Re: Question

From: Torsten
Message: 66577
Date: 2010-09-12

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "t0lgsoo1" <guestuser.0x9357@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> >The more I look at this dialect map of Yiddish
> >http://tinyurl.com/35kmwl7
>
> I suppose this map does not reflect the historical phases, but
> the modern spreading (from East to West).

That is because we know very little of the migrations of those historical phases

> Instead, look up the
> maps contained in the Atlas der Deutschen Sprache (e.g. also in
> the abridged paperback version, dtb (Deutscher Taschenbuch-
> Verlag).

I thought we were talking the distribution of Yiddish dialects, not German dialects?

> The Russian map contains IMHO a paradoxon: much of Bavaria
> and Austria are white, in spite of all evidence

This board contains a paradox: where I want to stick the square peg, because I know it belongs there, there is a round hole? You are supposed to fit your theory to reality, not the other way round.

> (which is striking to any *nonlinguist* German-language speaker)

To a nonlinguist German-language speaker, German is the language spoken north of the Weisswurstäquator at the Main river (except perhaps some peasants still speak some weird mix of Dutch and Danish), and south of it they talk funny (ie Bavarian = Austrian = Swiss German). That's why you shouldn't rely on the opinions of nonlinguist opinion in linguistic matters.

> that Yiddish is in fact a modified version of the Bavarian dialect
> of the German language.


If that evidence shows that Yiddish is a Mitteldeutsch or Oberdeutsch dialekt, what is the evidence then that makes it specifically Bavarian?

> Example:
>
> (YIVO-transcription:)
>
> 1 In onheyb hot got bashafn dem himl un di erd.
> 2 Un di erd iz geven vist un leydik, un fintsternish iz geven oyfn
> gezikht fun thom, un der gayst fun got hot geshwebt oyfn gezikht fun
> di vasern.
> 3 Hot got gezogt: zol vern likht. Un es iz gevorn likht.
> 4 Un got hot gezen dos likht az es iz gut; un got hot
> fanandergesheydt tsvishn dem likht un tsvishn der fintsternish.
> 5 Un got hot gerufn dos likht tog, un di fintsternish hot er gerufn
> nakht. Un es iz geven ovnt, un es iz geven frimorgn, eyn tog.
>
> (some words - comparative Bavarian&Austrian, in German rendering:)
>
> __hot (hat);
http://tinyurl.com/35fmga7
dos "dass"

> Himml (Himmel);
Not specific enough.

> de Erd (die Erde);
Not specific enough.

> is gwen (ist gewesen);
http://tinyurl.com/3a6fnrq p. 129
Silesian: geweszen, gewest, gewâst, gwast


> vist (i instead of ü - also typical of Bavarian,
> but also of other German dialects;
Eg. Silesian.

> cf. sentence #5: "frimorgen": "fri" = "früh", cf. Bav. "friah"
> ['fri&]);
Exactly, so no proof for specifically Bavarian.


> __un (und; this is a pan-German dialectal & colloquial occurrence);
Exactly, so no proof for specifically Bavarian.

> fun (von; tendency o > u esp. in Austria);


> __hot geshwebt oyfn gezikht fun di vasern
> ("hat geschwebt uffm Gesicht von "die" Wassern''.

I've seen a soccer coach in the Ruhr district in Stern complain that his team couldn't be expected to perform well 'mit _die_ vielen Schäden'. Thus: not specifically Bavarian.

> ([oj] is a typical Yiddish development
> of [o:] and -here- [au]. My insertion of "uff" is not Bavarian, but
> typical of neighboring dialects of the Alemanian-Suebian group.)

And typical Berlinerisch too, so not specifically Bavarian.


> This is modern German through and through, despite the "rough",
> quasi-"germana vulgata"-like concoction of the sentence; in German
> one would expect rather "Wasser(ober)fläche" than "Wassergesicht" /
> anyway, it shows something more recent than 13th-14th century
> Middle High German)

So?


> __az = 'ass = dass (which in German dialects areas which might be
> relevant for the NWB theory has stayed conservative: dat & det.
> IMHO, this tiny example also shows that Yiddish is a southern
> dialectal development after the latest German sound shift.)

What on earth are you talking about? I didn't mention the NWB area.


> __Hot got gezogt: zol vern likht. Un es iz gevorn likht. (Hot Gott
> gesogt: Soll wern Licht. Un es is Licht geworn.) This is modern
> South-German. Only the verb position differs; and here Yiddish is
> more conservative than Bavarian, since the latter says gsogt/xokt
> and worn (standard German: gesagt & geworden); "vern" is the
> phonetic transcription of werden as it is also pronounced in
> everyday's "neutral" German by most of native-speakers (even in
> high-brow talk):

Yes, and?


> the second syllable is barely muttered&heard: werden > wern [w3&n].
> __un got hot fanandergesheydt tsvishn dem likht un tsvishn der
> fintsternish (Un' Gott hot voneinandergescheidt zwisch'n dem Licht
> un' zwischen der Finsternis) Quite close to modern+common German;
> with the simplification of the irregular verb:
> scheiden-schied-geschieden
> becomes
> scheiden-scheidete-gescheidet (i.e., "bad grammar" :-));

Erh, are you saying that Yiddish has bad grammar, so it must be Bavarian, which also has bad grammar?

> also note the feeling there's the need of the auxiliary
> "voneinander", whereas German doesn't need the help of "voneinander"
> ("from one another"): "etwas von xyz scheiden": "Gott schied das
> Licht von der Finsternis".

Erh, yes, and?


> _ovnt [o: -] (i.e. Abend: Obent/Obnv [o:-], where, [b > v], which in
> this word might be unusual, but extant in similar environments (and
> not only in Bavarian, but in other dialects too): e.g.
> siewe (sieben), awwer (aber), lewer (lieber), Deibel/Deiwel
> (Teufel), Duwe (Taube).

Even I know that Mittel- and Oberdeutsch has *-v- > -b- and Yiddish doesn't; this feature is *contraindicative* of Yiddish being a Bavarian dialect.

> Standard German:
>
> 1 Im Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde;
> 2 die Erde aber war wüst und wirr, Finsternis lag über der Urflut
> und Gottes Geist schwebte über dem Wasser.
> 3 Gott sprach: Es werde Licht. Und es wurde Licht.
> 4 Gott sah, dass das Licht gut war. Gott schied das Licht von der
> Finsternis
> 5 und Gott nannte das Licht Tag und die Finsternis nannte er Nacht. >
> Es wurde Abend und es wurde Morgen: erster Tag.
>
> > the more I consider it possible to explain the distribution of the
> > eastern dialects of that language by an origin as a Przeworsk-
> > language based trade language on the river systems (note the
> > partial correspondences of major dialect areas with river
> > catchment areas
> > http://tinyurl.com/38hgnml
> > ) and the distribution of the western dialects by a spread
> > *together* with the Ariovistus and post-Ariovistus campaigns into > > present southern and western Germanic-speaking areas.
>
> But Yiddish is a dialect that is close to Bavarian

So far you haven't shown that.


> (and to a lesser extent to Suebian+Alemanian & Nürnberg Franconian).

The thing you were supposed to do here is to prove that is not closew to Silesian, which I would require for my proposal.


> The western and northern German dialects as well as Neerlandisch
> dialects and Frisian and Danish are quite remote, by comparison.

I'm getting really, really tired of this. Danish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_language
is not and has never been a West Germanic language,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languages
in spite of what most non-linguist German and English firmly believe, and whatever loans and other influence from Low German (and Dutch?) it has it shares with Swedish and Norwegian, the other two 'continental' North Germanic languages. I don't know why it doesn't seem to get through to people.


> I'd say, Yiddish is a simplified *late* southern German dialect
> (i.e. South of the Sound Shift "border" Aachen-Cologne-Berlin-
> Kaliningrad, i.e. "vos/vus, dos/dus, er, tsu, suffix -l" (was, das,
> er, zu), and never "wat, dat/det, he, to, suffix -ke(n)/-gen, that
> are typical of the NWB-theory relevant areas, including former
> German-speaking regions such as Danzig and Eastern Prussia.)

Why are you now talking about NWB??


> > Silesian German
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_German
>
> This is something completely different: this is a Middle German
> dialect, which means that *of course* it *must* be closer to
> Yiddish, since Silesian "Mundarten" are post-the last sound shift
> and full of more recent phonetics and lexical idiosincrasies that
> are typical of the southern half of the "Holy Empire of German
> Nation".

I read that as that you think that Silesia was originally platt-speaking but somehow _became_ Mitteldeutsch later. That corresponds to no theory I know of. If you have evidence of Silesian German once being platt, please cite it.


> > http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlesisch_(deutscher_Dialekt)
> > http://tinyurl.com/35fmga7
> > seems to share with Yiddish diminutives in -le and unrounding
>
> Every Middle and High German dialect has this diminutival suffix
> (shortening of the suffix -lein): the other Middle German dialects
> in Saarland, Hesse, the Mosel-Franconian, the Bavarian Franconian,
> Thüringen, Saxen; then the Alemanian-Suebian group (in Switzerland
> it tends to be pronounced -li, in Suebia and Franconia more or less
> [l&], although Suebians like to write it down -le, and the
> Franconians -la. But the Bavarian subdialects (with few lexical
> exceptions) make of it -l (from the linguistic "border" to Suebia,
> Augsburg & the river of Lech, to the Lake of Balaton in Hungary). >
> And this -l is the main representative of this suffix in Yiddish too > ("Yiddl mitn Fiddl"), although in names -le is also abundant:
> Yankele, Pinkerle, Yossele).

So -l is Bavarian, -l and -le is Yiddish and -le is Silesian.
How does that show that Yiddish is specifically Bavarian?


> >note BTW
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilamovian_language
> >buwła, cf. bubele
>
> Bubele is typical for south-German dialects, above all (of course)
> Suebian (in the "NWB"-area dialects of German in stead of "mein
> Bubele" you'll hear "meen Jong"; it is possible though that a
> Yiddish native speaker from Siberia would understand this too,
> since "meen Jong" is close to "common" German: "mein Junge").

And apparently exists in Silesian too.


> > This would also be an alternative source for that influence of
> > Semitic on Germanic which Vennemann ascribed to his 'Atlantic'
> > (eg. the functional load placed on ablaut and umlaut; AFAIK
> > Yiddish is more fond of those than even Hochdeutsch).

> Show me those elements, I'm curious to see them.

I think I recall this one (from Sapir?)
http://tinyurl.com/383h9w6

> I myself am not
> able to distinguish them. If leaving out/aside the Hebrew, Slavic
> etc. (even Latin) vocabulary, what remains is a recent south-German
> dialect.

Sez you and most non-linguist German speakers; you haven't shown it.

> (From the pre-soundshift era, Yiddish has preserved the
> long [u:] instead of the modern [au] (hence you may here the
> pronunciation Uuschwitz for Auschwitz), but the speakers aren't that
> consequent (oyge [ojge] for Auge; so is Augenstein assimilated as
> Ojgenstein, as though it contained the word "Auge" (eye): in
> reality, Augenstein, Augstein & the like are Germanized forms of
> Augustinus).

>
> I doubt that Yiddish has more elements than other German dialects
> that could be interpreted as relics of those NWB peculiarities.

I don't know why you go on about NWB. It was not part of what I proposed in the previous mail.


> > I'm sure there will be comments to this. Too bad George seems to
> > have left the building.
>
> You mean George the historian? :^)

Correction: George, the Political Scientist. The one from Ukraine.


Torsten