The question to ask is whether someone speaking "western" Yiddish (which is probably extinct as a living language), and in a German environment could distinguish between Judeo-German and their dialect of Yiddish. Yiddish usually adopts many words from the local language and tends to reflect the grammar of the local language (compare the Yiddish spoken in Brooklyn, and the Yiddish spoken in Eretz Yisrael, which are the two leading places where Yiddish remains a living language).
No one is arguing that Yiddish and German are distinct languages, but rather whether there is a distinct language called "Judeo-German", and whether what is being referred to as "Judeo-German" is merely Yiddish with a larger than usual segment of German thrown in (just as Brooklyn Yiddish has a larger than usual segment of English, and Jerusalem Yiddish has a larger than usual segment of Hebrew). Aaron (not the view of my employer, heck I only get Yiddish once in a blue moon since all I do is class K - though I have lived in places where Yiddish is still a living language and listened to children who speak Yiddish as a first language) --- 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
