At 11:39 AM 6/8/2002 -0400, Carter Pate wrote:
>
>Hey, Yigal!  Has anyone compared this aspect of Hebonics (and why not
>Hebronics?) to "signifying" or "playing the dozens" in Ebonics?
>       cpate
>


I have no idea - you might want to ask Lynn Miles. But as long as we're on
the subject, here's an additional reaction I received:

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I reject completely the thesis in the note forwarded from SRL279 (to whom
you may copy this response if you wish).   The author's idea of a theory of
Hebonics all sounds a bit more like Yiddish than Hebrew to me.   Might I
refer you to Leo Roston's masterwork The Joys of Yiddish, where one will
find similar conceptions labeled "Yinglish" or "Ameridish".

However, I believe there is, indeed, a genuine field of study available to
those who wish to consider interchanges between Hebrew (Ivrit) and English,
and the effect of the former upon the latter.   Might I fvor starters
suggest the following for consideration:

(1)   Vowels   A true effect on English which we owe to Hebrew is the
creation of a 6th vowel.   This in normal English (UK/US/Australian etc)
there are vowels A E I O and U.   The Hebonic addition is a sixth vowel
"Eh".   True speakers of the language elongate this to "Eeeeeehh".   In
fact, there is evidence that this is tending to smother a lot of the other
vowels.   The simple sentence:

"I am going to my father's house"

tends to be rendered

 "I-eeehhhm going tweeeeehh my fatheeeeeeh's 'ouse."

(2)   Consonants   Never mind the "sh" and "shm" stuff from the world of
pure Yiddish, we remark instead on the the strange capacity for Hebrew not
to absorb effectively the true pronunciation of certain English or European
words, which leads, for example, to the most interesting difficulties with
tourist menus in Tel Aviv eating establishments.   (I would like to suggest
in passing that there is PhD thesis material in a survey of the impact on
the English language of Israeli restaurant menus, but that is a subject for
another time.)   The commonest such deviation from normal culinary
labelling is the "blinch", which an average Israeli restauranteur seriously
believes to be the correct way of describing a pastrey item filled with a
stuffing such as meat or cheese (in some traif establishments in the
seedier parts of Tel Aviv, no doubt both).    The fact that generations of
our forefathers survived in Eastern Europe calling the same object a
"blintz" is lost on him (maybe because the typical Israeli restauranteur
these days is an Iraqi or Yemenite).  And the odd thing is that the Hebrew
alphabet possesses the correct consonant to represent the tz of blintz with
no problem.

(3)   Bizarrely inappropriate usages   If I may move on from the
misdescription process one finds written on a Tel Aviv cafe wall
(interesting that, puts one in mind of Belshazzar's Feast), there is the
equally amusing matter of simply appalling English appearing in publicly
available sources from Israel, no doubt created by the sort of imperfect
English-as-a-foreign-language tuition that afflicts all too many
non-Anglo-Saxons living there.   I am reminded, for example, of the CD
jacket I saw once in a music shop in - you've guessed it - Tel Aviv, where
the person who compiled the less than perfect companion notes informed us
that Cantor Zavel Kwartin would be "chanting from the Plasms" (maybe he was
a medial man as well as a singer, who knows?), and that he had become a
cantor as a young man because some great cantor of his age heard him sing
and "terminated" that he would one day become a famous singer.

I could go on, but I suspect I am called upon to produce a theory for this
linguistic development.   Actually, I have two.

(a)  In the case of those Israelis in Israel itself who purvey this curious
malformation of English, I suspect it represents basic Mossad-inspired
training to confuse the heck out of the Arabs.   After all, whatever one
may think of Professor Eduard Said, for example, you cannot deny he speaks
a very fine English, with little if any sign of affectation.   (His
problems with telling the truth are a separate matter.)   Compare this with
the sort of English even the brightest sparks in Israel are heard to spout
on the airwaves, and it is not surprising that people are left confused.

(b)  When those self-same Israelis come to the UK, the US or anywhere else
where they are called upon to speak at least some English to get along (in
order to be falafel salesmen or ambassadors or whatever), they simply apply
this skill in order to confuse the Immigration Authorities.

And hence the Israeli manipulation of English continues.   Maybe the
Mashiach will resolve this, among many other issues.

Does anybody buy my ideas?   Is there are course of study in this
philological nightmare - this Hebonic Plague - yet?

Daniel Tunkel
London

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Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.