katz, Dovid 1979 “Di ineveynikste klasifikatsye fun di mayrev-yidishe dialektn [1979] posted on http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFLinguistics/1979.pdf). Katz, Dovid 1983 Zur Dialektologie des Jiddischen. In: Besch, Werner/ Knoop, Ulrich/ Putschke,Wolfgang/ Wiegand, Herbert Ernst (éds.), Ein Handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialekt forschung, 2 vols., Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter), 1018-1041. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry).

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Lowenstein, Steven 1969 Results of Atlas Investigations among Jews of Germany. In: The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Language Folklore, and Literature, Third Collection, Marvin I. Herzog, Wita Ravid, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 16–35. Weinreich, Max 1973 Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh. 4 vols., New York (YIVO Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut). Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Machine Aids in the Compilation of Linguistic Atlases. In: American Philosophical Society. Year Book 1963, Philadelphia 1964, 622–625. Uriel Weinreich 1964 Western Traits in Transcarpathian Yiddish. In: For Max Weinreich on his Seventieth Birthday. Studies in Jewish languages, Literature and Society, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Alexander Erlich/ Rachel Erlich/ Joshua A. Fishman (Organizing Committee), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 245-264. Zuckermann, Richard 1969 Alsace: an Outpost of Western Yiddish. In: The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Language Folklore, and Literature, Third Collection, Marvin I. Herzog, Wita Ravid, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 36-57.

Rakhmiel Peltz

The Sibilants of Northeastern Yiddish: A Study in Linguistic Variation

1 Introduction My present discussion will revisit the issue of the sibilants of Northeastern Yiddish, by focusing on the field data that describe the phonetic realization of s and š and the parallel hissing and hushing phonemes (Yiddish svishtsh-, fayf-, ship-, tsish-fonemen): z, ž (voiced) c, þ, and dz, dž (affricates). My aim is to define the variation in pronunciation for different words in an individual’s speech, as well as variation among different individuals from one location, and to delimit the boundaries of the area in Northeastern Yiddish known to exhibit deviation from the s–š opposition of standard, literary Yiddish, namely the area of sabesdiker losn (‘solemn speech,’ literally ‘Sabbath language’).1 The alternation which I am pointing to, hissing and hushing, is realized phonetically in all three cases by varying the amount of tongue contact,2 with accompanying change of the width of the grooved tongue, as well as varying the extent of lip rounding. The fricatives or fricative components may have different points of tongue articulation along the anterior-posterior axis in different languages or dialects. Usually the hushing fricative is articulated further back. This latter aspect, however, seems to be a major issue of consideration only in regions where palatal s is common in Yiddish. Nevertheless, the complexity of the alternation must be untangled for all three sets of phonetic units, not only for s and š. The degree of consistency in the manner of articulation must be demonstrated for the three sets. The possibility that the phenomenon is one of change in progress should be entertained; accordingly, both forms may be exhibited, even for the same ————— 1

2

With this stereotypic term Yiddish speakers refer to the indicated dialectal features by mimicking the way area residents “mispronounce” the standard, literary phrase šabesdiker lošn. This feature is termed “distributed” by Chomsky and Halle 1968.

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word and position by one individual, and for different words and different individuals at one location. The more complicated case of the change occurring in both directions simultaneously based on different motivation is a further consideration. The halflife of the two sound changes might be very different, and both opposing processes may or may not intersect at one time in history. Such scenarios for sound change are possible in all cases, but the particular case of Yiddish introduces further complexity. Yiddish is derived from several stock languages with their own histories of opposition in the two series. This poses no problem if we treat current Yiddish as one unified system, even if words of a given component have specific segments or phonetic units and those of other components do not, or, if they are exhibited, they may be limited to specific environments (for a list of the distribution of sibilants in words of the different components in general Yiddish, see Uriel Weinreich 1952: 368, note 40). In general Yiddish,3 hissing and hushing consonants are different phonemes or segments, not allophones, as can be demonstrated by minimal pairs, the members of which have different meaning. Additional complication derives from the fact that many Yiddish speakers know one or more Slavic languages, as well as Hebrew. Especially for widespread borrowings from the Slavic languages, relevant sibilant phones are realized that are not present in the other components of the coterritorial Yiddish. Boundaries between languages in use are not always discreet, particularly when code-switching is prevalent. The influence could of course be one of Yiddish on Slavic, with the individual choosing a segment from Yiddish for use in Slavic speech. Even two mappings or listings – one for the Slavic language, the other for Yiddish – would not necessarily give the answer. Only detailed empirical evidence of language in use would supply some understanding of this problem in multilingual dialectology. Such a description of complexity and complication indeed reflects my vantage point, after my foray into reports in the literature, including published data on the spoken language, in addition to unpublished data of the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ). I want to discuss the problems involved in describing the realizations of the two —————

3

Instead of referring to Standard Yiddish, it is more adequate, for our purposes, to hold on to Uriel Weinreich’s “ad-hoc term” of “general Yiddish” for designating the “varieties of East European Yiddish not affected by sabesdiker losn…” (1952: 362, note 10).

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sibilant series from the available information. Doing so, I will not go into questions of diachrony. Assuming, as Uriel Weinreich (1952) did, that there is a “general Yiddish” (see above, note 3) opposed to sabesdiker losn, we are trying to document the twentieth century deviations from such a general system. Whether the general system of opposition is derived from one of merger, or from a simpler system, is a different matter. 1.1 Questions of Phonological Variation in Yiddish The investigation of linguistic variation over the geographic map, the mainstay of dialect geography, has been pursued by generations of researchers of Yiddish. However, the panoply of social factors that condition linguistic variation that might not be expressed as difference over the physical map, has not been given much attention. In fact, even in the analysis of the present issue, researchers have tended to ignore variation seen at one point of the geographic map. Only one researcher chose to dwell on the observation of such variation in sibilant realization within the speech of a given individual and that of several individuals who live in the same location (Veynger 1928: 620–632). Variation studies have constituted the mainstream of sociolinguistics for the past forty years. Indeed the understanding that the social factors that bring about language change over time are the same ones that account for the motivation of variation at a given time served to break the barrier between the study of diachronic and synchronic linguistics (Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968). Not surprisingly Yiddish dialectology research contributed to that very crucial breakthrough in linguistic theory. Yet the further exploration through variation studies in Yiddish linguistics was slow to appear. In general sociolinguistics, early on, the quantitation of the relative occurrence of the different realizations of a sociolinguistic variable was shown to correspond to the process of language change, both syntactic and phonological (Sankoff 1974). More recent reviews have reported the great accomplishments of this direction of research (Bailey and Lucas 2007; Chambers, Trudgill and Schilling-Estes 2002; Labov 2001). Yiddish linguistic research has been late in producing studies of variation that are not solely correlated with geographic location. One exception is the remarkable work of Ellen Prince (1987) who studied the change in dialectal phonological markers in the performance repertoire of

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the Yiddish singer Sarah Gorby over her career and correlated this behavior with her changing attitude to a cultural standard as opposed to the dialect of her birthplace. A second study (Peltz 1990; 1998: 162–70) focused on hypercorrection, dialectal leveling, as well as retention of stigmatized features, both phonological and grammatical, as exhibited by children of immigrants. Although my present report demonstrates phonological variation, rather than analyzing its motivation, it arises from a desire to stimulate its further investigation. The present generation of researchers should be grateful to Mordkhe Veynger (1928) for laboriously documenting the variable pronunciation of the sibilants in Northeastern Yiddish, and not overlooking it, whereas his contemporary dialectologists were still focused on the uniformity of a linguistic feature in any given geographic area.

2 The Literature 2.1 Historical and General Treatments In the scholarly literature on Yiddish, phonological variation is often assumed to follow a paradigm that is uniform for an entire geographic area. The stereotype of confusion by the Litvak (Northeastern Yiddish speaker) of sļš entered belles lettres in Russian and Yiddish. Roman Jakobson gives examples from two 19th Century Yiddish authors, Yisroel Aksnfeld (Di genarte velt) and Shloyme Etinger (Serkele; Jakobson 1958: 218). Interestingly, the latter case only shows šĺs, which seems to have been more characteristic of the stereotype. Yudel Mark (1951: 437) credits Zelig Kalmanovitsh with having been the first to remark that some individuals in the Northeast do not realize s or š but rather one in-between, merged sound. This characterization of a single merger was accepted by some linguists as a uniform realization for the entire region exhibiting the phenomenon of our current focus (Yofe 1927: 298; Jakobson 1958: 217). Jakobson describes the merger as “intermediate consonants with a palatalized nuance.” The tendency is to articulate them more posterior, more hushing and more forward before i, more hissing in all other positions (Jakobson 1958: 217). Other linguists have described the phenomenon as being more geographically heterogeneous, when two individuals at one location are

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compared, and within the speech of a single individual. For example, Mark describes three different kinds of behavior in Litvish Yiddish: 1) those who could not hear a difference between s and š and could only say s, not š, more characteristic for Dvinsk in the East than for Kovne in the West; 2) a second group who could hear the difference, but could only realize the hissing series; and 3) the third, major group, in Lite, whose language only contains an intermediate sound, especially widespread near Zamet (Mark 1951: 436–437). Yudel Mark’s threefold classification seems to derive from Zelig Kalmanovitsh who attempted to set up a contrast with Litvish Yiddish in his article on the Yiddish of Courland. Indeed, Kalmanovitsh does not posit a single merger, but either palatalized s or palatalized š. The descriptions of differences in “the ear” by both Kalmanovitsh and Mark are very interesting, but only anecdotal evidence is proffered. Such testing of ability to resolve the two sounds on the auditory level presents a new line of research (Kalmanovitsh 1926: 167–168). Uriel Weinreich (1952) provides the most convincing discussion of the topic. He states that “nowhere in this area is there an opposition of two series in Yiddish,” but that “the exact manner of rendition of the single set varies locally.” Thus, he describes a merger that varies geographically. The merger in Lite (the Jewish geographic and cultural area that includes interWar Lithuania, northeastern Poland, Latvia, and Belorussian SSR), according to him, was realized either as hushing, or as intermediate between s and š, with varying palatality (1952: 362). He mentions the hushing preceding i in Belorussia. However, he does not present any phonetic data. His map of the sabesdiker losn area (U. Weinreich 1952: 375) is based on extensions of the Soviet Yiddish atlas lines (Vilenkin 1931) westward, according to Mordkhe Veynger’s published information (Veynger 1929). Since Weinreich’s paper is largely a historical analysis of both series in Yiddish, we cannot rely on it for any empirical data. We should, however, note that he considers two hypotheses of origin. Veynger’s early presentation (1926: 203–5) pointed to Yiddish parallels with Old German changes. Weinreich, however,4 favors a derivation from the loss of the š series in the coterritorial development of Polish mazurzenie. The Jews took this merger northward in their migration, whereas later Jewish immigrants into Poland never acquired the merger. The second hypothesis leads to the theory that Yiddish was influenced by a merger of the two series in ————— 4

In the 1952 article and in a later presentation, 1964: 354.

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coterritorial southern Belorussian. This area is at the southeastern periphery of the area of sabesdiker losn5. Weinreich does not favor this theory because of the sporadic evidence of the merger in Belorussian (Minsk, Mogilev, Svisloþ, Bobruysk) and the lack of a scheme for its reaching the Yiddish of the Baltic Sea (U. Weinreich 1952: 371–374). However, in our present concern for a synchronic description, further examination of the phenomenon in both languages in southern Belorussia seems worthwhile. If we could confirm such coincidence it would be the only evidence for overlap of the phenomenon in Yiddish and in a coterritorial Slavic language. We should be aware that Weinreich’s hypothesis for overlap with the Polish mazurzenie phenomenon before 1350 is not based on any historical, linguistic evidence. A more recent examination of the influence of the Northeastern dialect on Standard Yiddish, especially in attempts at establishing standardized pronunciation, does not shed any new light on the sibilant issue (Katz 1994: 230). D. Katz’s focus is on the vowels and when regarding the sibilants, he simply accepts U. Weinreich’s (1952) report of the widespread realization of an intermediate articulation. Although not mentioned by Weinreich, another location of possible modern contact of the Yiddish and coterritorial phenomena may be in the Lithuanian language area. Roman Jakobson refers to the dzukishe (tso-ket, cokanje) element of Lithuanian in the Vilna area, namely the transition of þĺc (Jakobson 1958: 218–219), even if without precise localization. Yudel Mark, too, notes that some Litvaks lived in an area in which the folksdialektn of the surrounding peasants lacked the hushing phones (Mark 1951: 436). Pinpointing this area, if indeed it does exist, would be important for an argument based on synchronic language contact. The study by Ch. Lemkhen (1995: 34–36), aimed at uncovering the influence of Lithuanian on Yiddish, only presents limited examples of the analogous phenomenon and uncritically accepts the descriptions of local Yiddish speech from the literature that we have mentioned earlier. The trend of the disappearance of sibilant confusion in the twentieth century is noted by almost all investigators, especially when they refer to the educated youth. From his vantage point in Kovne, Mark observed, “far mayne oygn, bimeshekh fun der kurtser tsayt tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes, iz kimat vi in gantsn farshvundn ot di eygnshaft” [‘Before my eyes, during —————

5

See, for example, the map at the end of this article.

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the short time between both World Wars, this characteristic practically disappeared entirely’]. It is Mark who best enumerates the various social factors that reinforced the incorporation of the hissing-hushing opposition of general Yiddish (Mark 1951: 438). That such changes can occur very quickly is illustrated by a study of children of Polish immigrant miners in France, who, within three years, exhibited in their native Polish a merger of the palatal and hushing series (Sadlo 1935, quoted from U. Weinreich 1953: 104). 2.2 Linguistic Data Published phonological information based on fieldwork is limited to the reports of Nokhem Shtif (1929), Mordkhe Veynger (1928; 1929), the Soviet Yiddish Atlas (Vilenkin 1931) and M. Shulman (1938). In addition, there are some references to the phenomenon in Courland (M. Weinreich 1923). Shtif’s fieldwork was limited mostly to locations at the northeastern border of the sabesdiker losn area (north and east of Vitebsk6), where this Yiddish phenomenon may not be strongly represented, but where local Belorussian exhibits cokanje (þĺ c). M. Veynger's work involves the most information on sabesdiker losn territory, data based on 220 words for eleven subjects in three locations in the southern periphery of the sabesdiker losn area (S. of Minsk), (Veynger 1928: 619–630). Shulman’s discussion of that data (Shulman 1938: 162) does not present any new information, mainly relying on Shtif and Veynger, and only including a few of his own observations. The Soviet Atlas on the other hand, does provide seven relevant maps. Use of this data, however, is limited by that atlas’s representation solely of isoglosses, without individual locations, and to its restricted coverage to the eastern, Soviet, part of the sabesdiker losn territory. Thus, we do not possess any published report based on empirical data that describes the entire geographic area in which the Yiddish phenomenon is exhibited.

————— 6

In contrast, I will use the outlines of the sabesdiker losn area as those presented by U. Weinreich 1952.

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2.2.1 Nokhem Shtif Shtif’s major finding, although geographically peripheral to my present focus, was that traditionally hissing phones became hushing before palatalizing environments (drayšik, voši=vos iz, šider – ‘thirty’, ‘what is’, ‘prayer book’); these terms coexist with palatal s, but the frequency of the latter is not mentioned. His other observations bear no such consistent, phonetically motivated, phonological rule, but cite highly variable alterations of hissing and hushing. In addition, Shtif discusses the influences of Belorussian on Yiddish that yield only in rare cases dĺdzĺdž (idzyot, džikh – ‘idiot’, ‘you (accusative)’) because he claims that palatalized d is rare in Yiddish. More commonly, he reports, in palatal environments, that coexisting with palatalized t is c and þ (viþyepsk, þiyater, guþinker – ‘Vitebsk (town)’, ‘theater’, ‘good one’ (variant of guter)). The same individual may say both arcyel and arþel for artyel ‘workmen’s association,’ or cyerpn and þerpn ‘to suffer, tolerate’ (Shtif 1929: 7–8). Although Shtif only claims sĺš in palatal environments, he does list the occasional exceptions he found in one location; Veliž (northeast of Vitebsk)7: sĺš or to an in-between sound in beser ‘better’, bris ‘circumcision’, gas ‘street’, dos ‘the’, vos ‘what’, mayse ‘story’, nas ‘wet’, a sakh ‘many’, seykhl ‘sense’. But the existence of the rarer exceptions is important to note and may indicate that the sabesdiker losn area was at one time larger. He presents similar results for zĺž and cĺþ, but claims the latter is more complicated (cibele – ‘onion’, but in the endings -þik and -þink- as in akhþik ‘eighty’, ganþinker ‘(a) whole (one)’ (Shtif 1929: 10–14). Without specifying geographic location (besides the above Northeastern informants, he had interviewed several informants in southern Belorussia: Poritsh, Shtshedrin, Zakhod, near Homel, and Yurevitsh), Shtif concluded that there was no regularity in the appearance of hissing where hushing occurs in general Yiddish (šĺs), but that such behavior is more common than the converse (sĺš; Shtif does describe intermediate realizations). Although Shtif usually describes general conclusions, he lists several words which a 51-year old illiterate tailor, born in Veliž and demonstrating the šĺs phenomenon, pronounced in more than one way, i.e. stolyer and an inbetween s – štolyer ‘carpenter’, fiš and fis ‘fish’, þolnt and colnt ‘(a Sabbath ————— 7

Shtif lists twelve informants for this location.

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dish)’, zibn and žibn ‘seven’ (Shtif 1929: 17). The variation in the speech of single informants and the occurrence of šĺs and sĺš (mostly in palatal environments) even in areas at the periphery of the supposed sabesdiker losn territory are Shtif’s most valuable contributions. His only discernment of geographic differentiation within Belorussia is the observation that Yurevitsh, the location he visited nearest the northern Ukraine, exhibited the least deviation from general Yiddish (Shtif 1929: 17). The tone of the article is unduly critical of Mordkhe Veynger and aims to support the theme of a major influence of Slavic languages on the development of Yiddish. Although Shtif gives personal detail on each informant, he rarely reports the individual's speech. He does not attempt quantitation and treats Belorussian Yiddish as a uniform entity, since he does not seem to realize that a phenomenon may exhibit a gradient behavior. His criticism of Veynger’s findings in geographic locations different from the places he visited has little value. He does, however, provide some anecdotal information on the ability of schoolchildren in the Yiddish schools to distinguish standard from the language at home. This report, nevertheless, remains the only major dialectological description based on fieldwork of the Kiev group8. 2.2.2 Mordkhe Veynger Veynger’s last published work Yidishe dialektologye (1929) may have been written after his Tsaytshrift articles of 1926/1928, but did not yet reflect all the results of the posthumously published Soviet Yiddish atlas (1931). Shtif, who had based his work on much more limited coverage, criticized Veynger’s more global conclusions for not sufficiently pointing to the occurrence of hushing phones before i (Shtif 1929: 14). Yet, the irregular behavior discussed by Veynger was derived from the most complete fieldwork in the sabesdiker losn area. He defines the area by eliminating a section of the southwestern part of the Northeastern Yiddish o-dialects (o129). The sibilant behavior is absent from such locations, as Suvalk, Grayeve, Grodne, Byalistok, Slonim, Ružane, and Navaredik. Veynger does not, however, delimit the northern and eastern limits. Within the remaining —————

8 9

Section on Yiddish Philology, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kiev. This notation refers to the system of Yiddish proto-vowels according to the Weinreich scheme, described in LCAAJ I (1992) 11–12.

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area of hissing-hushing interchange, Veynger claims that the regions of the most frequent deviation from general Yiddish are the former Vilna and Kovno gubernyes (administrative provinces in Czarist Russia). But it is these regions that Veynger seems to have covered most sparsely, probably because his fieldwork was limited to Soviet territory (Veynger 1929: 130– 131). Veynger, too, mentions the in-between sound, generated in cases where š would appear in general Yiddish. He describes it as varying, “lisping…between a palatal š and either a palatal or dental s.” For sĺš, cĺþ, and zĺž, he does not describe an in-between sound, but only a palatal or alveolar sound (Veynger 1929: 131). For locations near Mozyr and Minsk he records dĺdž and tĺ palatal þ before i (dir ‘you (dative),’ dikh ‘you (accusative),’ tir ‘door,’ tikhl ‘kerchief,’ geytyir ‘go (2nd plural)’ (1929: 83–84). In certain locations þ or palatal þ, instead of c, appears only in the count ending -cik (near Minsk) as in standard Yiddish cvancik; in other places, þ or palatal þ occurs also in other words before i (cibele ‘onion,’ cimes ‘fruit stew;’ Myadel, near Vilna). There is much variation in þĺc, but words commonly exhibiting the c are þolnt ‘(a Sabbath dish),’ benþn ‘to bless,’ dayþ ‘German.’ In his discussion of zĺž, Veynger, like Shtif after him, stresses the special conditioning environment of the following i. But, unlike Shtif, he also observes this before e and u (in zumer ‘summer’ and zum ‘(bee sound)’ in Vilne and Pumfyane, near Kovne; interestingly he sees this also happening for zumer in Gadyatsh in the far northeastern Ukraine, Romner krayz10). Surprisingly, he lists sĺš before t in herst for Poltava, in addition to Pumfyane. Moreover, although he excluded Navaredik from the generally delimited area, he includes it as exhibiting žĺz (1929: 84–87). Unlike Shtif’s thesis, derived from data in the Vilna and Kovne areas, Veynger claims sĺš also in the absence of i (gas, nas, vos, dos – ‘street, wet, what, the/this’; 1929: 88). The occurrence of the phenomenon in the eastern Ukraine raises the possibility of one-time geographic distribution including the north and extending south into the Ukraine, (similar to many phenomena in Ukrainian Yiddish, Herzog 1969). After quoting examples from the Germanic component, Veynger moves on to the Hebraic and Slavic components, showing tremendous variation again depending on location and word. For example, in Kapulye (south of Minsk), he records sokhn ‘neighbor,’ salakhmones ‘(Purim presents),’ šo ————— 10

Krayz approximately corresponds to 'county'.

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‘hour,’ and šeymer ‘guard.’ In Tshervin (east of Minsk), he notes šabes ‘Sabbath’ and peysekh ‘Passover’ in contrast to sabes in Petrikov (in the Pripetsh area of Pinsk, near Mozyr), and peyšekh in Pumfyane. For Minsk we see emes ‘truth,’ khasene ‘wedding,’ biseylom ‘graveyard,’ balšimkhe ‘main person of a festivity’ and šeygec ‘gentile/naughty lad,’ in Yanov (near Kovno) however: emeš, khašene, eyþes ‘advice;’ in Telts (northwest of Kovne) bišeylom, balš'imkhe, š'ikonis nifosis ‘deadly danger;’ in Shklov (north of Mohilev) šeygeþ (1929: 110–111). Regarding the Slavic element, in Kapulye, Veynger records puske ‘(alms) box’ and smate ‘cloth’, but ša ‘hush!’ and šlakh ‘dirt road’ (šĺs). As for þĺc alternation, he always found þaynik ‘teapot’ and henþ(')ke ‘glove’ next to menc ‘human being’ and vecere ‘supper’ in Vitebsk and several locations northeast of Minsk (Tshervin, Lohoysk, Tsharey). With regard to žĺz, he lists zaleven ‘economize’ and zavern ‘to rust,’ but saže ‘soot,’ for Sventsyan (northeast of Vilna; 1929: 124–126). Thus, Veynger saw certain overall trends: 1) the appearance of hissing phones, where hushing occurs in general Yiddish, is more common than the converse; 2) hushing is especially conditioned by a following i; 3) the realization of sounds in-between hushing and hissing; 4) the greatest occurrence of the phenomenon in the Kovne-Vilna region; 5) the absence of the phenomenon in the southwestern part of Northeastern Yiddish. These generalizations represent conclusions based on the most extensive fieldwork at the time. Veynger chose to stress the variation. This was evident from the data he presented. It is to Veynger’s credit that he noticed the subtlety, namely that areas can exhibit both hissing and hushing and disparate variation at one and the same time. He points out that sound change was in progress and that the literary language was influencing the šĺs phenomenon: “der doziker farbayt oder bayt iz a lebediker protses, vos iz arayngedrungen nit in ale verter, velkhe unhaltn undzere klangen, fun eyn un demzelbikn dialect” [this exchange or change is a living process, which has not entered into every word that contains these consonants within a given dialect] (1929: 110). It is from Veynger’s detail that we get an idea of the variegated picture. Nevertheless, in his book of 1929, he does not expound on the extensive variation that he reported in his Tsaytshrift article of 1928. It is possible that they were completed in the reverse order. Veynger in 1928 (pp. 619–630) presents the most extensive report of synchronic linguistic variation to appear in the Yiddish research literature. He publishes a table on the realization of words that contain the hushing

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consonant s of general Yiddish in the speech of thirteen Belorussian Yiddish informants from three towns (six from Kapulye, one from Lenin and six from Slutsk). The list covers 220 words that derive from the three stock languages. At first glance, one notices that in many cases different informants from the same town pronounce the same word differently, some hissing, some hushing, and that one and the same informant might realize the sound differently in different words in which the sibilant appears in the seemingly same phonetic environment. In his conclusions, Veynger (1928: 629) is one of the first to recognize the influence of social factors, such as age, gender, social status, and education, on variation. He understands the variation as an illustration of change in progress, of the new displacement of a phenomenon that existed long in this area, but now was experiencing incursions of the literary, general Yiddish realization. He illustrates this with the archaic phrase breyt mit nist [‘bread with nothing’], where the hissing s is realized throughout the sample because, generally, the negative particle nisht does not occur in this region. Veynger’s (1928: 630–31) observations point to certain selective processes which seem to temper some of the supposed randomness. For example, when regarding the realization of š in the Hebraic component, he comments that words used mostly by men in synagogue tend to exhibit the š of general Yiddish (droše ‘sermon,’ šakhris ‘morning prayers’), but words of wider use outside the synagogue demonstrate šĺs (salekhmones ‘Purim presents,’ sokhn ‘neighbor’). In addition, he claims that the differential observance of šĺs can serve to distinguish homonyms (snur ‘son’s wife’ versus šnur ‘string;’ bašert ‘fated’ versus basert ‘cut (hair)’). If the latter observation holds true, we possess the minimal pairs to show that phonetic motivation cannot fully explain the phenomenon. In addition, in such cases, the speaker is capable of realizing either sound for a given phonetic environment. M. Shulman (1938: 165) comments on Veynger’s findings and adds his own observation that seems unlikely, but could be tested: in cases preceding i where c is not realized as the hushing þ, the realization is actually that of a high back unrounded vowel (cibele ‘onion,’ meciye ‘bargain’).

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2.2.3 Yidisher Shprakhatlas fun Sovetnfarband In the Soviet Yiddish Atlas seven maps were published that are relevant to the issue we are studying (Vilenkin 1931, maps 66–72). However, I must express reservation about utilizing data presented in these maps. In displaying the data, the emphasis was put on delineation of isoglosses, to the neglect of variation within regions. Not only are the results at the individual locations not shown, but the level of variation that was considered acceptable for labeling an area as uniform is not indicated. The patterns are very interesting and cover an expanse not treated in the other sets of data. However, the degree of variability underlined by Shtif and Shulman for one point and by Veynger for one geographic region does not seem to be reflected in the Soviet Atlas maps. Two basic patterns are seen in these maps, either 1) a West-East isogloss separating a southern region displaying the general Yiddish phenomenon and a northern region with the deviation, or 2) the same pattern, but containing an intermediate region displaying both realizations (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Patterns of variation

These two patterns are basically the same, but the variation and gradation seen when two linguistic phenomena have been in contact (i.e. at any isogloss) cover a larger region in the second pattern. The patterns are all similar in that divisions generally do not separate Eastern and Western

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areas, but rather North and South. A clear demarcation of East and West is seen, however, in map 69 for the southern Ukraine, where the East follows the pattern of northern Belorussia for þĺc (menþ ‘human being,’ þolnt ‘(a Sabbath dish),’ veþere ‘supper,’ and others). I have pointed to such continuity above. U. Weinreich, in his study of Belorussian Yiddish, underscored the presence of several East-West isoglosses of the Soviet Atlas in his discussion of “influences from the South” (U. Weinreich 1969: 89–92, map 4). The only example of uniform, general Yiddish behavior extending far north relates to the sabesdiker losn phenomenon zĺž before accented i. The isogloss runs from Kublitsh in the West to Veliž in the East (pattern 1; Soviet Atlas, map 68 zilber ‘silver,’ umzist ‘for free’). These results contradict Shtif’s generalization, but we can assume they are based on extensive coverage. The same phenomenon zĺž but before unstressed i or e is limited to north of the Bobruysk latitude (pattern 1; map 67; bezim ‘broom’). This hushing phenomenon is the deviation from general Yiddish most restricted to the North. In the other phonological examples, areas of uniform, general Yiddish behavior are restricted more to the South, either south of the Homel latitude (š in aš, vašn, štarbn, map 71; šþ in lešþ, map 70), or south of the Tshernigov latitude (s in draysik, vaysinker, siver, map 72; ž in žabe, hiržene (kashe), map 66; þ in paþ, þolnt, map 69). Therefore, southern Belorussian Yiddish does exhibit deviation from the general Yiddish opposition of hissing and hushing, although in much of this region the deviation coexists with the general Yiddish form, either in different locations or for different words (intermediate region of pattern 2; maps 69, 71, 72). U. Weinreich, trying to stress the other side of the coin, the incursion into the north of the southwestern, general Yiddish behavior, utilizing the same maps, misrepresented the situation by eliminating the southern isoglosses that demonstrate a mixed region in southern Belorussia (pattern 2, maps 69, 71, U. Weinreich 1969: 92–93, map 6). These maps contribute to our study by setting geographic limits for the phenomenon, especially in the South, on the Soviet part of sabesdiker losn territory. We also see that different aspects of these hissing-hushing phenomena seem to have specific geographic localizations, so that we cannot speak of one area exhibiting all the deviations. This was illustrated most clearly by the northern restriction of zĺž before i. These reservations aside, we should recall that the methodology of the Soviet Atlas involved written answers

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from correspondents, based on the Russian alphabet. No intermediate sounds of the type we have been discussing was recorded. 2.2.4 Courland Besides Veynger’s observations, the only other relevant description I have found of the language of the northwestern part of sabesdiker losn territory is Max Weinreich's study of the Yiddish in Courland. It is not evident if the information he offers derives from interviews or only from his personal recollection of the Yiddish of his birthplace. He writes of hissing and hushing, but not of any intermediate realizations. He points out that the opposition is present in the Germanic component, supposedly based on a coterritorial modern German model, as seen from the cases which contrast with general Yiddish, but agree with modern German: kusn ‘to kiss,’ kisn ‘pillow,’ mes ‘brass’ (German Messing), erster ‘first,’ foderster ‘first in a row.’ Therefore, the deviation from general sibilant opposition would be sought in the Hebraic and Slavic components. Weinreich illustrates such phenomena, claiming sĺš is more common than the converse: šuke ‘Sukkoth tabernacle,’ šimkhe ‘joy, festivity,’ šeykhl ‘reason, sense,’ šider ‘prayer book,’ šaše ‘(name),’ škuyes (Lettish word for skhakh is skuyes), bešmedres ‘prayer/study house.’ The hushing þ and ž, not common in German, are only present in Courland Yiddish when also present in German. Therefore, Weinreich notes kveþn ‘squeeze, strain’ but zaleve, zargon, cepe, pac, krecme – ‘economize, jargon, tamper, slap, tavern’ (M. Weinreich 1923: 202–205). This is another example, which illustrates that hissing-hushing cannot be studied as the uniform opposition of two series, but each individual pair of phonemes must also be analyzed separately. Other than M. Weinreich’s study, the literature is lacking in descriptions of the northwestern section.

3 The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ) The LCAAJ represents the best source of data for the topic. Firstly, its survey covers the entire map of Eastern Yiddish, with the areas of the former Vilna and Kovno gubernyes (the archetypal region for deviation from the general Yiddish pattern of hissing and hushing according to

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Veynger (1929: 130–131)) receiving quite dense coverage.11 Secondly, in the design of the LCAAJ, the sibilant issue and many of the previous findings quoted in the literature were given much attention. In addition, many of the LCAAJ informants had emigrated before the early 1920s and would be expected to demonstrate the sabesdiker losn characteristics, if Mark’s observation is true, that they retained this specific linguistic behavior more than people who remained in Europe until World War II (Mark 1951: 438). In any case, the LCAAJ is indispensable for descriptions of the geographic spread, the variety of phonetic realizations, and the variability of the sibilant phenomenon both within a given individual’s speech and within a specific geographic area. There are, however, problems in analyzing the LCAAJ data. The interviewers did not necessarily perceive the sounds in precisely the same way, nor did they share a consensus on the notation for the intermediate sounds. Moreover, the sibilants are some of the hardest sounds to study, especially from recordings in which high frequencies are not retained. The interviewer’s possibility to hear high frequencies and watch the informant’s lip rounding while conducting the actual interview make us rely more readily on the field notes than on reanalysis of the recorded interviews. Another limitation is the fact that many of the informants were older and had difficulties with their (sometimes artificial) teeth, which makes sibilant articulation difficult. Despite these drawbacks, it is my conviction that the LCAAJ is the best source we have for our understanding of sabesdiker losn. My use of the LCAAJ materials has focused on published maps, unpublished maps, and fieldnote data. I have also listened to a number of original recordings in order to study the variety of phonetic realizations, and evaluate the consistency of the fieldnotes. 3.1 Published Atlas Maps The maps published to date either present a synthetic treatment of relevant phonological issues, as in LCAAJ I (1992), or illustrate specified phenomena in detail, like in LCAAJ III (2000). The summary of the sibilant issue in the phonology of Northeastern Yiddish is illustrated for locations in which the minimal pairs, general —————

11

The LCAAJ survey actually covers the entire historical map of European Yiddish including Western varieties, which are not relevant for the study at hand.

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Yiddish visn ‘to know’ and višn ‘to wipe’, as well as vaser ‘water’ and vašn ‘to wash’, are articulated with no sibilant contrast (LCAAJ I: 114, map 65) These locations cluster in the former Vilne and Kovne gubernyes, as well as the northeastern part of Belorussia. I have described this region as the most concentrated area in which alternation from the general Yiddish pattern can be observed. The same map delineates an even more extensive area, including the rest of Belorussia and eastern Ukraine, in which it is reported that the hissing member of the three series –i.e., s, z, or c– is frequently recorded for the hushing sibilant in general Yiddish and vice versa. However, the depiction on the map obscures the fact that the frequency of this alternation is far greater in the first than in the second area. A related phonological observation motivated by various Slavic lexical antecedents is illustrated in map 79 (LCAAJ I: 128), which shows islands of hushing affricates in many areas of Eastern Yiddish. This map underscores my view that the entire map, and not only the northeastern part, should be examined in a sibilant study, as well as the affricate and voiced series (general Yiddish emicer ‘somebody’ and krexcn ‘to moan’). In LCAAJ III (2000: 27), Marvin Herzog describes a pattern of distinctiveness for Northeastern Yiddish, namely “the neutralization of the opposition between the hissing and hushing consonants.” In actuality, the phenomenon does not define the entire area and should be restricted to a section of the Northeastern area only. Unlike other markers of Northeastern Yiddish, “the neutralization of the opposition” does not define the dialectal area. Maps 24 and 27 in LCAAJ III describe realizations of words belonging to the Hebraic component and, in general Hebrew and Yiddish, start with a word-initial hissing sibilant: seyxl ‘sense, brains’ and suke ‘Sukkot tabernacle’. The hushing realization is relegated to some locations in the area that I have pointed out as demonstrating the greatest frequency of deviation from general Yiddish. 3.2 Unpublished Atlas Maps I have consulted about twenty maps of varying degrees of completeness, which were prepared at the LCAAJ office during the 1980s and are now housed with the original archive at the Columbia University Libraries. The problems covered by these diverse maps and their wide geographic coverage give a picture of the complexity of the hissing-hushing alternation

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not evident from the limited earlier publications on the topic. The maps examine related aspects such as the occurrence in the Slavic or Hebraic component, hissing or hushing in different word positions, voiced versus devoiced segments, and formation of affricates versus deaffrication. For example, the map for beysn ‘during the’ (Atlas question 174.02012) shows two alternatives, voiced z in the East: Ukraine and Belorussia, voiceless s in Poland and a strip running North-South containing both forms with z and s in western Poland curiously. The only hushing realization is found at a Romanian location. This illustrates my earlier point that the hissing and hushing distinction cannot be looked at as an isolated phenomenon, but has to be dealt with in the context of phonological factors influencing voicing, affricatization, and palatalization, at the least. In the case of beysn, the phonological development may have restricted hushing because of the diacritic, the existence of the Hebrew reading tradition, as well as unidentified motivational factors which seem to have limited the transformation of historic sĺš, except in palatal environments, as others, such as Yakobson, Kalmanovitsh, Shtif, and Veynger have pointed out. In this specific example, beyzn is analogous to to buzim and bezim (z before unstressed vowel) and might be expected to be realized as beyžn in northern Belorussia, as map 67 of the Soviet atlas indicated. The form does not seem to appear in the LCAAJ data, but this should be studied further. A different geographic pattern of related sibilants is illustrated in a map about the articulation of the name for the Yiddish letter reyš (Question 174.010). The major forms again are not hissing-hushing alternates, but geographically varying realizations: š being realized in the greatest number of locations and covering the widest distribution, but centered in Poland, and voiced z to the east, mostly in Belorussia and Ukraine. The Lithuanian area displays both š and ž, with sporadic s, but s can also be found sporadically in Poland and Ukraine. The voiced, hushed segment ž is a major alternative in the š territory, indicating that we are dealing with a problem of voicing, probably related to word boundary and sentence position. The absence of a plethora of s realizations in sabesdiker losn territory may relate to influence by the orientation towards Hebrew study tradition. ————— 12

The Atlas questionnaires have been published in print in LCAAJ II (1995: *9–*88) and (with index) in the internet at http://www.eydes.de/index/FB/FB-list.html.

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Historic variation from one segment series to another, rather than from the hissing member to the hushing member was only touched on before, when we reviewed evidence for the evolution of hushing affricate segments from palatal t or d, i.e., t'ĺcĺþ, or d'ĺdzĺdž. There is also evidence from six unpublished Atlas maps showing the occurrence of affricates after l or n in velšine (nis) ‘walnut(s)’ (Question 100.029). An isogloss may be drawn separating þ in the South and West from š in the North and East. Hissing c was only exhibited at one point and s only at one point in Latvia. In this case the possibility of development of s in the Northeast may have been mitigated by the following i with secondary stress, which would condition hushing. The other maps display the data on ganc gut ‘pretty good,’ haldz ‘throat,’ frandz ‘fringe,’ gandz ‘goose,’ and indzl ‘island.’ The major forms are dz or z, and in the first instance dz or c. Of interest here, however, one notes the general absence of hushing in this environment except for sporadic cases on the frandz map. I would underscore that when we examine words containing the various segments of the hissing and hushing series, the alternatives realized throughout the Yiddish map may not be those of hissing and hushing, but rather may relate to voicing, or affricate formation, depending on the phonological environment and historical and cultural factors. Let us approach a series of maps on Slavic component words in Yiddish. Because of the high frequency of ž, dž and þ segments, these maps illustrate well the phenomena that specifically interest us. Comparison with a coterritorial Slavic language form, if it exists, may help interpret the Yiddish realizations. The map for faržavert ‘rusty’ (Q. 068.010) depicts ž as the preponderant form. That preceding r is a very different environment from l or n mentioned earlier may be seen from the many instances of affricate dz around Warsaw, a region that did not exhibit the affricate after l or n. The hissing alternate z is a minority form even in the North where most of these cases were recorded, but there were examples of this deviation from general Yiddish in the South, too. When we examine the map for sadzevke ‘pond’ (Q. 004.030), we see many different forms that most probably relate to a variety of Slavic dialect forms: sadzevke, sazevke, saževke, sadželke, sažlke, and sazlke. The alternation observed in any given geographic region does not correspond to a single phonological feature, but may describe a situation of lexical variants. There are, however, certain geographic concentrations, but they do not seem to elucidate the hissing-hushing alternation. Thus, the dominant

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form throughout the map is sažlke, and sazlke is only a minor form. The variant sadzevke is a major form, especially in the North and near Warsaw, but the alternate hushing sadževke cannot be found, and sadželke is reported only twice. Saževke is recorded often, but the phonetically related sazevke only appears sporadically and does not seem to be an areal alternate. I failed to notice any alternation of initial sĺš. This implies that this position was not subject to Yiddish-specific changes; the variation seen here reflects more the multiplicity of lexical variants in the Slavic languages than phonological changes specific to Yiddish. It seems clear, therefore, that looking at sibilant variation on the basis of phonological occurrence alone is not sufficient. Multiple forms of Slavic component items in Yiddish often reflect multiple lexical entry from coterritorial Slavic varieties. When we examine words of the Slavic component with sibilants preceding stressed i we can compare Atlas maps with data in the literature. For siver ‘slate grey’ (Q. 154.051), the Soviet Yiddish atlas presents a map that includes this very word (there, map 72). As indicated earlier, the Soviet map demonstrates pattern 2 (Figure 1 above), with “deviating” š being realized uniformly in Belorussia, north of Bobruysk, and “general” s south of Mozyr, including the entire Ukraine. The LCAAJ data partly agrees with this depiction, but because of its wider coverage of the sabesdiker losn region in the West, it shows surprisingly that s is the predominant form in the North. The form šiver does occur in some locations in Belorussia, but only in Poland is it the major realization. Thus, the wider picture of the LCAAJ map demonstrates a different overall division. Conclusions reached from the reports of Shtif, Veynger, and the Soviet atlas do not hold for most of the northern region, even for palatal environments. The word siver is an example repeatedly offered in the literature for sĺš in sabesdiker losn territory. On the basis of the LCAAJ data we have to correct the picture that Uriel Weinreich portrays (1952: 375, map 2, note 68) by “extending” isoglosses derived from the Soviet Atlas into “the Polish and Lithuanian parts of the region…according to indications by Veynger …and …Mark.” Judging variants of the Slavic component we always have to reckon with the possibility of multiple origins for their taking root in Yiddish. Let us turn to illustrations of the alternation žĺz. Studying the map for župice ‘long frock for men’ (Q. 041.040), we see the overall form realized with ž. But in the North, and especially the Northeastern region, ž is interspersed with z; in the South, two locations realize z. For the word žipen ‘breathe with difficulty’ (Q. 022.040), we would again be testing for the

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alternation from general Yiddish of žĺz, but just in the phonological environment that specifically conditions hushing according to reports in the literature. The LCAAJ map does show the overall predominant ž in most of Poland and the East, but the unexpected realization z is recorded in the North and in some locations of the southern Ukraine, along with zj. For our discussion, it seems significant to mention again instances of co-occurrence of deviations from general Yiddish in sabesdiker losn territory and in the Ukraine. In addition, no phonologically conditioned rule seems able to fully predict any of the observed phenomena. Although the LCAAJ maps contain a wealth of illustrations from the Slavic component, words from this component seem to be the worst choices for the study of phonetically conditioned phonological change that is specific to Yiddish. Let us take a word of mixed Slavic-German origin that probably entered Yiddish through the Germanic determinant, the word rusiš ‘Russian (language)’ (Q. 001.020–.040). Since the question was aimed at the Yiddish name for the language coterritorial with Yiddish, not every informant responded with this word, making a complete regional description impossible. With this item we have an example of both hissing and hushing alternatives of one set in the same word in general Yiddish. About half of the informants volunteering this word presented a form different from the general s…š alternation. It is difficult to pinpoint the important phonological influences – final word boundary, sibilant before unaccented vowel, or consonant assimilation – dissimilation. Interestingly, not every possible combination was offered and certain combinations seemed localized geographically. No rusis or hissing s followed by palatal or semi-hushing s was recorded; initial hissing was only offered in the general form, indicating that if deviation from that form was the historical change, it did not take place by assimilation of the final š to the preceding s. On the contrary, all recorded alternatives realized the first s as š, with a few as palatal or semi-hushing s. The informants who offered rušis were mostly localized in Belorussia and the northern Ukraine. The form where the two sibilants were perceived by the interviewers as equivalent and hushing (š) had a great concentration in eastern Poland, Volin. Intermediate hushing or palatal s in either position appeared sporadically throughout sabesdiker losn territory. Another example of a word with two sibilants is šosey ‘highway’ (Q. 002.050), derived from French or Latin, most likely entering Yiddish through various Slavic languages. Here, unlike the previous example, most

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locations show the general Yiddish form šosey. In addition, besides intermediate forms, and in contrast with rusiš, all four alternative combinations are displayed. Geographically the alternatives do not appear at random. Only one of the 43 recorded deviations from general Yiddish appears in central or southern Poland; the rest are in sabesdiker losn territory and Ukraine. The northern locations mostly display the general š…s, but also the alternatives s…s, or š…š. The reverse form s…š was restricted to Ukraine and Belorussia, south of Molev (Mogilev). Interestingly, the one informant in western Poland that demonstrated a nongeneral form (sosey at Gostenin) had also answered rušiš (This same informant, however, exhibited forms concurring with general Yiddish for five examples of the Germanic component). An informant from Kovel (Volin, southwest of Pinsk), not in sabesdiker losn territory, offered both šošey and rušiš. The words with both hissing and hushing sibilants may reflect a speaker with articulation problems, but again we see that deviation from the general pattern occurs throughout Ukraine in addition to the North. The fact that no informant in the North realized s…š illustrates that we are not dealing with haphazard confusion. According to the map for šabes ‘Sabbath’ (Q. 025 040), deviations from š…s only occur in the sabesdiker losn territory. We do not see any examples of s…š. Some locations scored as š…s did exhibit initial s7 (semi-hushing);13 some of the š…š points are actually s7…s7. According to this scheme, nongeneral forms were divided evenly between š…š and s…s, suggesting that change occurred historically in both initial and final sibilants to the same extent. This, however, is not true. Change occurred in the initial sibilant (šĺs) in many more locations, because many of the points scored as general Yiddish actually reflected šĺs7, and several of the locations scored as š…š were truly s7…s7,also indicating initial šĺs. Another example from the Hebraic component will more aptly exemplify the simpler pattern of distribution of forms on the Eastern Yiddish map, as contrasted with the maps relating to Slavic languages. The map for hekdeš ‘poorhouse’ (Q. 001070) depicts the general Yiddish final š throughout the map, including the North. One variant contains the terminal, voiced analogue ž, offered by nine informants in the Warsaw region. ————— 13

The notation of “s7” (semi-hushing) and “s8” (palatalized; below) is part of a modified phonetic transcription used in the Atlas fieldwork which accommodated the IBM keyboard for subsequent automatic processing, see LCAAJ I (1992: 8) and LCAAJ II (1995: 20–24).

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Hissing s alternates with š in the northern area; but most of these forms were realized as s7 (semi-hushing) or s8 (palatal). Surprisingly, there were also three such s-containing forms in eastern Galicia. From these various examples of unpublished LCAAJ maps, we see a more complete array of phonetic variants and a more global perspective than was provided in any other research project. The hissing-hushing alternations we are focusing on are demonstrated by many examples in Ukraine, not just the North. The greatest variation over the entire map can be seen in examples related to the Slavic component and/or Slavic languages. The raw data has on occasion shown me that there is a danger in simplifying map depiction, as intermediate realizations of sibilants can be overlooked. 3.3 LCAAJ fieldnote data Let us look at data concerning sibilant realization in the Germanic component. In fact, many answers recorded in the interviewers' fieldnotes address this issue. I studied the fieldnotes for question 077.081 that by the Atlas design concentrated on interviewing in sabesdiker losn territory. The map at the end of this article shows the extracted information. The sentence to be translated contained two words that make a minimal pair in general Yiddish, differing only in s or š – visn vos cu višn, or visn vos opcuvišn ‘know what to wipe.’ This is our first examination of words as parts of a phrase and also the first juxtaposition of two cases of sibilant realization at the same time. The fieldworkers interviewed informants from northern Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and some locations in northern Ukraine. Of 94 respondents, 56 exhibited the general Yiddish pattern s…š according to the fieldnotes. Of the 38, 23 informants realized the sibilant in visn ‘know’ as s, whereas only 6 realized the sibilant in višn ‘wipe’ as š. This result agrees with the overall finding of šĺs being the more common phenomenon. Eighteen respondents pronounced the same sibilant in this collocation for both words: distributed between s, š, or s7 (semi-hushing).14 S8 (palatalized) was exhibited for višn (wipe). More importantly, š was realized in ‘know’ only when š was also articulated in ‘wipe’. Parallel to this, s was realized in ‘wipe’ only when s was also articulated in ‘know’. The intermediate sounds s7 or s8 were realized in 27 of the 38 deviations. ————— 14

See note 13 above.

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The responses were certainly not random: of the sixteen possible combinations of the four sounds, only seven were realized. From the locations for which we have responses, we get some idea of the regionalization of the hissing-hushing phenomenon. Even the limited coverage, as seen on the attached map (at the end of this article), enables us to confirm Mordkhe Veynger’s description of the absence of the phenomenon in northern Poland. The highest concentration of deviation from general Yiddish can be observed in Lithuania. Although southern and northeastern Belorussia are not covered as well by the investigation, the intensive occurrence of the general Yiddish pattern suggests that deviations from general Yiddish are less common in these regions. It is difficult to come to conclusions based on this limited map, but we can suggest some geographic trends. When two words are examined together, as in the present example, in the Lithuanian area of concentrated deviation, relatively few locations exhibit general Yiddish behavior. In fact, within this area, more informants realize a distinction as s…s7, than those realizing the general Yiddish s…š distinction. In addition, the distribution of mergers speaks against randomness. For example, no s7…s7 is exhibited south of Vilna; no š…š is exhibited east of Minsk. It would be important to complete the data for this question in the Northwest (Latvia) and East (Belorussia). One can easily find hundreds of questions, for which the answers contain sibilants in the German component. I have looked at some of this data. The answers to question 005.030 for example, not aimed at the phonological problem at hand, turn up a groy(ey)se šif ‘a large ship’. Examining the answers from north of the latitude of Warsaw and Pinsk, only five deviations from general Yiddish s…š were observed in a total of 66 responses. Since the informants were given two opportunities in which they could realize a sibilant, I would interpret the absence of recorded deviations to the interviewers’ concentration on other grammatical issues in the informants' answer and corresponding neglect of the sibilant realization. This hypothesis would have to be corroborated by comparing recordings and fieldnotes or by freshly analyzing (longer segments of) the individual interviews, either via the internet (EYDES Repository) or via new copies of the original sound (Wave format) available from Columbia University. A second example from the German component, again testing a grammatical point, is fus ‘foot’ contained in the answers to question 030.020 (“the left foot”). North of a line Warsaw-Pinsk we observe only 6 cases of deviation from the general pattern out of 77 responses (all

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occurring within the 27 responses located north of Vilna). This low frequency is believable because of the single sibilant and the less common sĺš phenomenon. Indeed, no š was realized, but five times s7 and one time s8. At the outset, I have hinted at the possibility that some of the problem in interpreting this kind of data may reflect inconsistency on the part of the interviewers. On the one hand, some may not have been sufficiently sensitive to this phonetic variation when other issues were in focus and when regions other than the northeast were studied; some may not have provided a consistent transcription, even within one interview. It might be worth comparing the work of different interviewers to see whether their reactions varied enough to give different symbols to the seemingly same sound (s7, s8, and š). It would, of course, be a big task to recheck all relevant transcriptions in the fieldnotes. As pointed out earlier, the interviewers may have had visual clues that are not preserved in the LCAAJ archives. For what it may be worth, I would like to describe my impressions of randomly accessed segments of two interviews in sabesdiker losn territory. 3.4 Segments of LCAAJ recordings The informant from Musnik, just northwest of Vilna (location 54249) exhibits speech heavily laden with the šĺs phenomenon, giving the initial impression that s is the uniform realization, a sabesdiker losn stereotype. However, careful listening reveals intermediate phonetic realizations. During about one hour of listening, I noted sixty occurrences of sibilants, including: makheteyniste, zibn, sabes, seyn (šoyn), seyne, stetl, efser, cvekes, svat, dayc, peylis, sames, mencn, but also ces7naydn, tabus kedus7n, s7abes, šlikhes, šukes, farblondžet. The informant clearly articulates intermediate and hushing phones. In certain words I interpreted the sounds differently from the interviewer’s notation: his bešejlom ‘graveyard’ versus my bes8ejlom or bes7ejlom, stime ‘voice’ versus -s8-; for his geštorbn ‘died’ I noted 2 two occurrences with -s8- and one -s-; his nisto ‘not there’ versus my -s7-; his drayšik ‘thirty’ versus my -s-; his sul ‘synagogue’ versus my -s7- or -š-, his c78imes ‘vegetable/fruit stew’ versus my þimes. However, we both agreed on a clear rošišone ‘New Year holiday(s)’ The clear hushing phones seem limited to certain words of the Hebraic and Slavic component, in one case even derived from general Yiddish s, šlikhes ‘(a series of daily

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prayers of repentance preceding the Yom Kippur)’ Interestingly I noticed two different realizations of one word depending on the pronounced length of the following vowel: šiferteyre and seyferteyre ‘Torah scroll’. The disagreements between me and the interviewer probably indicate “different ears,” my inexperience, and the interviewer’s tendency to predict sounds according to a pattern for a given informant and concept (this section was near the end of the interview). The informant from Tovrig, northwest of Kovno (location 55221) demonstrates a very different sounding speech, with oy realized as a frontrounded oü, broüt, koülec ‘bread, (holiday bread loaf).’ My first impression was once again that of a language where hissing s was the prevailing sibilant: sisl, basitn, stikl, esn, genzene, smalc, stricl ‘bowl, to cover, small piece, to eat, goose-like, fat, currant cake.’ I heard šuke, but also sukes. I noted koülec, but the interviewer had transcribed k8ewl3c8. I thought I heard šeyne rabe, which the interviewer listed as s8eyne rabe. Other examples from this location are cited below (Table 1), but we see that assignment to a phonetic typology may be a matter of individual taste. Familiarity with a certain way of speaking requires listening to hours of recordings. If there is doubt about how to interprete recorded features, I would tend to agree with the interviewer, who was used to listening to the informant and exposed to more complete physical cues. For the most part, I feel that utilization of LCAAJ data should depend on the fieldnotes, accompanied by in depth listening to recordings from a few selected locations and occasionally checking the recordings for seeming inconsistencies in the fieldnotes. By using processed Atlas data and interviewer notes, I attempted to compare sibilant realizations in a variety of words at fifteen locations. Answers to all of the questions are never given, so that comparison of specific items for several locations contains gaps. In the table below I have listed five of these locations (indicated by arrows on the map at the end of the article), which demonstrate diverse patterns of realization when several words are looked at.

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Table 1: A comparison of sibilant variants in five locations: 54249=Mušnik, 53259=Ivje, 55226=Kroze, 55221=Taurig, 55258=Rakišok

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According to the distinctive feature system of Chomsky and Halle (1968), we can distinguish three types of sibilants, s, s8 and š (or s7), by the following features: anterior high distributed

s + -

s8 + -

š,s7 + +

Table 2: Sibilant types

These distinctions can be observed in our data. In any variety exhibited in the data only three segments are present for the sibilant series. Hushing š and s7 do not co-occur, so that the feature description listed for š would apply for s7 too. Based on listening to recordings, I do not have full confidence in this non-co-occurrence of š and s7 since in listening to tapes I thought I heard both, but a “trained ear” may be able to distinguish the “lisping” nature of s8 and s7 as well as the degree of hushing in s7 and š. The occasional assignment by interviewers of s7, 8 would have to be reexamined. Looking at Table 1, we see five distinct displays. None of them indicates a uniform realization for all cases of s – š; the closest to such a merged realization turns up in 55226, but even here, along with the more common s7, also s and s8 are realized in s8os8ey ‘highway’. When we compare 54249 and 53259, which display uniform hissing s for ‘know’ and ‘wipe’, each also demonstrates hushing š, even though in words of non-Germanic origin. In contrast to these two locations, 55221 and 55258 exhibit high incidence of s7 and s8 along with hissing s. In addition, in all locations for which we have responses for ‘wash’ (general Yiddish vašn), the fieldnotes confirm the identical sibilant articulation as for the similar ‘wipe’ (višn). I believe that such displays of data for individual locations can help to elucidate the diverse sibilant repertoires, which may be characteristic of local “subdialects.”

4 Recommendations for Future Research It would be worthwhile examining the publications and any archival materials from the collections of the two leading Yiddish dialectologists, Prilutski and Veynger. In Prilutski’s Yidishe fonetik (1940) and Der yidisher

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konsonantizm (1917) I found no discussion of variation in hissing/hushing. I would want to look at Veynger’s earlier publications, including pre-World War I material. If records of the Minsk atlas archives survived the war,15 individual responses which were used to determine the map isoglosses could be reexamined – even granting that phonetic realizations of the type we are interested in might not be come out easily in written responses. On the whole, the LCAAJ remains the outstanding repository for the phonetic data required for such study. The dialect records referred to by U. Weinreich (1952: 362, note 9) and recorded by B. Weinreich in 1948 may contain speech that could be used for comparison with the LCAAJ collection.16 Further listening to LCAAJ recordings would be desirable as I have indicated, even if a complete review of the recordings in the sabesdiker losn area would be an immense task. Inconsistencies in individual notation can be counterbalanced by the fact that now, with direct access through EYDES, everyone interested can listen to the original recordings and judge for him- or herself. In addition, machines and software for analyzing linguistic articulation have much been refined over the past decades and can help in a fresh analysis. It’s worthwhile to deliberate the kinds of maps that best illustrate sibilant behavior in Eastern Yiddish. For example, if instead of the map at hand (at the end of the article, below) we were to draw two individual maps for visn ‘know’ and višn ‘wipe’, a different geographic pattern would emerge, as šĺs is the more common phenomenon, with more varied realization. In planning maps to be drawn, the different Yiddish language components must be represented, since the phenomenon behaves differently across the components. In addition, representative maps for the z and c series should be made, along with maps illustrating different phonological environments. The maps should reflect the heterogeneity of the data. I would favor maps that give all the alternative phonetic realizations for one word or a group of relevant words at each location. Because of the observed ————— 15

Unfortunately, the inquiries carried out from Marburg by Wolfgang Putschke for LCAAJ volume III (cf. 2000: 2) suggest that his is unlikely [editors' note]. 16 The materials are part of YIVO’s archive collection Yiddish Dialects Project which were the subject of a cataloging grant about ten years ago. The recordings proper have been transferred to YIVO’s Division of Recorded Sound. The paper component consists of basic information cards about the interviewees and of a listing of the recordings (Fruma Mohrer, Leo Greenbaum–personal communication) [editors’ note].

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variability, even for a single word, composite maps will give a better idea of overall trends. Rather than by map representation, the data is more amenable to analysis by lists that compare locations like Table 1 above. The type of parallel list could be expanded to additional locations and words, and the words then be clustered according to component and phonological environment. The entire corpus should be subjected to quantitative analysis of variability and the frequency of each type of phonetic realization for a given word should be calculated. This could be achieved by listening to the recordings of selected locations, since much of the volunteered information is not in the fieldnotes and many of the words appear frequently. An even better way to start now is using the EYDES Repository in the internet with which we can list and “cut” relevant segments of the original Atlas recordings, either along select questions of the questionnaire or by searching for individual words which contain sibilants. A measure of variability would contribute greatly to our understanding of the sabesdiker losn phenomenon synchronically. Part of the areal focus should define the northwestern border of sabesdiker losn territory and the phenomenon in Latvia. In addition, the realizations in Belorussia must be carefully examined, since some of the LCAAJ data do not corroborate the extensiveness of deviation from the general Yiddish pattern that was portrayed in the Soviet Yiddish atlas for this area. The rather high frequency of certain alternatives in Ukraine is a new contribution of the LCAAJ that should be more carefully studied. For understanding the localized Yiddish realizations of certain Slavic and Baltic origin words, consultation with the coterritorial dialectology results would be desirable. Because of the great interest in the sabesdiker losn phenomenon, found in local folksongs, portrayal in literature, in Jewish and non-Jewish linguistic stereotypes, as well as owing to U. Weinreich’s article (1952), the LCAAJ findings on this matter will be appreciated by those who are interested in Yiddish culture in general. By stressing different aspects of this seemingly limited phonological issue, I have opened up a Pandora’s box of problems—methodological and theoretical, cultural-historical and synchronic-linguistic. Although I have not solved any of the problems, I hope my preliminary endeavor can serve as groundwork for future studies.

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References Bayley, Robert and Ceil Lucas (eds.) 2007 Sociolinguistic Variation. Theories, Methods, and Analysis. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press). Chambers, J. K. (!), Peter Trudgill and Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds.) 2002 The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Oxford (Blackwell). Chomsky, Noam and Morris Halle 1968 The Sound Pattern of English. New York (Harper and Row). Herzog, Marvin I. 1969 Yiddish in the Ukraine. In: The Field of Yiddish. Third collection, Marvin Herzog/ Wita Ravid/ Uriel Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 58–81. Jakobson, Roman 1958 [The Yiddish Sound Structure in Its Slavic Environment; in Yiddish]. In: Yuda A. Yofebukh, Yudl Mark (ed.), New York (YIVO Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut), 207–220. Kalmanovitsh, Zelig 1926 [The Yiddish Dialect of Courland; in Yiddish]. In: Filologishe Shriftn fun YIVO, I: 161– 188. Katz, Hirshe-Dovid 1994 [New incarnations of old disputes. The Lithuanian standard and its disputed status; in Yiddish]. In: YIVO-bleter, new series, vol. 2: 205–257. Labov, William 2001 Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 2: Social Factors, Oxford (Blackwell). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Lemchen (Lemchenas), Chatzkel 1995 [The Influence of Lithuanian on the Yiddish Dialect in lite]. In: Oksforder Yidish, vol. 3, Hirshe-Dovid Katz (ed.), Oxford (Farlag Oksforder Yidish), 5–130. Mark, Yudel 1951 [Our Lithuanian Yiddish; in Yiddish]. In: Lite, vol. 1, M. Sudarsky et al. (eds.), New York (YIVO), 429–472. Peltz, Rakhmiel 1990 Spoken Yiddish in America. Variation in Dialect and Grammar. In: Studies in Yiddish Linguistics, Paul Wexler (ed.), Tübingen (Max Niemeyer), 55–73. Peltz, Rakhmiel 1998 From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture. American Yiddish in South Philadelphia, Stanford (Stanford University Press).

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Prince, Ellen 1987 Sarah Gorby, A Yiddish Singer. A Case Study of Dialect Shift. In: International Journal of the Sociology of Language 67: 83–116. Sankoff, Gillian 1974 A Quantitative Paradigm for the Study of Communicative Competence. In: Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, eds. R. Bauman and J. Sherzer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 18–49. Shtif, Nokhem 1929 [The Dialectological Expedition of the Department for Yiddish Culture; in Yiddish]. In: Di yidishe shprakh 19: 1–26. Shulman, M. 1938 [Slavic Influence on the Phonetics of Yiddish; in Yiddish]. In: Afn shprakhfront II: 131–172. Weinreich, Max 1923 Shtaplen. Fir etyudn tsu der yidisher shprakhvisnshaft un literaturgeshikhte[!], Berlin (Wostock). Veynger, Mordkhe 1926/1928 [On Yiddish Dialects; in Yiddish]. In: Tsaytshrift I: 181–208 / II–III: 613–652 Veynger, Mordkhe 1929 [Yiddish Dialectology]. Minsk. Vilenkin, Leyzer 1931 Yidisher shprakhatlas fun sovetn-farband. Minsk. Weinreich, Uriel 1952 Sabesdiker losn in Yiddish. A Problem of Linguistic Affinity. In: Word 8: 360–377. Weinreich, Uriel 1953 Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems, With a Preface by André Martinet, New York (Linguistic Circle of New York). Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Four Riddles in Bilingual Dialectology. In: American Contributions to the Fifth International Congress of Slavists, Sofia 1963 (preprint), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 335–359. Weinreich, Uriel 1969 The Geographic Makeup of Belorussian Yiddish. In: The Field of Yiddish. Third collection, Marvin Herzog/ Wita Ravid/ Uriel Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 82–101. Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov and Marvin Herzog 1968 Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. In: W.P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics, A Symposium, Austin/London (University of Texas Press), 95–195. Yofe, Yuda A. 1928 [The Slavic Element in Yiddish; in Yiddish]. In: Pinkes fun Amopteyl fun Yivo II: 296–312.

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Map 1: Yiddish sibilant variation in visn ‘to know’ versus vishn ‘to wipe’

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Notes of a Fieldworker for the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry

1 Introduction From 1966 through 1967 I was a fieldworker/interviewer for the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ). At that time, Uriel Weinreich, who designed the LCAAJ, stressed the urgency of completing the fieldwork. It was a last chance to record the dialects and folk culture of native Yiddish speakers who had survived the almost total destruction of their communities during World War II. For me, working on this project was an exhilarating as well as a culminating experience. With one stroke, it put together my lifetime connection to Yiddish and my studies in Yiddish linguistics. Beyond that, it felt good to help preserve the riches of the East European Jewish community in contrast to the despair one usually felt in response to the overwhelming tragedy of its destruction. The project was launched at a time when it was still possible to bring together a younger generation–the interviewers, who had the education and commitment to Yiddish to record it–and an older generation of European-born, native Yiddish speakers, the informants, who had the understanding and commitment to share their language with us. It was a defining moment. To complete the fieldwork, informants had to be located and interviewed in the countries to which they had emigrated. Over the life of the project, there were eighteen fieldworkers (LCAAJ II: 82) who conducted interviews, primarily in New York City, while some interviews took place in Alsace, Jerusalem, Montreal, and Mexico City. All my interviews were held in New York City. I am sure each fieldworker came to the project by a unique path and a different connection to Yiddish. A language and culture atlas of the interviewers would make an interesting story. Here is mine.

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2 How I was connected to Yiddish Yiddish was my mother-tongue, the language my immigrant parents spoke. Both came to the United States before World War I from Russia, my mother, Libe Perl, from Greyding, my father, Khatskl Dukolski, from Gostomel’. My parents worked in garment shops in Manhattan, my father as a presser all his life, my mother as a finisher for many years. But that pigeonholes rather than describes them. My father was an intellectual, a philosopher, chess player and soldier. My mother, at 17, had the daring to leave her family behind, steal across the Russian border and come to America. Yiddish was the sound of my mother singing a love song and of my father telling his wonderful stories. My separation from Yiddish began when I attended public school on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Then English became the language I spoke at home. To connect me to their lives and to their language, my parents enrolled me in a secular Yiddish school in the neighborhood. I was eight years old. Where you studied Yiddish was not politically neutral. First, I was enrolled in a left-wing, secular Yiddish school, the Workmen’s Circle (Arbeter Ring) shule which I attended after elementary public school classes. There it felt heymish, like home, to be called by my Yiddish name Rokhl or even Rokhele. And then, because the skhar limed (tuition) was cheaper, I was enrolled in the ordn shule (International Worker’s Order school) which was even more left-wing. It was 1932, the midst of the depression, and the cost of tuition was no minor matter. We marched on May Day in white shirt and red tie, shouting slogans: Free Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro boys, We Demand Free Food and Clothing, Jim Crow Must Go. We were told what was happening in the world and were taught to feel responsible for changing what needed changing. Both the Arbeter Ring and the Ordn were passionately committed to the continuity of Yiddish, both taught a non-dialectal, standard Yiddish, largely based on the Litvish dialect (Northeastern Yiddish, spoken in Lithuania, Latvia, Belorussia and the northern Ukraine). As to the shared ideal of a shenere un besere velt (a more beautiful and better world), how to go about it was a matter of passionate concern and bitter argument between the two organizations. Being politically correct affected not only one’s stand on issues of the day but also spelling, orthography, and celebration of the Jewish holidays. The ordn shules followed a Soviet model: e.g., all Hebrew-origin words

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were to be spelled phonetically, not etymologically, and the High Holy Days Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were not included on the holiday calendar. I completed the ordn elementar shul, mitl shul, and the hekhere kursn, studied Jewish history, literature, social studies, sang Yiddish folksongs and developed a radical political orientation to the world. In my thinking, Yiddish was inextricably bound to an activist political agenda. After graduating from Hunter College in 1945, I acted on my concern for the continuity of Yiddish by becoming a full-time teacher-in-charge of the Haym Salomon Jewish Children’s School of the International Worker’s Order. Yiddish was my first cause. I taught in this shule for a year and then went on to new academic studies, other jobs, and other causes. I was away from the Yiddish world for a number of years, engrossed in raising a family. When my children began attending school full-time, I considered reconnecting to Yiddish and was surprised to learn that Columbia University was offering a course in Yiddish linguistics. I arranged to meet with Uriel Weinreich, Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at Columbia. When we met in April, 1963, I expressed my interest in studying linguistics with Yiddish as my major. We had an in-depth discussion, in Yiddish, about my language background and education, and the motivation for my current plans. After that meeting, Uriel Weinreich wrote me a letter suggesting I apply for a scholarship, which I did, and was awarded an Atran scholarship for 1963– 64.

3 Yiddish at Columbia University Yiddish at Columbia University! It was Yiddish without politics. It was Yiddish joining the mainstream, the hoykhe fentster (literally ‘tall windows,’ i.e., high society). It was reassuring to study Yiddish at Columbia, when for some, Yiddish was still considered a lowly language, a zhargon, and for others, a language of the Diaspora, to be erased and replaced by Hebrew. At Columbia it was a language worthy of study, part of the kaleidoscope of languages spoken on this earth. Looking at languages from a structural point of view was refreshing. It was studying language as part of humankind’s cultural development just as we study the development of flora and fauna in the natural world.

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In 1963, I started taking courses towards my M.A. in Linguistics. Uriel Weinreich’s class in Yiddish linguistics was extraordinary. Known for his theoretical insights in linguistics and his brilliant analysis of the Yiddish language, he was also an inspiring teacher. He revealed the structure of Yiddish, lifting the veil so that we could see the beauty of the bride. He described the grammatical and lexical structure of Yiddish in depth, with great clarity and a playful touch. He traced the geographic path of Yiddish as it selectively incorporated the influences of the languages with which it came in contact. He showed how the geographic boundaries of Yiddish dialects evolved. With him we traced a language in action and began to understand the dynamics of language change. Weinreich reveled in the inventiveness of the Yiddish language. It was as if the language had a mind of its own. For example, from the Slavic component, Yiddish adopted the perfective vs. the imperfective aspect of the verb. By connecting a prefix oys, op, on, to a verb, one can indicate that an action has been completed, thus adding another dimension to the meaning of the verb. He pointed out the richness of the Yiddish diminutive as it adopted Slavic and German influences and discussed the sociological function of Hebrew words in Yiddish. We learned about the socio-economic function of the zhargon used by the Jewish horse dealers in Switzerland, and much more. In discussing the composition of Yiddish words, he used as an example the “pure” Yiddish word shlimezalnikes (unlucky persons) which he said, had ale mayles (all the virtues). It was made up of: A Hebrew root – mazl A German adjective – shlim A Slavic addition – nik A Hebrew plural – es

In his class on Yiddish dialectology, I became aware of the individuality and expressiveness of Yiddish dialects and how they enriched the language. Having been taught standard Yiddish in the shules, I was not tuned in to hear Yiddish dialects and was amazed when I realized that my Greydinger mother actually spoke in one, colloquially called, tote-mome lushn, where the standard a became o and h was dropped and added in unexpected places, hober meant ‘but’ and ober meant ‘oats.’ It was Yiddish analyzed with loving care, abstracted from the tragedy of its recent history. In the deepest sense, Uriel Weinreich’s work paid homage

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to the six million Jews whose voices had been silenced, by knowing the language they spoke intimately, and seeing it in all its dialectal glory. The students were a fascinating group. I remember Rakhmiel (Richard) Zuckerman who spoke many languages in addition to Yiddish, with the ease of a native speaker and Moishe (Morris) Goldwasser whose connection with the orthodox Jewish community and his knowledge of both Hebrew and Yiddish enriched our class discussions. We were enthusiastic about what we were learning, engaged in lively discussions, appreciated hearing our teacher’s perldikn (luminescent) Yiddish. Then lightning struck. Even now it is hard to accept that our teacher was cut down in his prime. Uriel Weinreich died on March 30, 1967 at the age of 41. He had taught and carried out his commitments up to the last day of his life. When we came to our next class, Max Weinreich, Uriel’s father, a prominent linguist in the field of Yiddish, was sitting at the table where Uriel Weinreich had sat. Without saying a word, Max Weinreich took up the lesson where his son had left off and, with the grace and courage of a Weinreich, continued to teach us till the end of that semester.

4 The Atlas While working towards an M.A. in Yiddish linguistics, I felt privileged to be invited to become a fieldworker/interviewer for the Atlas, our abbreviated name for the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ). Headquarters for the Atlas were at 560 Riverside Drive, in a spacious apartment provided by Columbia University, with a magnificent view of the Hudson River. However, the staff’s focus was on the activities on the inside. It was the place from which I would head out and return to with my completed set of tapes. Marvin (Mikhl) Herzog, Editor-in-Chief of the Atlas, and since 1967 project director, would receive my informal field reports with delight. He would listen eagerly as I related my adventures in recording informants. I felt that I had brought him treasures. I had left with my Uher tape recorder and returned with a shtetl. There was a map of Europe on the wall, and Bina Weinreich, who had worked on the Atlas with her husband Uriel since its inception, who had constructed a master version of the questionnaire, and

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had helped prepare early versions of the base-map, would immediately stick a tack in the map for the location which had just been covered. For each completed interview there were from seven to ten tapes. Mikhl Herzog listened to each tape recording while reviewing the interviewer’s written transcript, making corrections, inserting omissions, coding the questions and making cross-reference marks to paragraph numbers which referred to specific problems in the language. Then the key-puncher, Dorothy Jordan, would key-punch the edited transcript onto Hollerith cards.1 Mikhl often had to resolve some delicate problems. For example, the difference between the masculine and feminine article was obvious to the normal ear as der and di only in the Litvish dialect (Northeastern Yiddish). In the Poylish dialect (Polish, Central Yiddish) where the final consonant is dropped, the quality of the final schwa-sound is difficult to detect. For this issue, and many others, it meant listening to passages again and again and again–a time-consuming and exacting procedure.

5 The Questionnaire Before I could go out on my first interview, there was an orientation period during which I became aware of the scope and specific aims of the project, and acquainted myself with its major tool–the Stabilized Master Questionnaire (SMQ; LCAAJ II: *9–*87). The Stabilized Master Questionnaire applied to the entire Eastern Yiddish language area and was composed of a carefully ordered series of questions which aimed at describing the dialects of Yiddish. The SMQ was 221 pages long and consisted of 3,245 questions. Informants were recorded on a Uher or Wolensak tape recorder in a series of interviews totalling approximately fourteen to sixteen hours and held over a period of several weeks. The interviewer had to master a phonetic transcription system which utilized both conventional IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) values for —————

1

It is interesting to note the links between this punch card technology and Columbia University. The technology was invented by Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), who earned his B.S. from Columbia’s School of Mines in 1879, originally to facilitate the compilation of the 1890 U.S. Census. His invention was also the basis upon which Hollerith earned his Ph.D. from Columbia’s School of Mines in 1890. In 1896, he founded the Tabulating Machine Company out of which IBM evolved in 1924. See “Herman Hollerith” http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ history/hollerith.html.

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vowels and consonants, numbers for unstressed vowels, and a combination of numbers and other symbols for diacritics. The questionnaire addressed the relevant topics in Yiddish dialectology: Yiddish phonology, vocalisms, consonantism, morphology, morphophonemics, vocabulary and various other subjects. The topics, numbered 002 through 999, ultimately listed in the Index to the Dialectology (ID; LCAAJ II: 29–35), provided the rationale for the 3245 questions of the SMQ which the interviewer used to ascertain each informant’s dialect. According to the LCAAJ II: 1, The Stabilized Master Questionnaire (SMQ) is organized not only by overt topics such as cooking, holidays and the like but also by the (frequently) “covert” dialectical problems that constitute the ID.

These overt topics were embedded in a series of cultural questions or conversational topics to maintain the informant’s interest in this lengthy questionnaire. This strategy worked. Informants were interested in questions that brought them back to the time and place of their youth and to their native language. They were often delighted to hear or use words that they hadn’t spoken in a long time. Although these questions fulfilled the project’s other objective of collecting regional ethnographic and cultural material, the dialectological topics were the organizing principle of the questionnaire. Therefore it was essential for the interviewer to understand the intent of each question. During my interviews, I would keep in mind the following: – Which topic in Yiddish dialectology is addressed by this question and must be answered? – If an informant answers a question and then provides additional information, how much time should I allow for it? Is it relevant or a digression? – Is the informant’s answer to a question providing new information on a cultural or ethnographic issue or does it apply to an issue that will occur later in the questionnaire? – Above all, respect for the informant’s response is essential. The fact that the interviewer was aware of both the covert and overt issues addressed in the questionnaire, and the informant wasn’t, created a certain disconnect between the two. I knew what I was getting at but often the

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informant did not. Thus an informant might be ready to go to town on a question when all that was required was a simple answer. For example: Question 004.040: I asked the informant, Vi azoy hot geheysn in (informant’s city or town) der taykh? ‘What was the name of the river in your city or town?’ When the informant gave me the name of the river, I would repeat the name with a questioning intonation in order to find out the informant’s dialectal variant of ‘yes’ ye/yo/yoy/ya. That was the covert intent of this question, but for one informant, the son of a lumber merchant, this question evoked memories he wanted to share with me. He remembered his father taking him to the woods, arranging for peasants to cut down trees, saw them into logs and send them down the river. He remembered his father leaving him with the peasants who welcomed him into their huts and taught him to gather wild mushrooms in the woods. Not all “digressions” are equal and the interviewer had to use judgment as to how to handle volunteered responses. I felt there were advantages to this “digression.” It sparked the informant’s interest in the questionnaire, immediately shifted the informant’s thoughts to another space, his home town, evoking memories which were of ethnographic and cultural interest. And furthermore, I was aware that some of the informant’s volunteered information would apply to the following questions: Question 005.010: tsi hot men getribn bay aykh gehilts afn taykh? ‘Were logs driven down the river?’ Question 005.011: (oyb yo) vi azoy hot geheysn eyner fun di bintlekh kletser? ‘If yes, what would you call one of a pile of logs?’

In general, the disconnect between the informant and the interviewer occurred over the fact that the informant was primarily concerned with the content of a question, the interviewer with both form and content. For example: Question 024.070: The interviewer asks, Vi azoy zogt ir (how do you say) ‘the throat?’ Let us say the informant answers haldz. That answer takes care of the content from the informant’s point of view. The interviewer, however, is dealing with a number of other issues: Is the definite article der or di ? What is the final consonant? Did the informant say haldz or halts? To check this pronunciation the interviewer asks, ‘Does it rhyme with alts?’ Or the interviewer tries to determine whether holts (wood) is the homonym

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for haldz–a pronunciation which applies to Bessarabia , the Ukraine, and Romania. Questions 087.020 to 042: One group of sentences that informants and I found tricky to negotiate went like this: ‘Give me an apple. I give him the apple. He gives the apple to you (sg.) You give the apple to us. We give it to them. They give it to you. Children, give us the apples.’

Evidently this kind of conjugation was unfamiliar and it caused confusion. Some informants treated ‘Give me an apple’ as a request for an apple and would answer in Yiddish ‘I give you an apple.’ etc. It was a lot of fun getting tangled up and getting untangled. Question 023.040: A number of questions came with directions to the interviewer to gesture or demonstrate behavior to elicit a Yiddish word. az eyner tut azoy (interviewer groans) zogt men er k… … ‘If someone does this, one says he groans’

The following possibilities are prompted: krekhtshen / krekhtsn kraysn / krayslen anken / yenken

I had to sharpen my thespian skills. At separate times, I needed to yawn, groan, sigh, breathe, spit, smoke a cigarette and wrinkle my brow. I had to fine tune the difference between squinting and blinking. Luckily I wasn’t required to demonstrate belching. Given the length of each interview and the need to maintain the informant’s interest over a number of weeks, the primary task of the interviewer was to establish a warm relationship and a feeling of partnership with the informant. To maintain the informant’s interest, I had to demonstrate my own. This involved: – – –

looking up from the transcription I was writing down and making eye contact; smiling, laughing at a joke, showing approval for a good answer by nodding or saying gut gezogt or git gezukt (well put), whichever version was dialectally correct for my informant; keeping the pace of the questions in tune with the informant’s own rhythm–slowing up if necessary or speeding up, or taking a break;

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–

having patience–an absolute necessity on both sides since the interviewer was intent on getting answers to certain dialectal issues while the informant did not know what the interviewer was driving at. All the above was easier said than done when you consider that I was busily writing down the phonetic transcription, making sure the covert question was answered even if I had to repeat it a number of times, and keeping the interview moving and on track. However, it is important to remember, that what fueled the informant’s interest and commitment to the questionnaire was its purpose in preserving the dialects of Yiddish for future generations, a cause in which informant and interviewer were linked.

6 Some additional interviewing issues If the interviewer heard an unusual word, for example hotsmer or zatsmer, that was not in response to a question in the questionnaire, it was to be noted. If the informant gave an answer to a previously asked question later in the interview, the interviewer needed first of all to recognize that and then to make note of it. The interviewer was responsible for the accuracy of the transcription and fortunately had the leeway to self-correct. For example, if an informant in answer to a question responded with a word which the interviewer thought was not in keeping with the informant’s dialect, the interviewer had these options: the interviewer could ask the informant to repeat the word, see if the informant used the word at another time and make note of it, or suggest what might be the correct response. Asking a question in the informant’s dialect, as best I could, made the questions more understandable for the informant and kept the informant reminded of his dialect. There was no canonized approach. The alertness and flexibility of the interviewer were key. Moreover, if there were some doubt as to the accuracy of the phonetic transcription, Mikhl Herzog had the expertise to review the sound-recording and to make the necessary corrections. Uriel Weinreich felt the written transcription was the most important task of the interviewer even if it meant sacrificing the sound-recording. Understandably so; the transcription was essential for computerizing the answers to the questions. However, Uriel Weinreich was also aware that there were issues that only the sound-recording could address: intonation, timbre, rhythm, voice quality–the music of the language.

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7 Contacting Informants I located informants, as other interviewers did, by first turning to my family, my father, my aunt, my sister’s father-in-law, and friends. I received referrals from my informants to their friends and family and I was given contacts by members of the Atlas staff, Mikhl Herzog and Mordkhe Schaechter. The first contact with informants was by phone. I spoke to them about the goals of the project and got an impression of their Yiddish. After this brief screening, I can’t recall ever having to reject an informant because his/her Yiddish dialect did not seem authentic. Interviews usually took place in the informant’s home.

8 The Informants My informants were neither wealthy, nor professionals. They were unpretentious, working class. Hospitality was the rule and tea and cake were hard to refuse. In the recollections that follow, I have provided, wherever possible, the informants’ names and the locations (by name and number; see LCAAJ II: 86–87 on the numerical symbolization of locations and LCAAJ II: 87–100 for indexes to the locations represented in the interviews). I remember one informant, Esther Simpkin from Streshin (Yiddish: Stréšin; 52307), for her charm and for the joy she took in a life that had a goodly share of hardships. She was a pretty, slender woman, about 92 years old. The first time I came in to her apartment, she was in the midst of washing the window-panes of her French door which led to a small outside deck. She was a balebuste. She took care of her apartment, cooked traditional Jewish foods and made her own preserves (they were delicious). She loved being interviewed and had excellent recall. There is a wealth of folklore material on her tapes: children’s games, rhymes, songs. Leyzer Schmais from Soroca (Yiddish: Serókԥ; 48281) was my sister’s father-in-law. A gentle man, one of the things he recalled most vividly about growing up in his town was raising pigeons on the roof of his house–a very non-Jewish occupation, for which he was chastised by his parents, and one in which he took great pride. He had a sweet, true voice and I can hear

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him singing this song, ikh gey aroys ofn ganikl mayn shtetele bakukn “I go out on the porch to view my town.” There was a very poignant interview that I remember which took place in the Workmen’s Circle old-age home. When his wife died, my informant had to break up his own home, bringing only a few mementos with him to put a personal touch in his austere room. He accepted his lot, and with all his energy and intelligence made this new life work for him. He became an activist in the home. He started a newspaper which he edited and in which he agitated for residents’ rights: to be able to visit friends and family, to have transportation available for such trips and for recreational and cultural outings. When we completed the entire interview, he gave me a parting gift. It was a miniature china pitcher, a Limoges from France, royal blue with gilt embossing. I still have it and treasure it. I met Gussie Rosen (Ulucz/Yiddish: Ilíþ; 49224) in a Lower East Side community center. She was a plump, easy-going woman, sitting heavily in a chair, the way a market woman would sit, and answering that long questionnaire good naturedly even if she didn’t get the point of all this questioning. She was a singer, well-known in her town and its environs for her lovely voice and her repertoire of love songs, ballads, and popular songs which she was paid to sing by both Jews and Gentiles. There was a couple I went to see in an apartment house in the Bronx. And as I walked up the stairs to their apartment, I could hear TVs blasting on every floor from every door. Old age in America, I thought. When I entered the apartment, I was in their shtetl kitchen: the table covered with a cross-stitched tablecloth, sugar cubes in a bowl, some mandelbroyt on a plate, hard candies in a cut-glass dish, and the teakettle whistling. My prickly aunt, Tante Rive (Riva Perl) was a skilled dressmaker in Greyding (or, according to the Index of Locations, Gorodok/Yiddish: Gréjding; 49262). She created a shop in a room of her house where she copied the latest fashions from Paris, fitted and made them to order for her Jewish and Gentile clientele. When she came to New York, she at first sewed costumes for the Yiddish Theater but then worked the rest of her life as a finisher in garment shops. She was not easy to interview. She had a huffy attitude to being asked all those questions. I can recall her answering many questions with vuden? (What else would you expect?) There was another couple I interviewed in ek (way out) Bronx. They owned a butcher shop and it was so cold there that I would have to go in

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boots and layers of heavy winter clothes, my hands almost too cold for writing down the transcription. There I felt I had been transported to Eastern Europe. My father, Charles (Khatskl) Dukalsky, was a born storyteller who vividly brought to life his hometown which he knew as Gostomel’ (although the Yiddish name listed in the Index of Locations is Hastómljԥ; 50304): how he explored its neighboring forests, swam in its rivers, and how wretched he felt when he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. When he came to the United States, with the help of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, he was sent to Galveston, Texas. From there he went on to become a cowboy, itinerant farmer and mill worker. Then on to Canada, where he sought out and stayed for a time with the Dukobors, a sect that lived according to the teachings of Leo Tolstoy. At the start of World War I, he joined the British Army and went to Palestine to fight for a Jewish state. I recorded my father’s dialect. However, within the confines of the Atlas interview, I recorded only some of his history. The rest remains to be told. This can be said for every informant I interviewed. Each brought with them not only their particular dialect but some recollection of the epic journey they had made from their hometown to the new world. The Atlas interviews, as an aggregate, tell that story.

9 How I felt about the interviewing process It was compelling to get your East European Jewish folk-culture from the people who lived it and Yiddish dialects from the people who spoke them. While the SMQ did not ask the interviewer to describe the informant’s personality or affect, during the course of the interview you could not help getting to know the person. And people are fascinating in their ways of being and coping and speaking. Acquainting myself with the different Yiddish dialects was an ear-opening experience. After all, I had lived a sheltered life in my secular Yiddish schools where Yiddish was standardized. As I progressed through the many topics in the Atlas questionnaire, I became acquainted with the nitty-gritty of everyday East European Jewish life–the kind of brooms people swept with (made of twigs), the dusters they cleaned with (made of feathers), how they washed clothes and whitened them (blueing), how a child was delivered, on what a corpse was carried,

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what beds people slept on, what kinds of quilts covered them, and where they got their water (a well). Just enumerating these items of the material culture brought me to another time and place. I treasure the people I interviewed, the foresight Uriel Weinreich had in designing the Atlas, and the insights and pleasure interviewing gave me.

10 Interviewer’s influence on the interview To quote the introduction to the LCAAJ (Volume II: 9): Linguists and ethnographers have long since come to recognize that the fieldworker is not a neutral presence, and much less a neutral medium of recording, transmitting, and interpreting the data. But rarely has the fieldworker’s influence on the interviewing process and on the data and their interpretation been studied to discover whether there are significant patterns in his or her behavior or interpretations.

While the influence of the fieldworker on the interviewing process is indeed difficult to assess, each fieldworker’s linguistic training, personality, hearing, special interests, and motivation for participating in the Atlas affected the outcome of the interview. My special interests ran to music, folklore, and cooking. When an informant made mention of a song, I encouraged him/her to sing it. I was enthusiastic when an informant spoke of children’s rhymes and games and I allowed ample time for recall. As I came across the names of food terms, I became aware of the regional differences in what certain food terms were called (their onomasiological import) and what they actually meant (semiasological import). I began to make lists of these terms: khremzlekh, frimzlekh, keyzlekh, teyglekh, kneydlekh, shaybelekh mit shilgelekh, and then rosl and roslfleysh. I wanted to write about them all for my M.A. thesis in Yiddish linguistics. Mikhl Herzog, who was my advisor, wisely advised me to limit myself. I settled on rosl and roslfleysh and found it fascinating to plot the geographic distribution of these food terms, trace Slavic influences, and discover that their regionally variant meanings confirmed the major dialectal divisions of Eastern Yiddish. Further discussion of this subject can be found in Schwartz (1969).

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11 Nokhvort/Afterword My connection to the Yiddish world continued as I completed an M.Phil. in Yiddish and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, served as an instructor in the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at Columbia, taught courses in Yiddish language and literature at City College, translated I.B. Singer’s novel Scum and then worked as Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research until my retirement in 1993. My proudest accomplishment at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research was the Landsmanshaftn Project, which I conceived, and for which I was awarded a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives in 1979. The goal, which I achieved, was to salvage the extant records of functioning and defunct landsmanshaftn (Jewish mutual-aid societies) and to establish a Landsmanshaftn Archive. Currently, coming full circle, I am interviewing informants who were active in the Yiddish movement in a project I initiated called “Belonging: The Organizational Creativity of American Secular Jews” sponsored by the Puffin Foundation and the Workmen’s Circle. The impetus for mounting and executing the Landsmanshaftn Project and initiating the “Belonging Project “ has grown out of my understanding of Uriel Weinreich’s eloquently expressed vision (1962: 27) which serves as an epigraph to LCCAJ Volume I and is cited in the introduction to that volume: …what is familiar in one year may be thrust to the brink of oblivion in the next… What was too obvious for study only yesterday has suddenly become precious. ...what we do not collect in the coming decade or so will be lost forever.

References “Herman Hollerith.” http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hollerith.html. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum.

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LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Schwartz, Rosaline 1969 The Geography of Two Food Terms. A Study in Yiddish Lexical Variation. In: The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Language Folklore, and Literature, Third Collection, Marvin I. Herzog, Wita Ravid, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), The Hague (Mouton & Co.), 240–266. Weinreich, Uriel 1962 Culture Geography at a Distance. Some Problems in the Study of East European Jewry. In: Symposium on Language and Culture. Proceedings of the Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 27–29.

Jeffrey Shandler

Mapping Yiddishland: Place, Time, and Speech

Years ago I was strolling with a Yiddish writer, Yisroel Kaplan... around Jaffa.... We were speaking, of course,... in Yiddish. Two small children passed by, and they looked at us strangely.... A little girl... approached us, and she asked me [in Hebrew] what language we were speaking. My companion replied, “In Yiddish.” “Oh,” she said, “Now I understand. You’ve come from the Land of Yiddish.” Abraham Sutzkever

As a language of a diasporic people–moreover, the language once most widely spoken by the people who are the paradigm of diaspora–Yiddish has anything but a simple, straightforward relationship with place. Among the many contributions that the Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ) makes both to the study of Jews and to the study of language are what it reveals about how this language can be understood in relation to geography and, subsequently what this interrelation implies for understanding language in relationship to time as well as place. As suggested by the above anecdote, told by the Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever during a public program held in his honor at New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in 1986, the notion of there being a place for Yiddish–especially in comparison to a place for modern Hebrew–can be a source of confusion or incongruity. At the same time, this notion has come to demand a leap of imagination, if not of faith. (Sutzkever asserted, after relating this story, “It’s... true: There is a land of Yiddish.”)1 In this essay, I consider the insights that the LCAAJ offers with regard to Yiddish language, place, and time in relation to an array of other efforts, both earlier and more recent, to make the case for there being a physical place for Yiddish. Such a place has sometimes been referred to as Yiddishland, which I define as a virtual locus construed in terms of the use of the Yiddish language, especially, though not exclusively, in its spoken ————— 1

“Abraham Sutzkever” [in Yiddish] 1986: 14.

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form. I once heard a student at the siyem-hazman (commencement) of YIVO’s summer program2–this was, I believe in the late 1980s–define Yiddishland as a place that comes into existence whenever two or more people speak Yiddish. This notion of territory defined by something as immaterial and evanescent as spoken language–especially a language that has almost never had any official recognition by any government or been employed to define a discrete territory3–challenges conventional notions of turf defined in relation to a language (and, by implication, the language’s speakers) that has long been fundamental to concepts of nationhood. Benedict Anderson (1991: 67-68) has noted that, following Herder’s assertion that “jedes Volk… hat seine National Bildung wie seine Sprache,” the “conception of nation-ness” as linked to “ private-property language”–language, implicitly, as something owned, like turf–“had wide influence… on subsequent theorizing about the nature of nationalism.” Conversely, the idea of Yiddishland flouts notions of statelessness long associated with diasporic Jews, especially in the rhetoric of political Zionism (wherein Jews were regularly self-described as “a people without a land.”) Moreover, linking a sense of location to the temporal medium of spoken language inevitably links place to time. Yiddishland is, in its essence, what the critic Mikhail Bakhtin called a chronotope–that is, a matrix linking time and space in an interdependent relationship. Efforts to map Yiddishland are a noteworthy cultural enterprise in realizing the inherently chronotopic character of this place conjured by acts of speech. Indeed, like any political map, these efforts implicity chart time as well as place (even as political maps suggest the permanence of polities by inscribing national boundaries onto the physical landscape of mountain ranges and bodies of water). ————— 2

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Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture, then held at Columbia University, named in memory of Uriel Weinreich. The only examples of Yiddish being recognized as an official language are in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, but even in the case of Yiddish as one of the official languages of the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidjan, this does not meet the criterion of a territory defined by language; instead, turf is the defining matrix rather than language. It is not simply that Birobidjan constituted an imposition of territorial autonomy from without the community (as Stalin’s answer to Zionism) or that the stature of Yiddish as an official language was never fully realized there. The presence of Yiddish in Birobidjan was not what called it into existence as a Jewish territory but rather what was called upon to mark it as such by, in effect, importing Yiddish speakers and their cultural apparatus (press, schools, theater, etc.) to the region.

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Maps of Yiddishland include actual works of cartography as well as implicit maps and are variously the efforts of secular Yiddishists and hasidim, linguists and poets. Their interrelations of place and time vary as well; while some of these maps are exercises in retrospection, others offer visions of the present, link the past and present, or even suggest escaping or defying chronology. Indeed, while some maps are more closely tied to scientific cartography than others, which are more responsive to memory or theology, all these efforts engage the imaginary, inviting those who view them to expand their understanding of the possibilities of language in relation to place, time, and people. The term Yiddishland–and with it, an interest in mapping the language onto place in some fashion–first appears during the early 1900s.4 During the first half of the twentieth century, Yiddishlands were conjured in the written word, including the polemics of Yiddishists and reportage in the Yiddish press. As Anderson notes of “imagined communities” generally, the press plays a strategic role in enabling a people to conceive of itself as a nation. For Yiddishists the flourishing of a modern print culture at the turn of the twentieth century had a distinct salience, both as an instrument of creating a virtual meeting place for a widespread (and increasingly disparate) Yiddish readership and as a symbol of cultural achievement parallel to other nations’ patrimonies. The symbolic value of Yiddish print culture was manifest in large-scale funerals for major writers, laid to rest with the grandeur of national heroes, and in the display of writers’ portraits in the classrooms of Yiddish schools, alongside or instead of national “founding fathers.” Not surprisingly, then, literary works offer the most developed images of Yiddishland, and these are articulated most extensively and imaginatively in poetry. Yiddish poems written about the Yiddish language (a remarkably extensive subgenre of Yiddish belles lettres) frequently employ territorial images of Yiddish, explicitly or implicitly identified as Yiddishland.5 In his undated poem, titled “Yiddish” (probably written in the 1930s), the American Yiddish poet Abraham Reisen lauds the language as a portable homeland. Reisen’s Yiddishland is realized in the familiar sounds of spoken and sung Yiddish as well as in its press and literature (“Peretz, Mendele, all the rest,/ They’re my home–my Yiddishland”), which provide the author ————— 4 5

For a more extended discussion of the term, see Shandler 2005, chapter 1. See, e.g., Rozhansky 1967, which includes 169 such poems by 74 poets.

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with a universal sense of at-homeness (“I’m not a stranger anywhere,/ With Yiddish as my guide”).6 The Yiddish language and its attendant culture are characterized in more specifically geographical imagery in A. Almi’s 1930 poem, also titled “Yiddish”: “An empire of scattered, beautifully blossoming islands..../ Its playful streams and rivers/ Course through the great oceans....” This leads to a gazetteer of the Yiddish-speaking diaspora that starts in Eastern Europe and extends outward to the Americas, Africa, and Asia: Wherever the eye turns, behold an outpost of Yiddish culture– Along the Vistula, the Dniester, and the Dnieper, Along the Thames, Hudson, Mississippi, On the plateau, in the chain of the proud Andes, Despite all enemies–homeless or free, And with Jewish resilience, everywhere: In Siberia, the splendid Caucasus, On the prairies of the young land of Poe and Whitman, In the tropic heat of Africa, in Rio de Janiero, In Mexico, Cuba, and Canada– Yiddish culture spreads its roots and makes the rockiest soil bear fruit.

Almi’s poem ends with the author’s wish to “rise up to the greatest heights” in order to observe this “scattered empire,” with its “blossoming islands, rivers, gulfs, streams.”7 Other interwar Yiddish poems offer similar visions of Yiddishland, chronicling its centuries-old history and inventorying its international diaspora, bravely championing the tenacity of the language (and, implicitly, of its speakers) in the wake of recent decades of upheaval and in the face of looming danger in its East European heartland. These poems epitomize literary scholar Sidra Ezrahi’s observations about the particular value of creating “imaginative space” in modern Jewish letters. She argues that “writing the exile,” the literary project of such pioneering authors of modern Yiddish literature as Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh and Sholem Aleichem, was “more than a response to displacement,” becoming “in itself a form of repatriation, of alternative sovereignty.”8 Poetic conjurings of Yiddishland continued to appear after World War II, as in the case of one of the more ————— 6

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The original poem appears, undated, in several postwar Reisen anthologies, as well as in Goldsmith 1976: 258. Almi 1930: 59–60. Ezrahi 2000: 14, 10.

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elaborate self-reflexive literary works in Yiddish, Leon Feinberg’s cycle of fifty poems–again, titled Yidish–which praises this “language of languages” as it chronicles its literary riches, from the sixteenth-century Venetian poet Elijah Levita to Abraham Sutzkever. On the cover of this work, published in New York in 1950, the title Yidish appears superimposed on a map of the world, on which various cities (including Montréal, Mexico City, Kiev, and Warsaw) are identified. Beneath this appears a quatrain, limning the worldwide dimensions of a valiantly defiant Yiddishland: From Vilna to Buenos Aires, From Tel Aviv to New York, The miracle of generations has spread– the kingdom of the Yiddish word.9

Imagining Yiddishland has become a very different sort of cultural exercise in the post-World War II era. Before the war notions of Yiddishland were tied, directly or indirectly, to the existence of an extensive speech community centered in Eastern Europe. Despite the upheavals of mass emigration, war, revolution, and the unprecedented challenges posed by modern political, social, and cultural innovations, this was still a place that millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews called home, and it appeared that they would continue to do so. But after the Holocaust, conjuring Yiddishland has become more of an exercise in memory, one that entails imagining a speech community in situ (however it might be configured) in the absence of its centuries-old East European center and, sometimes, in the absence of Yiddish speakers as well. Postwar examples of Yiddishland therefore constitute a new order of cultural endeavor; they chart the range and dynamics of what Yiddish has come to signify in Jewish life after the Holocaust, as they demonstrate the strengths and limitations of this construct of the cultural imaginary. Whereas prewar Yiddishlands project utopian visions rooted in a vernacular actuality, postwar Yiddishlands often must engage imaginatively with vernacularity itself. Consequently, many of them are realized in different cultural genres and practices from those of the prewar era. In particular, more recent examples of Yiddishland frequently entail some extralinguistic activity or involve language use differently, in what I have termed the postvernacular mode.10 This does not simply reflect a decline in ————— 9 10

Feinberg 1950: 1. See Shandler 2005: 4-5.

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the use of Yiddish; it also testifies to the advent of new means of engagement with Yiddish that do not rely, as prewar examples typically do, on a shared fluency in Yiddish as a vernacular. In most postwar examples of Yiddishland, Yiddish is engaged, albeit often implicitly, as a postvernacular language. These efforts foreground the symbolic worth of Yiddish, sometimes overwhelming its use as the traditional everyday language among Ashkenazim. Despite–and precisely because of–the extensive physical destruction of the European Yiddish environment during World War II, construing the language in geographic terms flourished in the early postwar years. Two very different kinds of mapping projects undertaken at the time offer complementary topographical visions of Yiddishland: First are the maps of individual towns that appear in hundreds of yisker-bikher, collaboratively produced memorial books, most of them written entirely or in part in Yiddish, which recall prewar Jewish life in East European cities and towns. These volumes began to be produced in large numbers by immigrants and survivors from these communities during the years after World War II. As anthropologists Jack Kugelmass and Jonathan Boyarin observe, these maps vary considerably in appearance: “Sometimes these are regional, showing the relation of the town to neighboring locations. Others are free-style, schematic representations of the town’s layout. For smaller communities, these may show each house and be numerically coded to match a listing of each homeowner’s name. Others show cows, crosses, gravestones, and the like to represent the locations of pastures, churches, and cemeteries.”11 A common feature of these maps is that they are almost all drawn entirely from memory. Moreover, they all chart local Jewish geography, prominently indicating its landmarks–synagogues, cemeteries, schools, bathhouses, kosher slaughterhouses–some of which might never appear on an official municipal map of the same locality. Some of these maps also give the Yiddish names that were used for streets and other geographic features, which likewise often differ from their official names in Polish, Russian, etc. Typically reproduced on the end-papers of yisker-bikher, these maps enclose the volumes’ memoirs, photographs, and lists of names within the frame of an implicit, localized Yiddishland. In contrast, the LCAAJ delineates Yiddishland on a grand scale. This elaborate research project was initiated by Uriel Weinreich at Columbia ————— 11

Kugelmass/Boyarin 1983: 2.

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University in the late 1950s. Working with responses from over 600 native informants to an extensive questionnaire (some 220 pages in length), the LCAAJ maps regional variations in Yiddish language and culture across the European continent, ranging from phonological, lexical, and grammatical differences in dialect to an array of folkloric beliefs and practices (e.g., whether or not it was local practice to put sugar in gefilte fish; what games of chance were played locally on Chanukkah). While the LCAAJ was concerned with other intellectual goals, notably demonstrating the diachronic substructure inherent in the configuration of modern European Yiddish dialects, the project also makes an important symbolic statement about the territoriality of Yiddish. Writing on the LCAAJ in 1963, Weinreich noted that it had been rejected for funding under the National Defense Education Act: “Show us the country in which Yiddish is an official language, say the strategists in Washington, and we will gladly include it in the list of critical tongues along with Gujerati, Khalkha, Twi, and the like. But merely because an exclusive Yiddish area does not appear on any administrative map, is the humanistic relevance of this culture to be denied?”12 Weinreich went on to argue that it is precisely the “lack of a selfcontained territory” that endows the project “with exemplary value for a particularly crucial problem in social history: the effect of communication channels and barriers on the diffusion of cultural innovations.... The geographic fragmentation of a culture and a language thus yields an opportunity to reconstruct the influences of neighboring localities upon one another.” The Ashkenazim of Europe provide “a rare instance of [such] temporal and spatial overlapping on a sweeping scale.” Moreover, Weinreich argued, preliminary data demonstrated that cultural “variation is not individual or local, but conforms to definite regional patterns,” and that this has implications for understanding the relationship of culture and territory not just for this subject, but for social science in general. In addition to giving Yiddishland an impressive geographic measure– characterized as “eventually coming to occupy a European area second in size only to the Russian one”–the LCAAJ situates the language’s diasporic territoriality as strategic to understanding the interrelation of Ashkenazic

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Weinreich 1963: 17; emphasis in original.

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society with its European neighbors across the dimensions of time and space.13 During the early postwar years the physical reality of East European Jewish life was rendered ethereal by popular works of nostalgia and beatific elegies–for example, Abraham Joshua Heschel’s assertion in his 1950 book, The Earth Is the Lord’s, that these Jews “lived more in time than in space.”14 The maps in yisker-bikher and in the LCAAJ not only offer reminders of the geographic presence of millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews throughout prewar Eastern Europe from a displaced, retrospective vantage, they also provide imaginings of a pre-Holocaust Yiddishland on the local and continental scale.15 Mapping Yiddishland has taken other, more playful forms in recent years–most literally so in the case of two Yiddish-language children’s board games sold in Brooklyn, Montréal, and other major hasidic communities. The board of Handl erlikh (deal honestly) mimics the familiar layout of Monopoly; the game links adventures in real estate (here, too, players buy and charge rent for properties on which they erect little plastic houses and hotels) with lessons in proper social and business conduct (players must tithe all income, for instance).16 The game’s instruction booklet explains that it will “implant in children good character and reverence for God. Whoever deals honestly will have much success.”17 But whereas other imitations of Monopoly replace the streets of Atlantic City with those of New York, Chicago, or some other city, Handl erlikh enables players to acquire property from an international roster of sites located in a hasidic Yiddishland, both past (Kraków, Kuznica, LeĪajsk, Lublin, Rymanów) and present (Antwerp, Boro Park, London, Monsey, Montréal). Even as it assumes its young players are fluent in Yiddish, Handl erlikh does not take language use for granted. The game reinforces the hasidic commitment to Yiddish as the proper Jewish vernacular by penalizing players for speaking ————— 13 14 15 16

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Weinreich 1963: 17–19. Heschel 1950: 15. On more recent efforts to consider the territoriality of Ashkenaz, see Jacobs/Loon 1992. According to Szonja Komoroczy (2003), Handl erlikh was created by a Hungarian hasid who took his inspiration from a Hungarian board game, Gazdálkodj Okosan (Deal Wisely), an anti-capitalist version of Monopoly created in the 1950s. The creator of Handl erlikh was inspired to adapt the Hungarian game to teach hasidic, rather than communist, values. See Handl erlikh [board game, no date].

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either English or modern Hebrew–indeed, these are two of the more egregious sins for which a player is punished on the game’s khezhbnhanefesh (personal reckoning) cards.18 Kfitses haderekh (short cut), a Yiddish-language board game created in the mid-1990s, enables players to travel via airplane over a map to similar sites, including Muncacz, Czernowitz, Warsaw, Lodz, Budapest, Prague, and Frankfurt, thereby emulating the legendary short cuts once taken by rebeyim (hasidic leaders) as they moved from one site of hasidic pilgrimage to another. The game’s cards send players on virtual journeys, while imparting lessons in proper pious conduct (a sample travel tip: “Be sure to have your tales (prayer shawl ) and tfiln (phylacteries ) with you always”) and introducing the history and geography of the pious Yiddish-speaking diaspora. In addition to cities and towns renowned as pre-Holocaust centers of hasidism are Vilna–home to “the holy Vilna Gaon,” a champion of antihasidic rabbinism–and RaduĔ, where “the holy Hafez Hayyim,” another influential Lithuanian talmudist, “taught about the harshness of slander.”19 In its reconfiguration of Europe (the game’s map bears scant resemblance to modern cartography), Kfitses haderekh enables players to explore the continent as a locus of Ashkenazic piety over the centuries, its contours limned by Yiddish and the religious communities that have thrived on the continent in this Jewish vernacular. In these board games, Yiddishland is imagined as panhistoric and as having cosmological implications, distinguished by sites that are associated with sages who possess mystical powers and, in the case of Handl erlikh, framed by otherworldly loci: here, on corner squares where Monopoly has “Free Parking” or “Jail,” players can wind up in gehenem (Hell) or taking di[!] veg tsu dem gan-eyden (the road to Paradise). The geographic uncanniness of Yiddish– what author Michael Wex archly terms “the national language of nowhere”– is essential to its appeal.20 While imagining Yiddishland is not necessarily an anti-Zionist project, it does offer an alternative model of Jewish at-homeness, one that can exist not only instead of the State of Israel but also alongside and even within it. Indeed, the ways that Yiddishlands conceptualize Jewishness in spatial ————— 18

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One of these penalty cards reads: “You conversed with each other in English! Speaking Yiddish separates us from gentiles!” The penalty for this transgression: losing three turns. On another penalty card, the speaker of Modern Hebrew is denounced as a Zionist. See Kfitsas haderekh [board game] 1996/7. Wex 2005: 6.

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terms are radically different from political Zionism. Poems and maps of Yiddishland do not rejoice in the amassing of turf–in contrast, say, to early Jewish National Fund maps showing how many dunams of land its contributions had purchased in Palestine–but instead celebrate the great distances among its many outposts. Nor does Yiddishland paint an agrarianist vision of homeland; unlike the idyllic fields and orchards once depicted on Zionist fundraising brochures, Yiddishland is in essence a cosmopolitan utopia. Almost all its major centers are cities, or, more specifically, urban neighborhoods, ethnic enclaves thick with Jews, their newsstands, theaters, cafes, union halls, schools, synagogues, bookstores– and their speech. Thus, the virtual geographies of Yiddishland, whether they be projects of secular Yiddishists or of hasidim, are all conceived as existing somewhere beyond the shtetl. (This is true even for yisker-bikher, which, even as they mourn the destruction of shtetlekh, acknowledge the existence of virtual shtetlekh, each town having its own diaspora, constituted by landsmanshaftn (immigrant mutual aid societies), communal cemetery plots, informal networks of immigrants and survivors, as well as the yiskerbukh itself.) The provincial market town in which the preponderance of East European Jews lived for centuries before the Holocaust is a locus left behind by Yiddishland–just as it is by Zionism, though their respective retrospections on the shtetl are quite different. The shtetl is Zionism’s antihome; in conjurings of Yiddishland, it is the Ur-home. As is true of modern Yiddish culture generally, the notion of Yiddishland emerged–and perhaps could only emerge–once Jews had begun to move out of shtetlekh, geographically as well as ideologically. Originally conceptualized as a point of common departure for modern East European Jews, the shtetl subsequently became a prime locus of symbolic return–especially after the Holocaust, when it came to be hallowed, in the words of Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov, “as the lost Yiddishland.”21 The desire to return to the lost homeland of Yiddish implicitly entails travel through time, whether or not it engages a physical journey of some kind, which could include “heritage” tours of Eastern Europe; visits to contemporary Yiddish-speaking enclaves in Brooklyn, Jerusalem, London, or Antwerp; enrolling in courses to learning to speak Yiddish or attending performances of Yiddish song, theater, or storytelling. The EYDES ————— 21

Estraikh/Krutikov 2000: 5.

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(Evidence of Yiddish Documented in European Societies) project, the online version of the LCAAJ, offers a complex journey through time, moving both back and forward.22 Through an interactive map, visitors to the website can sample excerpts from a small selection of the hundreds of interviews conducted for the LCAAJ. The map links these interviews with the physical landscape of Eastern Europe (rivers and seas), the region’s social geography (through the names of major cities: Posen, Lublin, Odessa, etc.), and to the distinctive, multivalent geography of Yiddish, through a series of isoglosses marking differences in dialect phonology (for example, the range of pronounciations of the diphthong in the word fleysh (variously ej, aj, a:). These multiple geographies not only indicate different configurations of space, but also invoke (or obscure) different chronologies: in particular, whereas the Yiddish isoglosses imply the historical development of the language, the lack of national boundaries, past or present, elides the dynamics of East European political history. By clicking on one of the sample interviews, the EYDES user embarks on another kind of journey through time. The interviewees relate their personal histories, explaining, for example, where and when they were born, what their family did to make a living, where they went to school, who survived World War II and who did not. EYDES thus links the LCAAJ’s large-scale mapping of continental Yiddishland with the local, intimate geographies of yisker-bikher. The website’s journey back in time to a Yiddishland of the past also implicitly invites the user to enter a Yiddishland of the future. Under its menu of “links,” EYDES connects the user to Jiddisch zum Selbststudium im Internet, an online course for selfinstruction in Yiddish language for speakers of German.23 In doing so, EYDES makes the road to Yiddishland a two-way street. With the LCAAJ as a kind of road map, the website links past and future, memory and the imaginary, time and space–thereby striving to fulfill its mission of “reintegrating Yiddish language and culture in the European consciousness.”

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References Almi, A.[!] 1930 “Yidish.” In: Sh. Edberg (ed.) Far yidish. A zamlbukh [For Yiddish: An Anthology], New York (National Council of Young Israel), 1930: 59–60. Anderson, Benedict 1991 Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed., London (Verso). Estraikh, Gennady and Mikhail Krutikov (eds.) 2000 The Shtetl. Image and Reality, Papers of the Second Mendel Friedman International Conference on Yiddish, Oxford (Legenda). Ezrahi, Sidra DeKoven 2000 Booking Passage. Exile and Homecoming in the Modern Jewish Imagination, Berkeley (University of California Press). Feinberg, Leon 1950 Yidish: poeme [Yiddish: A Narrative Poem], New York (Shaulzakh druk). Goldsmith, Emanuel S. 1976 Architects of Yiddishisms at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. A Study of Jewish Cultural History, Rutherford, New Jersey (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press). Handl erlikh [board game], Brooklyn[?], no date. Heschel, Abraham Joshua 1978 The Earth Is the Lord’s. The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe, New York (Farrar Straus Giroux). Jacobs, Neil G. and Joseph C. Loon 1992 The Geography of Ashkenaz. On the Development of an Ethno-Geographic Information System (EGIS). In: Shofar 10, no. 4: 6–30. Kfitsas haderekh 1996/7 [board game], Kiryas Tahsh, Canada. Komoroczy, Szonja 2003 Hungarian Yiddish after the Holocaust. Conference presentation, International Conference on Yiddish after the Holocaust, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Kugelmass, Jack and Jonathan Boyarin (eds.) 1983 From a Ruined Garden. The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry, New York (Schocken). The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Rozhansky, Shmuel (ed.) 1967 Antologye. Yidish in lid [Anthology. Yiddish in Poetry], Buenos Aires (Literaturgezelshaft baym YIVO in Argentine). Shandler, Jeffrey 2005 Adventures in Yiddishland. Postvernacular Language and Culture, Berkeley (University of California Press).

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Sutzkever, Abraham 1986/87 “Abraham Sutzkever” [in Yiddish] Yedies fun YIVO/ YIVO News 170, Winter 1986/87. Weinreich, Uriel 1963 Mapping a Culture. In: Columbia University Forum 6, no. 3, 17-21. Wex, Michael 2005 Born to Kvetsh. Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, New York (St. Martin’s Press).

Andrew Sunshine

The Making of a Chair: Uriel Weinreich and the Yiddish Chair at Columbia University

1 Introduction The Atran Chair of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at Columbia University, established in the early 1950s, was the first academic chair in the United States devoted to Yiddish Studies. This article provides an account, based on documents, of its creation and may be of interest to those who are curious about the career of Uriel Weinreich, the inaugural Atran Professor. It may also interest students of the history of Columbia University, and of the history of Jewish studies (Yiddish studies in particular) in America, and perhaps anyone fascinated by the whirring wheels of university administrations.1 There are at least two generalizations to be made about American research universities, like Columbia. First, they are committed to supporting excellence in scholarship. Second, they are always on the prowl for large infusions of funding. These two concerns sometimes come into conflict and frequently yield compromises, more or less dubious; however, the story of the Atran Chair (and, when all is said and done, it’s just a short story) seems to be a happy marriage of these two preoccupations. —————

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I would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, the assistance of the late Beatrice Silverman Weinreich who patiently answered a number of questions concerning her late husband’s professional history, often citing from University correspondence in her possession as she did so. That she offered to help despite her illness is revealing of her generosity of spirit and her dedication to scholarship as well as to the memory of her husband. All who cherish Yiddish will miss her. I also wish to thank Diane Fischer, President of the Atran Foundation, for providing me with access to the Foundation’s correspondence and Board minutes. I am also grateful to the archives of Columbia University and of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Materials in these collections form the basis of this article. Any errors of fact or interpretation or gaps in this account are my responsibility. Finally, I wish to thank E.F.K. Koerner whose curiosity about the establishment of the Atran Chair prompted me to undertake the research represented here.

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2 Academic Disciplines in Contact To Uriel Weinreich’s2 peers and students he was indisputably one of the brightest intellectual lights of his generation (Sunshine 2006). Today we might well wonder how the field of Yiddish in the U.S. would have been demarcated if not for him. The question seems all the more worth pondering not only in light of Weinreich’s personal characteristics and capabilities as an intellectual and an organizational leader (Murray 1994: 22–23), but also because of his specific interests. After all, Weinreich’s intellectual legacy belongs in equal measure to two fields: Yiddish studies and linguistics. More to the point, his interest in the one discipline had a bearing on his approach to the other, and vice versa. The sort of work in linguistics to which Weinreich was devoted, especially in his early years, fit his subject matter well and perhaps was suggested by his own experiences growing up bilingual (Gabriel Weinreich 2005: 34–35,3 86–87; Murray 1994: 255–256). More importantly, Weinreich’s linguistic work broke ranks with (without representing itself as a categorical schism from) status quo thinking in linguistics in the United States. In their efforts to elevate linguistics to a science (in which, e.g., experiments are undertaken under controlled circumstances), American linguists of the period sought to eliminate anything of the local social context of a language’s use as though thereby they could realize the abstract system underlying language behavior.4 Toward this end, linguists conceived of languages as discrete, bounded entities spoken uniformly in a continuous geographic area without influence of other languages. Weinreich did not reject this sort of thinking outright, but he believed it could be reconciled with observations in actual communities, as is clear, for example, in his dissertation “Research Problems in Bilingualism With Special Reference to Switzerland” and in his early paper “Is a Structural —————

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Hereafter, I will frequently refer to Uriel Weinreich by his surname alone. Other Weinreichs (particularly Max, but also Gabriel) will be mentioned by first and last name exclusively. It is tempting to suppose that the domestic scene Gabriel Weinreich recalls (and which he says his father was himself fond of recounting) coincided with the writing and publication of Max Weinreich 1931 and 1932. Although he launched his career by making a vigorous critique of the work of these NeoBloomfieldian linguists, Chomsky’s work is regarded by many to be cast in the same mold (Murray 1994: 137ff).

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Dialectology Possible?” (Uriel Weinreich 1954; see also Labov, this volume) and ultimately in the posthumously published collaboration with Labov and Herzog (1968) on the “Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change.” His carefully dissident view presumably reflects the influence of his two most important mentors, Max Weinreich, his father, and Professor André Martinet, his dissertation advisor at Columbia. Though far from everyone who engaged in academic study of Yiddish during the latter half of the 20th century was a linguist, the influence of linguistics–particularly of the sort exemplified by Max and Uriel Weinreichs’ work–in the constitution of Yiddish studies in the U.S. was pervasive. The Weinreichs’ way of thinking about Yiddish was the flowering of a seminal idea planted at the beginning of the 20th century by such scholars of Yiddish as Ber Borokhov in which the study of Yiddish and the study of Ashkenaz became “Yiddish-centered.” Previously it had been common to regard Yiddish in light of its similarity to and difference from German. The effect of this was either (insofar as similarities might be emphasized) to make Yiddish disappear (it is not really a distinct language, just a variety of German) or (where differences were emphasized) to treat it implicitly as a pathological case. A Yiddish-centered approach regarded the features of the language in their own terms, rather than with reference to the standard of a cognate, but distinct, language. The fusion in Yiddish of linguistic materials from diverse sources was regarded as normal, a phenomenon in which all languages share albeit to varying degrees; more than that, it was considered to be a positive asset. Today the linguistic “moment” in Yiddish studies appears (I choose this word deliberately) to have come and gone. Among the reasons internal to Yiddish studies itself are Uriel Weinreich’s death, in 1967, at the age of 41. More recently, the decision by the Trustees of Columbia University in 1989 to close the University’s Department of Linguistics and to transfer Yiddish Studies to the Department of Germanic Languages meant Columbia was no longer a magnet for linguist/Yiddishists or for Yiddishist/linguists. Many of those Yiddish linguists who are currently at large have studied in and now teach in settings where they must make connections to Yiddish Studies extra muros. Also, and more broadly, while the humanities and social sciences looked to linguistics throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s for models of analysis and theory, linguistics has by now long been out of intellectual

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fashion. What this has meant for the refashioning of Yiddish Studies is an important question, but it will have to await its own occasion for discussion. The decision to establish a chair in Yiddish in a linguistics department at Columbia University therefore seems like the effect of an especially fortuitous conjunction of the stars. Whether this astrological trope should be taken to refer to converging realms of study (Yiddish, linguistics) or to academic personages (André Martinet, Max Weinreich and the rising academic star of Uriel Weinreich) is hard to say. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

3 The Making of a Yiddish Chair The place to begin the story is in spring 1950, when Weinreich was in Switzerland doing research for his dissertation. Having returned to Zürich after a five-week field trip to bilingual areas he planned to write about, Weinreich wrote to Professor André Martinet (1908–1999; department chair 1947–1955), his dissertation advisor, on April 14. “The problem of what will happen to me after that [i.e., after submitting and defending his dissertation5],” Weinreich wrote, is meanwhile becoming more pressing with every month that passes. As you know, teaching general linguistics is my dream. Doing so in New York would be particularly wonderful, not only because of being near my family, but because I am contemplating several research projects on Yiddish dialects, the sources for which, especially the constantly aging informants, are best available in New York. In this connection I frequently think back to our talk some time ago in which you mentioned the possibility of a position at Columbia. I do not know, of course, whether the possibility is still a real one and whether an additional instructor is still needed in the Department [YIVO Archives].

In his reply of May 3, 1950, Martinet touched on the prospect, still evidently tentative, of a Yiddish chair. “You know I should be very pleased to have you as an instructor in my department at Columbia,” Martinet wrote. But you are aware of the fact that at Columbia economy is the theme song of the hour, and any new appointment presupposes a donation. As you know, I discussed the problem with your father [Max Weinreich] a few months ago. If money is available for the setting up of a Yiddish chair at Columbia and if the donators and your father feel you should be the

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Weinreich submitted his dissertation in December 1950 and defended it in January 1951.

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nominee, I would suggest the first step should be postponed till after you get your degree [YIVO Archives].

Weinreich professed to know less about the prospect for a Yiddish chair than Martinet assumed. “As for the … possibility … of a Yiddish chair at Columbia,” Weinreich replied on May 14, 1950, my father had never told me the subject of your talk, since he felt that the overtures made by the prospective endower were so tentative that they could hardly even be called preliminary. At my urging he finally mentioned the matter. His letter arrived at the same time as yours, and so the whole thing was news to me. It is a very important matter, but at the present time nothing for me to count on. If the project ever ripens and I am considered, there will always be time to prepare for it [YIVO Archives].

The “prospective endower” was Frank Z. Atran. Atran was born Efroim Zalmen Atran in 1885 in Smiela in the Russian province of Kiev where he had a traditional Jewish education. As an adolescent, he went to Lodz to work in his uncle’s textile business. He became active in the Bund. After the Russian revolution and the Bolshevik takeover, he went to Berlin in 1925 and became involved in an international hosiery manufacturer and by World War II had become chairman of the firm’s board. In 1940, he fled to the US where he had extended family. He Americanized his name to Frank and began a real estate and property management company. At the same time, he remained involved in the affairs of the Jewish Labor Committee which sought to aid underground movements and rescue Jews and others who found themselves to be objects of persecution during the Second World War. In 1945, when he became a US citizen, he established the Atran Foundation. The Foundation’s early membership and Board of Directors included a number of Bundists and labor leaders. One of the Foundation’s first grants aided Jewish refugees in Europe after the war. The Foundation is known for its medical philanthropy, beginning with a gift of $1 million in 1950 for the Atran Laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The Atran Chair at Columbia was one of the first and most important of the landmarks in the Foundation’s consistent and extensive record of dedication to the preservation of Yiddish and the promotion of Yiddish studies (Atran Foundation, Inc. 1996: 3–14).6 —————

6

Over the years, the Atran Foundation has helped to fund many Yiddish scholastic publications, including The Field of Yiddish, the Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh and the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry.

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In his 0pmoires d’un linguiste (1993), André Martinet claims that the Atran Chair was established at his instigation with Uriel in mind. This claim is correct, though it fails to reflect the extent to which he was involved in a collaboration with Uriel Weinreich and Max Weinreich. Arguably, the success of the project depended on the efforts of all three men. Martinet certainly “leveraged” his position in the academic world and at the university to advance the career of his protégé. There is no reason to suppose he had an interest in a Yiddish chair per se. While this may have been an act of personal or professional generosity toward a brilliant student (one who, moreover, Martinet regarded as “très sympathetique” (1993: 66)), one wonders whether it wasn’t also a way to insure a continued place for his own ideas in the realm of American linguistics (cf. Murray 1994: 218). Admittedly, this is speculation. What’s beyond doubt is that Martinet was in a position to advocate within the university administration for the chair. It was Martinet ultimately who participated in the conference involving John A. Krout (Columbia’s Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Faculties7), Frank Atran, and Atran’s legal advisers that resulted in “the preparation of an agreement to cover this proposal” early in 1952.8 Martinet, then, was the visible actor or agent. As the correspondence quoted above between Uriel Weinreich and Martinet suggests, Max Weinreich was active behind the scenes. If not for him, it may be doubted whether Atran would ever have approached Columbia concerning the chair. This is not to say that the chair was necessarily his idea.9 The minutes of the Atran Foundation Board meeting of June 14, 1950 record that Ben Zion Hoffman-Hoppen10 “specifically suggested the endowment of a Chair in

————— 7

McCaughey (2003: 333). Krout subsequently served as Vice President and Provost of the University under Grayson Kirk. 8 The copy of the agreement in Columbia’s archives is dated “1952”; while no date is inserted, the document header refers to March 3. The copy of the agreement in the records of the Atran Foundation is dated February 11, 1952. I have not had the opportunity to compare these two documents and therefore cannot explain the discrepancy. 9 Martinet (1993: 67), however, maintains that Max Weinreich sought to convince Atran to create a Yiddish chair “somewhere in the USA,” and, moreover, insinuated that Uriel Weinreich should be appointed to it. 10 An engineer by training, Dr. Ben Zion (Bencel) Hoffman(-Hoppen) (1874–1954) was a Yiddish writer, political activist, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Atran Foundation (for a biographical portrait, see Kazdan 1948).

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Columbia University on Yiddish culture…”11 Nonetheless, Max Weinreich appears to have served, in effect, as the shadkhn, the matchmaker, for this arrangement, motivated by interests that are not hard to divine, at least in part. On the one hand, there was his “affiliation” with Uriel Weinreich, the prospective appointee to the chair; on the other hand, there was his status as a founding member of the Atran Foundation,12 whose mission included the promotion of Ashkenazic culture and social life. Putting aside simple paternal concern for a son, one wonders whether Max Weinreich’s motives and Martinet’s weren’t opposite faces of the selfsame coin. To both, the chair for Uriel Weinreich was an opportunity to propagate the sorts of scholarship and subject matter each most cared about.13 It also seems clear that Uriel Weinreich himself helped to “ripen” the project to create a Yiddish chair at Columbia. If he did so out of selfinterest, this hardly seems surprising. In any case, the goal never appeared to be to create a Yiddish chair for its own sake, even though at least some advocates of the chair no doubt regarded this as desirable in the long run. Back in New York, on February 8, 1951 (eight and a half months after first learning about the prospective chair and the month after defending his dissertation), Weinreich sent Martinet “[i]n pursuance of our conversation yesterday, … a memorandum outlining the facts on the project of a Yiddish chair” (YIVO Archives ). ————— 11

At the same meeting, also in line with “Atran’s desire to do something of a broad and permanent nature,” Isaiah Minkoff recommended that a “series of ‘ATRAN AWARDS’ and/or ‘ATRAN SCHOLARSHIPS’ should be created to be given annually not only at Columbia but at a series of universities throughout the country” (Atran Foundation Board Meeting minuters, June 14, 1950). It is worth mentioning this because the funding of scholarships became an integral part of the agreement for the chair at Columbia, but appears to have been something of a parallel project at the outset. Minkoff (1901–1983), born in Warsaw, became active in Jewish and socialist organizations in his teens. After fleeing the Soviet Union in 1922, he came to the U.S. where he involved himself in Jewish communal affairs. In 1944, he became Executive Director of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC–later NCRAC) which he built into a major agency comprised of eleven national and 111 local groups by the time he retired in 1975 (Guide to the Isaiah M. Minkoff papers). 12 He took on the position of Associate Secretary of the Foundation’s Board of Directors in 1955. 13 Later in life, Martinet recalled that it was Uriel Weinreich who told him about Atran (1993: 66). Even supposing that was the case, it seems clear that Martinet knew the Atran Foundation was exploring the idea of a Yiddish chair at Columbia before his protégé did.

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The enclosed memorandum, dated February 7, 1951, reported that Frank Z. Atran, the president of industrial corporations in Europe and the United States has established a foundation through which to donate funds to “causes of interest to him” (YIVO Archives). The gift ($1 million) he made to Mount Sinai Hospital to establish a research laboratory in his name is cited. It went on to report Atran’s expressed “interest in establishing a university chair for Yiddish studies in his name, comprising a full professorship at one of the leading universities.” The source of this information is identified as Max Weinreich who received it from “Dr. B[en Zion] Hoffman[-Hoppen], a personal friend of Mr. Atran.” The memo states confidently that a “suitable occupant of the proposed chair is assured” and observes that there is a significant number of Columbia students already “pursuing Yiddish studies in the Department of General Linguistics.”14 Uriel Weinreich’s role as conduit of information here is worth noting. More striking still is the recommendation Weinreich implicitly made to Martinet, in the continuation of his letter, that the professor be reticent to specify an occupant for the chair. “In talking with my father,” Weinreich wrote, we came to the conclusion that perhaps no specific occupant for the chair need be insisted upon in the preliminary discussions with the University. If candidates are discussed, perhaps Weinreich père should be considered, at least initially, in order not to complicate the situation. [YIVO Archives].

What potential complications was Weinreich worried about? It is not entirely clear. A hint, however, may be buried in the succeeding paragraph of the letter concerning the funding of the chair. “Regarding the last point of the memorandum, an estimate could perhaps be obtained as to the University’s requirements. That sum may then be increased to provide for research and publication. At any rate, there is no doubt that Mr. Atran is interested in doing things on a grand scale, or not at all. A few tens of thousands of dollars will not stop him. That is why the request need not be made overly modest, and why an eventual full professorship should be provided for from the start” (YIVO Archives; emphasis added). The effect of this one word, “eventual,” is to suggest that the plan was to initiate the chair with an occupant who was not a full professor (i.e., Uriel Weinreich), something that presumably would have raised questions on the University’s side or for Atran would have diminished the meaning of his ————— 14

The complete text of this memorandum is reproduced in the Appendix.

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gift. Lest concerns about his status as a neophyte scholar compromise the “project” for a Yiddish chair, Weinreich et père counseled reticence on the subject of the chair’s prospective occupant. It’s worth noting Gabriel Weinreich’s rather different perspective on the Yiddish chair. He asserts (2005: 95–96) that Atran “offered to endow [the Yiddish chair at Columbia] expressly for my father” so that, relieved of his administrative duties at YIVO, he would be free to pursue scholarship. Max Weinreich purportedly declined this out of a sense of continuing obligation to YIVO, but proposed his son Uriel as occupant of the chair instead. According to Gabriel Weinreich, “[b]oth the donor and the university demurred strongly” at this proposal “since Uriel had just barely received his PhD and had, at that time, absolutely no status …” Uriel Weinreich’s own correspondence, however, doesn’t seem to bear out his younger brother’s recollection (recorded several decades after the fact). To be sure, this correspondence betrays Weinreich’s considerable anxiety about his (then) lack of professional standing, but it seems to be reflected especially in the effort to keep his name out of the negotiations so long as possible. Incidentally, there is nothing to suggest that Uriel Weinreich was concerned to insure his appointment to the chair against other pretenders, although this perhaps cannot be ruled out entirely. Insofar as prestige is a driving force in funded academic programs, older known and established scholars would have had an advantage over a young unknown in an open bid for the chair. If not his main concern, could Uriel Weinreich have had this fact of academic life in mind when he suggested his father “be considered, at least initially, in order not to complicate the situation”? Presumably Max Weinreich’s scholarly stature (not to mention his grasp of American academic life) made him something of a conversation-stopper. What other potential pretender to the Yiddish chair could have matched his varied and distinguished academic accomplishments? “Assuming that the result of your conversation with Vice President [Grayson] Kirk15 will be favorable,” Weinreich wrote to Martinet toward the end of the letter of February 8, 1951, ————— 15

Kirk, at this point, served as “acting president” while Dwight Eisenhower was on leave from the university presidency to serve in Paris as Supreme Commander of NATO (McCaughey 2003: 345; Columbia University Record December 5, 1997). The Atran Chair had been established by the time Eisenhower returned to Morningside Heights in mid-1952 (McCaughey 2003: 338), around the time of Frank Z. Atran’s death and shortly

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my father believes that the best way to approach Mr. Atran would be for you to write to him directly, telling him of your own and the University’s probable interest. Mr. Atran would probably be most impressed by a letter in French, since, as I understand it, that and 16 Yiddish are the only languages in which he is at all at home. It is very likely that the sponsorship of the project by a French scholar of your reputation might do much to get the 17 plan under way [YIVO Archives].

Accordingly, on March 29, 1951, Martinet wrote to Atran in French what is essentially a letter of introduction (Atran Foundation Records). In it he mentioned his awareness that Atran is considering establishing a Yiddish chair and concluded: Je n’ai pas d’autre intention en vous écrivant cette letter, que de me mettre à votre disposition pour toute démarche qu’il y aurait lie de faire, si, toutefois on ne s’est pas mépris sur vos projets.

Later that spring Weinreich again recommended to his mentor that he make a direct overture to the potential benefactor. In a letter to Martinet on May 26, 1951, as Martinet was preparing to go abroad, Weinreich communicated Atran’s address in Paris. “I may add,” he wrote in a postscript, “that it might not be worth pressing the point of who would be the occupant of the Atran Chair until Mr. Atran is completely won over to the idea in general” (YIVO Archives). As it turned out, Martinet did not have the opportunity to contact Atran on this trip, as he informed Weinreich on August 8, 1951 (YIVO Archives). He would be back in Paris that September, he said, and planned to try then. (Weinreich himself had plans to be in Paris at this time.) We do not know whether Martinet made contact with Atran during this second trip, but it is my impression that he did not. If he did, any discussion they might have had about the proposed chair probably dealt with no more than superficialities. The Atran Foundation Board minutes of December 5, 1951 record a report from Dr. Ben Zion Hoffman-Hoppen “on certain negotiations conducted by him with Professor Martinet … with a view to the ————— before the University announced Uriel Weinreich’s appointment. Eisenhower did not formally resign his presidency until just before assuming the presidency of the U.S. early in 1953 (ibid., 341). Kirk, a professor of political science who was involved in the formation of the United Nations, is often remembered these days as the University’s President at the time of the student unrest of the late 1960s. 16 Martinet (1993: 66–67) confirms this. 17 This is a good illustration of sociolinguistic knowledge at work in the financial transactions of the upper strata of society.

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establishment of a Chair in Columbia to be known as the ATRAN CHAIR FOR YIDDISH LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND CULTURE.” Hoffman stated that Martinet “had been discussing this proposal with the Trustees of Columbia University and that they showed an interest in such a Chair.” The Board discussed the financing of the chair, and Minkoff again raised the question of scholarships. He suggested these be part of the planning for the chair (Atran Foundation Records). Hardly one week later (according to the Board minutes of December 12, 1951), Atran, Hoffman-Hoppen, and Martinet met at Atran’s home on Central Park West “to explore further the possibility of establishing an Atran Chair in Columbia University and also the establishment of Atran scholarships at the University.” Max Weinreich was also present. The main components of the arrangements for the chair appear to have been worked out at this meeting and enumerated in the minutes. Precisely when, and in what manner, “the point of who would be the occupant of the Atran Chair” (as Weinreich put it in his letter to Martinet of May 26, 1951) was communicated to Atran is not clear. Whenever it occurred, however, Gabriel Weinreich is doubtless correct in stating that the “donor … demurred” (2005: 95). It may have been at this point that the arrangement Gabriel Weinreich describes, or something like it, was proposed, perhaps at Max Weinreich’s “insistence” (ibid.) According to Gabriel Weinreich (ibid.), “the donor decreased the salary fraction of his gift substantially and the university agreed to give Uriel the unusual title of Assistant Professor on an Endowed Chair, with an assistant professor’s salary and without tenure.” Indeed, the departmental budget for 1953–1954, which Martinet attached to his letter of December 15, 1953 to Dr. John A. Krout, University Vice President, refers to Uriel Weinreich as “Assistant Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture on the Atran Chair.”18 The same budget also lists the “Atran Professorship of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture” on a separate budget line, but no incumbent is named (Columbia University Archives). The distinction suggests that it required something more than a discounted assistant professor’s salary to make Uriel Weinreich’s (non-)appointment acceptable to Atran. The problem of the appointee’s status must have been solved by midFebruary 1952 because at this point we see the appointee left to wrestle with ————— 18

Thus is the editor referred to on the title page of Uriel Weinreich (ed.) 1954.

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the solution. In a letter to Martinet, on February 17, 1952, Weinreich reported that he had reviewed the entire faculty list of both Philosophy and Political Science, and found that none of the professors whose chairs are named in someone’s honor are qualified as ‘assistant’ or ‘associate.’ I wonder if all of them are full professors? I suppose you will know whether ‘Assistant’ has to be inserted in my title [YIVO Archives].

By this point the plans for the chair had been set. The agreement reached by Columbia University (represented by Martinet and Associate Provost Krout) and Frank Z. Atran on February 11, 1952 established the chair for a thirty-year period with review of the viability of the chair and attached scholarships at the end of the first and second ten-year periods. The chair was to be subsidized in significant part by arranging to assign a second mortgage on a property in Jackson Heights, NY to Columbia University. Atran provided $10,000 annually for the chair itself and $3,000 annually for five scholarships of $600 each, three in Yiddish and two in other areas of linguistics.19 In connection with the chair, there would be a “Consultative Committee” consisting of persons designated by Atran “with ex officio representation” by Columbia. This committee was to be consulted before making any decision concerning any appointment to the chair or concerning the scholarship awards; Columbia would make any final decisions concerning appointments and scholarships.20 The budget for the chair’s inaugural year, 1952–1953, also allocated $1,000 in chair funds toward the publication of Uriel Weinreich’s

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The Atran Foundation Board minutes of December 12, 1951, from which we cited above, report that only two of these scholarships would be for students of Yiddish, while three would go to students of general and comparative linguistics. Whether this represents a lapse on the part of the secretary or an actual proposal that was subsequently modified is unknown, though I would venture to guess it was a lapse. 20 On the heels of the signing of the agreement, Martinet wrote on March 12 to Richard Herpers, Secretary of the University, about the scholarships. According to a letter from Herpers to Martinet on April 4, Professor Salo Baron, Nathan J. Miller Professor of Jewish History, Literature and Institutions, among other faculty, was appointed, along with Martinet, to make recommendations for these scholarships. One of the two recipients of scholarships for the 1952–1953 academic year was Chaim Gininger. Subsequently, the “Consultative Committee” was formed; it was initially composed of Ben Zion HoffmanHoppen and Max Weinreich (according to a letter in the records of the Atran Foundation from Eugenie Atran, Foundation President, on January 26, 1954).

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dissertation21 (Uriel Weinreich 195322). Max Weinreich wrote to Atran in Yiddish on March 15, 1952 to wish him mazl tov on creating the chair. He emphasized its importance and noted that even those who had insisted that the chair would be merely a sheynkayt appear to have come around to recognizing its significance (Atran Foundation Records).

4 Getting Word Out The creation of the Atran Chair was certainly good news for Yiddish Studies. Now it was time to broadcast it. On March 12, Uriel Weinreich wrote to brief Martinet on the press coverage of the chair. There was an announcement on the Yiddish radio station WEVD on March 8. Brief stories appeared on March 923 in The Forverts and The Morgn zhurnal, and on March 10 in the Tog, The New York Times, The New York HeraldTribune, and The Columbia Daily Spectator. A lengthy article by A. Glants24 appeared in The Tog on March 12. An editorial cartoon in The Morgn zhurnal of March 16, entitled “Madame Yiddish and Her Escort,” depicts Frank Atran leading a young woman (Yiddish) up a flight of steps to ————— 21

According to a letter from W. Emerson Gentzler, Assistant Provost, to Martinet on June 30, 1952 concerning the “setting up in the department of General and Comparative Linguistics an account entitled: ‘For Publication of Dissertation’ to cover the $1,000 advance to Dr. Uriel Weinrich [sic], chargeable for the year 1952–53 to the Atran Professorship” (Columbia University Archives). 22 In the acknowledgments to Languages in Contact (Weinreich 1953: x), Uriel Weinreich thanks Columbia University for aid in publishing the book. He does not directly acknowledge the Atran Foundation (certainly there’s no explicit mention of aid from that quarter), but mentions that he has “had the privilege of occupying the Atran Chair in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture since 1952.” By contrast, Linguistics Today, the special double issue of Word edited by Martinet and Weinreich (1954) on the occasion of Columbia University’s bicentennial, indicates that it was “published with the aid of a grant from the Atran Foundation, Inc.” (Although Weinreich evidently requested $1,500, the Atran Foundation’s grant to support the publication of this volume and of Weinreich, ed. (1954) totaled $500.) It’s worth noting that, apart from Weinreich’s landmark paper “Is A Structural Dialectology Possible?”, none of the contributions to Linguistics Today relies to any significant extent on Yiddish language data. 23 The list Weinreich compiled from memory incorrectly indicates that these articles appeared on March 10. 24 A. Glants-Leyeles (1889–1966), journalist, educator, and Introspectivist poet (see Harshav and Harshav 1986: 70–73).

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a building labeled “Columbia University” on the occasion of the “recent cheerful news” (Figure 1).25 There was subsequent coverage, including a squib in the March 24 issue of Time magazine. The articles in the Yiddish press of March 9 and 10 all appear to be based on similar copy. The Forverts and Tog stories, which are nearly identical, take pains to explain to readers that the Yiddish chair will have the same rights as other academic chairs and those who study Yiddish at Columbia will be eligible to receive university diplomas. They further say that in the coming days Columbia will announce the name of the professor who will assume the chair. (The announcement was not made until July 25.) These and other articles mention that Atran was ill. According to Diane Fischer, Frank Atran’s great-niece and the current President of the Atran Foundation, Atran was terminally ill with cancer at the time. Endowing the Yiddish chair was one of several charitable projects he undertook, perhaps recognizing that his time was short.26 He died at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital on June 11 (an obituary appeared in The New York Times the following day27). On May 12, 1952, Uriel Weinreich received a letter informing him of his appointment as an “Associate in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture on the Atran Chair” commencing July 1, 1952.28 He wrote Martinet two days later to thank him “for obtaining for me a revised appointment letter” (YIVO Archives). A communication from the University, on May 22, 1952, further informed Weinreich that he had been appointed to give Yiddish language instruction (Yiddish 1–2, 3–4, i.e., Beginning Yiddish and Intermediate Yiddish) in the School of General Studies, with the salary for these courses to be paid by the Department of General and Comparative Linguistics, on the condition that there would be sufficient enrollment to offer the course.29 The University’s announcement on July 25, 1952 of Weinreich’s appointment as “associate in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture” does not refer explicitly to a chair, but speaks of the “terms of a recent grant from the Atran Foundation.” Accompanying the announcement is a photograph of the appointee, bespectacled, broadly smiling, clad in an ————— 25

The depiction of Atran appears to resemble its model. The depiction of Columbia does not. Others included the opening, on May 9, 1952, of the Atran Center for Jewish Culture at Madison and 78th St. in Manhattan. 27 In the euphemistic language favored in that era, the obituary reported that Atran died “after a long illness.” 28 Beatrice Silverman Weinreich, personal communication, October 18, 2007. 29 Beatrice Silverman Weinreich, personal communication, October 18, 2007. 26

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argyle sweater (see Figure 2). Toward the end of the 1952–1953 academic year, the University informed Weinreich of his promotion to Assistant Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.30 The following year (April 4, 1955), Columbia wrote Weinreich to report his salary increase for 1955–56. In that letter his title is indicated as “Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Yiddish Studies on the Atran Chair.” The following April, he was promoted Associate Professor of Linguistics and Yiddish Studies on the Atran Chair.31 It was not until April 1960 that Weinreich was formally promoted to Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.32 That is to say, he did not technically assume the Atran Chair until July 1, 1960. He was the first appointee to the chair and held it until his death on March 30, 1967.

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Letter of May 4, 1953. Collection of Beatrice Silverman Weinreich. Letter of April 2, 1956. Collection of Beatrice Silverman Weinreich. 32 Letter of April 4, 1960. Collection of Beatrice Silverman Weinreich. 31

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Figure 1: From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York

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Figure 2: Announcement of Weinreich’s Appointment in 1952; with permission of the University Archives, Columbia University in the City of New York

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5 Other Cases In his introduction to LCAAJ III (p. 3, fn), Mikhl Herzog notes that Columbia University offered a course in Yiddish language instruction as early as 1916.33 Nonetheless, the idea of a chair in Yiddish academic scholarship is something altogether different: rare and not to be taken for granted whenever or wherever it takes root. In the case of a university like Columbia, it may be of especial interest in light of that institution’s somewhat piebald history of relations with Jews (McCaughey 2003). In the early 1950s, the hiring of Jewish faculty at Columbia was apparently still encumbered by the wish to keep Jews off the faculty, or, at least, to control their numbers (McCaughey 2003: 388). It makes the creation of a Yiddish chair at this time all the more remarkable. Whatever concerns may have lingered among the old guard concerning Jewish faculty, Columbia, like other universities in the U.S., recognized the need to generate Ph.D.s, toward which end the monies of foundations were a sine qua non (McCaughey 2003:389). But it would be a misrepresentation to suggest that it was only thanks to financial incentives that Columbia University put aside institutional prejudice against Jews.34 The reality, as it often is, is more complicated. A pertinent case for comparison is the creation, in the late 1920s, of the Nathan J. Miller Chair of Jewish History, Literature and Institutions (“the first chair in Jewish history to be established at a secular university in the Western world,” according to the website of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia) and the appointment Salo Wittmayer Baron to the chair in 1930. According to Ritterband and Wechsler’s account (1994), the criteria for the appointment to the Miller Chair were explicitly “Jewish” in that the incumbent was to be not only a scholar, but also something of a spiritual figure or leader.35 Ritterband and Wechsler depict Columbia ————— 33

He here cites an article by Bernard Gorin (Yitskhok Goydo, 1868-1925) in The Morgn Zhurnal of January 21, 1916. 34 Or could the argument be made that even financial incentives were no match for prejudice against Jews? According to Martinet (1993: 67) after Atran’s death, Columbia’s administration sought to reallocate the Atran funds toward some purpose other than the teaching of Yiddish. Martinet says he stood with Atran’s lawyers in successfully opposing this. 35 Differently stated, this appointment was supposed to go to a Jew, not merely to the best qualified scholar of Judaica.

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University, embodied by the Miller Chair search committee and by President Nicholas Murray Butler, as extremely patient with the benefactor’s requirements, while there was much divisiveness among interested Jewish factions outside the university regarding this appointment. The appointment of Baron to the Miller Chair therefore makes for some interesting contrasts with the Uriel Weinreich’s appointment to the Atran Chair more than two decades later.36 The latter appointment was far less “political” and therefore without controversy. Because the charge of institutional anti-Semitism has been attached to Columbia, as to other elite institutions in the U.S., the contrast also helps us to appreciate how complex the reality was. This is not to dismiss the charge, but to suggest that it would be a gross oversimplification to assert that Columbia was ideologically committed to anti-Semitism. Comparison of the Miller and Atran Chairs is instructive also because the search for an incumbent in each case took a distinct form. The search for the Miller Chair appointee involved an open search beyond the walls of Columbia University. By contrast, the Atran Chair was, in a manner of speaking, tailor-made for Weinreich37 and solved the problem how to keep him at Columbia, where he had earned his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees, and how to launch the career of a promising scholar. Indeed, there is nothing in the record to suggest that there ever was a search committee for this position–or that the idea of a search ever entered anyone’s mind–not when the chair was conceived and created, not in the years when Weinreich “occupied,” but did not yet take possession of, the chair, first as associate, then as Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor.38

————— 36

It seems also interesting and perhaps ironic in light of recent complaints about the nonacademic agenda motivating the creation of chairs and the making of faculty appointments in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures Department at Columbia. 37 Or, as readers can see from the history of Weinreich’s promotions, it was assumed that in time he would grow professionally to fill the dimensions of the position. 38 The preferences of the benefactors is also a study in contrasts. Linda Miller had her own preferred candidate for the Miller Chair which motivated her to become deeply involved in the hiring process. Atran, so far as I can tell, preferred to leave this decision in the hands of the academicians, although he apparently was opposed to appointing Uriel Weinreich to the chair at the outset, because of his neophyte status. In this, however, he was in accord with the University.

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6 Appendix MEMORANDUM Recently there has developed a possibility of the endowment of a chair for Yiddish studies at Columbia University. The facts in the case are as follows: 1- Mr. Frank Z. Atran of 350 Fifth Avenue, New York City, the wealthy president of a number of industrial corporations in Belgium, France, and this country, has been donating large sums of money to various causes of interest to him. In this connection he has established the Atran Foundation, Inc., through which he has donated $750,000 to Mount Sinai Hospital for the establishment of the Atran Research Laboratory. This grant received wide publicity in all major newspapers when it was made several months ago. 2- Mr. Atran is understood to have expressed an interest in establishing a university chair for Yiddish studies in his name, comprising a full professorship at one of the leading universities. These facts were obtained by Max Weinreich, Professor of Yiddish at City College, C.C.N.Y., who, in turn, has them from Dr. B. Hoffman, a personal friend of Mr. Atran. The availability of a suitable occupant of the proposed chair is assured. The interest of Columbia students can be gauged by the number pursuing Yiddish studies at the Department of General Linguistics even now, when no special chair in Yiddish exists at this University. Some clarification on the following points would be of use in the further development of the project: 1- What would be the reaction of the University if it were approached with the offer of such an endowment? 2- What would be the estimated approximate sum necessary to endow the chair on a scale commensurate with the standards of Columbia University? February 7, 1951 [YIVO Archives]

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References Atran Foundation Inc. Board Meeting Minutes. Atran Foundation Inc. Records. The Atran Foundation: Celebrating 50 Years of Philanthropy, 1945–1995. 1996. Der Morgn zhurnal, March 9, 1952. [Chair for Yiddish Language at Columbia University.] Forverts, March 9, 1952. [Columbia University Establishes Chair for Yiddish in Name of Frank Atran]. The New York Times, March 10, 1952: 28. Columbia to Get Chair in Yiddish. New York Herald-Tribune, March 10, 1952: 7. Columbia to Get Chair in Yiddish Linguistics. Columbia Daily Spectator, March 10, 1952: 1. Establish New Yiddish Chair, 5 Scholarships. Columbia University Archives. The New York Times, June 12, 1952. [Frank Z. Atran. Obituary]. Glants, A. 1952. [Yiddish Chair at Columbia University.] In: Der morgn zhurnal, March 12. Guide to the Isaiah M. Minkoff Papers. http://dlib.nyu.edu/eadapp/transform?source=tamwag/minkoff.xml&style=tamwag/tamwa g.xsl&part=body. Harshav, Benjamin and Barbara Harshav (eds. and trans.) 1986 American Yiddish Poetry. A Bilingual Anthology, Berkeley (University of California Press). Kazdan, Kh. Sh. 1948 [The life and works of B. Tsivyon (= Ben Zion Hoffman[-Hoppen]).] In: Tsivyon 1948: XVII–LVI.. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (= LCAAJ) Marvin I. Herzog (editor-in-chief), Vera Baviskar, Ulrike Kiefer, Robert Neumann, Wolfgang Putschke, Andrew Sunshine, and Uriel Weinreich (eds.), Tübingen/New York (Max Niemeyer/YIVO Institute for Jewish Research). Volume I (1992): Historical and Theoretical Foundations. Volume II (1995): Research Tools. Volume III (2000): The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. LCAAJ (= The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry). Martinet, André 1993 0pmoires d’un linguiste: vivre les langues. Entretiens avec Georges Kassai et avec la collaboration de Jeanne Martinet. Paris (Quai Voltaire).

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Martinet, André and Uriel Weinreich (eds.) 1954 Linguistics Today. Published on the Occasion of the Columbia Bicentennial. New York (Linguistic Circle of New York). McCaughey, Robert. A. 2003 Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754–2004. New York (Columbia University Press). Murray, Stephen O. 1994 Theory Groups and the Study of Language in North America. A Social History, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (John Benjamins Publishing Company). Time, March 24, 1952 “Report Card.” Ritterband, Paul and Harold S. Wechsler 1994 Jewish Learning in American Universities. The First Century, Bloomington and Indianapolis (Indiana University Press). Sunshine, Andrew 2006 Uriel Weinreich (1926–1967). In: Keith Brown (editor-in-chief), Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics. 2 edition, Volume 13, Oxford (Elsevier), 543–544. Tsivyon [Ben Zion Hoffman(-Hoppen)] 1948 Far fuftsik yor. Geklibene shriftn, New York (Elias Laub Publishing Company). Weinreich, Gabriel 2005 Confessions of a Jewish Priest. From Secular Jewish War Refugee to Physicist and Episcopal Clergyman, Cleveland (The Pilgrim Press). Weinreich, Max 1931 [The Problem of Bilingualism.] In: YIVO-bleter 1: 114–129. Weinreich, Max 1932 [Bilingualism in Bengal.] In: YIVO-bleter 3: 228–239. Weinreich, Uriel 1953 Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems, With a preface by André Martinet, New York (Linguistic Circle of New York). Weinreich, Uriel 1954 Is a Structural Dialectology Possible? In: Martinet and Weinreich (eds.) 1954: 268–280. Weinreich, Uriel (ed.) 1954 The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Yiddish Language, Folklore, and Literature, New York (Linguistic Circle of New York). Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov, and Marvin I. Herzog 1968 Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. In: Directions for Historical Linguistics. A Symposium, W.P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), Austin/London (University of Texas Press), 95–195. YIVO Archives (Institute for Jewish Research) RG 552, Box 6, Folder 61.

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  ċęĠć ú ĪĖęĉėČďĐėęĉďĐĕĞĐėĒęďČĐĢğęďėĐć ĥĊ  ċĦĊ ĘęēęďĠęĈēćċĚĐČćĖğ ú ćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞęĐĊĖēęďĠČĝė û ćčĐćĉėČėęĒęğĘĐČćęďĘęĈĐĊ û  ĖĉĐğĞďˢğćĊęĉĖĐČĠĤčĖďē ú ćĢďʸĝēČĠĘĐČćğęĊġęĈ û đćĢ û ćċęĠ ú ČĝğęĞĐėĤĢğęĕ   ğęĊ ęēęĐĝę˙Ę ĜČĎćú  ĠĊČĎ ć ú ğęĞĐėĤĢ ğęĕ ďğęĐČĊęĉ ďēćĢ û ĉėČēČĠĘĐČć ĐĊ ďēćĝęĉ û  ĉęďęĈēćċČĝ ú ĖĘğČĞĝėćĉ ú  Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĖĉĐğĞĘ û ćĊ û  9 ĖğęĢďğĐčĐėćĉğ ú ćĚğ û ćĊ ú đęēĉĐĕğćėĐĢĠĐď û ćú ĕęďĘĐĘĐČčćĖďė ú ćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĐĊĖĉĐğĞČĝĐĊ˓ û   ĖďēęďĠęĉėćû Ėďēćĝ û ćĈ ú ćďĐĕďĘėĐĊ ú Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û Ėćú Ėğćğ û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞęĐĊğ û ćˢďĤğĉĖĈ ú ćċČĝĖʸčĚğ û ćĊďĘėĐĊ ú Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĖČˢćĊˠČęĐĊ û  ĖČˢ ďęĈğć ú ĐĊ ĜęėğęďĘğę ğęĊ ĚĐČć ďĞėČ˙ ğęĊęĐ ĖČˢ Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û  ęēęĐĝėęďć˙ û ęĠĐğćčĐĢ û ćğ˙ĐĊďęĈğ û ćęĉĘČĐćĖʸčďęĢ ú

ĘğćėĐĢĖĈĤċė û ćđĐč û ĚğćĊďĘėĐĊ ú Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û  Ĝęėğęďğę ĖČć ĖďˢćĠė ú ćĕĘĊė ú ćē ú ĖČˢ ĖĘęğĊć ú ĖĉĐğĞ Čĝ ĖĈęğďĠ ĚğćĊ ú ďĘėĐĊĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ğęĊ čʸĢġČĕĐĠğ ēĉĦĊćĘĕĐėĞčˠĠČĕęĠĐĢďĐēĖēČĠğęėćĐĝĐē ú ćĉ ú  ĘęĐĝćčĐė ú ćĉğ ú ćû ęēćė ú ćĐĉęğ û ĘęĐĝćčĐė ú ćĉğ ú ć û ęēćėğęď ú ćğˢ ú ĖČˢ ğęĊĐēĉďĐĕ  ĔĐĊĐĎĐ ĖČˢ ĖĘęğĊćú  đĐČć đęēĉĐĕ ĈĐČć ďˢğćĊęĉ ú ďēćĢ û ďĘėĐĊ ğęĊ ďėćĞ ú ćĈ ú čĐć ďćďĠĕĤċ û ğęĤč ĘćĢ û  ĖĊėćĈğ ú ćˢ ú ğęēďęĝćĞ ú đğČĊ ĖęĤĉ ďėęċęğęĤčđğČĊ ĘćĢ û ĔĐĊĐĎĐğęĊćû ĘęĐĝćčĐė ú ćĉğ ú ć û ďĐĕ ĖďĞćďė ú ćĞ û Ė˙ĐėĞėćû ďĘėĐĊğęĊĚğćĊ ú ĖĊćďęĕęğęďĞęğĐĊ û ĖĤĞĖďćğęĉďĐėĖēęĢĘęĈĐČć û ĖĊ ÷ĐĐĖēćĝęĘĐČğĉ û ĖĐć ĖĝĐďćėęďˢ û ćĐĊ û ĞĐğČĝĚĐČćĉėęĉğćĐę û ĒęēďęĖĐć đĐČć ęĘęğ˙ğęĊĖĐćĖĉēćˢĒ û ćė û ęĠĐˢĐĝę˙Ę ĖČˢ Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ĖĉĐğĞ Čĝ ĚĐČć ďėćĕğęĊ û ĖğęĢ ĖďˢćĠė ú ćĕĘĊė ú ćē ú ęĒēęĢ ĖʸčďĘėĐĊğęĊĚğćĊ ú ďĒČčęĉ˙ćďĐėĉęĢğęĊė û ćĔČĠĖĤĞđğČĊđĐčĖĈ ú ćċĘ û ćĢ û ğęďğę  ćĐĊ û ćğĖĐćĖČćęĘęğ˙ğęĊĖĐćĖĘė ú ćė û ćĖĝČėČĝďĤğĉ ú ďĘėĐĊĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ĔęĊ ĖęĉėęğĈėʸğć ú ďʸč ğęĤč ĖČˢ ĖēęĢ Ėğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞę û ĐĊ  ďęĈğćğęĤčĖČˢĉė ú ćĉĖĐćĖˢęğďė ú úćû ĖēęĢĤčĘćĢĖďė û ćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćęēęĐĝėęď û ć˙ û ĖČˢĖĘęğĊćú  ğćˢėĐćďĐĕĜėęĊė û ć˙Ęęğ û ćĞęēęė û ćĐĝ û ćčĐė ú ćĉ ú ğćĐĊĖğĐˢďęĢďĘėĐĊ û Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćğęĊ û  ĖďĐĕćˢČĉęĐĢğęďėĐćĔęĊĖēęďĠćĈĖČˢęĐĊ ú ćďĘğęĊ ú čĐĈĖēćĢĞ ú Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ĖČćĖďėćĕ ú  ğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ēĞę û  ďęĈğćú ēĕćčĐĊĖğĐėĐĊğ ú ćû ćĞĘ û ćĊ û  9  ćˢČĉĖęēĕćčĔęĊğęĈĐćċĎĉĠċĐĊĖĈ ú ćċĚğ û ćĊğęėĤć ú  ĖĞęĊ ĖčČĕ Ĥč Ę ćĢ û ęĐğćďĐğęď û ğęĊ ďĐĕ ĖēĤďęĝ đĐč ĖˢğćĊ ú Ėğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞę û ĐĊ ďėĉęĉğęďĕĐďĠćĈ ú ćĖČˢĖďė ú ćĕğ ú ćˢėĐ û ćĐĊďĐĕĖďęĈğćĖęĞğ ú ćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞę û ğęĊęĐğęĊćû ďęĢĐččĐĈďėĉęĉĖĤćĖČˢĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćďĐĕĖďęĈğ û ćĖęėęĞĖğ ú ćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞę û ęēćğęĊ ú ćû

 Ęćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢĖČć û Ēćğ˙ĠĖĠĐĊ ú ÷ĐĐćú ğćˢ ú ďĞęĐćğ˙ û 



ćĖ˙ ú ćĒė ú ćû ĠĐğćčĐĢ û ćğ˙ğĠˢćĖęĞĖęĕ û   ĪĘćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢ û ğęĝĤĢĠğęĊĘęĉćğˢ ú  ĖČć  ĖĠĐĢĝēćĝ û Ęę ĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢ ĔęėĐć ĔĐĐČėĐĠ ęĒęēĉĐĕ ĖČć ĖęČĐĢğęďėĐćĢˎğ˙ ĖęĕČĞ ĖēęĢ ğęďʸĢ  ćē˙ĘĞę û ĐĊ ğćˢ ú ĘęĐĝĞČğďĘėĐć ĖČć ęĐĝ˙ĐğĞĘėćğď ú ć ú ĖğęĢ ďęĈğćęĉĘĐČć ú  đĐČć ďęĢ  Ėğćď û ćğ ú  ĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢĔęėČˢęĐĝĞćĊęğęĞĐďēĐĉĊėęĐĊĖęĕČĞğ ú ćˢďęĢĚČĘē û   ĜęėğęďğęĖćĖďĤğĉČĝĘ ú ćĊ û  9 Ęćēď ú ć ú ğęĊ ęĒēęĢ ğęďğę ĐĊ ĖČˢ Ĝęė ęĠĐğćčĐĢ û ćğ˙ û ć ú ĖďĤğĉČĝ ĚğćĊ ú ęĐĘĐĕćĞ û ćú  ďęĢĘćĊĖČć û ĖʸččČĕĜęėğęďğęĐĊďĒĐĊęĉĐĢĖĘĐēĠćĈĚğ ú ćĊęĐĘĐĕ ú ćĞ û ĐĊĖĞęĊĚğćĊ ú ĚėĐˢĐĝďğęĊėČċʸğĊ ĪĖęĕęėėʸğćďęĢĘ ú ćēď ú ćğęĊğęďğę ú ēˢĐĢĖĘĐēĠćĈćēĐĕĕ ú Ēćğ˙Ġ ú ęĠĐėćĕ ú ćğ û ĖČˢ ĞĐďĞćğ˙ ú ĐĊ ĖčĐĢęĉ ďćċ û  Ĝęė ęĞĐďėęĝćğ˙ û  ĖĤĞ  ĖĈĐč Đĝ čČĕĜęėĐĊğęďğęęĒēęĢĖĐćĖĘĐēĠćĈđĐČć ú ďęĢęĐĘĐĕćĞĐĊ û ĞĐďĤėďĐėčĐćĖĘćēď ú ćú čČĕ Ėęĕ ĖďĞėČ˙ ęĒēęĢ ĖČˢ đĐČć ğęğęďĐĠ Ėʸč ĉęĕ Đč ęĒēęĢ ĖĐć ğęďĒĐĊęĉ Ėʸč Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û  ĐĊ ĖďĒĐĠ ęğęĘćĢ û ĖČˢ ĖČć ďęďĠ  ďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ĖĤć ĐĢ ğęĕ Ėğęċğćˢ ú ĚĐČćğęďğęďĐČēĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĖĉĐğĞĖČˢĖďĤĞĐğęĢĠęĠĐˢĐĝę˙ĘĐĊĈĐēČĝ û ĖʸčĖˢğćĊ ú ĐĊ Ĝęė ğęĊ ĖĐć ğęďğę ĐĊ Čĝ ĖĢĐďćėğęďē ú ć ú ĖčʸĢėć û ęĐĘĐĕćĞ û ĐĊ ĖęĞ ĉėČēęďĠćú Ĉ Ėęč ďĘėĐĊĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĔęĊĖČˢďęĈğ û ćğęĊđ ú ćėĖğęĢďĕĐďĠ û ćĈďęĢĜęė ú  ęĞĐďēĐĉĊėę ĖęėęĞĘ˙ Čĝ ďėęďę˙ĕ ćĞ û Ėʸč ēćč û ĘćĢ û ğęĝęĕę ĖĈʸēĈ ĚğćĊ ú  Ęę ĖďėČć >9@  ğć˙ ú  ćˢČĉďęĈğćú ēĕćčğęĊĖČˢĉė ú ćĉĖĐćČēĐˢ ú ćĜęėğęďğę ú  ğęĊĖĐćĔĐĐČėĐĠĖČćġČĞˢĘĖĉęĢ  Ėğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞęĐĊĖēČĠĘĐČćĘ û ćĊ û 9 ĖĞĐĘć˙ ú ćĖĈ ú ćċĖČć û ďęĈğćĖĐĕ ú  ĔęĊĖĐć ďğĐĘęğęďėĐćğćˢ ú ĖʸčĖčČĕĖğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞęĐĊ û  ĖēćčĤčĖęĢęĉďē û ćĢē û ćęĊĐćğęĊ ú ğęČĐĊĘĐČćĊēČĊęĉďĞćď ú ĢĐďćĐĝĐėĐć ú ğęďĞćğ ú ćĒ ú đĐČćĖČćĞĐďĘĐğćēĞē û ćˢĖČćĞĐďĘĐĢĉėĐēğęėĤĕęĉē û ćĖĐćďēČĠęĉĘĐČć ú ĖʸčğęĐğˢĖČˢęēćú ďėęĞęĉğęĈćĖęĕďē û ćĢďĐČėğ û ćˢ ú ğćēĞē û ćˢĖĠĐĊ û ÷ĐĐĖČćđćğ˙Ġ ú ğęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐĖČˢďĐĈęĉĖˢĐČć ĖĝėćĉğęĊ ú ĖČć ęĐėĐē ğęĊ ĚĐČć ďĤĉ ĘćĢ û ĉėČĊēĐĈ ğęėĤĕęĉēćú  Ėć ú ďĐĕ ĖĠďėęĕ ĖēęďĠėćú ĖĐć ĘğČĞ ć ú Ĥč ĖĈęĉ ēĠĕē  ďęĈğć ú ğęĊ Čĝ Ĥč ĖďĤğĉČĝ ĔʸĈ ĖĠĐėęďėęĞ ęğęĤč ĐĊ ĖďēćĢ û ĖęĕćčČĝ ú ďęĈğćú ğćēĞē û ćˢ û  ĖČˢ ĞĐĊćďęĕ û ğęĊć û ĞĐďęėćˢ û ğęėĤĕęĉēćú  Ĕćğĉ ú ć˙ û ęĞĐĊğęďʸĢĐĊĖĒćĕĒğČĊďˢğ ú ćĊęĉĖğ ú ćď û ćğ ú ćû ē˙ĘĞę  ċęĠć ú ĪĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢĖČˢđĕĘĖˢĐČćēęĐ ú ĝę˙Ę ęĐĉćē û ćďĞęē û ćĐĊ ú ęĠĐĊĐ÷ Đ ĥć   ĪĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢĖČˢđĕĘĖˢĐČćēęĐĝę˙Ę ĖĈęēğęĉĤďĘĖČćğćēĞē û ćˢğęĠĐĊ û ÷ĐĐ ĥĈ   ċęĠćú  ĪĘćēď ú ćĖČˢĔęďĘĐĘğęĊďĐČē ú ęĐĝ˙ĐğĞĘėćğďğęĠĐďęė ú ćˢĖĐć û ĖęĉėČďĐėęĉ ĥĉ  ċęĠćú



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 ēĕēćčĖďĞęğĐĊĖˢĐČć ú ċĦĊĖĒęēčćēğ û ćˢĖĞĐĝėĤć ú  ĖˢĐČćďĐČĈęĉĖʸčďęĢğę  16>ĵ@ č ĖēęĢ ĘćĢ û Ėğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞę û ęďēČĠęĉ đğČĊ ĖęĕČĞėʸğć ú ďęĢ ęĐĝćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ĐĊ Ċćďęĕ û ĔęėĐćĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćďĐĕĜėęĊė û ć˙Ęęğ û ćĞ û đğČĊďĐėĖČćċ˙ēęĈĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĖĉęğˢĘ û ĐČćú  ûćėďę ĖČć ęĠĐğćēĞē û ćˢ û  ęĞĐĒćğ˙Ġ ú  ĘęďğćĞ ú ĚĐČć ĖĉćğďęĉˢĐČğ û ć ú Ėʸč ĖēęĢ Ęćēď ú ćú ęĐğćďĐğęď û ğęĊ ĖČˢ ĖēĤď ęėęĊĤĠğćˢ ú ĖĐć ĖĊĤĠğćˢ ú Ėęėʸč ĘćĢ û ĖęĉėČėʸĠğęĊ ęĠĐˢćğĉ ú  ďĞęĊĘćēď ú ćğęĊĘ ú ćĢ û  ďęĈğćğęĊĖČˢęĐĝ ú ćčĐė ú ćĉğ ú ćû  9  ćğČĐĈ û  9 ğćˢĘęğĊ ú ćĖ ú ćú ēćĐğęď ú ćĕĔęĊğ ú ćˢĜ ú ćē˙ēĕ ú ćč ú ćĐĢ ú ćğČĐĈ û ćĖĈ ú ćċĚğ û ćĊĘ ú ćēď ú ćğęĊ ú  ćʸĈğęĊĖʸčđĐČćĚğ ú ćĊĘę ú Ėğćď û ćğ ú ćē˙ĘĞęĐĊğ û ćˢğęĕĐĝĘ ú ćēĞ ú ćĖČćĜėęĊė ú ć˙Ęęğ û ćĞ û   ğęĕĐĝČĐĢğęďėĐćğęĞĐĘć˙ ú   ĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢĔęĊĖďĤğĉČĝĘćĊ û  9 ĖČˢēĤďğęďğĐĝĐē˙ĕćĞęĕ û ćĘğęĊčĐć ú đČĈĉęğˢğęĊćû ĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢĔęĊĖďĤğĉČĝĘćĊ û  ċĎĉĠċ ğęĊ ğęďėČć ęĐĘĐĕćĞ û ć ú ĖČˢ ĖğęĢ ďğĐˢęĉĒğČĊ ćĕ˞ĘĐĕ ĚğćĊ ú ĖČć ďęĈğćú  ğęĊ ē˓ĔĊČĞčČĕęĐĘĐĕćĞĐĊ û ğęğĐˢėćĖďē û ćĝ û ćĈĖĒęēďğ ú ćĢďė û ćú ğćˢĖČćĖďğĐĝĐˢĐē ú ćĢĞ ú ćĖČˢ ú ĘęĉćğˢęēęĐĝėęď ú ć˙ĖĉĐğĞČĝĖďęĈğ û ćĒğČĊčČĕĐčĔĐğČĞĕğęĘ ú ćĢ û đĐčğćˢ ú ĖēęďĠďĘęˢ ĖęĞğęėĤćĖęčėʸćğĐćďĐČēğęĊĐēĉďĐĕęğĐćĖĠĐĢĝďęĈğćĐĊĖēĤďėʸć ú ĐčĖęĞđćėğęĊ û ğęĤčĖĉęĢďĒĐğćĈ ú ćĖēęďĠČĝĖČćĖęĉėČēĕ ú ćč ú ğęĊĐēĘĞē ćˢęĞ û ĐğęċęĉĐĊĖĞČĞĒğČĊēĠĕē  ćú  ĖďęĈğćĘĐČć ú ďęĢ ęĐĘĐĕćĞ û ĐĊ ĘćĢ û ĘęĐğćĉęď û ćĞ ú ďĐČē ĜėćĢęēęğ ú ğęĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćęĉ û ĐĊĖĐćğęďğęęďĕĐďĠćĈĖČˢĖęĕ ú ćĐĊĐćĖČćđęēďğęĢ û ġČĕĐĠğĐĊĖĤĉĒğČĊĖęĞğęďĤĢĝ ďĐČē ĖęĞ ğęďĐğĊ ćú  ĖĞČğĊ đĐč Ėĉęēˢ Ĥč ˎĢ ēćėğČĠč ú ĖĘĐĢęĉ ć ú ĖČˢ ĉėęĉğćĐ û ĘćĢ û ĖĊĤĠğęďėČćĉėćēĞ ú ęēćĖČˢ ú ğęďĘĤğ ćĖēęďĠėęĕ ú ćčČĝ ú ĖďęĈğćęĠĐĉ ú ćē û ćďĞęē û ćĐĊ ú Ė˙ĐčĔČĝĖďęğďČĝęĐĘĐĕćĞĐĊĖęĞĖďĒĐğ û ćĈĐĊĖČˢđĕĘĖˢĐČć ú ĖğęĢďĢˎğ˙ęĉĘĐČćĖčČĕ ĖďĐĈęĉ ĖČć ĔĐėĐėę ĐĊ ĖęĕĐďĠĘĐČć Ęęĉćğˢ ú ęğęğćĈĞė ú ćĊ ú ĖĈʸēĞĘĐČć ēćĐğęď ú ćĕ ú ĔęĊ đĤĠĖʸčēćčďē û ćċėĐćğęĊč ú ćú ĖˢČććč ú ćĚĐČćĘęĉ ú ćğˢĐĊĖğĐēČĕğ ú ćˢĘ û ćĊďĕČĞĔęĊđ û ćė û Ėēćč û ğęˢďėę ĔęėČˢ Ĕęğćˢ û ğęĊ ĖĐć ġęĠĈ ĔĐėĐėę ęĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćėďę û ĖČć ęĠĐğćēĞē û ćˢ û Čĝ ēćĝ û ćú ďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĔęėČˢĖĉĐğĞĘĐČğ û ćēĐĢĖęĕĘ ú ćĢ û ĖęĕğćˢęĞĐĒ û ćğ˙ĠĐĊĖęĕČĞĘĐČğ ú ćú  ĖČćēĠĕēďğćĢĒĐğ˙ĠğęĊ û ćēďğęĢ û ćĖČˢĈĤċė ú ćĔęėČˢĖĤďĠ û ćĈđĐČćĖęėęĞ ú Ęęĉćğˢ ú ĖĉĐČĈĉęğˢğęĊĘęĉćğˢēˢĐĢ ú ĚČĘĖčĐĈĘęĖĉćčğęĊČĝĖďęĈĖęĕďęĢ û ďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĔęĊ û  ʸĈ ēĠĕē ďćċ û Ęćēď ú ć ú ğęĠďʸĊğęĝĤĢĠ ğęĊ Ėĉćč û  Čĝ ğęĢĠ čĐć Ėďēćċ ú ďęĢ —————  7KHRULJLQDOPDSLVORVWVHHQRWHDERYH>HGLWRUVĭQRWH@ 

16

 Ęćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢĖČć û Ēćğ˙ĠĖĠĐĊ ú ÷ĐĐćú ğćˢ ú ďĞęĐćğ˙ û 



ğęĖęĞćēĐĕĕğČĊğęčĊėČćčĐĈĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐďĊęğęĉďćċĖęĕˎĢ û ĘęĐğćďĐğęďęĒēęč û ćĖĞę ú Ċ ,, ďğĐĝĐĞĘĖĈĐČćĖĈćċğĐĕĘ û ćĢ û   ĖęĕęēĈćğ˙ęē û ćĐĊčĝēĘĐēĠğęĊĖʸčďĐėđĐČć ú ğęĠğćˢ û ĔęėČˢ ďėćċ ú  ğęĊ ĖĐć ğĐĠĒĕ ğęčĐĝęğ˙ ĖČć ğęĞĐĝČė ć ú ĖğęĢ ğęĈć û ĖęĞ ğę  ĔĐğĐĠĒĕęğęĊėćĖČˢďĤĞĐďĤėĐĊĘĐČćďĐėďĘĐēĠğęĈĐČć ú ČēĐˢćú ĖęĤďĠĖďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĖĉĐğĞĖĐćĖČć û Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćĖĈ û ćċĖęĕčČĕĘ û ćēď ú ćĖ ú ćĖ ú ĒćĕĔČĝ ú  ĐĊĖĐćĘćēď ú ćú Ēćğ˙ĠğęĞĐĊğę ú ÷ĐğˢčĐćĘęğęĒēęĢĐĢĖďĤĞĐğęĢĠęğęĘęğĉğćˢğĐĕ ú ĖĊ ÷ĐĐ ęĞĐďğć û ĖĤĞ ˠČğ Đ˙ēę Ėęėʸč ĖĞęĊ ĚğćĊ ú Ęćēď ú ć ú ğęĊ ĘćĢ û  đęēďęďĠ ĖČć ďęďĠ ďēĉćĢğ û ćˢ ú Ėęėʸč ĘğęĊğęĕ ęĠďʸĊ ĐĊ ĖČˢ ĖğćĢęĉ û  ēČĝĐė Ėęėʸč ĘćĢ û ĐĊ ćďĐė û ğęĕ ĉėćċğ ú ćˢ û ćđğČĊĖďĐėĠęĉ˙ ú ćĐĢʸĘĤč û  ĖČˢĖęėʸčğĐĕĖČć ĖęĕĤċęğęĤčĖČˢďʸĢĖğćĢęĉ û ĖĠĐĢĝ Ėďėćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ĐĊ ĖĉĐğĞ Čĝ čĐć ďĈʸēĈ Ę ćĢ û ďĤĞĒęēĉĐĕ ęĞĐĝėĤć ĐĊ Ėčʸć ĖČˢ ęğęĊėćĖĐć ú  đĐČćĖČć ĪĞğćĐ û ČĐė ĪĜČĈĐĞĖďĘęğĉĔęĊĖĐćĖęĕĖęĞĤčĖĒČčĖęďėćğĉĐĕę ú ċēĐĎ˞ĒēĖęĕďĘĤĢĘćĊ û ĪĖďėćğĉĐĕĐćĐĊ ú ēćğüĠĐĖČćęĞĐğęĕćĖĐćĘğęďėęĝęĐĝ ú ćğĉĐĕę ú ęĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćęĉĐĊĖČć û ĖĊ ÷ĐĐęğęĊėćďĐĕďĞ ú ćďė ú ćĞĖĞĐğ û ćĐĉė û ćú ē ćĖĐćĖęĢęĉĖĈ ú ćċĖēęĢ û Ī ĤčďęĢĖęĕĔęĊĖČˢĖďĐēęĉĖĈćċğęĒĐčďęĕ˓ďęĢ û ęĐĝćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û ğęĤčĖČˢ ďĤĞďĒę ĖęėĐĊĤčďęĢĖČğ˓čğęĤčĈĐČćĖČćĖğćĐĞĐĝğęˢ û ĪĞĐĘʸĊğćˢĖČˢĖĒ ú ćčĖĉęĢ ú  ĖĉęğˢĘĐČć Ę ćĢ û ĔĤċğęĊĖĐćďğęċęĉĖĈćċĤčĘ û ćĢ û ĖĊĤĠğęďėČćČĝđęēğęĢĠ ĖʸčďğćˢĤčďęĢ û ęĒēęčć ú ğęďėČć Ęćēď ú ć ú Ėć ú ĖęĕęėČĝğĐˢ đĐč ĠĐėęēęďĠėʸć Ėć ú ďĐė Ęę čĐć Đĝ ğęďę˙Ġ ğęēęğČďēČĞĖČćğęĒęēďˢćĠėĘĐĢğęĊ ú ęčęďğęčĊėČćčĐćďćğęĈ û ćû ğĠˢć"ĖęĉėČĉėĐĊćĈ ú ĖęĕĈĐČć ČēĐˢćĖğĐˢĒğČĊĐčĖĢˎğ˙čČĕĖęĕ ú čćú ğęĘĐČğĉ ćč ú ćú čĐćďęĈğćğęĊĖČˢďğęĢ ú  ĖďćďēČčęğęĞĐďėęĝ ú ćğ˙ û ĚĐČćĖďĒĐğďĐėđĐčĖęĞ ğęĊĐĢğćēĞčĐćďęĈğ û ćğęĊČĝĖęĕęėČĝđĐčďʸĝęďĘĒęċĐĊčĐćďĝĐćĘ ú ćĢğ û ćˢ ú  Ę ćĢĖďėĕ û ćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćęēęĐĝėęď û ć˙ û ĐĊĖČˢĉėČēĤĝćĖğĐˢČĝĒğČĊĉČėęĉĖęĢęĉ ú ďēćĢĘę û ĉćď û Ęęďę˙ĠĐĢĖęčČĝėʸćĐĊ˓ďēęĢğęĊĖČˢĞęĢćğ ú ćĐĖęĝęďĝęē û  ĐĊĖČˢ đĠĕĈĖęėʸč čĐćĐĝ ĪďĒćĕęĉďĐėĖğ ú ćĐęğęĞĐĝėĐĉĐĊĖĐćę˙ û ćğĤć û ĖĐćĘćēď ú ćĖĤĞď ú ćċĖęĕ û ʸćčĐć ğęĊ ēʸĢ ĖĕĐĘ ĖĤĞ ďĐėğćĉ û čĐć Ęę "Ėćď û  ďĐė ēēĒĈ Ęę ĖęĞ Ėęĕ čćú  ĖĕĐĘ ĖĤĞ ďĐė Ęę ĐĊ ĖĐć ĖğćĢęĉ û ĞĐďʸĝ ďĠğę čĐć ĉėČĠğćˢ û ğČďēČĞ ĖĐć đğĊ ğęĊ ĖČć Ċćďęĕ û ğęĝėćĉ ú ďĠğęĖďēćċĞğęĢ ú ęğęĢĐďćďėęčęğ˙ęğęėʸčĖČˢ ú ēĤď ĖČćğćĐĉėĐēĊėęĝ û ĤĢĝęďĝęē ĖČć čĐćĘę ˎĢĐĢğęĒęēĉėĐğĊďęĈğćĐĊğęĈ ú ćčĐćčĊėČćʸĈ û ĖğęĢďĤğĉęĉČĝĖĐćďĝĐć  Ě˓Đ˞ĖĈĤċČĝėćĚĐČćĖĐĕğęďĖĤćğ û ćĉĖ û ćğ ú ćˢčĐćĘę ú

  Ęćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢ û ĖČćĒćğ˙ĠĖĠĐĊ ú ÷ĐĐćğ ú ćˢďĞęĐ ú ćğě û  Ęćēď ú ćĔęėČˢğęďĞ ú ćğ ú ćĒ ú  ,9 ĖĐć ęĐğćďĐğęď û ęĝėćĉ ú ĐĊ ĖĞęĊ ďęĢ Ęćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢ û ĖČć Ē ćğ˙Ġ ú ğęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ğęĊ  ĚĐČćęďğćĞğęĊĚĐČć ú  ęėćč û ğČĊĖĞĐďėʸċĖčĐĈĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐďĊęğęĉďćċ û ĖęĕˎĢ  ę˙ćğĤć û



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ęĠĐēćĞĐĘĞęē ú ĘĐČğć ú ďčćē û ĖČć ĖďĞćˢ ú ęĠĐďęėćˢ û ğćė û Ėʸğć ú ďĕęė ğę ĉ   ęĠĐďĞćďėĐĘ ú ĖČćęĠĐĉćē û ćˢğ û ćĕ û   ĞĐďĘĐğćēĞē û ćˢ û  ,,, ğČĝĐĞĈğćėęĐĝ û ćČďĐĘ ú ğęčĊėČć ĖğĐĕČĘ Ėęĕ ĖęĞ ďĞėČ˙ĊėćďĠĖĠĐˢ ú ćğĉ ú ćęĉ û ğćēĞē û ćˢĖČˢ û  ďĐĕ ćĢ û ÷ĐĐ ĖČˢ ĖęĉėČēĕćč ú ĢĐĒğć ú ĐĊ ĠďćĒ û  ćďĐė û Ėęėʸč ĖďęĈğć ú ęĞĐĊėğĐčęďėĐĘ ĖĤĞ Ėćğ ú ćˢğęĈ ú ć û ĖęėʸčċĕĎēĕğęĊġęĈĖĠďʸĊĐĊʸĈĖğćĢęĉˠČğĎ û  čĖĘėĤćğćēĞē Ėęėʸ û ćˢ û ĖďćĊĞęė û ćú  ġČĐĠęĕĘĞēćˢ û  ğęĊĐēĘĞēćˢ û Ī ēćĐğęď ú ćú ĕ ĖęĉėČēĕćč ú ęďğĐĞĐēĈČ˙ ęĠ˙Đċ ęĐĝćĕğ ú ćˢėĐćğęĠĐˢ û ćğĉ ú ćėďęďĐĕ û ĖęĉėČĈʸğĠćĈ ú ĖĈęēğęĉĤďĠĖČćĖęĉėČĈʸğĠćĈ ú ĔĐĉċėĐĕ đĐčďğęĊćˢĘę û ĖĈęĉęĉė ć û čĐćĖğćĢęĉ û ďėĒĤĝğćˢĖęėʸčĤčˎĢ ú ďğ ćû ğęĊĘćĢ û  ğęďėČć ęĞĐĝČėĖČćęďČĠ˙ ćú ğęĤčĪēćĐğęď ú ćĕ ú ĔęĊĖČˢďęĈğćú ĉėČğĐĘĞęĊėĐćęĘĐČğĉ ćú ċėĎ ďęĈğć ú Ęę ĖĒēęĢ ĚĐČć ğęĊĐēĘĞēćˢ û ęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ĖČˢ ĘĞęĊėĐćęĐĊćēęĕ û ğęĊ ĉėČĕęė û  ĖĉęĢĖďĞćˢĐĊĖ ú ĘęĉğćˢďĐėđĐČć ú ĚğćĊ ú Ėęĕ ĖęĕČĞ ĜČėČĝ ďČĉʸĈğęĊĖęĞ Ğęďćēĕ ďˢćĖğęĢĘ û ćĢ û ĔĐėĐėęęčęĐĉĐēęğęğęĊėćĖČćġČēĐˢ˞ċ ú  ğĊĘĔęėĐćġČćĎĘČėęēćė ú ćĐĉęğ û ęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ĘćĞĠČğďę˙ û ˄ ğČĞĕ ćú  ğćēĞē û ćˢ û ĖĉęĢ ďĊęğ Ėęĕ ĖęĢ ďğ˙ĐĎęĉğęĈĐć  ęĐĊę˙ćēĞĐĝėę û ĘĞēćˢ û  Ėęēĕćč ú ğćˢ ú ďęēęĞĘ ğęĊ Ėćğ ú ćˢ ú ğęĈć û čĐć ğćˢğęĊ ú  ďēęˢ čęďėĐĘ ğęĊ  ĖČˢ ĘęďęĞėć ú ĐĊ ĖĐć ēćĐğęď ú ćĕ ú ĖĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćėďę û ĖČć ĖĠĐďĘĐğćēĞē û ćˢ û ĠĐďćĕęďĘĐĘ ú   Ċćğĉ ú ćğďę˙ û  Ġďėęĕ ğęĊ Ī ēĤď   Ĕćğĉ ú ćğ˙ û ęĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćėďę û ęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ĘćĊ û  ĖĐĞĘėćú  Ġ ĐĊĖćú ğćˢčĐćĎĘ˙ˠČď ú ĔČĐĖğćˢ ú ęėēĐĢĖĐć ćĢ û ÷ĐĐĖČˢđęēĒĐĈęďęĞėćú ĐĊĖĐćĖČć ē ćĕ û ĖĤć ĖĐČĠ ďćċ û ĈČēĞğćēĞē û ćˢ û Ėċ˓ ēĐ ğęĊ ĘćĢ û  ęďęĞėć ú ćĢ û ÷ĐĐ ęēęĐĝę˙Ę  ĖĐćďğĐˢęĉĒğČĊ čĐĈďēĕćčęĉˢĐČ ú ćĖʸčďĐėĜēćē ú ćčĘęĘ û ćû Ģčćú ĘėĤćğćēĞďğęĢĉėČĝ û ćĠ˙ ú ćğęĊĖČˢ û  ē ćč û ĘćĢ û ēćĐğęď ú ćĕ ú ğęĒęēĒʸēĉğćˢ ú ĖČć ğęĠĐďćĕďĘĐĘ ú ĔČĒĘ ğęĊ čĊėČć ďēęˢ ďĝĐć ċˢČğ˞ ĖĤć ğćû ė Ėćğ ú ćˢ ú čĐć ĔęĊ ĚĐČć Ċćďęĕ û ĖĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćęĉ û  ĔęĊ ċĎēĝċ ĖğęĒĐčğćˢ ú ğęēęĐĝę˙Ę ć ú đĐČć ğęĈć û Ėćğ ú ćˢ ú  ĢĐĘėęďėĐć Ėęēĕćč ú  ĔČďęĕČć Ėęēĕćč ú  đĘ ć ú Ėęēĕćč ú ğęďėʸċ ğęĊ ʸĈ ĖČć ċęĠ ğęďę˙Ġ ğęĞĐďĝĐć ğęĊ ĖĐć ĖęĞ Ėęĕ ĖĒēęĢ ĚĐČć ĉęĢ ğęˎĢğćú ˎĢğęčęğ ćĖĐćē ú ćĐğęď ú ćĕ ú ĖĘĐČğĉ ćĖęĉėęğĈėʸğ ú ćďĤĞďĤğ˙ĠęĝĖČćďĤĞďĤčęĝ ú ĉęĢğęĊčĐć ĘćĊ û ĖĉğćĕğęĈĐć û ĖČćĖĉğćĕ û ďėʸċĘğęĠğćˢ û ğćˢďĤğĉęĉė ú ć û ĖĈʸēĈ ēćč û  Ęćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢĖČć û Ēćğ˙Ġ ú ćĖČˢ ú ęʸė ĖĤĞ ĚĐČć ğęĕ ďĐė ĖČć ēĐˢ ĐĐČčć ú Ėʸğćú  đĐč ďĤďĠğćˢ ú  ďĕęė Ęćēď ú ć ú Ėćú  ďĐė ğęĈĐğęĊ ĖęĞ ğę ĖďĒĐğ ďĐė ĖˢČćĔČĠĈ ĔĐć ĖČˢ đĐč Ėęĕ ĖęĞ ġČğĝČćğćēĞē û ćˢ û  ĎğĒċĈĖęĞĘćēď ú ćğęĊ ú ĖęēĕćčĖĠĐďĞ ú ćˢ ú ĖČˢďęĈğćú ĐĊĖğęďĠďĐėğćďĖČć û ĖďʸĈğćˢ ú —————  7KH LQGH[ ZDV QHYHU FRPSOHWHG Ī &KDQD 0ORWHN HGLWRUVĭQRWH@

15

 Ęćēď ú ćú ğćēĞē û ćˢĖČć û Ēćğ˙ĠĖĠĐĊ ú ÷ĐĐćú ğćˢ ú ďĞęĐćğ˙ û 



ĖČˢğČďĞğďĘęĠĐĉćē û ćė û ćˢĐĊĖęėęĤēČĝĘĐČğ û ćğęĢĠčĐć˙ ú ćēĞ ú ĖĤćďĐĕĖďĞęēćĐĊęĠĐĊ ú ÷ĐĐ  ďĞęēćĐĊĖĤćČēĐˢ ú ćú ĖČˢ ĉĉėČēĕćčĐĊ ú čĐć ĉėČĠğćˢğęĠĐĉ û ćē û ćė û ćˢ û ĖČćğęĠĐďęėćˢ û ğćˢğČĞĕ ú ğęĞĐďĒĐĢ ćú  ĖČć ďğĐˢęĉĒğČĊ ĖďĞėČ˙ ęėęĊĤĠğćˢ ú ĖČˢ ĘğęĊĤğĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ďĐĕ ĖęČĐĢğęďėĐć    ĖĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ĖĐć ďĉĐē ēćĐğęď ú ćĕ ú ğęĊ đʸğėʸĢ ċėĐĈ ĖČˢ Ėďćē˙ ú  ĚĐČć ďğęĐĊğćĞęğ û ú ćú ĚĐČćďğćĢĖČćďČď ú ĐďĘėĐćĖĒęēďˢćĠėĘĐĢ ú  ğęďęĈğćú ćĈ ˠČğĐ˙ēę Ėęėʸč ĖďĞęēćĐĊ ú ĐĊ ĖĠĐĢĝ ĖĊĤĠğęğėČć ęĠĐďĞćďėĐĘ ú ĖČć ęĠĐĉćē û ćˢğ û ćĕ û  ęč  ĖďęĈğć ú ęėęˢğ ćĢęĝ û ęėęĊĤĠğćˢ ú ĖĐć ďėćĕğęĊ û ĖğęĢ ĖČć ĖğćĢęĉ û  ďĠĐĢğęĊ ĖĐČĠ    ďˢĐğĠďʸĝ ğęĞĘėĐĕ ĖďĞęēćĐĊ ú ęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ĖĉęĢ ğęĉėĤĢ ĕ ēĠĕē ęĞĐďĒĐĢ ćú ďğĐčĐēćĞ ú ćē û ĐČėęĉĕČćğęĤčĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćęĉğęĈ û ćĖęėʸčĖďĞ û ćˢĐĊ ú  >Ī@   ĖČˢ ęďęĞėćú  ĐĊ čĐć ďĤĞĐďʸďćĈ ú ğęĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćęĉ û ğęĘĐČğĉ ĖČˢ ĉėČĠğćˢ û ęĠĐĉćē û ćˢ û ğćĕ û ğęĈćđ û ćėčĐćē û ćĐğęď ú ćĕğ ú ęĊđĐČćĖĢĐďėćďĘĈČĘĖČˢĖĐĕĖĠĐď ú ćĕ ú ćğĉĖĉęĢđʸğėʸĢ ú ĕ  ĖğćĢęĉďğĐďėęčęğ˙ďĐėĘęďğ û ćĞ ú ĚĐČć  ĉėČĕęğČˢğęďğęĢĖĐćĖĊĤĠğęďėČćęĠĐďĞęēćĐĊĖĉęĢĖ ú ćğ ú ćˢčĐćĞĐėĤĢğęĤč ú  ĘęĐĉćē û ćēĐˢęĠĐďĘĐė û ćĕğęĉęğęĊė ú ćĖĐćĐĢďĞėČ˙ ú ĪĖęėʸčďęĈğćú ćĈĖďĘĞĐĝėĐĢĔČĝ ú  ĖďĞęēćĐĊĐĊĖĠĐĢĝĔĐĞČēĐĎęĠĐĉ ú ćē û ćĞĐĘ û ĞęēĐĊ ĪęĠĐďĘĐėćĕ ú ćğĐĊČĝ û đČ˙ĐċēğęĈćû ĖęĕčĐēćĞ ú ćēĖČćğęďğęĢ û ďĞęēćĐĊĖęĉėČēĕ ú ćčęĘĐČğĉğĐĕĖĈ ú ćċ û ďʸčğęğęĊėćğęĊĖČˢ ú ĐĊ ĉėČĠğćˢ û ğęĠĐˢćğĉ ú ćęĉ û đćğ˙Ġ ú ğćˢ ú ďĞėČ˙ĉėćĉĘĐČć ú  ğęďėĒĤĝęĉĘĐČć Ėć ú Ėęėʸč ĘćĢ û ğęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ğęĊ ĖČˢ ğĝČć ĖĢćĞĠďČďĘ û ʸĈ čĐć ğęďğęĢďĞęēćĐĊ ú ĉėČēĕćč ú ęďĘęğĉ čĐćďğćĊ û ĠĐˢğĉćęĉďğĐčĐē û ćĞ ú ćē û ďĐėĖďğćĊĖęėʸčĤčğęĈ û ćû ĞğćĐ û ČĐė đćğ˙Ġ ú  ĖęĉėČēĕćč ú ğęďğęĢęĒēęčćĖČˢęĐˢ ú ćğĉ ú ćĐēĈĐĈ û ćĖ ú ćğ ú ćˢğ ú ćˢğęĊ ú  ĖČˢ ĊėćĈğ ú ćˢ ú ĖďęĢćĘ û ĖČˢ Ęćēď ú ćĒ ú ćğ˙ ú Ġ ğęĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐ ğęĊ ĖğęĢ ďėćĕğęĊ û čČĕ ĚČĘē čĐć Ęćēď ú ć ú ğęĊ čćú  ďĐė ĞˢĘ ĖĤĞ čĐć Ę  ĞĘėĐĕ  ĖĐĞėęēĐĢ Ģ ĖČć ğęĉėĤĢ ĕ ēęĐĝę˙ĘğćˢĠď ú ćû ĒĖęĉėČĠğćˢęĠĐˢ û ćğĉ ú ćęĉ û đćğ˙Ġ ú ğćˢğČĞĕğęĞĐďĒĐĢ ú ćēęĐĝėęď ú ć˙ û ĖĐćĖĤĉČĝėʸğćďğ ú ćĘ û ćĊďĐėčĐć û ćĊ û ĖčĐĢęĉĘĐČğćú ďĐėēʸĢğęĊđĐčğęďćċĞĐĊğę˙ĒČğˢ û ĖĞĐĊĐğˢćĈďĐėĖęĞĘ ú ćēď ú ćğęĊĘ ú ćĢ û ğćˢ ú ĖğęĢĖčĐĢęĉėćû ğćėē û ćč û ġČĒĐğćĈĞĐďĐğĞ ú ćú  Ěćğĉ ú ćęĉ û đćğ˙ĠĖĠĐĊ ú ÷ĐĐĔęĊ Ĝęėęğĉ ğęĠĐďęĢćĘ û ĠĐēĐČ˙ ğęĊĖČˢĎğčĐĕĚĐČćęĐğćďĐğęďĐĊ û ğćėďĞęĊğę û  ć  ĔČĠ ĖĤĞ ďĐĕ ďĐė ďĕĐďĠ ĖČć ĠĐďĐēć˙ û ĖĤğ čĐć ĘćĢ û Ĝęėęğĉ ćú  Ī Ī   ĖČˢ  ďʸčğęėęĐĖČˢĘğęĊĤğĠĐĊ ÷ĐĐĖćĐēĐĕğĐˢ û ćú ĘĐČćďčćēğę û ęĐėĐēğęĞĐĒćğ˙Ġ ú ęēć ú ĖČˢ ďĊʸē ĖČć Ċćďęĕ û ĜėęĊėć˙Ęęğ û ćĞ û ĖďĐĕ ĖĈĐēĞęĉ čĐć ęĐĝćĕğ ú ćˢėĐć û Ėʸč Ĉ   Ċ ćďęĕĔęĊČĝĖğęċęĉĘ û ćĢĖďĤĞĒęē û čćēğ û ćˢĕČćĖČćĖďĤĞĒę ú ēďĞėĐ˙ĕČć —————

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