Arizona republican., 1899-12-02
WHAT "YIDDISH" IS.
"A Lingual Patchwork Stretched on a
 Frame of Bad German


 Frame of Bad German"
 Yiddish is a lingual patchwork stretched on a frame of bad German. The corruption of both pronunciation and grammatical form varies with the locality. Since Grmany is bordered by many countries wherein Jews reside, this dialect has naturally diffused it. self among the Jews in all of them. It may be said roughly that Yiddish is the mother tongue of the Jews of Flu rope. In one respect regard it as be- ing more civilized than classical Ger man, for it does not worry about the infinite shades and declensions of the three genders.
 In defense. moreover, of the appar- ent corruption of the German it may be said that it is only within century or so that German itself has become rigid and classical, and this under the guidance of pedantic grammarians and writers rather than as a spontaneous outcome of the life of the people.
 Thus Yiddish may partly represent an earlier geological stratum of Ger man before that language had crystal lized to the rigidity of today. To this original stock Yiddish has added a wealth of idiomatic expressions and proverbs drawn from it's own peculiar experiences in the various Ghettos of the world; from the odd incidents and odd characters which the Ghetto pro- duced. Some of the proverbs could only be understood by Jews, others are universal in character, such as: "When is a hunchback overjoyed? When he meets another hunchback" Or, Loud drumming in front and no soldiers be- hind" The following too, may per haps carry home: Nine rabbis can not make a congregational quorum, but ten tailors can" The tailor, in stead of being a ninth part of a man is a full member of the brotherhood of Israel, while even the rabbi cannot count as more than one. How vividly this emphasizes the absence of priest craft.
 In addition, the original Yiddish vo- cabulary has been greatly enriched by words drawn from every language with which the wandering Jews came into contact. Hebrew has, Of course, all ways been the chief source of these extra supplies. for naturally a number of characteristic social and religious circumstances could only find express sion in the words and phrases of an- cient tradition.
 In New York, of course, there is a large proportion of English words in the Yiddish in common use. But, whatever language Yiddish is from, it squeezes all of the borrowed expres sions into German nudes as egotisti- cally as the French language modu- lates and pronOunces everything it bor- rows, la Franchise.
 The most comical grammatical forms result from this distortion of foreign grammar. For instance, there is one Hebrew word which means he who vows.'' This has been made into Yiddish verb to express the act of of fering money to the synagogue, and when it is conjugated into the past tense, as if it were a verb, it reads lit erally-Mr. Ansell, he-who-vows-ed, fifty cents" the hybrid "he-who-vows ed," stands for offered"
 Yiddish is printed in three ways-in Hebrew letters, in German letters and in English letters-and the spelling varies fearfully and wonderfully; yet a whole world of books and newspapers flows daily from the European and American presses in this composite jargon, and the most characteristic output of the Jewish mind may be found in these Yiddish publications. And in addition, there is scarcely Look or a play that does not find it's way sooner or later into Yiddish, whether through Yiddish books, Yid- dish newspapers or the Yiddish theater. Israel Zangwill in New York Journal.