Jewish-Languages Mailing List: January 2002

January 2002

This message appeared on H-Judaic.
-Sarah

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 00:15:52 -0500
From: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV @ H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Reply-To: H-NET Jewish Studies List <H-JUDAIC @ H-NET.MSU.EDU>
To: Recipients of H-JUDAIC digests <H-JUDAIC @ H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Subject: H-JUDAIC Digest - 10 Jan 2002 to 11 Jan 2002 (#2002-11)

There is one message totalling 47 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

 1. HEBREW UNIVERSITY EXPEDITION UNCOVERS UNKNOWN JEWISH COMMUNITY (Stone)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 08:01:28 -0500
From: Anna Urowitz-Freudenstein <hjmod @ oise.utoronto.ca>
Subject: HEBREW UNIVERSITY EXPEDITION UNCOVERS UNKNOWN JEWISH COMMUNITY (Stone)

From: Michael E. Stone <stone @ vms.huji.ac.il>
Subject: HEBREW UNIVERSITY EXPEDITION UNCOVERS UNKNOWN JEWISH COMMUNITY

An expedition led by Hebrew University Professor of Armenian Studies,
Michael E. Stone, and composed of Israeli and Armenian Archeologists
and experts, has made further major finds in Eghegis, Armenia,
including many inscriptions in beautiful Hebrew script and language.
This previously unknown community is now becoming uncovered. The
expedition returned from field-work in Armenia this week.

Reports will be published in full in the media and in scholarly
journals soon. Many pictures and daily reports may be found on the
Hebrew University Armenian Web Site:

http://unixware.mscc.huji.ac.il/~armenia.

Reports, pictures and video-clips may be found on:

http://churcharmenia.com

The graveyard being excavated is unprecedentedly early, dating from
the mid-thirteenth to early fourteenth century.

The work is sponsored by the Charles and Agnes Kazarian Eternal Fund
with the support of the Ben Tzvi Institute for Study of the Oriental
Jewish Communities, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the
Foundation for Biblical Archeology and the Israel Antiquities
Authority.

Further information from stone @ vms.huji.ac.il
--
Michael E. Stone
Professor of Armenian Studies
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Fax: +972-2-642-6631
michael.stone @ huji.ac.il

http://unixware.mscc.huji.ac.il/~armenia

------------------------------

End of H-JUDAIC Digest - 10 Jan 2002 to 11 Jan 2002 (#2002-11)
**************************************************************

Dear list members,

I am new to the list, so I would like to introduce myself: My name is
Marc Kiwitt, I have studied Romance and Semitic languages and
linguistics at the University of Heidelberg, and I am currently a first
year Ph.D. student at the Université Paris-Sorbonne. My thesis is
supervised by the professors Frankwalt Möhren (Heidelberg) and Claude
Thomasset (Paris).

My main research interest is Judeo-French: I have partially edited a
Judeo-French medical treatise for my M.A., and I am currently working
on a Hebrew/French biblical glossary from the 13th century. Most of
my work is done within the framework of "traditional" historical and
descriptive linguistics, with an emphasis on historical lexicography.

Let me also announce the publication of my book, which might be of
interest to some of you:

 Marc Kiwitt, Der altfranzösische Fiebertraktat Fevres. Teiledition und
 sprachwissenschaftliche Untersuchung, Würzburger medizinhistorische
 Forschungen 75, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2001, 216 pages.
 ISBN 3-8260-2299-8.

It is a revised version of my M.A. paper and consists of a partial
edition and linguistic study of the Judeo-French medical treatise
transmitted in ms. Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Or. Oct. 512. The main focus of the study is a lexicographical analysis
of the French vocabulary of the text within the framework of Old French
historical lexicography and etymology. It follows the methodological
approach of the Dictionnaire Etymologique de l'Ancien Français (DEAF).
Special attention is also devoted to the question in how far the study of
this text sheds new light on the linguistic status of Judeo-French as a
whole and its possible differences from Christian Old French.

The book also includes a codicological and paleographical description
of the manuscript, a study of its graphemical system within the
context of the Judeo-French literary tradition, an overview of phonetic
and grammatical features of its language, an attempt at dating and
localizing the text, a study of the sources of the edited parts of the
treatise, as well as extensive glossaries of the Old French, Hebrew
and Latin words contained in it.

Kind regards

Marc Kiwitt

13 rue Frédéric Sauton
75005 Paris, France

phone: (+33)1 46 33 75 10
e-mail: Marc.Kiwitt@gmx.net

Here's a query about Loez. Can people please respond to the list, in
addition to RuHindin @ aol.com?

Thanks,
Sarah

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 20:51:41 EST
From: RuHindin @ aol.com
Subject: Loez language

What language[s] were involved in Loez? Approximately when did it start
being used? How long did its use last?
 RuHindin @ aol.com

The questions what language[s] were involved in Loez, approximately when
did it start being used, and how long did its use last, is not clear to
me. Is it about the meaning of "lo'ez" in the Bible, or in the Mishna
("one who does not understand Hebrew")? or elsewhere? "Lashon lo'azit"
for any language other than Hebrew, or "La'az" for any language other
than Hebrew or for non-Hebrew words or expressions, are common to the
present day as ever in the same sense as in the Mishna.
 Gideon Goldenberg

> Here's a query about Loez. Can people please respond to the list, in
> addition to RuHindin @ aol.com?
>
> Thanks,
> Sarah
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 20:51:41 EST
> From: RuHindin @ aol.com
> To: sbenor @ Stanford.EDU
> Subject: Loez language
>
> What language[s] were involved in Loez? Approximately when did it start
> being used? How long did its use last?
> RuHindin @ aol.com

==========================
Prof. Gideon Goldenberg
48 Ben-Maimon Avenue
IL-92261 Jerusalem, Israel.
Telephone (972-2-)5665135
Fax (972-2-)5634891
msgidgol@mscc.huji.ac.il
==========================

Here's the response I sent RuHindin @ aol.com. I think he/she was talking
about Western and Southern Loez, which Weinreich considers the pre-JLs of
Yiddish.

-Sarah

The word Loez comes from the Hebrew, meaning "speak a foreign language"
and has been used throughout Jewish history to refer to the local
non-Hebrew language. You might have read/heard it in relation to the
history of Yiddish. Max Weinreich's History of the Yiddish Language
considers Western Loez (French) and Southern Loez (Italian) to be the
languages spoken by Jews before they immigrated to Germanic lands. The
Jewish varieties of these languages were spoken in the Middle Ages, but I
am not sure when they started or how long they lasted. According to Marc
Kiwitt's description of Judeo-French, which will soon be posted on our
website www.jewish-languages.org, "The history of the Judeo-French
literary tradition begins in the 11th century with the glosses of Rashi
and Moshe ha-Darshan. It ends in the 14th century, after persecutions and
repeated expulsions had virtually ended the Jewish presence in France."