Why are linguists fascinated by American Jewish accent?

1880 During the First World War, the tide of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe crashed on the coast of the United States. They speak Yiddish, then English, with a special tone, a singing spell. About ten years later, linguists began to pay attention. "People are starting to notice that, hehe, they speak English a little funny," said Rachel Standerburding, a linguist who studies Jewish English at the University of New Hampshire.

The study of melody, pitch, pause and intonation is called "rhythm". If it is still a very profound topic, it is a hot topic now. But for those who have heard of one of the most famous comedians in the 20th century, the rhythm style of the Jews is familiar-Jerry Seifield, Woody Allen, don rickles and others all took advantage of its rich texture. Perhaps the best example is mel brooks, who was in the movie Space Ball of 1987 at 0:58:

"Have you heard of me?" There are so many words in this little sentence: "If an outdated accent is obvious new york accent, turn" listening "into" holding ". (This feature is called curl-curl merger, and actually only people born in new york before World War II can hear it. In addition, he did not regard this question as a problem in any typical American English; The focus and scope of this question is not like a question that a non-Jew would ask. Brooks typed the word "listen" on the court, and then returned to "mine".

Scholars say, yes, there is an American Jewish accent, but it is very complicated. Bourdin said: "Intonation has become the stepson of red-haired linguistics. For a long time, people have been debating whether it is really a part of the language system or whether it is superior to the language system in other ways, "Burdin said. Linguists are only about 15 years old, and only a few people have begun to systematically study rhythm, timbre, intonation, stress and phonetic pause, and this research is still in its infancy. This is a particularly vague field in English, and melody is not as important as other languages. However, there are also some groups whose speeches have long been described as singles, and they are suddenly interested in researchers who have opened up new fields in rhythm research. Appalachia is one of them. The other is Jewish English.

The first question about Jewish English is its definition. Jews scattered around the world have established different cultures and languages for thousands of years, so the random classification of American Jews does not guarantee that they will sound the same when speaking English. Hispanic Jews from the Mediterranean, Jews who immigrated to Poland from the motherland in the early 20th century, and Jews from Israel have almost no speech patterns. They may not even have the same basic language; A person may be born to speak Ladino (a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew), a person can speak Yiddish and a person can speak Hebrew.

However, a special Jewish group has become the representative of all American Jews in the public imagination. From about 1880 to 1920, the largest Jewish wave came to the United States, and most Jews (Eastern Europeans) fled the massacres in Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. These people have settled disproportionately in new york City; Even today, it is estimated that there are 2,654,380+Jews in new york metropolitan area, which is 3.5 times higher than that in the second most populous area in the United States. In fact, there are more Jews in new york than in any other city in the world except Tel Aviv.

The main language of Jews in new york is Yiddish, a Germanic language, which is greatly influenced by Hebrew, Aramaic and various Slavic languages. While learning to speak English, these Jews also started a cultural invasion in the United States. Since 1930s, Jewish comedians like Henny Youngman ("Please bring my wife …"), Zero Mostel, jerry lewis, mel blanc and Sid Caesar have become superstars and comedians in the northern holiday resort "Luo Songtang Belt". New York

These Jews and their descendants-mel brooks, Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield, george burns and don rickles-played an important role in defining how American Jews speak for the country and the world. It is worth noting that almost all American-born men speak English as their first language. However, influenced by Yiddish spoken by their parents and communities and new york where they grew up, they all enriched their language patterns in a very unique way.

Sarah Bunin Benor, a linguist at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, said, "I think new york plays a very important role in the language of Jews in North America. He is a person who studies the American Jewish language. Many accent quirks related to Jewish English are just a series of features of new york English. For example, the "O" before the "R", such as "terror" or "Florida" (two words commonly used by Jews), is because the tongue falls off more easily than most Americans. So there are "terrible" and "Flahrida".

This behavior transcends the regional accent. Benor conducted a study and found that even Jews whose parents are not from new york or new york are more than twice as likely to use the pronunciation of "Flahrida" as non-Jews. Not only that, these non-new york Jews also speak "online" instead of "online" and distinguish the pronunciations of "Mary" and "happy" more frequently than non-Jews. New york people. Jews, no matter where they come from, sound a bit like new york. This is not an established fact, but it is still a strange and amazing thing.

It can be predicted that Jews are more likely than non-Jews to use Jewish or Hebrew words in their daily speeches, although many of these words have been divorced from the community and standard English. Klutz, schpiel, maven, especially food words (bagels, pastrami, challah) are likely to find their own way in non-Jewish speeches, although they may not have the same frequency or the same kind of Jews in their speeches. Some people are even stranger than simple foreign words from Yiddish or Hebrew: think of adding "schm" at the beginning of words, such as "money schmoney" or "art schmart".

Or there is a complete phrase directly transferred from Yiddish or a phrase structure ending in English. In most American English, the predicate cannot be placed before the subject; Think of a simple phrase, such as "I want to eat pizza". But in Yiddish, this order is sometimes reversed: "I want pizza." Yahhish often keeps this Yoda speaking mode. Another strange thing is: "Enough", which is a common American English phrase. I don't think I realize how strange its structure is. It turns out that this is directly translated from an ordinary Yiddish phrase genug shoyn.

Another major American Jewish English accent comes from the more rigorous Jewish community, namely Orthodox Church and Hasidic School. This is sometimes called a "Jewish institution of higher learning", which comes from the word "Jewish institution of higher learning" and usually refers to the organized study of Jewish Bible texts. Judaism, like the more secular Jewish English of mel brooks and Woody Allen, has some connection with new york City, but it is greatly influenced by Yiddish. Many of its most unique elements are actually very unrealistic direct translation of Yiddish phrases and intonations.

Take the sentence "I want you" as an example. The last part "you should" is not a typical American English part, but a way to directly translate your Yiddish to express your specific ideas. Instead of saying "I want you to bring a blanket", or even the more common and perhaps more polite "You can bring a blanket", people with a Jewish accent will say "I hope you should bring a blanket". What is worth it? The Yiddish word "you should" is az duzol St.

The speaker Yeshivish also used what Benor called "hesitant click", which is a non-word "tsk" type of sound, indicating what happened before you were revising in the middle of a sentence. It comes from Israeli Hebrew, which also includes other non-word clicks-very unlike English.

However, among our old friends, what Yeshivish really started to be different was the inexplicable tone. Burdin's research shows that Jews use English speeches more widely than non-Jews: Generally speaking, mel brooks's "You've heard of me" has a low-high-low-high ratio. This is difficult to explain in the text. Let's watch the video (1: 10 enters this video):

Listen to how he often rises and falls in the imperial court. This is what Burdin is trying to measure. Jewish English is monotonous and more important than other forms of English. But for Yeshivish, the oneness of words can actually be close to chanting. Beno believes that this comes from the study of the Talmud, in which there are no written punctuation marks. "On the contrary, people who learn it will basically use their own tone to express commas and periods." This will shift to everyday speech, which will only become crude, "she said.

We mark English terms in English; Think about the sentence "If you go to the mall, you can't go to the movies". The word "mall" will rise slightly, then pause, and then the word "then" will drop significantly on the court. But in Judaism, it is more refined; Even the word "if" may have vulgar elements, which will become very low in this word. The specific melody of these two clauses will be more complicated; The "shopping center" may be high rather than high.

In the English of mel brooks, a secular Jewish Englishman, this same monotonous song element has different heights, although it is more reticent. One of them is the expression of the question, which is almost an interrogation. "Have you heard of me?" Is not a normal question; The improvement of "listening" and the reduction of "I" sound Jewish, but it also changes the meaning. The real meaning of this question is not "Oh, do you already know who I am?" But "I hope you've heard of me. I may be a little annoyed." You may even ask, of course, this is me. " Another example is this clip by the roadside. Your passion in Larry David tried to tell more Jews than him:

Of course, the fact that Larry David wears this accent instead of simply using it naturally raises the question: Is the Jewish accent still there? Both Benor and Burdin point out that you will hear the secular Jewish accent, mel brooks accent, which is the most common situation when someone, hopefully usually a Jew, mentions clothes. You can even perform on Broadway, which is the best program of all performances, just like the new "Oh, hello". This monotonous relaxation, frequent use of Yiddish, and of course intentional sentence patterns in Yiddish, those Jews born after 1950 have basically been eliminated.

But this does not mean that Jews no longer listen to Jews. New york people have a strange insistence. For one or two things, Benor discovered the usage of some Yiddish words in Hebrew, such as shul (meaning synagogue), which is higher among Jews than it was 20 years ago. This may be traced back to the successful birthday rights program, in which young Jews got free Israeli tour guides. ) Because these communities maintain close ties, and the Yesh accent is actually stronger than before. "Even if the accent is disappearing," Burdin said, "I think the expression of the accent still exists."

Another immortal element is the special dialogue style of Jews. When Deborah Tannen, a linguist, recorded dinner conversations between Jews and non-Jews (her work was published in 198 1), she found that the incidence of quarrels and interruptions (or "cooperation overlap") between Jews was higher. Pauses are also different: Jews tend to use shorter pauses and there are fewer pauses between sentences. Just like intonation, in a strict linguistic sense, this is not a real "accent", but a broad answer to "how Jews and non-Jews speak differently", which is an important element.

Jewish accent is different from other accents, just as American Jews are different from other ethnic minorities. This is chaos and chaos, pulling elements from all over the world. But telling jokes is great.