martillo@ihuxu.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo) (07/03/84)
A new linguistics magazine has appeared. The name is the Mediterranean Language Review. The editors are from the Department of Linguistics at Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel-Aviv, Israel. The publisher is Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, D-6200 Wiesbaden, Federal Republic of Germany. The articles with short reviews are as follows: INTRODUCTORY ESSAY: ASPECTS OF MEDITERRANEAN LINGUISTICS Henry and Renee Kahane -- University of Illinois, Urbana An adequate discussion of terminology. Authors have no particular ax to grind. As an irrelevant personal observation -- if Renee Kahane is Jewish, Renee (meaning reborn that is baptized) is a particularly inappropriate first name. LATERAL, MARGINAL, PERIPHERAL ZONE: THREE KEYTERMS OF SPATIO-TEMPORAL LINGUISTICS Yakov Malkiel -- University of California, Berkeley A much more limited discussion, explanation and comparison of terminology. THE PRESENT STATE OF THE STUDY OF TURKISMS IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN AND OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA Andreas Tietze -- University of Vienna It's a mess. Author observes "we have no etymological dictionary of Turkish itself." Balkan Judeospanish is conspicuously absent from the discussion. "IS KARAITE A JEWISH LANGUAGE?" Paul Wexler, Tel-Aviv University Marred by the unjustified assumption that Yiddish is a genuine Jewish language in the way JudeoArabic (lughat al-yahud), JudeoAramaic (lishna yehudia) or even JudeoSpanish (Judezmo) is a Jewish Languages. These languages differ from Yiddish in possessing a serious Jewish intellectual literature. The serious intellectual literature in Yiddish is anti-Jewish. Jewish languages seem to develop in two ways. Jews move into a new linguistic region and learn the general language and then mold it into a Jewish language. Or Jews speaking a Jewish language come into a new linguistic region and gradually develop a new Jewish dialect of the general language without ever speaking the general language fluently. The author believes Yiddish came about only through the latter process. I believe the former mechanism was important in the development of both Judezmo and Yiddish. The author believes there was a specific JudeoLatin in the Western Roman Empire. I and many others see no good evidence of this language although there is some evidence of a JudeoGreek speaking community in the Eastern regions of the Western Roman Empire. The author shows ignorance of JudeoArabic by suggested the Karaite word for Holiday hajj comes from a confusion between Hebrew hag and Arabic Hajj (pilgrimage to Mekka) even though hajjah (Aramaic equivalent of hag) exists in many JudeoArabic dialects. Because of mutual hostility between Ashkenazim and Karaites, many Ashkenazim show an unscholarly tendency subtlely to question the Jewishness of Karaites (which causes problems in Israel to this day). The author puts too much emphasis on the fusion character of slavic/German or slavic/Hebrew/Aramaic elements in Yiddish. Yiddish shows more understanding of slavic grammar because many Yiddish communities probably spoke some form of JudeoSlavic before they switched to Yiddish. The authors accepts too much without question Russian Karaite language scholarship which often has strong antisemitic overtones. STYLISTIC LEVELS IN CYPRIOT GREEK Brion Newton, Simon Fraser University, Canada Cypriot Greek has some very complicated stylistic features which are influenced by the audience which the speaker is addressing. GOD-WISHES IN SYRIAN ARABIC Charles A. Ferguson, Stanford University Many polite formulas in Arabic take the form of requests to God on behalf of the person to who courtesy is directed. Very different from English. Under Western influence this type of politeness is disappearing. LANGUAGE AND CULTURE OF THE JEWS OF TRIPOLITANIA Harvey E. Goldberg, Hebrew University Interesting. Some interesting Southern Tunisian customs mentioned: Sabbath announcement by blowing of shofar and calling nerut On last day of Passover a man gets dressed as a woman or as a Muslim. Custom called taruna. First paragraph important for modern political understanding. At mid-century there were half a million Jews living in the four countries of North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). Since that time, political and economic developments have reduced their number to about five percent of the former figure. The physical absence of Jews from these countries is reflected in the tendency of much contemporary scholarship to ignore their presence, or to refer to it in the briefest fashion. Any historical appreciation of the area, however, shows that "the role of Judaism in Islam is structural and impinges upon most aspects of Muslim society" (Wansbrough 1977). It is therefore an imperative of historical and social research on North Africa to appreciate both the internal structure of Jewish communities there, and the dynamics of Muslim-Jewish cultural and social interchange. I had the impression the author did not realize the N. African Muslim Arabic word for (extended) family, hamula, was the same as the Libyan Jewish Arabic word for (extended) family, familya. (Rashi uses this word.) Since the Jews were more literate, JudeoArabic is more conservative than colloquial Muslim Arabic and preserves more closely the original Latin form. SOME PROBLEMS IN JUDEZMO LINGUISTICS David M. Bunis Marred by unqualified assumption that Yiddish is a Jewish language. Lists areas of active research in Judezmo linguistics. Compares Yiddish and Ladino Leshon Qodesh component merely on basis of Hebrew/Aramaic terms in use. This comparison is incorrect. The comparison should be between Yiddish Hebrew/JudeoAramaic component and between Judezmo Hebrew/JudeoAramaic/JudeoArabic component. Historical oddity: "Sam Levy, editor of the now defunct Cahiers Sefardis (paris), wrote a series of articles (1948-1949) in which he urged the `resurrection' of ladino, the calque variety of Judezmo..., as a spoken idiom, to be utilized by at least all of Sephardic Jewry, and possibly as the national language of world Jewry as a whole(!)" -- not as silly as Ashkenazi attempts at reviving Yiddish. Overall the magazine was interesting but perhaps not sophisticated enough in terms of scholarship. -- Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo But we can all agree on one fundamental belief --- the existence of the planets.