The time has come, the ziegler said, to speak of many things, or perhaps just about Teitsch and Deitsch.
Yiddish is a rendering of the German word Jewish — ‘Jüdisch‘. This evening I took another look at it. A German might say ‘Such’ (but pronounce it ‘zook’) – ich suche einen neuen Look (I’m looking for a new look).
Where did you look, Bill? And, by the bye, we despise digression. And we’re easily unamused.
Among the less traveled crannies and nooks, under rocks or falling from trees. The usual haunts.
I’m the kind of person that spends moments thinking about the structure of German language — the gleanings of such squandered moments might help explain the resilience of languages based on German — things that Tiggers do best.
Here’s my tentative thesis: German is so god-awful complicated and rigid that it remains recognizable to the speaker of modern Deutsch, by dint of complexity.
So you posit that it is a durable language — rigorously so.
The Engländer spoke a form of German brought from Saxony (Sachsen), but the proverbial original German was jostled so thoroughly by the Vikings that all the inflections fell off.
Well at least I’ve anchored that reference to ‘things falling from trees.’
Do you speak Yiddish, Bill?
I can very easily understand the transliterated and the spoken Yiddish, i.e. without the Hebrew letters. It’s as familiar as Swedish or Dutch subtitles for a German film. In fact, Yiddish adopts German sounds and word order. Take a look and listen to the Omniglot site for a timely example.
Profile of an Endangered Language
Might we have a piece of birther cake?
A word from our sponsor:
Beware the big lie, the humorless, the enforcer of arbitrary rules, the racist, maker of rules for jazz performers. In short, never underestimate the threat of fascism. Only 15% of its speakers survived the Holocaust. Of the surviving speakers 10% live in New York, many by way of Ellis Island.
Why doesn’t the current President of the United States ever laugh? Or is that a ludicrous question?
We now return you to our regularly scheduled program, in progress.
Do you speak Pennsylvania Deitsch, Bill?
Those immigrants from the 18th century brought their language of origin. Deitsch is a spoken language with several transliterations to mime the sound. Yet, the structure, word order and vocabulary survive with amazing fidelity. Interesting stuff
Hiwwe wie Driwwe (a Deitsche newspaper)
On a related topic, what kind of beach books do you read?
Here is an out-of-print volume that I found at a local library discard sale for 50 cents.
The World’s Writing Systems by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright
Here is that very book on archive.org
Thanks for reading.
billziegler1947 