מענדעלע

As Hugh Denman has pointed out, my YIVO rendition of Chanukah as _khanuke_ was wrong and should have read _khanike_ or _khaneke_. I thank him for pointing it out.

However, I believe Sholem (Zackary) Berger is really off the mark when he advocates a transliteration of the Yiddish over the Hebrew for an *English* rendition of _Chanukah_. Chanukah is really not the private property of Ashkenazim -- and neither are bar mitzvahs, by the way, tho perhaps they could apply for a trademark. :) My Sephardic husband managed to celebrate Chanukah and even have a bar mitzvah way back in Egypt -- and they didn't learn about them from Ashkenazim.

But, as long as I'm getting testy, let me ask why on earth people send Chanukah cards? Couldn't have anything to do with Christmas cards, now could it? I just wish I could have bought stock in Chanukah when I was a kid -- I'd be a multi-millionaire today.

Ellen Prince

There were written many words on Mendele about dying of Yiddish language. I only wanted to add one sentence to it:

Language is dead when you don't tell "I love you" yet in that language.

so... is yiddish dead?

pawel brunon dorman

What Iosif Vaisman wrote on Mendele Vol 6.096 it's true of course, but there may be also said that for words "Yiddish language" in Polish language there are used words (_je'zyk jidysz_) rather than words (_je'zyk z*ydowski_). And especially now words (_je'zyk z*ydowski_) are not used - because there is possibility to understand it as (_je'zyk hebrajski_) "Hebrew language" instead of words which should be used in that meaning as (_je'zyk jidysz_). On the turn of the 19th century there was used word (_z*argon_) for words "Yiddish language", but it has pejorative colouring.

Polish words in brackets: e' - e with tail z* - z with dot over

pawel brunon dorman

The "official" usage in Russian until recently was "evreyskiy yazyk" for Yiddish and "drevneevreyskiy" (ancient Jewish) for Hebrew. All the books published in the USSR in the 1950's and 1960's used this. Jews among themselves used this and "idish" and "ivrit". By the 1980's the official usage began to change (as Hebrew stopped being an "ancient" language?); a "Samouchitel' yazyka idish" was published in, I believe, 1984.

Michael M. Schein

Arnie Kuzmack [6.098] asked to clarify usage of _idish_ and _evreiskii iazyk_ in Russian. The whole story is rather long, so I will mention just several significant moments.

Adjective _evreiskii_ has been present in Russian language at least since XVII c. (it is listed in F.Polikarpov's "Leksikon treiazychnyi" in 1704) meaning both Hebrew and Jewish. And until late XIX c. _evreiskii iazyk_ meant Hebrew language (e.g. "...za to, chto on, znaia evreiskii iazyk...", Pushkin, Diaries 1835, PSS, t.12, p.337, Moskva, 1949). By the 1894 _evreiskii iazyk_ is still Hebrew (Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar', t.5), for Yiddish the same dictionary gives: "Evreisko-nemetskii dialekt, ili pravil'nee zhargon" [Jewish-German dialect, or more correctly jargon]. In 1912 Yiddish is called _razgovorno-evreiskii iazyk_ [colloquial Jewish language] (Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia, t.16).

It might be interesting to look at how Sholem Aleichem called Yiddish in Russian. From his letters written in Russian we see: _zhargon_ (to Mendele Moikher Sforim, 23.12.1884), _evreiskii zhargon_ (to M.Gorky, 31.12.1901), _evreiskii (narodnyi) iazyk_ [Jewish folk language] (to L.N.Tolstoi, 27.04.1903), _evreisko-nemetskii zhargon_ [Jewish-German jargon] (to L.N.Tolstoi, 25.08.1903), _po-evreiski_ [in Yiddish] (to S.Dubnov, 14.10.1889). _Zhargon_ is used most often, qualifier _evreiskii_ is added in letters to the non-Jewish addressees.

Due to various social and political changes that started in early XX c., by 1920s the word _zhargon_ is considered demeaning, _evreiskii_ means Jewish as _drevneevreiskii_ [ancient Jewish] is used for Hebrew, and word _idish_ enters the scene. The change is clearly indicated by the first Soviet Literary Encyclopedia: "Evreiskii iazyk - inogda nepravil'no nazyvaemyi zhargonom, v poslednee vremia rasprostraniaetsia nazvanie idish" [Jewish language - sometimes incorrectly called jargon, since recently name Yiddish is becoming more widespread] (Literaturnaia Entsiklopedia, t.4, Moscow, 1930). Note that the entry here is for _Evreiskii iazyk_. The 1935 dictionary has both _evreiskii iazyk_ and _idish_ entries (Tolkovyi slovar' russkogo iazyka, Moskva, 1935), all later dictionaries favor _idish_ (e.g. Slovar' sovremennogo russkogo literaturnogo iazyka, t.3, Moskva, 1956).

However, as we know, sometimes the dictionaries do not neccessarily reflect (or impose) actual usage, and it is the case with Yiddish in Russian. In my estimates _evreiskii iazyk_ is used much more frequently than _idish_. The most eloquent example can be found in hundreds of books in Yiddish and translated from Yiddish that were published in Soviet Union. Small note on the title page invariably reads: _na evreiskom iazyke_ [in Yiddish] or _perevod s evreiskogo_ [translated from Yiddish]. A notable exception is the antologies which contain translations from both Yiddish and Hebrew. In this case _perevod s idisha_ and _perevod s ivrita_ would be used. And names for Hebrew in Russian is another long story...

Iosif Vaisman