Yiddish - medieval Ebonics?

[jsrechts@imap.unc.edu]

Poster: jsrechts@imap.unc.edu

Corun writes:  In this age of Acronyms we could probably stand to call
something
by it's proper name.  It's not all that hard and will save us from the
horror of things like
the Eubonic plague.

Acronyms are as ancient as written language and were in use during the
Middle Ages.
The acronym of YHVH is a perfect example.  I agree that we should avoid
using modern acnonyms as in
the  case of prote for  proteges and the like.

I must be nitpicky on the Ebonics quip though. :)

Ebonics is essentially a ghetto language.  The question is "Is Ebonics a
full
fledged language?"   Some school boards in California think so.

Yiddish is also a ghetto language that was spoken by German and Eastern
European Jews.
It's an amalgam of mostly German, Slavic Languages and Hebrew. (there
are smatterings of other languages too) It is written in Hebrew
characters but
it sounds like a very strange German dialect.  Some argue that Ebonics
is a full fledged language.  Others 
say Ebonics at present is really a very strong English dialect.  So far,
I haven't heard of any "Great Books" in
Ebonics but we don't know what will eventually happen as it evolves.
I'm not a linguist so I can't quote any hard facts on this one.

There are numerous great authors who wrote in Yiddish as well as a
plethora of 
Yiddish music and so on that date from the Middle Ages to today.

The moral of the story - be careful how you label languages. 

Lyanna

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