Humorous anecdote of the interaction between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in 19th century London

[u/IbnEzra613]

Found this passage when looking up a reference given by Rabbi Shalom Morris in his video about S&P Sukkah customs: https://youtu.be/VCohrPVh7VU

It is from the book Festival Studies by Israel Abrahams, published 1906. Here's a link to the passage: https://books.google.com/books?id=iG9BAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA74

[u/themightyjoedanger]

Git 'em, alter Sefard!

[u/lobotomy42]

I am so confused by what is happening in this passage

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/lobotomy42]

Not sure if this is what was confusing you or not, but some context:

• The Sephardi community in London and Amsterdam is distinct and refers to itself as "Spanish and Portuguese" (S&P) or just "Portuguese", because a dominant portion of them came from Portugal
  
• Tedesco means German, i.e. Ashkenazi
  
• The S&P tradition is to pronounce the letter ע as "ng", hence "Shemang" instead of "Shema‘"
  
• For the t in Yitrael, see my other responses here

[u/NZBroadarrow → u/IbnEzra613]

I think the transliteration of ע as "ng" was the standard at the time and not part of the Ashkenazi/Portugese dimension of the story.

The old Ashkenazi pronunciation of ע was a lot more gutteral and close (but not quite) to an "ng". You see the "ng" or "n" transliterations a lot in older Ashkenazi sources, and it survives today in things like the Yiddishe version of Yaakov being Yankev.

[u/NZBroadarrow → u/NZBroadarrow]

In fact, you can see an example of שמע transliterated as "shemang" in this image of a prayer sheet prepared for Confederate soldiers in in 1861 by Max Michelbacher, Rabbi of Congregation Beth Ahabah in Richmond Virginia, originally from Oettingen, Bavaria.

https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/prayer-of-the-C.S.-Soldiers-Max-Michelbacher-ca.-1861-scaled.jpg

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/NZBroadarrow]

Transliteration and pronunciation are not the same thing. It was also common for Ashkenazim to transliterate sav as "th" (think of the all the Ashkenazi institutions named Beth Israel or similar), even though they pronounced it as s.

The ng in Ashkenazi pronunciation had fallen away many centuries earlier. Words like Yankev, manse, etc are just relics (also compare the odd puzzle of yandes for יהדות and bansher for באשר).

Meanwhile the S&P still do use the "ng" pronunciation for ע.

[u/tladaney → u/IbnEzra613]

I googled and apparently ע might have done double duty as both a guttural version of vowel sounds and a sound very similar to the modern Israeli "r". Over time that completed faded away in Ashkenazi culture and in Sephardi culture the guttural-r moved forward to become "ng". Ironic that this same sound is now associated with resh (r) in Israel!

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/tladaney]

I've heard this theory floated around by non-experts, but it's not likely. The uvular ע (what you referred to as the "guttural-r") most likely died off centuries before the Roman exile. Rather, the it's the pharyngeal ע (the one you hear to this day from "Mizrahi" Jews) that somehow evolved into "ng" in Western Europe.

I will correct you though that the guttural-r version of ע was certainly a bit different than the Israeli guttural ר. In fact, there was already a guttural ר in the early medieval period, and it coexisted with a sound much like the original guttural-r ע, which was the "soft ג", that is the ג without the dot. In fact, most Sephardim including the S&P preserved this pronunciation of ג without a dot, which is another reason that the explanation that this sound is responsible for the "ng" version of ע doesn't hold up.

[u/sonoforwel]

“Yitrael”? Why would they pronounce the sin that way?

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/sonoforwel]

If you grow up saying, for example, yisgadal and yiskadash, and you know your neighbors say yitgadal and yitkadash, you might mistakenly think they'd also say yitrael instead of yisrael.

[u/sonoforwel → u/IbnEzra613]

I understand that premise, but a Jew would be familiar enough with the name Yisrael. The bit that I think would really have given him away is the pronunciation of the Portuguese ע, or the Ashkenazi kamatz. This feels like it’s playing up a stereotype of Ashkenazim being ignorant. I wouldn’t doubt that people would have laughed at that line.

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/sonoforwel]

Of course they know Yisrael. They just don't necessarily know how their Sephardi neighbors say it.

[u/Son_of_the_Spear → u/sonoforwel]

That is the trick about it - some people who were less knowledgeable, when switching accents simply changed all 's' to 't'.

But this is where this would not happen in the accent.

[u/ShalomRPh → u/Son_of_the_Spear]

Reminds me of the joke where a chassidishe guy was trying to pretend to be a Litvak.

He starts making kiddush "Vayehi erev vayehi boker, yom ha shoo shoo..."

(or "tehilas hashem yedabeir pooh")

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/ShalomRPh]

I think you mean he was trying to be a Lutvak.

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[u/tesilab]

This is an in-joke. No one actually makes that mistake, since they clearly know Yisrael is written with a sin and not with a saf/taf.

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/tesilab]

Today, you'd be right. But back then (in the 19th century), the average-joe Ashkenazi may not have known what strange rule applies when the Sephardim say t instead of s. Sure they knew that Yisrael is spelled with a sin, but that doesn't mean they knew how the Sephardim would pronounce it.