Re: yiddish

Hello All, a fascinating discussion, but my original question has not been
answered (as far as I could see). I thought that maybe Yiddish is a German
dialect because I know German but not Yiddish but I can understand a fair
amount of Yiddish if spoken slowly or written with latin characters. (Note:
I am NOT
a linguist but interested in languages.)
Ivan

<phoglund@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1170018722.489352.164510@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

mb wrote:
On Jan 26, 2:33 pm, phogl...@xxxxxx wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
...
It is not "of course a German dialect to start with." It does not
fit
(neatly or otherwise) into the German-dialect-continuum.

Nor do the German dialects of northern Italy, and still they are
perceived as German dialects. Besides, there is quite a bit of mutual
intelligibility between German and Yiddish. And actually, it does to
some extent fit - it is still distinctively Rhinelandish.

On the other hand, it has its own distinct literature and
its literary norm. On the gripping hand, even recent history knows
examples of native Yiddish speakers who turned to standard German
for
literary purposes.

A distinctive literature is a criterion to be taken into account in
such questions, but it isn't probative by any means.

Maybe not, but a distinct literary norm, using a different alphabet,
is
quite a criterion indeed.

Criterion of what? We have a very clearly high German language, with a
level of structural borrowing that would only be characterized as
"mild" on the usual scales. Politically or religiously motivated
differences in alphabet are a worldwide phenomenon and they do not
supersede the genetic relaptionships except for politically motivated
nationalist nonsense.

Read it anew. I said "a distinct literary norm, using a different
alphabet". The point is a sociolinguistic one. Both the distinct
literary norm and the different alphabet are part of it. A distinct
literary norm does not just entail "politically motivated nationalist
nonsense", but it might also entail a different set of dialects as
basis for the standard language. This is very much the case with
Yiddish, which is essentially a West Middle German dialect, while the
German standard language has a much broader dialectal basis.

As Peter pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, linguists do not do
languages or dialects, they do varieties, continua and diasystems. So,
the very concept of language versus dialect is indeed very much a
question of sociolinguistics, politics, and "politically motivated
nonsense". If there is a criterion for "language" versus "dialect",
it is very much the existence of distinct literary norms and distinct
literatures. And if different standard varieties are codified for
different parts of the same dialect continuum and become influential,
linguistic differences tend to be strengthened and reinforced by the
exposure to different standard varieties, to the extent that the
continuum actually splits into several linguistic communities along
political borders, especially if the borders are geographically sound
(i.e. there are natural obstacles along borders, such as mountain
ranges).



.

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