מענדעלע

In dem geist fun di diburim hasholem fun undzer firer, vil ikh tzugebn nokh a bamerkung vegn vort - davenen. efsher iz undzer vikuakh zeyer a vikhtiker, vayl dos iz a vort vos geyt glaykh tzum tokh fun yidishkeyt.

lomir prubirn oysmaydn vos mir konen oysmaydn un efsher vet blaybn tzi an entfer -tzi khotch a derekh tzum emes - vos iz logish.

loyt dovid goldberg's "yidish af yidish" (yale 1996) nemt men on az verbn (partitzipn) fun slavishn shtam, endikn zikh in eyin tes. me zogt - ikh hob gedav(e)nt - nit gedavenet oder gedavnet - heyst es, az vegn a slavishn shtam iz opgeredt.

vegn an opshtam fun hebraish/aramish iz veyniker klor -- mikh vundert a bisl farvos me darf di ale akrobatishe genitungen -- ven andere verter fun h/a shtam zaynen azey fil gringer tzu derkenen loytn 3-oysye shoyresh - in ale formen un enderungen af loshn keydish un af andere goles-shprakhn.

vos iz shayekh daytsh-hollendish in ale zeyere formen un dialektn -- hot nokh keyner nit bavizn a sharfer klorer tzubindenish. ober do iz nokh an ofene frage.zol men forshn vayter.

vos iz shayekh latayn/italianish/frantzeyzish un efsher afile shpanish/ portugezish, afile ladino. muzn mir nit fargesn az di yidishe bafelkerungen hobn geveynt in di ale lender, un arumgevandert fun land tzu land, un mit zey, di verter vos hobn tzu ton mitn yidishn religyezn lebn. un nit ale di verter zaynen geven loshn-keydeshdike verter - vi got, bashert, un azey vayter. iz eykh derfar an ofene frage di meglekhkayt az bentshn un dav(e)nen shtamen take yo fun romantishe shprakhn - benedicere un diviner - geyen hant in hant.

nokh a punkt. der greyser 2ter goles (fun di sefardishe yidn) heybt zikh onet in yor 1492. me gefint sefardishe nemen vi basson, peretz un andere tzvishn ashkinazim. sefardim zaynen ungekumen kin holland fun shpanie un portugal -un di zelbike meshpokhes zaynen shpeter ungekumen in di slavishe lender. efsher ken men zukhn in verterbukh fun ladino -- un gefinen nokh bavayzn. eykh an ofene frage.

in the spirit of the words of peace from our leader, i wish to comment on the word davenen. perhaps our discussion is a very important one, because it is a word that goes to the essence of the jewish experience.

let's try to eliminate what we can eliminate and perhaps an answer, or at least a path to the truth will remain -- one that is logical.

according to david goldberg's "yidish af yidish (yale 1996) it is asserted that verbs (participles) of slavic origin, end in eyin tes. one says - ikh hob gedav(e)nt - nit gedavenet oder gedavnet - so, a slavic origin is out of the question.

as to an h/a origin, matters are less clear -- i wonder a little about the need for all these acrobatic exercises -- when other words of h/a origin are so much easier to recognize by their 3-letter root or shoresh - in all forms and changes loshn kodesh and the other goles-languages.

as to german-dutch and their various forms and dialects - no one has yet demonstrated a sharp, clear connection. but this is still an open question. let us seek further.

as to latin/italian/french and perhas even spanish/portuguese, even ladino, we must not forget that jewish populations lived in all these lands, and wandered from land to land and with them, words dealing with jewish religious life. and not all these words were h/a words - such as got, bashert, etc.it is therefore an open question that there is a possibility that words like bentshn and dav(e)nen actually do derive from romance languages - benedicer and diviner go hand in hand.

another point. the second great exile (of sephardic jewry) begins in 1492. we find sephardic names like basson and peretz and others, among ashkenazim. sephardim came to holland from spain and portugal -- and these same families later came to the slavic lands. perhaps we can research the ladino lexicon and find similar examples. also an open question.

sylvia schildt baltimore, maryland

I second the motion of Mendy Fliegler. I, too, was beginning to wonder when we would get off the etymology track, and get back to posts which would be more in line with what I had thought was a real purpose of Mendele, namely, to promote the use and revival of Yiddish. I would like to see some posts from those who can tell us what is being done in their area to promote the spread of Yiddish. Let's hear of new developments in approach, techniques, and technological advances which are available for this purpose.

Morrie Feller Phoenix

I work part-time in a children's book store, and just saw a new (1997) book by David Adler, "Chanukah in Chelm." This new story captures the charm of the traditional Chelm stories very well; I recommend it highly.

Marti Krow-Lucal Sunnyvale

ikh bin maskim mit Mendl Fliegler! Tzufil etimologyes, tzufil diskusyes vegn "davenen", "doenen", "doynen" un nokh amol, "dav(e)nen"! Mihr, der prost un posheter ohylom, mihr davenen az der yihnyen "davenen" zol zikh shoyn endikn un meh zol shmuesn vegn andere vikhtikeh Yiddisheh interesn.

Freydl Cielak, Mexico City

i find it fairly shocking that hugh denman [07.105] finds no evidence of re-constantal droping of g's. he obviously did not know my elterfeter oyf der muters zayt, yoyne bronen, who kept dropping so many g's (of the preconstantal variety) that the local rabbi in svyentsan, shoymek kalamutner, almost threatened to put him in kheyrem. the story is told padrobne in pinkas sveyntsan l908, klotskin farlag, vilne

abraham brumberg

S'iz faran oykh itst nokh a sotsialist in amerikanishn kongres, Bernard Sanders fun vermont. Dos makht khotsh dray in der geshikhte. Vi vayt kh'veys, iz er oykh a yid.

There's another Socialist in the US Congress at present, Bernard Sanders of Vermont. There have been at least three, therefore, and I believe that Representative Sanders is also Jewish.

Elyet Hersh Gertl (Elliot Hersch Gertel) Boka raton (Moyz-moyl) Boca Raton, Florida

Mendy Fliegler and several other Mendelyaner complained about "The Great Davenen Discussion". Although it does seem somewhat pervasive, one should not blame Mendele: there must be something in the air these days, that causes an obsessive-compulsive search for the etymology of "davenen".

Look for example at the Philologos' column in the last Forward (Dec 5). It reads like a synopsis of the discussion in Mendele (without mentioning Mendele of course). Too bad that Mr (or Ms) Philologos is not subscribed to Mendele, otherwise they would have included a reference as a professional courtesy.

I also wonder why nobody mentioned a fairly recent article by Herbert Guy Zeiden "Davenen: A Turkic Etymology" in Yiddish, v. 10, 2-3, p. 96-99 (1996).

And let me finish with an old prophesy by a very wise man: "The origins of _daven_ and _pareve_ are once again hot items. As they will be again next year and the year after." (Noyekh Miller, Mendele Vol 1.086, Thu, 10 Oct 1991). Vos ken men nokh zogn...

Iosif Vaisman

Some people have suggested to me that it might be useful to post a brief statement of some of the principles I keep alluding to which define the linguistic approach to Yiddish etymology (and more generally to Yiddish linguistics) as opposed to the amateur approach. This is by no means an easy task, but here goes:

The fundamental distinction to my mind is that the linguistic approach is systematic (or systemic), while the amateur approach is atomistic. That is, for a linguist an etymology can only be considered in the context of a whole systematic description of the history of a given language or dialect. This is why I keep saying that, for example, deriving dav(e)nen from Hebrew daf Fleaf' is unacceptable because we know of no examples of Hebrew /f/ becoming Yiddish /v/ in a comparable situation. This is why dav(e)nen cannot be derived from dialectal doynen or medieval do"nen because we know of no comparable examples of -av- coming from such sources. This is why I say that dav(e)nen cannot come from Aramaic d+something, because Yiddish verbs come from Hebrew and not from Aramaic, and this is why Birnbaum, with whom I agree, also said that a Turkic or a Lithuanian or an English etymology is impossible or at least unlikely, because Yiddish does not seem to have many or indeed any old established words from these sources. This is why I worry myself about how to explain the variation between davenen and davnen, although this time the situation is a little different: there MUST be a connection of some kind to explain this but in the absence of any comparable examples, it is difficult to be sure what it is. In each case, what we insist on is that what is claimed for dav(e)nen should be exemplified elsewhere as well. This is one way in which being systematic or systemic differs from being atomistic.

But we actually go further because we usually insist that what is posited for the history of any one language or dialect should normally (perhaps there are exceptions) be paralleled in other languages of the world. For example, when we describe the sound changes required to explain the development of a language or a dialect, we usually want these sound changes to be found somewhere else in the world. I am not sure this is relevant in the case of dav(e)nen, but it is important in general. For instance, we normally want the statements of how the sounds of one dialect or language relate to those of a related one to allow no exceptions (so that EVERY word which has /oy/ in Northeastern Yiddish, for example, has /ou/ in Dutch Yiddish, if I am not mistaken, and so on). The reason we insist on this is not just that this makes us more confident of the correctness of our statements, but also because for 150-200 years a huge number of languages and dialects have been studied and overwhelmingly we find that the sound systems thereof do exhibit this property, known more technically as the regularity or exceptionlessness of sound laws. It is controversial whether this always so or merely most commonly, but it is certainly common enough for us to be suspicious of any example that does not have this property. So it is not merely that we know of no examples where /av/ comes from /o"/ or /oy/ (or where /v/ comes from /f/, except perhaps at the end of a word) in Yiddish. It is also that, since we have lots of examples where medieval /o"/ gives modern /e/ or /ey/, where Hebrew /f/ gives Yiddish /f/, and so on (while on the other hand we know that modern /av/ comes from /av/ and modern /v/ from Hebrew /v/ or medieval German /v/ or /w/), we assume that it is very very unlikely that there should be an individual word (namely, dav(e)nen) where these regularities are not observed (for no apparent reason).

Much much more can be said about this, and I hope at some point to be able to post more, but this is the basic point I think: that real linguistics treats the etymology of any given word (or indeed any fact about a language or a dialect) as part of the whole enormous body of knowledge about that language/dialect (and related languages/dialects), whereas amateur linguistics is atomistic. And if you will forgive the atrocious pun, anything atomistic is bound to bomb.

A. Manaster Ramer

I wonder if anyone can supply me with information about Y. Dobrushin, Russian author, critic and ethnographer. In particular, I am interested in details about his collection of Yiddish folk songs, published in Moscow in 1940. Also, I would like to know what happened to him during the Stalin years; he died in 1953.

A sheynem dank,

Diane Rabson Boulder, Colorado