An Introductory Talk on the Yiddish Language

Ahead of the first verses of the Eastern European Jewish poets, I would like to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, how much more Jargon [Yiddish] you understand than you believe you do.

I am not actually worried about the effect that has been prepared for each of you in tonight’s performance, but I want the performance to be universally understood, if it is entitled. But this cannot happen, as long as some among you are so afraid of Jargon that one can almost see it in your faces. I am not even speaking about those who scorn Jargon. But fear of Jargon, fear with a certain distaste at the bottom, is, after all, understandable, if you will.

Our Western European affairs are, when we look them over with a cautious, fleeting glance, organized in this way: everything is going smoothly. We live in happy concord when it is necessary, can do without each other when it suits us, and even then understand one another; who, living in such orderly conditions, would be able to understand the confused Jargon or would even want to?

The Jargon is the youngest European language, only four hundred years old, and actually, even younger. It has not yet developed linguistic forms that have the degree of precision that we need. Its mode of expression is brief and fast.

It has no grammar books. Devotees are trying to write grammars, but the Jargon is continuously being spoken; it does not stand still. The people are not turning it over to the grammarians.

It consists of nothing but foreign words. These words do not settle down in it, but retain the speed and spiritedness with which they were adapted. Migrations of peoples are coursing through the Jargon from one end to the other. Inside the Jargon, all of this German, Hebrew, French, English, Slavic, Dutch, Romanian, and even Latin is in the grip of inquisitiveness and carelessness. It takes strength to hold the languages in this condition together. Hence no sensible person is thinking of making the Jargon into a world language, although that should be obvious. Only the cant of thieves, which needs individual words rather than linguistic structures, likes to borrow from it. Also because the Jargon was for a long time a despised language.

Still, in the bustle of the language fragments linguistic laws are at work. The beginnings of the Jargon, for example, date from the time when Middle High German was transitioning into New High German. There was a choice of forms. Middle High German took one, the Jargon the other. Or the Jargon developed Middle High German forms more logically than even New High German did. For example, the Jargon form mir seien (New High German wir sind [we are])¹ is more naturally derived from Middle High German sîn than the New High German wir sind. Or the Jargon stayed with the Middle High German forms despite the New High German [form]. Whatever made its way into the ghetto was not in a hurry to move out again. Hence forms like Kerzlach [little candles], Blümlach [little flowers], Liedlach [little songs] remained.

And now the dialects of the Jargon are streaming into those linguistic structures born of capriciousness and law. Indeed, the entire Jargon, including its written variety, consists of nothing but dialect, although one has largely agreed on orthography.

With all of that, I think I convinced most of you, ladies and gentlemen, for the time being, that you won’t understand a word of the Jargon.

Do not expect help from an explanation of the poems. Well, if you are not able to understand the Jargon, no ad hoc explanation can help you. In the best case, you will understand the explanation and realize that something difficult is about to come. That will be all. I can tell you, for example:

Mr. Löwy will now, as will really be the case, present three poems. First the poem “Die Grine” by Rosenfeld. Grine are the green ones, the greenhorns, the new arrivals in America.² Such Jewish emigrants³ are walking, in this poem, in a small group with their dirty luggage through the streets of New York. Of course, an audience congregates, gawks at them, follows them and laughs. The poet, agitated beyond himself at this sight, transcends this street scene and speaks to all Jews and to mankind. One has the impression that the group of emigrants stops while the poet speaks, although it is far away and cannot hear him.

The second poem is by [Shimon] Frug and is called “Sand and Stars.”

It is a bitter interpretation of a biblical promise. It was said we will be like the sand at the seashore and the stars in the sky. Well, we are already being trampled like the sand, when will the promise of the stars come true?

The third poem is by [David] Frishman and is called “The Night is Still.”

In the middle of the night, a pair of lovers encounters a pious scholar who is going to the synagogue. They are startled, fear they have been discovered, later they reassure each other.

You see now, nothing is gained from such explanations.

Sewn into these explanations, you will seek now during the presentation what you already know, and what is really there you will not see. Happily, everyone who knows German is able to understand the Jargon. Seen albeit as from a vast distance, the surface intelligibility of the Jargon is constituted by the German language. This is an advantage before all other languages on earth. It is fair then that German also has a disadvantage. It is impossible to translate Jargon into German. The ties between Jargon and German are too delicate and significant not to rupture when Jargon is transported back into German, meaning, it is not Jargon that is brought back into German but something insubstantial. Through translation into French, for example, Jargon can be conveyed to the French; through translation into German, it is annihilated. Toit, for example, is really not tot [dead] and Blüt is never Blut [blood].

But it is not just by virtue of the vastly distant German language that you, ladies and gentlemen, are able to understand Jargon; you are allowed to come one step closer. It has not been very long since the familiar lingua franca of the German Jews, depending on whether they lived in the city or in the country, more in the east or in the west, seemed to be a more distant or closer precursor of the Jargon, and many shades of that remained. One could therefore have traced the historical development of the Jargon just as well on the horizontal plane of the present as in the depth of history.

You draw already very close to the Jargon when you consider that besides knowledge there are other forces and connections to forces at work in you that enable you to understand Jargon by feeling it. Only at this point can the explainer be of help by reassuring you, so that you will no longer feel excluded and recognize also that you must no longer complain about not understanding Jargon. This is crucial because with every complaint, understanding evaporates. But if you remain calm, you will suddenly be in the midst of Jargon. As soon as Jargon has taken hold of you—and Jargon is everything, word, Hasidic melody, and the character of the Eastern European actor—you will no longer recognize your former tranquility. It is then that you get to experience the true unity of the Jargon, and so forcefully that you will become afraid though not of the Jargon but of yourself. You would not be able to endure that fear alone if from the Jargon you did not simultaneously emanate that self-confidence that can stand firm against the fear and is even stronger than it. Enjoy it as fully as you can! When it recedes, tomorrow or later—and how could it endure based on the memory of a single evening’s performance!—I wish you that you will also have forgotten the fear. Because we do not want to punish you.