From: Torsten
Message: 66572
Date: 2010-09-12
>The more I look at this dialect map of Yiddish
> >The East Central German features are rather few: the monophthongal
> >realisation of MHG ie, üe and uo, and the absence of affrication
> >in Germanic *p (<epl>, <kop> for Standard German <Apfel>, <Kopf>);
>
> ... yet <Fejfe> (<fajfe>?) instead of <Pfeife>, but nut *<paipe>
> (unlike the also Plattdeutsch-speaking English :-))...
>
> >the vowel in <be-> and <ge-> is a shared retention
>
> What do you mean by vowel retention here? (Something similar
> to <Gesundheit> > [xunthait], <geschissen> > [gSIsn]? <besorgt>
> > [bso&kt]? (the latter are in Bavarian))
>
> >On the other hand, a long list of structural features shared
> >with Bavarian can be compiled, including such characteristic
> >things as the graded diminutive pattern (<-l>, <-ele>).
>
> <-le> rather in common with Schwäbisch, Alemannisch (i.e.
> ink. Schwyzer Düütsch: -li) and Frankonian (in this one, the
> usus is to write it -la and to pronounce it approx. [l&] almost
> as in Suebian); also in the neighboring Mitteldeutsch of
> Hessen, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saar. All of them can actually
> be deemed short forms of <-lein> (that's known in standard
> German a.k.a. "Hochdeutsch," an... artificial dialect).
>
> >What's really interesting is that other German dialects
> >(and in particular those of Rhineland, against all expectations
> >based on the early history of German Jewry) did not influence
> >Yiddish during its formative stage.
>
> This is why a mass exodus from there to Poland has been put
> under a question mark (of course, by those who give a darn
> on these linguistical aspects :-)). OTOH, one shouldn't ne-
> glect the Jewish presence in the South-Eastern provinces of
> the medieval "Reich", esp. in the areas of the Bavarian and
> Franconian dialects, incl. Bohemia and Prague.
>
> >>The forever mentioning of the Mittelhochdeutsch thing is
> >>quite misleading:
> >
> >Well, the formation of Yiddish must have taken place between
> >ca. AD 1000 and 1400, and that's the Middle German period.
>
> That's right. But I meant something different: namely that upon
> thinking of Mittelhochdeutsch one might be tempted to expect
> Yiddish to be as remote -compared to contemporary German
> dialects of the Mittel- and Oberdeutsch kind- as is Mittel-
> hochdeutsch. But in this respect, I simply beg to differ.
>
> >Of course the Jews did not move far enough to lose contact
> >with the German dialectal network
>
> Let's take a simple example: it's difficult to understand simple
> items in a newsbulletin broadcast by, say, Radio Hilversum (in the
> Netherlands) or by a Schwyzer Dütsch station (to add an
> Oberdeutsch); while a similar news bulletin in Yiddish, e.g.
> broadcast by Kol Israel, is easier to understand. (I live in
> an Oberdeutsch environment, and I lived for a while in the
> Aachen area.)
>
> >(and Yiddish was not the only dialect of German exported to the
> >east),
>
> Oh, thanx for this hint: let's take the so-called Transylvanian
> Saxons, who were colonized by the Hungarian kings in the 12th-13th
> c., and whose Heimat was the Rhineland-Mosel-Luxembourg area,
> as well as Wallony. In much later epochs there were some German
> waves from other provinces, chiefly of the Austrian part of the
> empire (even Silezians with Slavic names). Well, this kind of
> dialect (or better dialects) are much harder to understand than
> Yiddish to anyone who speaks German. I mean: in spite of the
> "exotisms" contained in Yiddish, it is closer to a kinda common
> German than the Transylvanian variant of German.
>
> >so diffusion from German to Yiddish has always been easy.
>
> Only because of the... Ober- and Mitteldeutschness. Had German
> heavily been influenced by Niederdeutsch, then it wouldn't have
> been so easy. (This differentiation is also given as explanation
> for why North Germans, "die Preissn", have such a... good
> Hochdeutsch: because they have had to learn... German, whereas
> for those speaking Mittel- and Oberdeutsch dialects this hasn't
> been such a stringent necessity. Well, except for the Swiss. :-))
>
> >As for the demographic question, it's clear that the Ashkenazic
> >Jewry of Eastern Europe must have absorbed a lot of people from
> >non-Western sources; however, there are hardly any linguistic
> >traces of the process.
>
> What if in their case a majority adopted this kind of lingua
> franca, and those who spoke German/Jiddisch as newcomers from
> the Reich were in minority? Besides, one will never know how
> many Slavs were converted in the Khazar realm after Bulan khan's
> conversion...
>
> >Piotr
>
> George
>
> PS: Along with the *Turkish* speaking Karaites, there were
> other Judaized Turks as well: some Couman groups, some Crimea
> Tatar groups, some Caucasian Turks, i.e. "mountain Jews"...
> But no Turkish group remained as continuing to speak the
> turanic idiom, except for the Karaites (I don't know whether
> in the 20th c. they ceased to speak Turkish and replace it
> with Yiddish. Gotta Google. :-)