Re: CHAT: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

On Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:12:01 -0400 Roger Mills <romilly@...> writes:
> >Yup, exactly the same.  So you say |Iz do a hunt| "There's a dog",
> but
> >|Iz do an elnboign| "There's an elbow".  Another similarity
> between
> >Yiddish and English is that they both derounded their umlauts:
> >English: foot, feet. /fUt fit/
> >Yiddish: fus, fis. /fus fis/
> Is it also true of European (and Israeli?) Yiddish, or do these
> reflect adaptation to Amer. English?
-

It's Standard Literary Yiddish, which is pretty much international.  The
Yiddish spoken in different areas pretty much depends on where the
immigration to those places came from.  Standard Yiddish is mostly
North-Eastern/Litvak (Lithuanian) pronounciation merged with Southern and
South-Eastern grammar.  The Galitsianer (Galician) dialect also has an
additional /u/>/i/ shift, so while in Standard Yiddish "brother" and
"brothers" are |bruder| and |brider|, with umlaut, in Galitsianer it's
|brider| and |briders|, since the umlaut ceased being able to hold the
plurality marking.  I don't know about the word |fus|, though.
|brider(s)| is the only example i can remember.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "the past is history; the future's a mystery;
  and now is a gift.  that's why they call it the present."
     ~ from an AIM info thing
 "ha`avar ayin; he`atid `adayin;
  vehahove keheref `ayin.  da'aga minayin?"
 (the past is not; the future is [not] yet;
  and the present [passes] like the blink of an eye.  whence worry?)
     ~ medieval hebrew poet