Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!malgudi.oar.net!news.cas.org!chemabs!rmt51
From: rturkel@cas.org (Rick Turkel)
Subject: Re: How different are Yiddish & Pennsylvania Dutch from German?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Message-ID: <1995Dec25.022012.21003@chemabs.uucp>
Originator: rmt51@rmt51mws
Sender: Rick Turkel (rturkel@cas.org)
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Organization: S.W.I.G
References: <30D8B5FE.41C6@kurz-ai.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 1995 02:20:12 GMT
Lines: 36


In article <30D8B5FE.41C6@kurz-ai.com>, Jeff Adams  <jeffa@kurz-ai.com> wrote:
>There was a recent thread on "what makes two languages different?"
>
>That got me to wondering:  What's the party line response to
>whether these three languages are different languages (as opposed
>to dialects)?
>
> * German (Hochdeutsch)
> * Pennsylvania Dutch (which sounds to me much more like
>      German than, say, Swiss or Bavarian dialects)
> * Yiddish (which I know embarassingly little about)

I can't address the issue of Pennsylvania Dutch, but I can write about
Yiddish.  The basis for Yiddish was originally thought to have been the
Mittelhochdeutsch of the Rhineland.  However, recent studies have shown
more similarities in grammatical forms with the language of the
Regensburg area of Bavaria.  However, that only relates to about 65-70%
of the vocabulary; between 15-20% of Yiddish words are traceable to
Slavic sources (mostly Polish and Ukrainian), a comparable percentage to
Hebrew and Aramaic, the Jewish liturgical languages, and a small number
to other sources (French, Italian, English, etc.).  So even if you are
familiar with the pattern of sound changes which led to Modern German
and the germanic component of Yiddish, you'd still be at a total loss
with over 30% of the vocabulary.  In addition, Standard Yiddish has only
three cases (vs. the four of German), and has some characteristics of
Slavic verbal aspect.

Overall, Yiddish is quite different from German, and the two are not
mutually intelligible.

-- 
Rick Turkel         (___  _____  _  _  _  _  __     _  ___   _   _  _  ___
rturkel@freenet.columbus)oh.us|   |  \  )  |/  \     |    |   |   \__)    |
rturkel@cas.org        /      |  _| __)/   | ___)    | ___|_  |  _(  \    |
Rich or poor, it's good to have money.  Ko rano rani | u jamu pada.
