“Who do you speak Yiddish with?” my friend asked today, after it became clear I haven’t been joining all the Yiddish groups that have cropped up on zoom recently. “My aunts,” I answered. “My uncles.” “But most of them died in the holocaust.” “Yes, but they still speak to me.”
november 11, 2021 – a few words on mother tongue Read Post »
I see this guy sitting on a bench across the street and even though he seems relaxed and enjoying the afternoon I suddenly clench up. I say something to Ezi but he barely noticed the guy and assumes I’m making up my usual stories. That evening our daughter’s car next door is stolen. The anti-theft device was all that remained in her parking space. All that had to be done was to switch the computer in the car, probably no more than twenty minutes under the dashboard with a flashlight.
I may well be wrong about this guy on the bench, but car thefts are way up around here – primarily because spare parts are so hard to find in this country, and it is so easy to cross the border and dismantle them.
In any case, I don’t think the situation will improve in the near future.
november 10, 2021 – car theft Read Post »
Maybe I am forgetting my English, but this is a country of so many languages that overall I’m increasing my vocabulary. Unfortunately I’m making soup out of it. When I was saying ‘let’s go’ to an Arab friend as we finished our coffee date, I blurted out ‘Davai,’ which was Russian instead of ‘Yalla.’ But on the other hand I understood the Arab conversation of the others, and of course I can switch back and forth from English to Hebrew without thinking. And when I came home my friend in Yiddish called and we wandered back and forth in three languages.
So I guess I have no excuse to complain about losing languages. And I wonder whether it isn’t true for others as well…
november 10, 2021 – i know more than i forgot Read Post »
But you didn’t want to know about Yiddish. You wanted to know about language loss in English. Of course it’s the lesser-used words that disappear. Once upon a time I was known as the professor who in the middle of the lecture stopped and said – “Oh, what’s his name? Shakespeare!” I was young so it wasn’t taken by the laughing class as a sign of dementia, but my quirky sense of humor. Now, it would be suspicious. People would try to help me. Shout out advice – “forget it – it will come back in an hour” “or the middle of the night” And it would indeed return at the most inappropriate times – a word totally unrelated to the context of the conversation.
I know this happens in every language, but in the middle of a lecture?
oy, I need to go to a conference (one of my most hated activities) so I can remember the language used for my profession.
language loss continued
But you didn’t want to know about Yiddish. You wanted to know about language loss in English. Of course it’s the lesser-used words that disappear. Once upon a time I was known as the professor who in the middle of the lecture stopped and said – “Oh, what’s his name? Shakespeare!” I was young so it wasn’t taken by the laughing class as a sign of dementia, but my quirky sense of humor. Now, it would be suspicious. People would try to help me.
may 10, 2021 – language loss continued Read Post »
As anyone who has come to live in Israel who lives in Hebrew will admit – the native language slowly erodes. This was less of a problem for me when I was teaching in English, but even though I still direct a few doctorates, write poetry, read novels, research articles, etc. I often find myself missing a word in English and substituting it with another language.
Especially now, when I have been writing in Yiddish
And, although I’ve been studying Arabic and my understanding has increased dramatically, Yiddish is far more important – perhaps because the words used today in programs like Duolingo, and even sometimes in the comprehensive English-Yiddish dictionary, seem made-up substitutes to me. Like what you say in one language when you don’t have a word so you use one in your own language and give it a little accent to make it fit in. And the big thing about the loss of the original – the everyday words that no one ever wrote down – those are the words I connect to real people. And with every word forgotten, another victim becomes anonymous.
More on this tomorrow.
November 9, 2021 – forgetting language Read Post »
I know it’s late but it was one of thse days – it began with what I was thinking about what to say in the lecture about wisdom and the thought that widening academic and other horizons. And then I thought about how wonderful this countrycould be if only we could learn from each other. And suddenly I found myself talking with Jereis Khoury who now heads the Arabic department and how much could be accomplished by interdepartmental conferences. And by the end of th morning we had a conference lined up at the end of the school year.
The day continued like that. One amazing thing after another. Abracadabra.
a few days ago i screwed up my laptop and have had to go to the desktop to write here. It messed up my spontaneity bad, but I’m getting used to it. So I have been preparing a lecture about wisdom I will have to give with Mayzun in a few weeks about academic wisdom, and when I complained to Ezi that I had no good example to give of the need for general knowledge and wide vision, he reminded me of the story of Professor Hanan Harari who claimed to have done a survey of prospective students for engineering and asked them “If you had to construct a conduit for blood from ashdod to Eilat what would you have to consider?” There were many great mechanical answers but no one asked why.
November 7, 2021 – computer woes and blood Read Post »
