I think there's a difference, Aaron. Americans speaking the American dialect still think of themselves as speaking English. The Maskilim writing German in Hebrew characters did not think of themselves as writing Yiddish. In general I think catalogers try to represent the intention of the author, even if, as in this case, there's scholarly disagreement about whether German in Hebrew script counts as German or as Yiddish.
Unless we abandon the idea of Yiddish as a separate language altogether, i.e., subsuming it as a dialect of German, I don't see how we can avoid making the distinction for Mendelssohn's Bible translation (etc.) which was embraced by non-Yiddish speakers as German literature. Also, regarding the issue of Jewish self-hatred raised by Martin, I agree that some of the Maskilim were afflicted with this, but I'm not sure it matters for cataloging purposes unless we were cataloging a book that was explicitly *about* Jewish self-hatred. / Daniel --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
