Yiddish Dialects - Comparison

Comparison

Stressed vowels in the Yiddish dialects may be understood by considering their common origins in the Proto-Yiddish sound system. Yiddish linguistic scholarship uses a system developed by M. Weinreich (1960) to indicate the descendent diaphonemes of Proto-Yiddish (PY) stressed vowels. Each PY vowel is given a unique two-digit identifier, and its reflexes use this as a subscript, for example Southeastern o11 is the vowel /o/, descended from PY */a/. The first digit indicates PY quality (1-=*, 2-=*, 3-=*, 4-=*, 5-=*) and the second refers to quantity or diphthongization (-1=short, -2=long, -3=short but lengthened early in the history of Yiddish, -4=diphthong, -5=special length only occurring in PY vowel 25). Vowels 23, 33, 43 and 53 have the same reflexes as 22, 32, 42 and 52 in all Yiddish dialects, though they developed distinct values in Middle High German; Katz (1978) argues that these should be collapsed with the -2 series, leaving only 13 in the -3 series.

Genetic sources of Yiddish dialect vowels
Netherlandic
Front Back
Close i3132 u52
Close-mid 25 o5112
Open-mid ɛ21 ɛj22/34 ɔ41 ɔu42/54
Open a11/1324/44
Polish
Front Back
Close i31/5132/52 u12/13
Close-mid eː~ej25 oː~ou54
Open-mid ɛ21 ɔ41 ɔj42/44
Open a1134 aj22/24
Lithuanian
Front Back
Close i31/32 u51/52
Close-mid ej22/24/42/44
Open-mid ɛ21/25 ɔ12/13/41 ɔj54
Open a11 aj34
Examples
PY Netherlandic Polish Lithuanian
11 (A1) alt alt alt
42 (O2) brɔut brɔjt brejt
13 (A3) vas vus vɔs
24 (E4) ān ajn ejn
54 (U4) hɔuz hōz~
houz
hɔjz

Litvish Yiddish has /ej/ for standard academic and literary /ɔj/ everywhere except for vowel 54.

Vowel (Hebrew script) Northern Yiddish (Litvish) Southern Yiddish (Poylish, Galitzish) Comparison (Heb. script = NY = SY)
אָ o u דאָס, זאָגן = dos, zogn = dus, zugn
אֻ, וּ u i קוגעל = kugel = kigel
ײֵ ai ah זײֵן = zayn = zahn
אֵ, ײ ey ay קלײן, צװײ = kleyn, tzvey = klayn, tzvay
ױ, וֹ ey oy אױך = eykh = oykh/oukh
ע e ey שטעטל = shtetl = shteytl (Note: Unstressed /e/ does not change)

Some dialects have final consonant devoicing.

Merger of /ʃ/ into /s/ was common in Litvish Yiddish in previous generations. This trait, known as Sabosdiker losn, was stigmatized and deliberately avoided by recent generations of Litvaks.

Read more about this topic:  Yiddish Dialects

Famous quotes containing the word comparison:

    In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.
    Irving Kristol (b. 1920)

    Away with the cant of “Measures, not men!”Mthe idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.
    George Canning (1770–1827)

    He was a superior man. He did not value his bodily life in comparison with ideal things. He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. For once we are lifted out of the trivialness and dust of politics into the region of truth and manhood.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)