Vernacular Voices. Kirsten A. Fudeman
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Vernacular Voices - Kirsten A. Fudeman страница 17

Название: Vernacular Voices

Автор: Kirsten A. Fudeman

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Языкознание

Серия: Jewish Culture and Contexts

isbn: 9780812205350

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ to some extent. In at least two Hebrew-French glossaries, Hebrew ha-qadmoni (“the Easterner”; Joel 2:20) is glossed into French using a hybrid Hebrew-French term, ber MIZRAḤ. (“man of the east”),126 and mizraḥ is attested as a French Jewish word for “east” elsewhere as well.127 A glossary once held in Turin glosses yemin ha-‘ir (2 Sam. 24:5; “the right/south side of the city”) as a DAROM de la vile (“to the south of the city”), with Hebrew darom used instead of French sud to translate Hebrew yamin (“right hand; south”).128 The Paris glossary edited by Lambert and Brandin translates ruaḥha-yam (Ezek. 42:19; “the west side”) as le ongle de ma‘arav (“the west corner”).129 W. Bacher, in his review of that edition, considers the small number of instances where Hebrew is used in translating other Hebrew terms as evidence of the purity of the Jews’ French,130 but one might ask, in a text whose purpose seems to be the translation of Hebrew words into the vernacular, why use Hebrew in the glosses at all? In each case, the Hebrew word used in the so-called vernacular translation is different from the one it translates, and I suggest that the use of Hebrew terms highlights the near synonymy of darom and yamin (“south”), qadmon and mizraḥ (“east”), and ha-yam (“the sea” and thence “west, westward,” from the position of the Mediterranean relative to Palestine), and ma‘arav (“west”). At the same time, the occasional use of Hebrew terms asserts the Jewish identity shared by glossator and reader without impeding understanding. We might add that the glossator’s French and Jewish identities are both salient, making code-switching an unmarked choice.131 Still another example of the use of Hebrew direction words in the Jews’ French comes from the Troyes elegy. One of the thirteen martyrs is called lo qadmeneis, with qadmeneis formed by adding a French suffix to the Hebrew root qadmon (“east”), as discussed below.

      Medieval Jewish texts in Old French also contain hybrid words created by combining pieces from both Hebrew and French. Composers of macaronic poetry from the early sixteenth century onward, including Teofilo Folengo, sometimes added Latin endings to vernacular roots and words for a burlesque effect,132 but in medieval Jewish texts, the roots tend to be from the learned tongue and the endings from the vernacular, and the intent is not burlesque. They are more akin to borrowings in any number of languages that participate in derivational and inflectional processes—an example is French je sunbathais (“I was sunbathing”). The root sunbath- (from English) bears the French first-person singular imperfect ending -ais.133

      The Troyes elegy preserves two such words: ‘asqer (“to study the law”) and qadmeneis (“Easterner”).134 Qadmeneis combines a Hebrew root (qadmon [“eastern”]) with the Old French adjectival suffix –eis (mod. Fr. –ais; “belonging to, originating in”). Qadmon also means “ancient, primeval,” and cultural contacts between French- and German-speaking Jews were close, so for some French speakers, qadmeneis would have evoked a presumable form akin to modern Yiddish kadmoynish (“ancient, primeval”).135 The martyr described as lo qadmeneis in the elegy seems to have been both an Easterner and an old man: he approaches the fire with particular dignity and the poet declares, de bone ore fu nez!, a double entendre meaning both “it is fortunate that he was born” and “he was born at a good hour, i.e., early” (cf. mod. Fr. de bonne heure [“early”]).136 Qadmeneis occurs in the rhyme, and it may be a literary flourish, the result of one individual’s linguistic creativity. (It also occurs in a list of the martyrs’ names from the Mainz Memorbuch,137 but we cannot discount the possibility that the writer of that list knew the elegy.) Even so, the author’s use of qadmeneis implies a belief that at least part of his intended audience would understand it and perhaps even derive pleasure from his linguistic creativity.

      ‘Asqer (“to study the law”) is built from the Hebrew-Aramaic root ‘-s-q and the French infinitival ending -er.138 Like melder (“study”) (discussed above) in the line before it (medeient, 3pl imperfect), it is fully integrated into the sentential syntax of the following stanza. Embedded as it is in the middle of its line, it cannot be a poetic response to the exigencies of rhyme.

      Troblee eit notre joie e notre deduit

      D’[i]sos qui medeie[n]t la Torah e l’aveie[n]t en lor co[n]duit.

      Os ne fineie[n]t d’‘asqer e lo jor e la nuit.139

      (Our joy and pleasure are troubled

      By those who studied Torah and had it in their safekeeping.

      They did not stop studying the law by day or by night.)

      As is often the case in mixed-language poetry, the exceptional words—here medeient and ‘asqer—depart in a fundamental way from the author’s lexical choices in other parts of the text.140 The elegy’s French vocabulary has been described as “courtly” by Susan Einbinder,141 and the passage given above begins with a phrase that would be at home in romances such as Thomas of Britain’s Tristan or Chrétien de Troyes’ Cligès, where suffering accompanies and intensifies emotional and physical joy, and vice versa. Joie e deduit is a common doublet used to express joy in the romance genre. Equally common are the words describing pain and suffering in the elegy: sofrir (suffer), dolor (grief), poine (pain).142 Meder (melder) and ‘asqer, in contrast, belong to a semantic field concerned with Jewish study, and their use contributes to a “poétique de contrastes.”

      I have come across at least one possible example of the opposite kind of hybridity. Eight manuscripts of Joseph Kara’s (b. 1050–1055, d. 1120–1030) commentary to Jeremiah gloss Hebrew we-hitpalleshu (“and roll yourselves [in dust, etc.]” Jer. 25:34) as velopu/volopu, which seems to consist of the Old French root velop-/volop- (cf. infinitive veloper, voloper; “envelop”) and a Hebrew plural suffix. (The expected reflexive pronoun is missing.) It is possible that all eight manuscripts reflect an earlier copying error. It is equally possible, however, that Kara wished the morphological structure of the French gloss to mimic that of the Hebrew, possibly to call attention to the fact that, in the second-person plural imperative, Hebrew makes a distinction between masculine (hitpalleshu) and feminine (hitpalleshnah) that French does not.143

      Words like ‘asqer, qadmeneis, and volopu may represent the coupling of Hebrew and French in medieval Jewish texts at its most intimate, but medieval texts in both Old French and Hebrew offer many more examples of switching from one language to the other for practical or stylistic reasons. In medieval Hebrew texts, French words are sometimes set off by linking expressions such as (she-)qorin (“[that] they call”), (she-)lo‘azin (“[that] they render in French,” or lit. “a language other than Hebrew”), or be-la‘az (“in a language other than Hebrew,” i.e., French). At other times the words are fully integrated into the Hebrew syntax, preceded by the Hebrew definite article prefix ha- (“the”) or prepositional prefixes meaning “to” or “in,” or the conjunction we- (“and”). The Maḥzor Vitry contains many examples of this kind.

      (THEY WASH THEIR HANDS AND THEY SAY THE BLESSING “ ‘AL NETILAT YADAYIM” [i.e., the blessing recited upon washing the hands]. AND THEY PRESENT THE BOWL FILLED WITH HERBS AND TAKE SOME OF THE chervil [Old French cerfueil] AND HE SAYS THE BLESSING “BORE’ PERI HA-ADA-MAH” [i.e., the blessing recited over products of the soil].)144

      Old French cerfueil СКАЧАТЬ