Yinglish survey, pass it on! (doo-dah, doo-dah)

[chanaleh]

[By way of la_vie_en_rosie... and I found it extremely fun so I encourage all you linguaphiles to go do it, yidlach and Gentiles alike:]

You are invited to participate in an interesting and entertaining survey about language. Essentially, we're asking about the spread of Yiddish (and some Hebrew) among English speakers in North America. We're turning to both Jews and non-Jews to answer questions like these: Who uses Yiddish words like "shmooze" and "daven" and phrases like "Money, shmoney"? Why do some people say "temple" while others say "shul"? Who prefers biblical names for their babies? Your responses will help us answer these and other questions, and you might learn something about yourself in the process. Please set aside 15-20 minutes, and click on this link to participate:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9eQwWyblG_2b8ixLqbt6QFhg_3d_3d

Please forward this request to your friends and family. We are hoping to get thousands of responses from people of all religions, ages, and regions of the United States and Canada. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail Prof. Sarah Bunin Benor <sbenor@huc.edu> or Prof. Steven M. Cohen <steve34nyc@aol.com>.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

As a New Yorker I feel honor-bound to participate.

Odd...

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

In selecting what languages my immigrant ancestors spoke, "English" is not an available option (well, other than "Other").

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

my data is pretty guaranteed to mess them up

Re: Odd...

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Definitely put it in under "Other"!

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly why you should put it in.

[cnoocy]

Why does surveymonkey have to have such bad UI? I'll try to complete it later, but there's only so much patience I have for things like one-line select elements with the values "","Yes", and "No".

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

OH, I did, and specified that I was a non jew raised by an Israeli,who spent alot of time in Israel as a child, has lived in the UK, and didn't have a single American ancestor:-)

[flinx.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm also in there with the "Hrmm, I'm probably going to make one heck of an outlier..." *laugh*

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that "maven" came from Yiddish.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Given that it's a survey about Yiddish, I was disappointed that the Workmen's Circle/Arbeiter Ring wasn't an option for the "what movement do you identify/were you raised with" questions! I had to put it under "other"

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It comes into Yiddish from the Hebrew "meivin," which means "to understand."

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

ooh this survey is FUN. :)

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

[alaria-lyon.livejournal.com]

This survey made me sad about how little I know :-(

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't take it as cause for sad. :-} There were expressions on there I never heard of, either -- which made me think they probably *would* have included some that they actually made up, as controls!

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

I took it! Nice Methodist boy with parents from South Dakota who grew up in a neighborhood approximately 30% Jewish.

If there's an English-derived word for "klutz", I don't know it. And I do use "fumfer" in preference to "mumble".

And I would routinely describe my infant daughters' faces as "beschmutzed".

I hope I spin their data as well.

Re: Odd...

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought that was a really weird design flaw/omission. (Being interested in survey design, I then wondered if they deliberately meant to do that or if it was part of their unconscious set of assumptions...)

I stuck it under Other too, along with "possibly Scots or Gaelic". If you saw my hair and freckles, you'd agree. :)

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Yoicks!

Taken out of an English language context, I promptly pronounced it mentally to rhyme with 'daven', which was why I didn't recognize it as a word I knew. (Can you tell that I live with a conservative Jew who's currently vice-president of religious affairs at his synagogue? Oops... talk about your outlier data...)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That was fun! I was especially pleased that they allowed survey-takers to indicate that they are of partial Jewish heritage. I expected that subject was going to be ignored, and was worrying how I would answer questions about upbringing. Very glad they decided to go there.

[rigel.livejournal.com]

You did the doo-dah doo-dah! :)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've done it for some time, but I'm afraid it's particularly taken over my brain of late. :-P

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, doo-dah, doo-dah..." And of course you must know about the Naughty Origami Kit!

[rigel.livejournal.com]

I do that with eeeeeeeeeverything. It's weird. It's also infected my friends, who occasionally threaten to wreak (wreak?) havoc upon my life for causing such a mindworm.

[besamim.livejournal.com]

I imagine that's because by "movement" the researchers meant "religious movement" or "denomination." But yes, a separate question on affiliation with secular organizations (Workmen's Circle/Arbeiter, Labour Zionist Alliance/Farbund, Habonim, People's Front of Judea,* Judean People's Front*) should've been included.


*Monty Python reference

[besamim.livejournal.com]

There was a Ladino-sounding word in there somewhere I'd never heard. Can't remember it now though.

[besamim.livejournal.com]

Long as you don't do it if you're a guest at an NAACP meeting. :-)

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

So is "Oy" Yiddish or Hebrew? That's one of my favorite sayings I picked up somewhere. :)

[besamim.livejournal.com]

Both. It's found in the Bible, for instance.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

At least at the one in Boston, most people treat it as their "synagogue" community. Also, it's a decidedly Yiddishist organization, and thus relevant to where people might have picked up some of the language.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

That was fun, thanks for the link. :)

[alaria-lyon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm mainly sad because I really wish I *was* fluent in Yiddish, but my grandparents wanted a way to talk behind my mother's back when she was a kid, so they never taught her.

[memerath.livejournal.com]

I wonder why only New York was given as an influential location for the dialect. My family on both sides lived in Philadelphia for decades, in a tight-knit Jewish community that definitely had its own patois (so to speak) that at the same time was distinct from New Yorkish.

Interesting survey tho!

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I think there's a perception that the overall New York dialect sounds Jewish? So they could be trying to test the theory that knowing Yiddish/Hebrew words is correlated to either having a Jewish background or having a New York background.
(But yeah, it doesn't let you discover other correlations.)

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

They may be trying to see how much of a difference it makes to a person's speech if they are in NY vs. other places. I have a feeling this is going to apply more to those who are not Jewish/not Jewishly connected themselves.

It also makes sense that Yiddish would have had the hugest influence in NY because that is where all the immigrants ended up. People were a bit more Americanized as they moved to other places - even as close as Philly.

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

That was fun. I knew most of the words - though not all. But it does make me think they were probably all real.

I especially liked the "what would you name your kids" question because they did a great job with the categories. It was very easy for me to answer that one.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I enjoyed that question too. Which camp are you in? :-)

[msdirector.livejournal.com]

Me too. But those were MY parents. And, as you say, they spoke it when they didn't want me to understand. However, when they were kids, they learned Yiddish because it was the spoken language, along with English, in their household. When THEIR parents - my Grandparents, your great-grandparents - didn't want THEM to understand, they spoke Russian. Which always annoyed your Grandfather, since he would have liked to have learned that!

I guess it's the same in every generation and in most cultures...