Vernacular Voices. Kirsten A. Fudeman

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      We have already seen that medieval French Jews used Hebrew for most written purposes. It is impossible to know how often they used Hebrew in conversation, but the times at which Jews spoke Hebrew to one another would have certainly been outnumbered by their interactions, with each other and with Christians, in their mother tongue, French.

      Linguists beginning with Ferguson have shown that two languages in a diglossic relationship often interact in similar ways. Lexical borrowing from the high variety into the low one is common. Words are also borrowed, though less often, from the low variety into the high one. Both types of borrowing took place in medieval French Jewish society. Hebraico-French texts regularly feature Hebrew or Aramaic borrowings, for example, ḥatan (“bridegroom”), kallah (“bride”), and ‘asqer (“engage in study of the law”). (This last example bears a French infinitival suffix.)⁷⁵ The opposite is also amply attested: for example, Hebrew texts written in response to the martyrdom of over thirty Jews in Blois in 1171 incorporate the Old French words peau (skin, hide), vaire (pale, mottled; made of squirrel or miniver), and golier (debauchee), as do many other medieval Hebrew documents produced in France, most famously the commentaries of Rashi of Troyes.

      Low linguistic varieties typically exert a phonological influence on high varieties, and often a grammatical influence as well. In medieval northern France, the pronunciation of Hebrew was influenced by French, as were its morphology and syntax.⁷⁶ Although these phenomena generally fall beyond the scope of this book, I note a few examples here. In the documents relating to the Blois massacre of 1171 invoked above, the gender and form of the Hebrew masculine noun ‘or (hide) is adapted to the gender of its French counterpart, peau, resulting in feminine ‘orah, which seems to be a hapax legomenon.⁷⁷ In a Hebrew-French glossary of bird and animal names in a miscellany owned by the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, discussed in Chapter 3, the gender of the Hebrew possessive suffix is sometimes influenced by the vernacular translation of the Hebrew word to which it refers. Thus, the masculine noun ‘atalef (bat), translated into Old French as feminine pie (magpie), is described as “the bird [‘of, m.] that is wrapped [me‘ulaf, m.] in her wings [bi-knafeyha].” The last word bears a third-person singular feminine suffix.

      We have already pointed out that high linguistic varieties tend to be used for formal, written purposes, and low linguistic varieties for informal, conversational ones. While this is essentially true, we must also heed the words of scholars such as Jan Ziolkowski, who, writing about the Latin Middle Ages, has warned against distinguishing between “oral and literate … or popular and learned” too sharply.⁷⁸ French may have been used by medieval Jews primarily for oral purposes, but this book would not have been written if they had not sometimes put it in writing. Hebrew was fundamentally a written language, but this did not prevent an oral culture from growing up around it.⁷⁹ Even illiterate Jews spoke Hebrew aloud while praying or reciting benedictions. They sang in Hebrew, too. Hebrew or Aramaic borrowings almost certainly made their way into the Jews’ spoken French, just as they infiltrated their written French and oral performances. In short, two languages in a diglossic relationship may occupy separate functional spaces, but these spaces can and do overlap, and the languages do as well.

      Diglossia is about groups, not individuals, and so it does not matter if some Jews had little or no Hebrew knowledge. The culture as a whole was diglossic because certain functions were associated with Hebrew and others with the vernacular. In a similar way, medieval Christian culture has often been termed diglossic, with the high variety Latin and the low variety the local vernacular. It does not matter that many, if not most, Christians were illiterate or that even “as the age of print neared, many peasants, burghers, and even aristocrats remained essentially within oral-aural culture,” as Brian Stock observes.⁸⁰ Literacy was not a prerequisite for inclusion in the Latin-language community, which, following Stock, refers to the textual community formed by Christians, both litterati and illiterati, who lived lives centered around Latin texts or literate interpreters of them.⁸¹ Diglossia is not bilingualism.⁸²

      Scholars seem to agree that most Jewish men in late medieval Europe, and specifically twelfth- to thirteenth-century northern France, learned to read and write Hebrew to varying degrees.⁸³ Of course, the ability to read texts did not entail the ability to write them. One could learn to read Hebrew well and sign one’s name without learning to write it fluently, a skill that Sirat identifies with certain professions, such as those in law and education. Jewish boys in France were initiated into the study of Hebrew and Torah, and hence into the male sphere, as early as age five or six.⁸⁴ Prior to this they spent most of their time in the care of their mothers and other women.⁸⁵ The association between maleness and learning was made clear in a number of early childhood rituals, beginning with naming and circumcision in infancy, and culminating with a boy’s initiation into schooling.⁸⁶ In England, literacy among male Jews appears to have been similarly common.⁸⁷

      Jewish communities sometimes assumed the responsibility of paying for the education of boys from poor families through charity, but not universally.⁸⁸ Ephraim Kanarfogel has demonstrated that the education of poor children did sometimes suffer as a result of the financial situation of their parents. In the region roughly corresponding to today’s Germany and northern France, teaching was generally done by a melammed (tutor), hired by the child’s father or a group of fathers. In the absence of money to hire a melammed, a child had to rely on charity, which was not always available, or on his own father, who was not always willing or able to teach him.⁸⁹ Similarly, Irving Agus, drawing on responsa literature, has argued that in Germany, Jews living in “small and isolated communities,” of which there were many in France as well,⁹⁰ were less likely to attain high learning.⁹¹

      Jewish girls and women were exposed to Hebrew and learned Hebrew prayers, but their education was generally a practical one not involving formal study of Hebrew or Hebrew texts.⁹² Exposure to prayer in Hebrew may have helped them develop a basic familiarity with the language, but it would not have enabled them to become proficient. Unlike Jewish men, women were not obligated to study the Law, and it is specified in the Talmud that a Torah scroll, tefillin, or mezuzot copied by women are pesulim, or invalid.⁹³ Most evidence for a lack of Hebrew proficiency among Jewish women is indirect. The Mishnah allows the translation of certain religious texts and prayers into the vernacular for the benefit of those who do not know Hebrew, and religious authorities of many places and periods have reiterated this, including Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi (eleventh century), Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) in Hilkhot Tefillah (Laws of prayer), Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi (c. 1200– 1263), Isaiah ben Elijah di Trani (d. c. 1280), Asher ben Jehiel (c. 1250–1327), and his son, Jacob ben Asher (d. 1340).⁹⁴ One rabbi who put this into action was Solomon Ha-Qadosh of Dreux or Rouen (twelfth to thirteenth century),⁹⁵ who is said to have recited the Passover Haggadah in French (bela‘az)—only up to the end of the four questions—so that even women would understand.⁹⁶ Another is Jacob ben Judah of London, author of Ets Ḥayyim (Tree of life; c. 1286), who is said to have translated the entire Haggadah into the vernacular, presumably French, again so that women and children would understand.⁹⁷ At Passover, on the seventh day, it was customary, according to the Maḥzor Vitry, to translate the Parashah and the Haftarah readings in the synagogue into the vernacular; however, women are not specifically mentioned there as benefiting from this practice.⁹⁸ The aforementioned Spanish scholar Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi observed that in his own time, Jewish women everywhere, including in France, prayed in the vernacular rather than Hebrew.⁹⁹ It is possible to be proficient in Hebrew and yet choose to pray in another language. However, the custom among women of praying in the vernacular rather than Hebrew, even in the synagogue, is more readily understood if they were less proficient in reading and understanding Hebrew than were Jewish men.

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