מענדעלע

Tayere mendelistn, haynt iz alt mendele zeks yor. Tsum finftn geburtstog hob ikh geshribn az mir hobn dergraykht mer fun a toyzent abonantn. Der hayntiker numer iz 1255. Un oyb azoy vi ken men zogn az yidish iz a toyter loshn?

Un nisht bloyz gevaksn; mendele hot oykh bakumen a nayer un shpanendiker suplement, _The Mendele Review_, unter di redaktsie fun Leonard (Yude-Leyb) Prager.

A por verter af english.

These past six years have been six exhilirating years for your shames. Never in 75 years have my days been as rich and enjoyable as these. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

But there comes a time when one should turn to other affairs. Entire mountain ranges of books that haven't been read lately or read with understanding or read at all. Birds to stare at, woods to walk in. Nu, un tsvey mazikim vu zenen, der zeyde zol zey tsertlen un oykh mit zey amol lernen bolek? (Der entfer: afn tsveytn shtok.)

Most important, Mendele can benefit from new blood, new ways of doing things.

And so I'm happy to announce that Victor Bers and Iosif Vaisman have agreed to take over the management of Mendele. Victor has been my silent shutef almost from the beginning, when Mendele moved over from its hand-sewn status on the Trinity machine to its present berth under the Yale listserver, and he has been a source of solid level-headed support all these years. Iosif is known to most Mendelistn for his informative posts and especially for his own inspired web-site, The Virtual Shtetl, which among many things makes it possible to search through past issues of Mendele. The two will work together to produce what I am certain will be a joy to read.

It was hoped that this issue would mark the first under new management. Victor nebekh is still a working-stiff and has term-papers and exams and dissertations to take care of. And so your shames has agreed to a promotion: he will be the unter-shames for the next week or two or until such time as Victor and Iosif can move in completely.

Akhuts dem blaybt afile a gevezener shames an abonant. Men vet zikh nokh zeyen, af dem megt ir zayn zikher. Zayt mir ale gezunt.

Noyekh Miller

Marjorie Hirshan asks why, when speaking English, Yiddish speakers (who've learned English as adults) tend to say /v/ where they should say /w/ and /v/ where they should say /v/. I believe this is a case of where what they are in fact saying is phonetically *between* English /v/ and /w/ and it is we, the native English listeners, that assign it to the wrong category since we (given our sound system) figure it has to be one or the other and it doesn't sound like the one it's supposed to be.

Another possibility might be the case of the Yiddish speaker who in fact has learned to produce English /w/ and /v/ as two distinct sounds but who may have trouble remembering which one belongs in which English word. When they get it right, we don't notice anything; when they get it wrong, we notice. Therefore we would have the impression that they always get it wrong, nebekh. ;)

In either case, the reversals, like beauty, would be in the eye (ear) of the beholder...

There may be a lot more to it -- I'm sure Arn Abramson, our resident phonetician, can tell us!

Ellen Prince

I believe this is the phenomenon known as hyperurbanism. Yiddish speakers were told from the beginning that they were mispronouncing "w" sounds as "v" and took great pains to correct themselves. In so doing, they went too far and extended the "w" to legitimate "v" sounds as well. I remember my late grandmother cleaning house with a wacuum cleaner.

A story:

During WW II my late father-in-law, who spoke beautiful litvak Yiddish despite having been born in the USA, tutored English to what are now known as New Americans. He used to tell the story of one man who had a devil of a time saying "Washington." Harry said to him, "Say 'oo,'" which the man did with no trouble. Then he said, "Now say 'Ashington,'" which he also said clearly. "Now put the two together," said Harry, and the man said "U-Vashington."

Be me well and strong.

Rick Turkel

The 'w' sound serves no phonemic function in Yiddish; i.e. no meaning hinges on whether a 'v' or a 'w' is heard, as it does in the English pair "vest/west". Therefore, when hearing such pairs in English, the Yiddish speaker perceives the differences as interchangeable variants of the same sound, and is as likely to choose the more "English sounding" 'w' as she would the more "common sounding" 'v'.

Sam Weiss Baltimore