Jewish-Languages Mailing List

September 2001

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:07
From: Ora Schwarzwald <oschwarz @ mail.biu.ac.il>
Subject: info

Dear Members,
Only today did I read rgw article about Modern Hebrew published in the
times.
For your information, my new book MODERN HEBREW published by LINCOM EUROPA
recently (2001) deal with these issues.
Ora

===============================================
Prof. Ora R. Schwarzwald
Hebrew and Semitic Languages
Bar Ilan University
Ramat Gan, ISRAEL 52900
Tel. 972-3-5325021 (home), 5318667 (office)
FAX: 972-3-5324855 (home), 5351233 (faculty)
E-mail: oschwarz @ mail.biu.ac.il
http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~oschwarz
http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/hb/oraheb.htm

Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 18:08
From: Sarah Bunin Benor <sbenor @ stanford.edu>
Subject: Cracow Yiddish query

This message was posted yesterday to Linguist List. The e-mail address of
the poster is listed at the end.

-Sarah

Dear linguists,

Some authors claim Cracow Yiddish is part SWY part WY. In Beranek
(Westjiddischer Sprachatlas) I found that MHG. ei> ay (SWY) MHG. ii> ay
(WY). M. Gebirtig in his songs rhymes Standard lib-shtub (SWY),
zayn-geweyn, and grois-mois (which do not rhyme in any real EY
dialect, but may rhyme in WY). Now there is a chance of poetic
licence, but frankly I doubt it. I can't find any published sources on
this dialect.

Could anyone comment on that?

Also, can anyone give me basic characteristics of Cracow Yiddish,
i.e. what happened to final voiced consonants, final er, what is the R
like, and what happened to MHG. vowels aa ee ii oo uu a e i o u ou ei
iu (what are Cracow equivelents of zogn, shney, dayn, groys, hoyz,
mame, weg, lip, hot, gut, boym, kleyn, fraynd).

I will be grateful for all responses.

Tomasz Wisniewski
tomwisn @ yahoo.com

Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 19:15
From: Sarah Bunin Benor <sbenor @ stanford.edu>
Subject: 3 questions: Yiddish, Solitreo, Hebrew in America

Here are a few questions I've received recently but could not answer on my
own. If you can answer any of them, please respond directly to the people
who sent them.

Thanks,
Sarah

From: Michal Held msmheld @ mscc.huji.ac.il

Do you (or anybody else) have any idea regarding the new website of the
Israeli National Authority for Yiddish?
I saw an ad in on of the Israeli papers saying they now have a site
(www.yiddish.org.il), but cannot find it.

Thanks, Michal.
-----------------------------
From: Dorysel @ aol.com

I am working on translating a cache of cards and letters written to
relatives in the USA from relatives in Skopje, Yugoslavia in 1920-1940.
This is a Jewish family, who spoke ladino. The written text is in a
cursive manuscript called solitreo. I am looking to locate a "chart" that
will give me the Hebrew or phonetic equivalents to the letters of
solitreo. Then I can translate the texts into ladino and the family
elders can translate that into English. All of the people in Skopje, who
wrote these letters, died during the Holocaust, and so we are so
interested in establishing their identities for future generations.

Do you have any knowledge of solitreo, or can you refer me to a person or
book where I can get more information.. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Thank you.
Doryce Seltzer dorysel @ aol.com
--------------------------------------------
From: Judah Cohen jcohen @ fas.harvard.edu

[paraphrased:] Do you know of any literature about the pronunciation of
Hebrew in (non-Ultra-Orthodox) American Jewish schools? There was a
transition from Ashkenazic to Modern Hebrew pronunciation some time in the
middle of this century, but I haven't found any research on the timeframe
of and discussion surrounding this transition. If you know of anything,
please let me know.

Thanks,
Judah