Yiddish Frowns on Gender-Nouns
NEWS ITEM: Students of Yiddish in universities are taught to treat nouns as either masculine or feminine. But among Hasidim — the foremost speakers of Yiddish today — grammatical gender is largely ignored. Hasidim, for example, use di (“the”) for most nouns without respect to the noun’s gender. (Di has historically been applied only to female nouns, while the equivalent der has been used for male nouns.) As Yiddish scholar Zelda Kahan Newman recently noted in the Forward, a gap has emerged between the Yiddish that is actually spoken among Hasidim and the formal Yiddish taught in universities. She called for more attention to be paid to Yiddish as spoken by Hasidic Jews.
So who would know? So who would guess?
That Yiddish nouns go genderless?
Gramatic’ly, we bid adieus
To gender ’mongst Hasidic Jews.
The der and di as specified
In texts no longer are applied
In daily verbal intercourse
Where mameloshn thrives, perforce.
Consider di, the word for “the”:
All nouns take di now equally,
While “the” as der goes all unused
Among Hasidim! We’re confused!
(The word for female nouns is di,
While der is masculine, you see?)
Illogic’ly, old grammar rules
Continue to be taught in schools,
But Yiddish, in vernacular,
Elects to follow its own star.
The Yiddish tongue, once scorned and shunned,
Refuses to be moribund!
Hasidim, with their glottic skill,
Keep it alive and versatile.
Indeed, they teach it to their kids,
Who constitute our future Yids!
If they change Yiddish more, we might
Some day read it from left to right!
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
