M Friday, August 22, 1980 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Dr. Max Weinreich's 'History of the Yiddish Language,' a Monumental Linguistic Treasure Dr. Max Weinreich left an of the notably scholarly indelible legacy: "History of work was made by the the Yiddish Language" former University of Michi- (University of Chicago gan Prof. - Herbert Paper, Press) is now available in an who said: "Max Weinreich English translation. did not limit himself to Yid- Dr. Weinreich (1894- dish, but surveyed all 1969) made immense con- Jewish languages and laid tributions to the the foundation for the field preservations of Yiddish as of Jewish intralinguistics." The translators, in a a spoken and published lan- guage. He authored a foreword, point out that number of important works "Max Weinreich introduced in Yiddish while a student a new concept into the study at St. Petersburg and Mar- of Jewish cultural history: burg universities and in the the way of the SHaS (Shisha Sedarim — the "six orders" years that followed. In his lifetime he was into which the Mishna is di- among the initiators who vided). This represents a encouraged the publication Jewish world view, a dialec- of the Yiddish dictionaries tic, a mode of living, a mode and encyclopedias, aimed at of practice and a mode of contributing to the speaking; in sum, a whole preservation of Yiddish. culture complex." This history first was His University of Chicago-published "His- published in Yiddish by tory of the Yiddish Lan- YIVO in 1973. The guage" appears in a English translation ap- scholarly translation by pears posthumously. In his treatment of the the YIVO researcher and translator Shlomo Noble _ various Jewish dialects, his and Yeshiva University multi-language studies, in- Prof. Joshua A. Fishman. cluding Aramaic, as well as The Weinreich history is the Ladino and other lan- recognized as much more guage experiences, Dr. than a history of a lan- Weinreich touched exten- guage. It is an account of the sively upon the use of the role and progress of Hebrew and the role of Ashkenazic Jewry. Then Loshn-koydesh. Here is a there is the linguistic fascinating excerpt from his structure of the Yiddish evaluative comments on the subject: language that is so -ex- We are dealing here with pressively defined in this Loshn-koydesh, not He- work. An important evaluation brew; we shall discuss the period following the rise of the modern sector sepa- rately. The term loshn- koydesh' (the sacred tongue) suggests the direc- tion in which to look for the division of functions be- tween the two languages of traditional Ashkenaz. Scrupulous Jews do not dis- tinguish between Whole and Merged Hebrew; for them the Loshn-koydesh component of Yiddish is also Loshn-koydesh. "In the bathhouse or in the toilet they will not utter the word `shabes' (Sabbath) or `arba-kanfes' (fringed garment); instead they will say 'der zibeter' (the seventh; 7.25) or 'di fer (the four corners). But such German-component words as `yortsayt-likht' (memo- rial candle) or `reynikeyt' (scroll of the Torah) will also be avoided in unclean or improper places; on the other hand, no one will hesi- tate to utter the word 'ganef' (thief) or `shoyte' (fool) in these places. "The difference then is not between Loshn - koydesh - component lin- guistic units and non- Loshn - koydesh - com- ponent units; in some situations designations of objects associated with sanctity are avoided. Why then are the words `der zibeter' or `di fir ekn' so uttered? Because these are not normal words of the spoken language, not even alternative words; they are explicitly substi- tutes. "Hence it is necessary to refute the assumption that since the mediated lan- guage is crowned with the name Loshn-koydesh (sac- red tongue) the other lan- guage is loshn khol' (a secu- lar tongue)." Yiddish as it relates to the Ashkenazic image has an interesting definition in Weinreich's history. He wrote: "Without communal separateness there is no separate language; hence the rise of Ashkenaz was the precondition for the rise of Yiddish. Small groups of immigrants become ab- sorbed after a generation or two in the mass of the sur- rounding population, and thereby also lose their own language. the told, "All Ashkenazim were merely tiny specks scattered over large areas of the non-Jewish world. Then how, we must inquire, has Ashkenaz become more than 'Jews in Ger- many?' "Up to the 18th Century this was not called in ques- tion, neither among the . Jews themselves nor among their neighbors. The Jews had been a separate com- munity from time immemo- rial, and so they were also a separate community in the - German lands, not merely a sum of individuals." How does Yiddish relate to German and wherein is there an origin? There is much in Weinreich's history on this subject, and there is a definition in this brief quotation: "Arriving in areas where variants of German were spoken, the Jews created their own language. This language preserved frag- ments of Hebrew — fre- quently in greatly modified form — and also elements of the vernaculars that had been brought along. It in- corporated parts of the lan- guage of the coterritorial population, but the stock material was so trans- formed that it became in- digenously Jewish. And when the major part of the Yiddish-speaking commu- nity moved many hundreds of miles away, it took along the language, developed it, and later even transported it overseas." Just as Dr. Weinreich • utilized the humorous for his definitive explana- tions of the Yiddish lan- guage's influence, so also does he indicate his re- sort to the SHaS tradi- tions of pursuing Talmud traditions in emphasizing "the immutability of a custom." Humor is spiced with semantics in Dr. Weir reich's delving into the oi gin of the lighter vein lin- guistics. The many anec- dotes add to an understand- ing of the Ashkenazic traits. The many noted per- sonalities in Yiddish lan- guage history serve well to illustrate the historic in the Weinreich approach to the basic achievements in lan- guage development and to the literary qualities of the popular tongue. Peretz, Mendele, Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch, a score of Yiddish literary notables are quoted and re- ferred to, making the his- tory a complete review of the language and those who enriched it culturally, as literature, as a spoken tongue. Dr. Weinreich's history of Yiddish is one of the great classics left as a legacy for generations to come by a great scholar whose life's work was imbedded in the analyses in this notable work. In an era when great efforts are beilig made to give new life to Yiddish in a campaign of language revi- val, the studies researched in this book make the effort unmatched in literary his- tory. `Inside the Soviet Empire' Examines Reality of Russian Life By ALLEN WARSEN In "Travelling to Tbilisi," the opening chapter of "In- side the Soviet Empire: the Myth and the Reality" (Times Books), author Nora Beloff writes: For me, the journey was a shattering experience and I believe I found out many things which are not widely known in the West and which throw some light on those corners of Soviet society which the Russians prefer to keep dark. "I returned with the con- viction that the secrecy which still blankets the Soviet Union is accounted ;or only partly by their fear of foreign spies. The real risk is that outsiders may observe and expose the backwardness (of) the Soviet social and economic (though not military) appa- ratus." It should be noted that the author's travelling compan- ion, guide and interpreter was a Czech-born student, Margaret Moss. Together they travelled unescorted into some of the Soviet compromise between Negro Union's far-flung outposts. Lvov, also known as jazz and Russian schmaltz." Lemberg, was their first Kiev, the capital of the stop. According to Miss Ukraine, was their next Beloff, Lvov underwent a stop. There, they visited, complete metamorphosis inter alia, two memorials: during and following the War and the Babi Yar. World War II. Between The first, a mammoth the two world wars, the granite obelisk, is erected city was an integral part behind the tomb of the Un- of Poland and was inha- known Soldier in the Park bited by Poles, Jews and of Eternal Glory where on a Germans. In 1939, under tiled platform "groups of lit- the Molotov-Ribbentrop tle girls were parading for Pact, it was allocated to 15 minutes at a time. "They wore white or- the Soviet Union. ("The record of this shameful gandy ribbons in their deal is deleted from hair, navy blue skirts and Polish and Soviet history khaki blouses buttoned to the chin. Goosestep- books.") At present, Lvov's resi- ping rhythmically up and dents are Ukrainians and down, they were un- Russians since the Jews flinchingly solemn as the perished in the Holocaust Grenadier Guard. and the Poles and Germans The other memorial, a plaque, is dedicated to the were resettled. In the hotel where Miss victims of Fascist crimes." It Beloff and her companion does not mention that the were staying, they were re- vast majority of the tens of fused to be served refresh- thousands of victims were ments in their room because Jews. they were not "grafins" In connection with Babi (countesses). And in the Yar, Miss Beloff relates this same hotel's restaurant illuminating story: "When "the band was playing a Edward Crankshaw (famous English writer) vis- ited the town (Kiev) in 1957, soon after it was re-opened to foreigners, he asked to be taken to Babi Yar. At first, his well turned-out Kiev- born guide pretended he had never heard of the place. When Crankshaw in- sisted, the man asked, "Why do you want to go and see a lot of dead Jews? There are far too many here still alive . . . Before the Nazi invasion, the author notes, there were whole regions of the coun- tryside populated by Jews. "Today there are no more Jewish villages and no more fiddlers on the roof." Zaporozhye (pre- revolutionary Alexan- drovsk) was the first industrial city the author and Miss Moss visited. A center of automobile manufacturing and textile works, Zaporozhye gained notoriety for its squalor, pollution and Russia's largest Lenin statue. Even its river, the Dniepr, about whose bright blue waters songs were composed and stories told, turned red from contamination and was nicknamed "Red River." Though physically con- taminated, Zaporozhye is "ideologically pure." There the nation-wide Lenin cult is especially strong: "After school graduation, or at a wedding, girls in virginal white come and lay carna- tions at the idol's feet." They visited next Rostov-on-Don where the author was surprised to learn that students of jour- nalism at the University of Rostov believed that Bap- tists sacrificed babies for ritualistic purposes. Recal- ling that for generations anti-Semites have peddled the story that "Jews kill babies for the feast of Passover," she asked the students, "Perhaps you were told this terrible lie about Jews?" "No, not the Jews," they replied. Revealing is the author's account of the status of Soviet women. According to the Soviet Constitution, equality of the sexes is guaranteed, and discrimination in the economic field is forbid- den. Despite these pro- nouncements, the author proves the opposite to be the case. For instance; at road repairs "the shovels were always wielded by women . . . the men sat at the machines and gave orders." "The men drive the trains; the women repair the rails." Stated briefly: "The males dominate every in- stitution from the Polit- buro, down to the smallest factory and farm." The author summarizes her conclusions in the "Epilogue." They include the following: "The image: a revolu- tionary society breaking with the past. The reality: an organism with inbuilt resistance to change and a younger generation which looks to the West for anything new and ex- citing. - "The image: a country more peace-loving and dovish than any in the world. The reality: little girls with ribbons in their hair, goosestepping with guns in front of war memo-. rials. A country, too, which indisputably spends a far- higher proportion of its re- sources and labor on its armed forces than ar - Western power." "The image: a country which champions - natior liberation movements. reality: a sternly unitarian state which imposes Rus- sian rule on nationally di- verse populations . . . and openly practices educa- tional discrimination against Jews." A final note: At the end of their journey at the Hunga- rian border the two women were detained for 24 hours by the KGB, interrogated, searched, accused of crimi- nal offense, and forced to write diaries of their trip with apologies to the Soviet government The British Foreign Office complained about this outrage to the Soviet authorities. Their reply: it was a routine frontier check.