|
|
April 8, 2011
Yiddish interest grows
Languages tend to adapt in order to remain alive.
MICHELLE DODEK
“Why Yiddish?” was the question, and the typically Yiddish answer from those assembled was, “Farvos nisht?” (“Why not?”) Not everyone in the crowd was able to give an answer, however, because at least half of the 50 people in the room located on the lower level of the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch were unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Many of those audience members, mostly seniors, have been regularly attending the What if? free lecture series hosted by Langara College every Wednesday, keeping their minds active and healthy. That said, Yiddish enthusiasts of all kinds attended this lecture, including those from the Jewish community, many of whom were not regular What if? students, but were there specifically for the lecture entitled What if the Yiddish Language Wasn’t Dying? given by Langara English instructor Rachel Mines.
The lecture series asks people to imagine the world just a little differently and, true to form, this particular lecture had different meanings for the variety of people in attendance. For Jews, it was likely more than an academic question because of the strong cultural and historical links to the Yiddish language. And, while everyone expected to hear about the death of Yiddish, Mines took an entirely different stance.
“Prior to World War Two and the Holocaust, there were 11 million people speaking Yiddish in the world, but many of them had already left Europe for North America, South Africa, South America – all sorts of places around the world where they were eager to assimilate and acculturate,” she said. “The writing was on the wall – the language was changing.”
According to Mines, Jews who left eastern Europe added Yiddish to the dominant language and culture of their New World countries, but did not tend to pass it on as a primary language to their children. English, being derived from so many languages, is particularly receptive to new words, she noted, and readily accepted many Yiddishisms, transforming them so thoroughly into mainstream jargon that, often, people have no idea that words and phrases they use daily are Yiddish or direct translations of Yiddish idioms.
An example is the word “glitch,” said Mines. This is, in fact, a Yiddish word meaning a slippery area. Who knew? (This type of questioning is also a Yiddish influence on English.) How about the phrase “the bottom line”? Used very regularly in business and common parlance, it is a direct translation of a Yiddish idiom. There are, of course, other words that are even more directly Yiddish and no less pervasive, such as shmooze (to converse or discuss), klutz (log in Yiddish), nosh (nibble on, specifically sweets) and foods like latkes, bagels and lox. One of the best is the saying “son of a gun,” which makes no sense, really, until put into the context that the “gun” here is derived from the Yiddish word gonif, meaning thief.
So what does this discovery of the roots of Yiddish-derived English words have to do with the death of the Yiddish language? According to Mines, it just one of the indicators that Yiddish is not dying. Rather, Yiddish is doing what languages do: changing. The fact that Yiddish has entered English (and also Hebrew) vernacular shows it is still alive. From a linguistic standpoint, even Latin is not technically dead, Mines explained, because it has spawned so many other languages that it lives on, just in a different form.
The death of a language only occurs when all of the speakers are either dead or its speakers stop using it as a primary language, she said. The fact that there are still around one million people, mostly the growing population of Charedi Jews in Israel and New York, who speak Yiddish as their primary language is another sign that Yiddish is still alive. Most of these people speak at least one other language, but use Yiddish to communicate in daily life. Historically, in eastern Europe, Jews also spoke local languages in order to communicate with their non-Jewish neighbors.
The growing interest in Yiddish in academia also shows it is alive and kicking. According to Haya (Helen) Newman, a Yiddish language instructor at the Peretz Centre for Secular Culture (and an account executive at the Independent), all major universities in Israel offer classes in Yiddish and those classes are increasingly popular. There are also numerous summer programs around the world, including an intensive program of Yiddish language, culture and history offered in Vilna and New York City. These courses are organized by YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research, which was founded in Vilna in 1925 and was relocated to New York in 1940. Also fuelling the Yiddish revival is the National Yiddish Book Centre in Amherst, Mass. According to their website, theirs is the fastest-growing Jewish cultural organization in the United States. The burgeoning interest in klezmer music is yet another reflection of the enthusiasm for Yiddish.
Mines posited that Yiddish lives on as a symbol of a lost culture as well. Referring to Jeffrey Shandler’s book Adventures in Yiddishland, she said Yiddish has reached a “post-vernacular state, whereby speaking in Yiddish is as meaningful as what is actually said.” In this scenario, mugs, bags, T-shirts and other tchtochkes (knickknacks) with Yiddish writing are also preserving the language.
“People now value Yiddish as much as they ever did, possibly more,” Mines said. “I do not believe Yiddish is on its deathbed ... the story of Yiddish is not yet over.”
Michelle Dodek is a Yiddish enthusiast and a graduate of the YIVO/Columbia University Yiddish summer program.
^TOP
|
|
