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More from <b>Mendele: Forum for Yiddish Literature and Yiddish
Language</b>, vol. 6:<br><br>
vol. 6.080:<br><br>
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 22:22:12 EDT<br>
From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu<br>
Subject: zamenhof's 'dream' language<br><br>
the following was posted on the linguist list. i repeat it here for<br>
general interest and also ask if anyone has ever heard of this
anecdote<br>
and, if so, knows what language zamenhof was dreaming in. yiddish,<br>
perchance?<br><br>
also, i've always heard that zamenhof was a native yiddish speaker.
does<br>
anyone have a reference for this? thanks.<br><br>
Ellen Prince<br><br>
Date: 11 Oct 1996 10:48:56 EDT<br>
From: 100101.2276@CompuServe.COM
(Dan Maxwell)<br>
Subject: language in dreams<br><br>
I thought that the recent postings on the
topic of language in dreams<br>
had pretty much covered the range of
phenomena in existence on this<br>
topic, but it appears that I was
wrong. I was recently browsing<br>
through a biography of Zamenhof, the
creator of Esperanto, called<br>
"L'homme qui a de'fie'
Babel"(the man who defied Babel) by Rene'<br>
Centassi and Henri Masson, when i came
across an account of a dream<br>
which Zamenhof had, apparently at the age
of about 16. That would<br>
have been more than 10 years before 1887,
usually considered the<br>
birthyear of the language, when his first
grammar of Esperanto was<br>
published. He at that time was
concerned with the question of whether<br>
his language should have a definite
article, having noticed that his<br>
own Polish, and also Russian (presumably
the prestige language of that<br>
time and place, since Zamenhof lived in
Bialystok, then part of the<br>
Russian Empire), did not. In the
dream he was pondering this question<br>
near a forest with his uncle Jozef and his
Greek teacher, whose name<br>
was Billevitch. Zamenhof suggested
that they might find someone in<br>
the forest who could help them.
Billevitch, on the contrary, warned<br>
against going into the forest on the
grounds that there were three<br>
girls in red who wanted to harm
them. Zamenhof then looked toward the<br>
forest, saw the girls in question, and
cried out, "there are<br>
- -the-(author's emphasis) three girls in
red." Zamenhof then woke up<br>
in a sweat, but decided that his problem
had been solved. The<br>
definite article had in his view proved
its usefulness. And, as every<br>
Esperantist knows, there is a definite
article, namely the invariable<br>
"la".<br><br>
I can't remember having or hearing about a
dream with this degree of<br>
linguistic specificity. It is also
not clear what language the dream<br>
occurred in. Probably not Polish or
Russian, since these lack the<br>
article which played such a prominent
role. Zamenhof knew several<br>
other languages, most of them with
definite articles, so these appear<br>
to be better candidates. In any
case, postings from others suggest<br>
that people can dream in languages that
they don't know very well.<br>
The last possibility is that the language
was some embryonic form of<br>
Esperanto itself, since Zamenhof was so
intensely concerned with this<br>
topic.<br><br>
Dan Maxwell<br><br>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Contents of Vol. 6.081<br>
October 16, 1996<br><br>
1) L. L. Zamenhof and Yiddish (Howard I. Aronson)<br>
2) L. L. Zamenhof and Yiddish (Bob Rothstein)<br>
3) L. L. Zamenhof and Yiddish (Irving D. Goldfein)<br>
4) Yiddish vegetarian writers (Pawel Brunon Dorman)<br><br>
1)----------------------------------------------------<br>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 15:54:27 -0600<br>
From: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu<br>
Subject: L. L. Zamenhof and Yiddish<br><br>
Ellen Prince (Mendele Vol 6.080) asked about whether L. L. Zamenhof,
the<br>
inventor of Esperanto, knew Yiddish. Although he apparently regarded<br>
Russian as his first (and favorite) non-invented language, he
clearly<br>
was a speaker of Yiddish and, in fact, wrote a fascinating grammar
of<br>
Yiddish in Russian. The grammar was not published until 1982 with
the<br>
original Russian and a complete Esperanto translation. In it
Zamenhof<br>
argued for Latinization of the Yiddish writing system. He proposes a<br>
literary pronunciation that is almost exactly the same as the YIVO
norm.<br>
A propos of another thread he states that one should spell 'auf' as<br>
'af.' His proposed spelling norms totally reject the daytshmerish<br>
orthography in favor of one reflecting actual Yiddish pronunciation.
He<br>
calls for a purging of daytshmerisms from the language. All in all,
a<br>
very "modern" approach for 1879-1882, the approximate time
of<br>
composition.<br><br>
I don't know about the 'the,' but it is widely accepted that only
one<br>
purely Yiddish morpheme made it into Esperanto. This is the suffix
(now,<br>
basically, substantive) -edz-o 'husband,' which is viewed as a back<br>
formation of -edz-in-o 'wife,' and which appears to derive from the<br>
suffix -etsn in the word rebetsn.<br><br>
By the way, Zamenhof's writings on Yiddish are collected in: Adolf<br>
Holzhaus. "L. Zamenhof, Provo de gramatiko de novjuda lingvo-
kaj<br>
-Alvoko al la juda intelektularo. Helsinki, 1982.<br><br>
Howard I. Aronson<br><br>
2)----------------------------------------------------<br>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 22:49:37 -0400 (EDT)<br>
From: rar@slavic.umass.edu<br>
Subject: Zamenhof<br><br>
Re Ellen Prince's question about Ludwig Zamenhof's native
language:<br><br>
According to Reyzen's _Leksikon_, Zamenhof's father, Marcus, and his<br>
grandfather, Fabian, were both teachers of French and German in<br>
Bialystok, then part of the Russian empire, where four<br>
languages--Russian, Polish, German and Yiddish--were common. Reyzen
says<br>
nothing about his first language, but points out that Zamenhof once<br>
thought that Yiddish, because of its widespread character, might
serve<br>
as a basis for an international language. Zamenhof spent three years<br>
working on a Yiddish grammar, only fragments of which were ever<br>
published (in a Yiddish periodical). In his publications on Yiddish
he<br>
suggested adopting the Latin alphabet for Yiddish.<br><br>
In 1958 the editor of _Yidishe shprakh_, Yudel Mark, gently corrected
a<br>
reader who had asserted that Zamenhof's mother tongue was Russian.
He<br>
argued that Zamenhof grew up in a bilingual milieu even if he
learned<br>
Russian as a child and heard Russian at home--and from his mother at<br>
that (YS 18:80).<br><br>
In a subsequent issue of the journal (YS 19 [1959]:30) another
reader<br>
expressed his surprise that Zamenhof had written for a Yiddish<br>
periodical and worked on the language. He related his own
experience of<br>
being visited daily by Dr. Zamenhof (who was an ophthalmologist)
during<br>
the four weeks in 1902 when he was a patient in a Jewish hospital in<br>
Warsaw. He reported that the doctor normally used Polish while
making<br>
his rounds, but since he (the patient) spoke little Polish, Zamenhof<br>
spoke "a 'daytshn' yidish" with him. He added that the
doctor "[hot]<br>
ober keyn mol nit oysgeredt keyn ekht yidish vort." The editor
(Mark)<br>
conceded that this may have been true, but suggested that the
strongly<br>
anti-Yiddish attitude of the time would have made it difficult for a<br>
doctor to deal officially with his patients in ordinary Yiddish,
"nit<br>
fardaytshndik a bisl zayn shprakh." Mark added that it is
conceivable<br>
that a person could perfectly well write about linguistic matters in<br>
Yiddish without being a fluent _speaker_ of the language.<br><br>
Bob Rothstein<br><br>
3)----------------------------------------------------<br>
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:26:34 -0700<br>
From: goldfein@ix.netcom.com<br>
Subject: Zamenhof<br><br>
A second-hand but reliable personal reference: my father has often
told<br>
me of his friendship with Zamenhof's daughter, in Warsaw. She told
him<br>
that her father had done quite a lot of writing in Yiddish, and had
in<br>
fact worked on a Yiddish grammar which was never published. His
dream,<br>
however, could have been in Russian, German, Hebrew or English -<br>
languages with which he also had great facility.<br><br>
Irving D. Goldfein<br><br>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
<br>
vol. 6.083:<br><br>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 10:13:07 +0900<br>
From: tsuguya@gol.com<br>
Subject: Zamenhof and Yiddish<br><br>
The following two bibliographies of Zamenhof in Esperanto give a
short<br>
but reliable account of his knowledge of Yiddish:<br><br>
Holzhaus, A. 1969. Doktoro kaj lingvo Esperanto. Helsinki. (pp.
19-34)<br><br>
Maimon, N. Z. 1978. La kashita vivo de Zamenhof. Tokyo. (pp.
71-78)<br><br>
By the way, Zamenhof, under the pseydonym of Dr. X, wrote an article<br>
entitled "Vegn a yidisher gramatik un reform in der yidisher
shprakh" in<br>
_Lebn un visnshaft_, no. 1 (1909).<br><br>
On a possible Yiddish influence on Esperanto, see, for example, the<br>
following articles:<br><br>
Gold, D. L. 1980. Towards a Study of Possible Yiddish and Hebrew<br>
Influence on Esperanto. In: Miscellanea Interlinguistica, ed. by I.<br>
Szeldahelyi, Budapest, pp. 300-367.<br><br>
Piron, C. 1984. Contribution a l'etude des apports du yidiche a<br>
l'esperanto. Jewish Language Review 4: 15-29.<br><br>
Tsuguya Sasaki<br><br>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Contents of Vol. 6.085<br>
October, 1996<br><br>
1) Zamenhof and Yiddish (Chana and Yosl Mlotek)<br>
2) Zamenhof and Yiddish (Rick Turkel)<br><br>
1)----------------------------------------------------<br>
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 12:59:46 -0500<br>
From: chaniyos@aol.com<br>
Subject: Vegn Dr. Zamenhof, der grinder fun Esperanto un yidish<br><br>
Mit yorn tsurik (29 oktober 1972) hot Profesor Nosn Ziskind undz<br>
ongefregt in dem rubrik "Perl fun der yidisher poezye" in
Forverts tsi<br>
Dr. Ludvig Zamenhof hot geshribn yidishe lider. Er hot dort
geshribn:<br><br>
Adolf Holtshauz tsitirt in zayn biografye
"Doktora kai linga<br>
esperanto" (mir tsitirn dem titl loyt
dem yidishn tekst) di<br>
vayterdike 5-shuredike strofes fun
Zamenhof's nit-publikirter<br>
'Yidisher gramatik' fun a ksav-yad vos
gefint zikh in der<br>
natsyonaler biblyotek in
yerushalayim. Dort vert take ongegebn<br>
Zamenhof vi der mekhaber fun di
lider....un azoy vayter."<br><br>
Er tsitirt di lider (mir brengen zey tsum sof fun briv) un fregt on
vos<br>
mir veysn vegn dem, tsi dos zaynen Zamenhofs eygene lider.
Etlekhe<br>
vokhn shpeter (in di Perl l3 detsember l972) hot a Zamenhof-forsher
N.<br>
Ts. Maymon fun san frantsisko geentfert:<br><br>
Mr. A. Forsher, Oyf der frage vos prof.
Nosn Ziskind hot gefregt<br>
tsi Dr. Zamenhof hot geshribn di yidishe
lider (vos er hot aykh<br>
geshikt), tsi emetser andersh, derloyb ikh
zikh - als<br>
Zamenhof-forsher - tsu entfern.<br><br>
l. Dr. Zamenhof hot geshribn a sakh lider: in der tsayt fun Khivas-tsion
-<br>
tsionistishe, in rusish, speter - espirantistishe in esperanto.<br><br>
2. Vegn di rusishe lider hot Nokhem Sokolov gezogt tsu Dr. Emanuel<br>
Olshvanger, az zey zaynen geven di shenste tsionistishe lider, vos
er<br>
hot ven geleyent in rusish. Eyn lid, ibergezetst in esperanto,
vert<br>
gebrengt in Zamenhofs biografye un dort gefinen zikh di verter
"Vakh<br>
oyf, mayn folk". Fun dem iz gedrungen az "Shtey oyf mayn
folk" iz<br>
Zamenhofs un men darf es nisht zukhn bay Mikhl Gordon un A.
Goldfaden.<br><br>
3. Dr. Zamenhof dertsylt in zayn kurtser oytobiografye, az shoyn als<br>
tsen-yoriker bokher hot er gekholemt tsu vern a groyser rusisher
poet.<br>
Oyb azoy, farvos zol er nit hobn geshribn oykh lider in yidish, dos<br>
loshn vos er hot shtark lib gehat: 'Ikh lib heys dem azoy-genantn<br>
'zhargon' - shraybt er in onheyb fun zayn 'Yidishe gramatik' un
shpeter<br>
oyf an ander ort: 'Beys undzere inteligentn (arayngerekhnt afile di<br>
yidishe shrayber) batsien zikh tsu yidish mit di greste farakhtung
un<br>
batrakhtn zi a bisl vild, hobn mir zikh shtendik batsoygn un batsien<br>
zikh tsu ir oykh itst mit libshaft un mir zeen in dem azoy genantn<br>
zhargon di zelbe shprakh vi ale andere shprakhn.<br><br>
4. Di 'gramatik' vu di yidishe lider gefinen zikh, hot Dr. Zamenhof<br>
geendikt in onhoyb fun Khivas Tsien in Varshe, l881-l882. In der
tsayt<br>
hot er zikh a sakh mesasek geven mit Khivas tsien un iz geven eyner
fun<br>
di prominente firer. Demolt hot er oykh geshribn tsienistishe
artiklen<br>
un lider in rusish. Un derfar merkt zikh oykh zeyer shtark on der<br>
tsienistisher gayst un entuziasm in di etlekhe lider oyf yidish. Es
ken<br>
zayn az er hot nokh mer yidishe lider farfast, nor di por zenen
geblibn.<br><br>
5. Trots dem shvakh fun Sokolov oyf Zamenhofs tsienistishe lider in<br>
rusish, hot Zamenhof aleyn zikh nisht gehaltn far a groysn poet.
Er<br>
zogt befeyresh in der gramatik: 'Ikh breng di dozike lider nor als<br>
bayshpiln vi azoy tsu makhn yidishe ferzn, nisht als literarishe<br>
produktn fun groysn vert'.<br><br>
6. Dr. Olshvanger, vos iz geven an esperantist un hot gehat
perzenlekhn<br>
kontakt mit Zamenhofn, hot mir geshribn in yor l95l: 'Dr. Zamenhof
iz<br>
geven der ershter vos hot farfast a genug detalirte gramatik fun
yidish,<br>
un hot arayngezets oykh zayne lider in yidish' - befeyresh; zayne
eygene<br>
lider.<br><br>
7. Derekh agev vil ikh do dermanen, az di gramatik iz take geshribn
in<br>
rusish, ober a kleyner teyl iz iberzetst gevorn in yidish fun A.
Litvin<br>
un gedrukt in zayn vilner zhurnal 'Lebn un visnshaft', l909-l9l0<br>
(hakdome un ortografishe erklerungen; nisht-hoyptvort, bayvort,
tsolvort<br>
unazoyvayter). Es iz nisht gedrukt gevorn in gantsn, vayl Litvin hot<br>
gevolt makhn enderungen in tekst un Dr. Zamenhof hot oyf dem nisht<br>
maskim geven (loyt Dr. Olshvanger, gehert fun Zamenhof
aleyn)."<br><br>
N. Ts. Maymun dermont oykh agev az Mr. Adolf Holtshoys vos hot
aroysgegebn<br>
dos bukh iz nisht keyn yid.<br><br>
Oygust 5,l973 hot di Perl gedrukt a zayt fun der esperanto-tsaytung
"Heroldo<br>
de esperanto" (fun l junio l973) vu er drukt undzer onfrage:'Cy
Zamenhof<br>
verkis jidajn poemojn?"<br><br>
Di finf lider vos Dr. Ziskind hot geshikt zaynen:<br><br>
l.<br>
Oyf yeder loshn zingt ir, mayne brider,<br>
Vi betlers nemt ir alts bay fremde layt -<br>
Genug, mayn folk! vu zaynen dayne lider?<br>
Ver oykh a mentsh! Shtey oyf, es iz shoyn tsayt!<br><br>
2.<br>
Dayn geveyn vet got nit hern,<br>
Blind iz er far dayne laydn;<br>
Zeyen muzstu, zey mit trern,<br>
Oyb du vilst in freydn shnaydn.<br><br>
3.<br>
Tsien, heyb oyf dayne farshvolene oygn,<br>
Fun dayne kinder un zeyer noyt;<br>
Shvakh un farshvartst un in tsveyen geboygn,<br>
Betlen zey oys zeyer shtikele broyt.<br><br>
4.<br>
Es tsien zikh shifn - es zingen di layt.<br>
Es shoymen zikh freylekh di veln,<br>
Dos geyen di yidn fun goles bafrayt<br>
An eygenem koymen tsu shteln.<br><br>
5.<br>
Get (?) farges dayne tsores un gliklekherheyt<br>
Heylt di vundn mit lider un vayn,<br>
Un dertseylt dayne kinder in nakhes un freyd<br>
Vi es iz biter a yosem tsu zayn.<br><br>
Chana un Yosl Mlotek<br><br>
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