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A Guide to Old Literary Yiddish
A Guide to
Old Literary Yiddish
JEROLD C. FR AK ES
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Jerold C. Frakes 2017
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
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rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954564
ISBN 978–0–19–878502–6
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents
Preface xi
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 1
Initial orientation 1
Periodization in Yiddish 3
A brief survey of Old Literary Yiddish language and literature 5
Lesson One 11
The alphabet and grapho-phonemic system of Old Literary Yiddish 11
Modern Ashkenazic semi-cursive script 12
Final and non-final letters 14
Grapho-phonemes of Old Literary Yiddish 14
Suggested pronunciation of symbols 19
Masoretic punctation (vowel pointing) 22
Umlaut23
One further vowel shift 26
Word-final obstruent devoicing 26
Word accent 28
Lesson Two 29
“Joseph the Righteous” (ll. 1–4) 30
Grammar33
Grammatical gender 33
Grammatical case 34
Word order (syntax) 36
Lesson Three 39
Grammar40
Personal pronouns 40
The definite article 41
Negation42
Lesson Four 45
Grammar48
Dative of possession 48
Adjective inflections 48
vi contents
Lesson Five 51
Grammar52
Familiar and polite mode of address 52
Possessive adjectives 53
Lesson Six 55
Grammar57
The OLY verbal system 57
Strong and weak verbs 59
Adverb formation 61
Supplemental reading: Worms Maḥzor couplet 61
Lesson Seven 63
Grammar65
Infinitive (present active) 65
Present active indicative 65
Relative pronouns 66
Indefinite article 66
Supplemental reading: “Whither am I to go?” 67
Lesson Eight 69
Grammar70
Present tense, anomalous verb ‘to be’ 70
Noun declensions 71
Noun plurals 73
Supplemental reading: Riddle 74
Lesson Nine 77
“Briyo and Zimro” 77
Grammar80
Diminutives80
Demonstrative pronouns 81
Supplemental reading: “Traveler’s charm” 81
Lesson Ten 85
Grammar88
Comparative/superlative88
Preterite active indicative 89
Stem-changing strong verbs 90
Supplemental reading: Medical remedies 91
contentsvii
Lesson Eleven 95
Introduction95
Mashket script/font 96
Supplemental reading: Remedies 107
Lesson Twelve 109

Grammar112
Imperative112
Quasi-construct state 112
Nested genitive construction 113
Lesson Thirteen 115

Grammar118
Past participle 118
Separable and inseparable prefix verbs 118
The perfect tenses 120
Lesson Fourteen 123

Grammar125
Passive voice 125
Consecutive word order 126
Lesson Fifteen 129

Grammar132
Punctuation132
Periphrastic (progressive) tense 134
Numbers and numerals 134
Lesson Sixteen 139

Grammar142
Prepositions142
Lesson Seventeen 147

viii contents
Grammar151
Formation of the subjunctive 151
Uses of the subjunctive 153
Supplemental reading: “Mighty is He” 154
Lesson Eighteen 157

Grammar159
Periphrastic verbal constructions 159
Whole Hebrew and merged Hebrew 160
Supplemental reading: Letter to Pelayn 162
Lesson Nineteen 165

Grammar168
Final syllable reduction 168
Future tense 169
Supplemental reading: “A Fable of an Old Man with Two Wives” 170
Lesson Twenty 173

Grammar177
Preterite present verbs 177
Supplemental reading: “Song of the Kid” 179
Lesson Twenty-One 181

Grammar186
Overview of auxiliary verbs 186
Irregular weak verbs 187
Calendar187
The year 188
Supplemental reading: Tuesday Courier/Friday Courier190
Lesson Twenty-Two 193

“Rashi” script/font 193
Pariz and Viene (stanzas 249–58) 194
Grammar208
Overview of genitive case function 208
Overview of dative case function 209
Lesson Twenty-Three 213

Grammar219
Syntax219
contentsix
Lesson Twenty-Four 225

Grammar232
Interrogatives232
Indefinite pronouns 232
Word order of objects 233
Contractions233
Conditional234
Lesson Twenty-Five 237

Grammar246
Kinship terms 246
Further periphrastic verbs 246
Anomalous verbs 247
Appendices:
Appendix 1. Hebrew Fonts and Scripts 251
Appendix 2. Old Literary Yiddish Verb Classes 253
Appendix 3. Facsimiles 263
Appendix 4. Additional Readings 271
1. Excerpt from Women’s Commandments (1504) 271
2. Excerpt from The Book of Virtues (1542) 273
3. “David and Goliath,” excerpt from The Book of Samuel (1544) 279
4. “Alexander and the Amazons,” excerpt from Yosifon (1546) 286
5. “The Binding of Isaac” (1579) 288
6. “Baking Matzah,” excerpt from Isaac Tyrnau, Customs (1593) 298
7. “Pumay” (c. 1600) 300
8. Rebecca b. Meir Tiktiner, “A Simḥas-Torah Song” (1650) 301
9. Genesis 1 from Jekuthiel b. Isaac Blitz (1676–9) 304
10. “Shabbatai Ṣevi,” excerpt from Glikl Hamil (1691) 305
Appendix 5. Further Reading 309
Glossary311
Permissions 367
Bibliography 369
Index 373
Preface
This volume addresses learners of the literary language of the Old and Middle
Yiddish period, which, for reasons explained below, will here be designated Old Lit-
erary Yiddish (hereinafter: OLY). It is anticipated that such learners may come from
a variety of academic or non-academic backgrounds and preparations, including
those who are starting at ground zero, i.e. without a knowledge of the Jewish/
Hebrew alphabet, and thus without a knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, or modern
East Yiddish (modEY), perhaps even without a knowledge of any language beyond
English. At the other extreme may be readers who know modEY, Hebrew, medieval
and/or modern German, and have training in historical linguistics. For this reason,
almost every reader of this volume will find some sections quite difficult and others
quite unnecessary: readers of modEY, Judeo-Aramaic, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-
Persian, or Hebrew will not need to learn the basics of the alphabet (although they
will need to pay close attention to the many ways in which OLY represents sounds,
especially vowels, that are not immediately apparent to those who use the Hebrew
alphabet for other languages). On the other hand, those who know Latin, Russian,
or classical Arabic, for instance, will not need the basic introduction to grammati-
cal gender, which will be essential for monolingual English speakers, or case, which
will be essential for bilingual Anglophone Hebrew speakers. Examples of the differ-
ent needs of the range of potential readers could be multiplied almost indefinitely.
Individual readers will then necessarily proceed at their own pace, whether in an
organized class or through independent study, devoting more or less attention to
individual sections, as their own situation dictates.
In general, an introduction to a currently spoken language has as its goal to pre-
sent to the student a series of progressively more difficult lessons, starting at the
level of the absolute beginner who has no knowledge of the target language, by
means of which the student will generally acquire the “four skills” (reading, writ-
ing, listening comprehension, speaking) of language proficiency. On the other
hand, an introduction to a language or to a period of a language that no longer has
any native speakers, native readers, or currently productive native writers obvi-
ously has in large part different goals and methods, since there is little demand or
practical use for learning to order pizza or write biology textbooks in, say, Gothic,
Old Irish, or in the present case, OLY. So it is with introductory textbooks of most
medieval languages.1
In the present case, the practical issues would become immediately apparent on
the first page of a (hypothetical) “four-skills” introduction to OLY: no one alive can
provide the idiomatic OLY equivalent of “See Spot. See Spot run” or: “Excuse me,
1 Although not so with Old Norse, since 21st-century Icelandic school children read medieval texts
written in Old Norse with facility. And the same could in general be maintained for classical Arabic,
which differs from modern standard Arabic essentially only in the vocabulary of material culture (no
“photocopy machines” or “oil tankers” in medieval Arabic texts, for instance).
xii preface
miss. Could we have another round of craft-brew IPAs, and the bill, when you have
a moment?” Nor is such knowledge in any way necessary: since the goal of such an
instructional manual is not to enable students to read texts about our contempo-
rary world or to participate actively in our world in the target language, the absence
of live native informants is generally less relevant. The goal of any user of an intro-
duction to OLY is obviously to learn to read documents written in that language
from the period 1100–1750 (although in this book the texts included date from the
period 1272–1699).
There are no readings in the book that have been invented by the textbook’s
author, i.e. no attempt on my part to compose anything in OLY,2 but rather I have
simply included authentic and extant texts from that period, and on the basis of
those texts provided the student with the grammatical, lexical, and (minimal) cul-
tural tools necessary to read and understand them. On the one hand, that should
be a comfort to the student: there are none of the awkwardly constructed (and often
parodied) sentences here that one finds in older language textbooks of dead lan-
guages (e.g. “the two elderly female dwarves danced vigorously on the stone floor
of the ancient mead-hall swept with rushes before the roaring fire of well-aged logs
that had been cut and carried from the nearby forest by the esteemed nobleman’s
enterprising foster-sons”), that try to cram as many examples of grammatical usage
and vocabulary as possible into a single sentence, the result being that the sentence
becomes a monster that no one who actually spoke the target language could ever
have imagined uttering. Rejoice in the absence of such artificial linguistic beasts.
On the other hand, however, since there are no extant authentic texts composed
in the overly simple style most appropriate for elementary readers, it means that
already in the first text the reader confronts not the semantically and syntactically
simplistic “See Spot. See Spot run” (with illustrations of a cute puppy) but rather
real, authentic, literary language as it was used by and for its native speakers. That
is, it is something akin to learning the Cyrillic alphabet in the first two lessons of a
beginning Russian course and on the third day being handed a copy of Tolstoy’s
Вoйна и мир and told to turn to page 175 and begin “reading,” i.e. not reading at all,
but slogging through the text, word by word, wearing out a reference grammar and
dictionary in the process. Except that OLY texts are, additionally, not a mere centu-
ry-and-a-half old, as is Tolstoy’s novel, but indeed four to seven centuries old. There
is, alas, no easy access point. But then again, the purpose of this textbook is to
obviate the difficulty of the slog itself by providing comprehensive grammatical
and lexical aid at each step of the way. That should again encourage the reader.
The reader should be forewarned, however: it is not possible to learn a “dead”
language without also studying its grammar, and it is not possible to study gram-
mar without making tactical use of grammatical or linguistic terminology. The
present volume is not a linguistic treatise, and every effort has been made to use
linguistic terminology pragmatically, that is, only when necessary, but then again
always when necessary, since that terminology makes both tactical and strategic
explanation possible. There is no point, for instance, in wasting a half-page in
2 There are, however, a couple of brief sentences that manipulate an extant OLY sentence to illustrate
distinctions in word order.
prefacexiii
explanation in order to avoid the common linguistic designation “nominative case”

every time that that concept arises and thus every time that those two words can
specify very precisely what the point is. For the convenience of all readers not con-
versant with linguistics, all such terminology that is not part of standard non-
technical but educated Anglophone usage will be explained or provided with
examples at its first appearance.
Warning! Here follows the first such linguistic passage (explanation included,
although the explanation itself cannot mask inherent conceptual complexities or
transform them into simplicities): because of the linguistic nature of Yiddish as a
fusion language (i.e. a language whose primary components derived from other
languages) based on the stock languages of German and Hebrew-Aramaic through
the mediation of the language determinants (i.e. the specific historical forms and
dialects of those languages available to Jews as usable material at the particular
historical period of their incorporation into Yiddish) from, respectively, medieval/
early modern German and ancient, medieval, and early modern Hebrew-Aramaic,3
readers who come to OLY already knowing, for instance, Middle High German
(MHG) and Hebrew, will generally make somewhat more rapid progress in learn-
ing OLY than those not so prepared, although the aid provided them by their
knowledge of those other languages will stretch thin after the first few lessons,
when they venture forth into the vast sea of texts in OLY. Those who know only
Hebrew, or only modEY, or only modern German, or even a combination of those
three languages, will, on the other hand, generally need to start at square one in
OLY, progressing more rapidly through some sections than others.
This textbook is for all such readers, but also, perhaps even especially for those
who know no modEY, no Hebrew, and no German, since in fact OLY is not Hebrew-
Aramaic, not medieval or early modern German, and most definitely not modEY.
OLY is a fusion of its fundamental components and was already a distinct language
in the period in which the earliest texts appear. For that reason, those without
knowledge of those stock languages need not feel particularly disadvantaged. As
already noted, their comrades who know one or more of those stock languages will
almost certainly proceed more rapidly in the beginning stages, and in their work
through the early lessons of the book will frequently nod and/or wag their heads in
recognition and surprise at familiar and unfamiliar aspects of OLY, while those
without knowledge of the stock languages will, as adult learners of any language
beyond their native tongue, likely spend more time with head-scratching.
Due to the nature of the authentic texts available for beginning students, as just
described, from the first OLY text, the student ideally already needs to know every-
thing—since in any given 400- or 600-year-old sentence, written by and for native
speakers of the target language, any and every word of that language and any and
3 On the essential distinction between stock language (e.g. multi-millennial Hebrew and Aramaic),
linguistic determinant (e.g. the specific dialect, vocabulary, syntax, etc. available at the time and place of
adoption into Yiddish), and linguistic component (e.g. that which was actually adapted into Yiddish
from the stock language), see Jacobs (2005: 20). While medieval Romance (primarily Old French and
Old Italian) is already present as a component in the early period of Yiddish, statistically its input is
minor; likewise modern Yiddish has Slavic as an additional (and very significant) component, which
was, however, generally absent, and in any case not yet significant in OLY.
xiv preface
every grammatical construction of the entire language, whether the simplest or the
most complex, may appear. Obviously if students did already know everything,
they would not take the present volume in hand at all. Since, as already noted, it is
not possible to begin with the absolutely simplest language use and progress toward
more difficult texts, detailing the grammatical structures progressively in the ped-
agogically most accessible manner, a strictly pragmatic compromise has been
adopted here: for the early lessons I have chosen texts that are as simple as any that
I know, while still being culturally, literarily, or historically significant (which con-
sideration of course immediately compromises the strict simplicity that one might
otherwise ideally desire).4 The grammatical presentations of each successive chap-
ter guide the reader through progressively more complex structures, aiming over
the course of the volume to present a systematic introduction to the literary lan-
guage. At the same time, however, the reader must be aware that this volume is not
a reference grammar, nor does it make any pretense to that level of comprehensive-
ness. Thus only the grammatical information necessary for the reader to navigate
the texts is presented here. When complex structures appear in the texts of a given
lesson before they have been formally presented in the grammatical sections of the
book, they will be treated in the glosses and notes on an ad hoc basis, so that the
student can cope with the text at hand. When necessary, there will at that point also
be a parenthetical reference to the later systematic treatment of the particular issue
in this volume.
The metalanguage of the volume is obviously English, and thus the linguistic
examples and illustrations will almost always be drawn from English and will be
oriented toward an Anglophone audience, even though it might sometimes seem
easier to draw examples from Yiddish’s nearer linguistic neighbor, German of one
period or another. But, again, the purposes of the present volume are strictly and
pragmatically focused on enabling readers to learn to read OLY texts; it is thus not
a veiled treatise on comparative German-Yiddish linguistics. Even at a much lower
lever of complexity, it would of course have been possible to increase the length of
the book by 25–50 percent simply by identifying idioms and/or syntactic usages in
Middle High German, modern standard German, dialectal German, or modern
Western or modern Eastern Yiddish that are analogous to OLY usage, which would
have struck a chord with those who had already recognized the parallel, i.e. it would
have taught them nothing new, and it would have remained opaque to all other
readers. Thus some readers can expect to catch themselves with some frequency
asking: “But why does he not point out the parallel usage in language X here?” As
often as that happens, I would suggest that the reader remember this paragraph.
Language learning is always a compromise, certainly and most definitively when
children learn their native languages, which only seems to be effortless and auto-
matic when one is not paying attention to the toil and frustration involved, or to
the very limited range of vocabulary and of grammatical and syntactic structures
4 Such texts must be interesting, since the surest guarantor of readers’ fatigue and abandonment of
the study of the language is forcing them to claw their way through beginning-level instruction that
teaches them to read uninteresting texts.
prefacexv
mastered.5 For adult learners of a language, especially a “dead language” like Latin,
Sumerian, or OLY, the toil and frustration is likewise ever present but much more
obvious to all concerned. The goal of this book is to enable the learner to avoid as
much of that frustration as possible.
Two of the most effective textbooks of ancient and medieval languages that I
have come across in my own studies have been Clyde Pharr’s Homeric Greek
(1925/1985) and William W. Kibler’s An Introduction to Old French (1984). Pharr’s
readings begin with the first line of book one of the Iliad, while Kibler begins with
the first line of Marie de France’s “Le Fresne”; they both then progress through
those texts, treating a passage in each successive chapter of their books; Pharr treats
the whole of Iliad I, while Kibler’s first fifteen chapters present Marie’s lai in its
entirety before moving on to other texts. The advantages are obvious: in completing
the textbook, the beginning student reads not a few hundred sentences in pseudo-
ancient Greek or pseudo-medieval French invented by a modern scholar, but
rather in each case one of the fundamental texts of the target language, gaining in
the process a thorough grounding in the grammar, vocabulary, and cultural milieu
of the focal texts, as well as an intimate knowledge of a core text of the literary
tradition.
That same method will be employed in the present volume, such that the student
will read the entirety of the Old Yiddish (OY) midrashic heroic lay “Yousef ha-
tsadik,” from the earliest extant manuscript collection of Yiddish literature (1382),
the entirety of the Middle Yiddish (MY) adventure tale “Briyo ve-Zimro,” from a
later collection (1585), and a full canto of the MY epic Pariz un Viene (1594), each
with full lesson-by-lesson glosses, notes to specific grammatical and cultural issues
in the passages, and a step-by-step introduction to the morphology, syntax, and
phonology (insofar as practicable) of OLY. In addition to these three focal texts,
beginning in lesson six, each lesson will include a second brief and, one might
hope, entertaining text at the end of the chapter as a reward for the reader’s indus-
trious study; some of these will be complete texts in themselves, including a bless-
ing, various charms, potion recipes, and incantational spells, the earliest love song
in Yiddish, a fable, a prison letter, a riddle, the final paragraph of the Passover song
“Khad-gadye,” and newspaper articles about Mongol emissaries at the czar’s court,
and Mediterranean pirates, among other things. All the texts are drawn from those
edited in my Early Yiddish Texts (Frakes 2004). Further supplementary texts are
added in Appendix 4, as are facsimile pages of manuscript or early print editions of
several selected texts, a table of strong verb classes and irregular verbs, a full end-
glossary, and an index of grammatical topics.
To learn to read OLY will be a challenge. The intent and guiding principle of the
present volume has been never to disguise or deny that challenge but instead to
make it as rewarding as possible at every stage.
In a sense this project has been under way since I first began my own studies of
OLY some decades ago. The general intellectual debts incurred along the way are
5 Those impressed by the 3-year-old who already speaks “perfect” Russian (or another language) are
either naïve or confused: it is after all only the Russian of a 3-year-old that the child has mastered, not
that of the complexity of a Tolstoy or Solzhenitsyn.
xvi preface
many and have been acknowledged at appropriate moments and in the relevant
prefaces and footnotes to other books that I have published. In terms of actually
writing and assembling the present volume, there have, however, again been col-
leagues whose advice and counsel have been of especial aid. Neil Jacobs encour-
aged the project from its inception. David Fertig has provided thorough and
enlightening answers to more than his fair share of my (often vaguely formulated)
questions about Germanic linguistics. Rafael Finkel generously provided the mash-
ket font. Gerrit Bos carried out enthusiastic spadework to identify various plants
that appear in the remedies and potions readings. The students in the OLY Reading
Course at the Summer School of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute in 2014 (enabled by
Professor Šarūnas Liekis, director of the Institute) were enthusiastic test subjects.
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the John Simon Guggenheim Foun-
dation inadvertently contributed much-needed support for this project, as well,
since the fellowships that they provided enabled the completion not just of the
specific fellowship project proposed and funded but also of this one. My thanks
to all. Finally, I am particularly grateful to the editors and production staff at
Oxford University Press—among them: Julia Steer, Vicki Sunter, Franziska Broeckl,
and Sarah Barrett—for the care, competence, and professionalism with which they
have produced what is typographically a very complex volume.
Abbreviations
* non-standard/ungrammatical form (for the sake of illustration)

~ related to
+ constructed with/governs (case)
a/acc accusative
Ab “Abraham the Patriarch”
adj adjective
adv adverb
Ar Aramaic
art article
aux auxiliary (verb)
BI “The Binding of Isaac”
BZ “Briyo and Zimro”
c common gender
card cardinal
coll collective
comp comparative
conj conjunction
const construction
constr quasi-construct state
correl correlative
Cou Tuesday and Friday Courier
d/dat dative
dat.poss dative of possession
def definite
dem demonstrative
dim diminutive
Dt Deuteronomy
DWB Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm (1854–1971). Deutsches Wörterbuch
EYT Early Yiddish Texts, 1100–1750, with Introduction and Commentary,
ed. Jerold C. Frakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
(cited by text number)
f/fem feminine
FF Fox Fables
xviii abbreviations
g/gen genitive
geo geographical/place name
G German
Gmc Germanic
H whole Hebrew
H-A Hebrew-Aramaic
id idiom/idiomatic
imp imperative
impers impersonal
ind indicative
indecl indeclinable
indef indefinite
inf infinitive
inter interrogative
interj interjection
intpr interrogative pronoun
IPA International Phonetic
ir irregular
irv irregular verb
It Italian
JtR “Joseph the Righteous”
L Latin
lit literally
m/masc masculine
MHG Middle High German
mil military
modEY modern East Yiddish
mv modal verb
MY Middle Yiddish
n/nom nominative
neg negation/negative
NHG New High German (= modern standard German)
nt/n neuter
num numeral
obj object
OLY Old Literary Yiddish
OMY Old and/or Middle Yiddish
abbreviationsxix
ord ordinal
OY Old Yiddish
p/pl plural
PaV Pariz and Viene
per of person
plprf pluperfect
Port Portuguese
poss possessive pronoun
ppr personal pronoun
pr present tense
pred predicate
prf perfect
prn pronoun
prop proper
prp preposition
prt-pr preterite-present verb
prt preterite
prv periphrastic verb
ptprt past participle
pv passive voice
Rec medical/remedy recipes
refl reflexive
relpr relative pronoun
Rid “Riddle” (1554)
s strong
scv strong, stem-changing verb
sg/s singular
SM Seyfer Mides
stat stative
subj subjunctive
suprl superlative
spv separable prefix verb
sv strong verb
talm talmudic
TC “Traveler’s Charm”
temp temporal
th of thing
xx abbreviations
trans transitive
v verb
vul vulgar
w weak
Wh “Whither am I to go?”
wn weak noun
wv weak verb
YIVO Yiddish Scientific Institute
Yos Yosifon
Introduction
Initial orientation
Based on my readings in Old Literary Yiddish (OLY) over the course of the last
three decades, it seems to me reasonable to imagine that a (time-traveling) fluent
speaker of modEY could learn to comprehend the spoken language lurking behind
the Yiddish belles-lettres of sixteenth-century Ashkenaz in a matter of a month or
two, and become a reasonably fluent speaker (with a “charming” foreign accent, no
doubt) within a few more months. Old and modern Yiddish are far more closely
related than Middle and modern English, but more distant than Old Norse and
modern Icelandic, for instance. One might then reasonably ask why twenty-first-
century beginners in OLY, most of whom may well already know at least some
modEY, must be bothered by the niceties of OLY (i.e. Old West Yiddish) pronuncia-
tion as it differs from modern standard Yiddish (i.e. East Yiddish) pronunciation,
especially since those niceties and distinctions often seem all but impossible to
identify on the basis of the sparse and often conflicting phonological evidence that
can be gleaned from the extant texts. It is worth exploring this issue briefly, perhaps
first by gaining some perspective from beyond the bounds of OLY.
In a standard beginners’ textbook of Old Irish the author acknowledges (slightly
cantankerously) that “Old Irish can be read as a kind of cipher, the symbols being
phonetically meaningless. . . . They do not constitute a phonological much less a
phonetic description of the language” (Quin 1975: 1). OLY and its orthographic
conventions are obviously very different from Old Irish, but the difficulties of “real-
izing” the sounds of OLY based on the letters on the page are often even more
daunting. Another example, from another tradition of language pedagogy, might
also be relevant here: outside of Germany, few students of Old Icelandic/Old Norse
are ever taught anything but the pronunciation of the twenty-first-century resi-
dents of Reykjavík, even though the medieval pronunciation of Icelandic almost
certainly displayed (subtle though) distinct differences from its modern reflex. In
practice, as I have noticed at conferences over the years, the same must in general
be true of contemporary pedagogy in Italian studies (Dante’s Commedia is gener-
ally pronounced as if Dante were a contemporary of Silvio Berlusconi1), Middle
English studies (rare are the students and scholars who do more than gesture
toward a Middle English vowel or two), and in recent years by German-trained
scholars of medieval German, almost all of whom pronounce the poetry (and even
1 Who, one might speculate, may well still find a home in the eighth circle, fifth bolgia, of the Inferno,
boiling in pitch with the other corrupt politicians.
2 a guide to old literary yiddish
the name) of Walther von der Vogelweide as if he were an aging twenty-first-century

German poet.2
To the point: one might indeed ask why it would matter so much to a beginner
in the language to approximate the pronunciation of OLY. Why not simply pro-
nounce the proper name in the title of the first literary text presented in this volume
as it has been pronounced for the last two centuries in Eastern Yiddish: ‫ = יוסף‬yoysef;
and why not the modEY standard pronunciation ba [ba:] or even the “spelling
pronunciation” of some speakers of modEY bay [bai] for the OY preposition ‫?בי‬
Must we really insist on an approximately “authentic” OY pronunciation, such as
Yo-u-sef [yóusəf] and bi [bi:]? Could one not legitimately leave such niceties for a
more advanced state of language acquisition, and especially for professional lin-
guists? The answer is of course, yes, one could easily do so. But after all, one of the
causes for having to study Middle English, Old Italian, and OLY is that those lan-
guages are quite clearly different from their modern reflexes. To pretend otherwise
is to elide that difference, and in effect to undermine the entire project of acknowl-
edging cultural difference by refusing to define its parameters.
In addition to that principled scholarly justification, however, there is a very
practical reason: not all of the phonetic shifts of OLY phonemes to their modern
standard Yiddish reflexes are so very regular: the correspondences do not, as it
were, always correspond. By pretending that OLY was (or may still be) pronounced
as if modern standard Yiddish, the rhythm and metrics, and thus the music, of
much of the poetry (and there is grand poetry in OLY) is lost, while the rhymes go
awry with disturbing frequency. For an idea of how such a leveling practice destroys
or at least compromises the aesthetics of the literary text, I would suggest listening
to a modernist pronunciation of a few lines of the prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales (a range of choices is available on the internet), which will provide
a graphic example of what happens when pronounciation is mangled for the sake
of mere convenience. Chaucer was, by the way, a precise contemporary of the scribe
of the manuscript of the first focal text of the present volume, “Joseph the Righ-
teous,” copied in 1382, when Chaucer was in the prime of his life and in the midst of
writing the Canterbury Tales.
As noted above and explained at more length below, we unfortunately cannot
know as much as we would like about the details of OLY dialects and pronuncia-
tion. But enough can be conjectured to enable a reasonable appreciation of the
sound of the language spoken by Ashkenazic Jews 400 and even 600 years ago, and
the verbal music of the poems and songs composed and sung by them. That seems
to me reason enough to acknowledge that those sounds and that verbal music
might be worth “hearing” and attempting to approximate. Thus there is here an
attempt made to provide the information that might be reasonably surmised con-
cerning the pronunciation of OLY. But—and it is a large “but”—the phonetic infor-
mation provided in this volume is intended simply as a pragmatic aid in learning
the language and by no means a programmatic and dogmatic guide to an authenti-
cated Old Yiddish or Middle Yiddish pronunciation. It is an approximation only.
2 While most Anglophone Germanists in North America, on the other hand, interestingly, insist on
the reconstructed Middle High German pronunciation, almost as a badge of professional competence.
introduction3
And for the beginner in OLY, it is salutary to know: the pronunciation here sug-
gested for many recurring phonemes will undoubtedly raise objections from many
experts in the field. But then it should likewise be acknowledged that if any of those
experts were to attempt to provide phonetic transcriptions of several hundred OLY
words according to their own principles, there would, I dare say, be just as many
objections by just as many other experts in the field.
Some readers who know modEY will no doubt object that the spelling of OLY
and even the pronunciation suggested in this volume often seems more “German”
than “Yiddish.” Perhaps, in very non-analytical terms, they are right. To put it in
more linguistically precise terms: the OLY phonetic realization of its medieval Ger-
man component was indeed “closer” to its medieval German determinant than is
the modEY phonetic realization of that medieval German component. Co-temporal
German speakers (i.e. German-speakers during the OLY period) would thus have
likely been able to understand somewhat more OLY than modern German speak-
ers understand modEY, depending, as always, on context and the extent of the
Semitic (and Slavic) components employed.
In any case, let us dive into the sea of OLY, beginning with a very brief orienta-
tion in the history of the language and its earliest literary periods, followed (in
Lesson One) by an introduction to the sounds of the language (phonemes) and
their representation by the Hebrew alphabet (graphemes), i.e. the grapho-phonemic
system.
Periodization in Yiddish
The Yiddish language is now generally divided into three or four periods (see also
Jacobs 2005: 45):
period from to
[pre-Yiddish origin +/− 1250]
Old Yiddish origin \ +/− 1250 +/− 1500
Middle Yiddish +/− 1500 +/− 1700
Modern Yiddish +/− 1700 present
In the present volume, the term OY designates the language from its earliest begin-
nings up to the the onset of MY.
Overlaid on this chronology is a second, perhaps more important one in the
present context, which distinguishes two periods in the textual representation of
Yiddish. Max Weinreich designated them ‫“ שרײַבשפּראַך א‬Written Language 1” and
‫“ שרײַבשפּראַך ב‬Written Language 2,” while Dov-Ber Kerler designates them “Old
Literary Yiddish” and “Modern Literary Yiddish,” the first extending from the begin-
ning of written Yiddish up to the mid-eighteenth century, and the second extend-
ing from that point to the present (Weinreich 1973: vol. II, 389–92).3 While writing
3 In his translation of Weinreich’s magnum opus, Shlomo Noble opted for the strictly literal transla-
tion of the Yiddish designations of the two literary languages as “Written Language A” and “Written
systems rarely are unequivocal and transparent in their represention of the actual
pronunciation of a language,4 especially if the same system is employed over a long
period of time during which the spoken language changes, some systems—especially
alphabetical ones (as opposed to syllabaries or glyphs)—more easily reflect that
change than do others. OLY was probably never imagined as an accurate represen-
tation of the specific pronunciation of any dialect of Yiddish—at least not with the
precision that modern linguists might desire—and it almost certainly did not so
represent the language. Beginning in the fourteenth century and based naturally on
a supraregional form of what is now identified as Western Yiddish (since no other
form of Yiddish then existed), it represented the earliest connected texts in the
Rhineland, the Danube Valley, northern Italy, Cairo, Poland, and Amsterdam, over
the course of four centuries. Modern Literary Yiddish, on the other hand, seems to
have developed in large part precisely in order to represent more accurately the
actual phonetic realities of the co-temporal spoken language, especially of Eastern
Yiddish, which OLY of course never pretended to represent.
To gain some perspective, one should keep in mind that by the time Modern
Literary Yiddish developed, Yiddish had been spoken for some 800 years, and its
textual history had extended over at least 600 years (i.e. in the texts that are still
extant today). An analogy might be useful: while early seventeenth-century Eliza-
bethan orthography—in Shakespeare’s works and in the (unmodernized) King
James Bible—is not quite the same as the twenty-first-century English standard,
it is actually quite similar in the larger scheme of things; but behind it lurks a
sixteenth-century pronunciation that obviously differs radically from, for instance,
the twenty-first-century pronunciations of native English speakers in London,
Atlanta, Toronto, Delhi, Edinburgh, Johannesburg, Adelaide, Malibu, Hong Kong,
and Dublin. While the English and Yiddish situations are obviously different in
many ways, the analogy does indicate just how difficult would be the task of plot-
ting, for instance, late fourteenth-century Rhineland Yiddish pronunciation, as
opposed to late sixteenth-century Venetian pronunciation, based on written docu-
ments that employ essentially the same writing system.
Difficult, yes, but perhaps not always altogether impossible—for experts—to
find at least fragmentary evidence.5 In this volume, that level of expertise is not
expected, nor is it the pedagogical goal. It is the author’s hope that some users of the
volume will go on to such research, but at this point the task at hand is the acquisi-
Language B,” rather than their functional denotations in a chronological sequence (Weinreich and
Noble 1980). Dov-Ber Kerler’s characterization of the criteria of periodization is definitive: “For it is only
when the single, discrete, and isolated dialectalisms become collectively manifest in a sizeable body of
texts that one can start to speak of the beginning of a new era in the history of the literary language”
(Kerler 1999: 255–6). That manifestation occurred in the final three decades of the 18th century.
4 One might think here of one of the whimsical illustration of English orthography’s aberrations,
such as the spelling of the English equivalent of the zoological class pisces (finned/gilled swimming
creatures) as ghoti: /gh/ as in laugh, /o/ as in women, and /ti/ as in nation.
5 For there are indeed more than a few clues to pronunciation in some documents. The actual lin-
guistic distinctions between OY and MY, and thus the justification for their division, have to do with
grammatical and phonological changes that took place in the transitional period, and, additionally, with
the emergence of distinct dialects of Yiddish beginning in the MY period (see Jacobs 2005: 44–6).
introduction5
tion of a beginning-, an intermediate-, and by the end of the volume perhaps even
a low advanced-level reading knowledge of the language. In any case, there is no
attempt in this volume, on the basis of the documents at our disposal, to assign a
distinct and regular OY pronunciation and a distinct and regular MY pronuncia-
tion to the documents written before and after the fluid boundary between those
periods, c.1500–1550. Despite the fact that the texts represented in this volume
extend from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, they are all written in OLY
(Written Language 1), and all the focal texts of the Lessons themselves (i.e. not
including the supplemental texts) hover within a century or century and a half of
the boundary between OY and MY (1382–1594), thus representing late OY and
early MY. As one of the many pragmatic compromises that introductory language
textbooks of dead languages must accept, a single artificial quasi-standard pronuncia-
tion of OLY is thus presented here, and that pragmatic compromise may well reflect,
at least in principle, just such a quasi-standard in OLY as a literary dialect itself.
A brief survey of Old Literary Yiddish language and literature

The Yiddish language developed beginning sometime near the turn of the first mil-
lennium as a “fusion” or “pidginization” or “creolization” of the linguistic compo-
nents derived from three stock languages:6 (1) the substrate vernacular (i.e. the
non-Germanic spoken language) that immigrant Jews brought with them to German-
speaking territory; (2) Hebrew and Aramaic (the languages of Jewish sacred study),
and (3) the early MHG spoken dialects of the new linguistic environment. Three
general theories dominate the discussion of the geographical origins of Yiddish:
the language developed in immigrant communities of the Rhineland (Speyer,
Worms, Mainz = Sh-U-M),7 or the Danube Valley of Bavaria, or somewhere farther
east. In the first two cases, the Jewish immigrants are conceived as speakers of Loez
(Judeo-Romance) from France and/or Italy; in the last case, the Jews are conceived
as immigrants from the Middle East to Slavic-language territory. In the first case,
Yiddish thence spread eastward from the Rhineland into Bavaria and the territory
of East Central German, probably in large part as a result of the depredations of the
first Crusade (1096) in the Rhineland. This new area (beyond the Rhineland) of
co-territorial German influence on Yiddish gradually supplanted most Rhineland
linguistic forms and provided the language with the strong East Central German
6 What follows here is not intended as anything more than the briefest of surveys of the contours of
pre-modern Yiddish linguistic and literary history. The standard comprehensive surveys on the lan-
guage are: Max Weinreich, ‫( געשיכטע‬1973); see also the magisterial recent work by Neil G. Jacobs, already
cited multiple times: Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction (2005); on the literature, see Jean Baumgarten
(1993; ed. and trans. Jerold C. Frakes, 2005); text anthology: Early Yiddish Texts, ed. Jerold C. Frakes
(2004). On the development of Yiddish as a pidgin or creole, see Jacobs (2005: 13). He also offers a
comprehensive summary of the current state of theorizations of the origin of Yiddish (pp. 9–22).
7 This theory is based primarily in the research of Max Weinreich, whose geographical designation
of the homeland of Yiddish as ‫ לותּיר‬loter (the term is from medieval Hebrew) has unfortunately gener-
ally been glossed with its German or French reflexes (Lothringen and Lorraine, respectively), although
neither of them actually designates very precisely the territory of the middle Rhineland that is key to
Weinreich’s theory (Weinreich 1973: vol. 1, 3, with map, and pp. 334–53).
component that defined the departure point for its later development, as the
language spread farther east into Slavic territories, where it added the final, Slavic
component of Weinreich’s classic model of the Yiddish language development (the
western dialect of Yiddish—which includes OY and much MY—thus never had a
Slavic component as such, although there are rare Slavic borrowings). The primary
problems with this theory are the statistically insignificant Loez lexical and syntac-
tic elements in Yiddish and the dominance of the Bavarian/East Central German
dialect in the German component of Yiddish.
The second theory, proposing a Bavarian/East Central German origin for the
later development of Yiddish, then, accounts for precisely the evidence that troubles
Weinreich’s theory, especially the still less prominent Loez component in later vari-
eties of Yiddish.8 As a result, this theory has gained in prominence in recent years.
The third theory, i.e. that Yiddish originated on Slavic-language territory, is
rather surprising, given the conventional views of the spread of Jewish settlement
into central and eastern Europe just adumbrated.9 According to this scenario,
Judeo-Aramaic and Judeo-Greek speakers from the Middle East settled in Slavic-
language (specifically Sorbian) territory, and it was on the substrate of a Judeo-
Slavic language developed by that Jewish population that Yiddish developed by
means of the gradual eastward spread into that territory of (non-Jewish) German
as a spoken language and the consequent relexification (i.e. exchanging equivalent
words of one language for those of another language) of Judeo-Sorbian with Ger-
man words from the dominant language of the (non-Jewish) co-territorial culture.
Thereafter the speakers of this now Judeo-Sorbian-German (i.e. according to this
theory, Yiddish) language spread both west into contact with Rhineland Jews and
east into Poland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine. This theory accounts well for the
otherwise surprising uniformity in all varieties of western Yiddish (i.e. without
relation to the range of specific co-territorial German dialects), and the almost com-
plete absence of the Loez component in all but (early) Rhineland Yiddish. Particu-
larly because of this theory’s overt and adamant opposition (especially as argued by
Wexler) to the long-standing norms of Yiddish linguistic history, it has generated a
great deal of (sometimes all but apoplectic) controversy.10
There are many other variations on the three basic theories of origin, which need
not be of concern in this elementary survey. In any case, in all three scenarios, it is
proposed that Yiddish developed out of a fusion of multiple linguistic components,
the most prominent one coming from language contact with the co-territorial
8 The primary early proponents of this theory are Alice Faber and Robert King (1984: 393–425). This
theory of the origins of Yiddish does not deny either the existence or importance of early Jewish com-
munities in the Rhineland, but rather simply refutes the proposition that the language of those com-
munities could have become the direct ancestor of modern Yiddish: that “westernmost” Yiddish
remained outside the family tree of later varieties of Yiddish, including modern East Yiddish.
9 The theory’s primary proponent is Paul Wexler (1987); see the special journal issue devoted to the
topic: Yiddish: the Fifteenth Slavic Language (1991). More recently, see Wexler, The Ashkenazic Jews: A
Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity (1993) and Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of Jewish
Languages (2006).
10 The volume Yiddish: the Fifteenth Slavic Language includes critiques of Wexler’s proposal by other
scholars.
introduction7
erman dialects during the period of adoption. The three theories all agree that
G
Yiddish thus became the vernacular of Ashkenaz and spread to include Ashke-
nazim throughout Europe, the center and direction of that spread depending on
the theory of origin assumed.
While it cannot yet quite be reckoned as belles-lettres, the oldest now extant textual
evidence of the existence of Yiddish occurs in Rashi’s biblical and talmudic com-
mentaries, where some thirty Yiddish glosses (alongside thousands of Old Tsarfatic/
Judeo-French glosses) demonstrate the teaching method and at least the occasional
pedagogically tactical language use of Rashi, who had himself studied in the Rhine-
land.11 As this tradition of glossing religious texts developed, so did biblical transla-
tion, along a continuum from early word glosses to fifteenth-century literal, word-
for-word trots for those learning biblical and rabbinical Hebrew to fully realized
seventeenth-century versions in idiomatic Yiddish for readers of that language not
concerned, sentence by sentence, directly with the original Hebrew text, and on to the
‫ צאינה וראינה‬Tsene-rene (Hanau, 1622; EYT 98), which integrates traditional commen-
tary into the biblical paraphrase (not translation). That book quickly became quite
profoundly influential, and in the four centuries and 200 editions since its initial
publication, it has become the single most widely read Yiddish book in the history of
Yiddish and indeed of Ashkenazic culture. For those (men and women) who knew
too little Hebrew to read the original Scriptures, it functioned (and for many such
readers in some traditional communities still functions) simply as access to the Bible.
The impingement of Yiddish on the territory of the sacred text extended far beyond
glossing, paraphrase, and translation, however, to include poetic adaptation of bibli-
cal narrative and midrash, which developed early in Yiddish, including dozens of
texts, extending from the earliest Yiddish anthology (the codex from the Cairo
genizah, c.1382) through the entire OLY period, and including the great masterpiece
of the tradition, Moushe Esrim ve-Arba’s ]‫בוך‬-‫( ספֿר שמואל [שמואל‬Book of Samuel,
Augsburg, 1544; EYT 47; and below, Appendix 4, text 3), which stylistically and con-
ceptually combined both Jewish sacred and Germanic heroic traditions.
While the liturgy within the synagogue itself remained strictly the domain of
Hebrew-Aramaic, translations of the prayer book appeared by the fifteenth century,
making it comprehensible to those who knew too little Hebrew. Moreover, Yiddish
also fulfilled important liturgical functions in domestic ritual: bilingual Passover
hymns had appeared by the fifteenth century, ‫אדיר הוא‬/‫“( אלמעכטיגר גוט‬Mighty is He”;
EYT 25; and Lesson Seventeen) and ‫“( חד גדיא‬Song of the Kid”; EYT 26; and Lesson
Twenty), and there were also many collections of ‫‘( תחינות‬petitions’; EYT 124 and 127)
and ‫‘( סליחות‬penitentials’; EYT 88), which constituted the most important domain
of Yiddish prayer. Like the synagogal liturgy, traditional legal textuality (‫)הלכה‬
remained staunchly Hebrew-Aramaic, although the Yiddish language frequently
appears as quoted testimony in rabbinical responses to legal queries, and it is in such
quotations that a glimpse is often afforded into a form of the language that may
have been closer to the actual spoken language of the time (EYT 37, 38, 56, 62).
Among the most important genres in Ashkenaz were ‫ מנהגים‬books (‘customals’;
EYT 31, 72, 116) that taught proper conduct according to locally defined usage, and
11 For those glosses, see Early Yiddish Texts, text no. 1 (hereinafter abbreviated in the form: EYT 1).
‫ מוסר‬books (EYT 32, 76, 93, 121, 129, 132), such as the ‫ספר מדות‬12 (‘book of virtues’
1542, EYT 43, and Appendix 4, text 2) that emphasized proper morals and ethical
behavior. Such writings likely constitute the statistically most widespread genre of
OLY literature, characterized by illustrative narratives, parables, and legends. Typi-
cal of the genre is Isaac b. Eliakim of Posen’s ‫‘( ספר לבֿ טובֿ‬book of the good heart,’
Prague, 1620; EYT 97).
Often neglected within the field of Yiddish studies or viewed simply as an irrele
vant fetish is the broad scope of quasi-secular literature in OLY. Due to its obvious
origins in the realm of Gentile literature, the quasi-secular epic or romance is quite
remarkable among popular OLY genres. The earliest such text dates to c.1349,
unearthed in a 2011 archeological excavation of a medieval synagogue destroyed by
antisemitic arson in the Rhineland city of Cologne: nineteen script lines of an OY
chivalric verse narrative are inscribed on each side of a single slate tablet (which is
broken into three fragments) (cf. Timm 2013: 417–43). Interesting as that find is, it
is another text fragment from another unexpected site that provides the oldest
integral view of OLY quasi-secular epic, the ‫“( דוכוס הורנט‬Duke Horant,” 1382; EYT 9),
from the Cairo genizah, which narrates a royal wiving expedition (“bridal quest”),
such as was typical of a significant sub-genre of (particularly) Christian epic of the
High Middle Ages. Probably somewhat later in composition is the ‫ װידװילט‬Vidvilt,
an Arthurian romance concerning the adventures of Sir Gawain’s son, Vidvilt. Both
of these texts were adapted from the medieval German epic tradition, and in the
latter case, the source text has been identified. The texts generally designated the
masterpieces of the genre are the rather conventional ]‫בוך‬-‫( בבֿא דאנטונא [בבֿא‬Bovo of
Antona, famous as the Bove-bukh, composed in 1507, published in Isny 1541; EYT
33), adapted into Yiddish by Elias Levita (Elye Bokher), and the anonymous, con-
summate Renaissance epic ‫( פאריז אונ' װיענה‬Pariz and Viene, Verona, 1594; EYT 74;
and Lessons Twenty-Two to Twenty-Five), both adapted from the late medieval
and early modern Italian epic tradition.
The early tradition of Yiddish literature did not possess a well-defined lyric
genre, although in fact many lyric modes did appear, the earliest example of which
is a rhymed blessing in the Worms Makhzor (1272; EYT 2; and Lesson Six), followed
by the aforementioned Passover hymns, rhymed penitential prayers, and including
Torah songs (some composed by women; EYT 92, 104), reflective philosophical
poems such as Isaac Wallich’s memento mori poem ‫ווײל איך איצונדרט אן מיר ואר שטיא‬
(c.1600; EYT 87), playful philosophical disputations, such as Zalmen Soyfer’s
debate poem, ‫‘( מחלוקת ײן והמים‬debate between wine and water,’ 1516; EYT 36), and
biting quasi-Humanist satire, such as Elia Levita’s ‫קוֹדש לְ חוֹל‬ֶ ‫‘( ַה ַמ ְבֿ ִדיל ֵבין‬ha-mavdil
song,’ 1514; EYT 35), a drinking song of yeshiva students, ‫“( פומײא איר ליבן גיזעלין‬Pumay,
you dear companions,” c.1600; EYT 86; and Appendix 4, text 6), and a brief and
hauntingly lyrical fourteenth- or fifteenth-century love song written on the flyleaf
of a manuscript of Rashi’s commentaries (‫“ װאו זאל איך הין‬Whither am I to go?”; EYT
14; and Lesson Seven).
12 While one would normally expect a rafe in the title of this text (‫)סֿפר‬, the edition cited is not so
printed; the same urge to “correct” the spelling of OLY titles as witnessed in OLY texts will be resisted
elsewhere in the present volume.
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China to the Amazonian warriors of South America and the Fountain
of Youth which explorers of real enterprise were ready to discover.
Had there been any knowledge of the science of politics in
Spain, Columbus would have been a person of considerable
importance in his old age. The Radicals would have rallied around
him, and would have denounced the atrocious manner in which a
treacherous and reactionary monarchy had treated him. Columbian
clubs would have been established everywhere, and he would have
been made to serve as the stalking-horse of an unprincipled and
reckless faction.
[Æt. 67–70; 1503–1506]
When we compare the way in which the Italian republicans have

used the name and fame of Garibaldi as the most effective weapon
in striking at the monarchy which has made United Italy possible, we
cannot but despise the ignorance of politics shown by the Spaniards
in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Columbus, though utterly worn out, was still able to write letters.
He wrote to the King, to the Queen, to everybody who had any
influence, asking that his honors and privileges should be restored,
and hinting that he was ready to be sent back to San Domingo as
Governor. No one paid any attention to him. Other men were fitting
out exploring expeditions, and Columbus, with his splendid dreams
and his peculiar mixture of religion and geography, was regarded as
a foolish old man who had outlived his original usefulness. He was
too sick to visit the court and personally explain why he had not
discovered the Panama Canal, and the King, having failed to keep
his own promises, was naturally not at all anxious to see him.
Perhaps Isabella would have still remained faithful to her old
protégé, but she was on her deathbed, and died without seeing him.
In May, 1505, Columbus managed to go to Segovia, where
Ferdinand held his court. He saw the King, but got very little pleasure
thereby. Ferdinand was now a widower and his own master; and his
manner plainly showed Columbus that, whatever the King might
promise, he never intended to keep his word and do justice to the
man who had given him a new world.
[Æt. 70; 1506]
The end was now drawing near, and Columbus made a codicil to
his will, expressing his last wishes. Beatrix Enriquez was still alive,
though whether she too had forsaken Columbus we are not told. It is
pleasant to find that the Admiral remembered her, and in the codicil
to his will ordered his son Diego to see that she was properly cared
for, adding, “and let this be done for the discharge of my conscience,
for it weighs heavy on my soul.” He had neglected to marry Beatrix,
and, unlike most men in like circumstances, the neglect burdened his
conscience. This codicil was almost the last act of his busy life; and
on the 20th of May, 1506, repeating the Latin words, In manus tuas,
Domine, commendo spiritum meum, he died with the calmness of a
brave man and the peace of a Christian. He had lived seventy years,
and had literally worn himself out in the service of the royal hound
whose miserable little soul rejoiced when he heard that the great
Italian was dead.
Columbus was buried almost as much as he was born. His first
burial was in the convent of St. Francisco. Seven years later he was
buried some more in the Carthusian convent in Seville. In 1536 he
was carried to San Domingo and buried in the Cathedral, and
afterward he was, to some extent, buried in Havana. Whether
Havana or San Domingo has at present the best claim to his grave,
is a disputed point.
CHAPTER XIX.
HIS CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS.
HITHERTO we have proceeded upon the assumption that

Columbus was a real historical person. It is one of the limitations of
biography that the writer must always assume the existence of the
subject of his sketch. There are, however, grave reasons for
doubting whether Christopher Columbus ever lived. There is the
matter of his birthplace. Is it credible that he was born in seven
distinct places? Nobody claims that George Washington was born in
all our prominent cities, or that Robinson Crusoe, who was perhaps
the most absolutely real person to be found in the whole range of
biography, was born anywhere except at York. Can we believe that
the whole of Columbus was simultaneously buried in two different
West Indian cities? If we can accept any such alleged fact as this,
we can no longer pretend that one of the two Italian cities which
boast the possession of the head of John the Baptist is the victim of
misplaced confidence.
And then the character of Columbus as portrayed by his
admiring biographers is quite incredible, and his alleged treatment by
the King and Queen whom he served is to the last degree
improbable. The story of Columbus is without doubt an interesting
and even fascinating one; but can we, as fearless and honest
philosophers, believe in the reality of that sweet Genoese vision—
the heroic and noble discoverer of the New World?
There are strong reasons for believing that the legend of
Christopher Columbus is simply a form of the Sun myth. We find the
story in the Italian, Spanish, and English languages, which shows,
not that Colombo, Colon, and Columbus ever lived, breathed, ate
dinner, and went to bed, but that the myth is widely spread among
the Indo-Germanic races. Columbus is said to have sailed from the
east to the west, and to have disappeared for a time beyond the
western horizon, only to be found again in Spain, whence he had
originally sailed. Even in Spain, he was said to have had his
birthplace in some vague locality farther east, and to have reached
Spain only when near his maturity.
This is a beautiful allegorical description of the course of the sun
as it would appear to an unlearned and imaginative Spaniard. He
would see the sun rising in the distant east, warming Spain with his
mature and noonday rays, setting beyond the western horizon in the
waters of the Atlantic, and again returning to Spain to begin another
voyage, or course, through the heavens. The clouds which at times
obscure the sun are vividly represented by the misfortunes which
darkened the career of Columbus, and his imprisonment in chains by
Bobadilla is but an allegorical method of describing a solar eclipse.
The colonists who died of fever under his rule, like the Greeks who
fell under the darts of the Sun God, remind us of the unwholesome
effects produced by the rays of a tropical sun upon decaying
vegetation; and the story that Columbus was buried in different
places illustrates the fact that the apparent place of sunset changes
at different points of the year.
There is very much to be said in favor of the theory that
Columbus is a personification of the Sun, but that theory cannot be
accepted either by a biographer or by any patriotic American. The
one would have to put his biography of the Great Admiral in the fire,
and the other would lose all certainty as to whether America had
ever been discovered. We must resolve to believe in the reality of
Columbus, no matter what learned sceptics may tell us; and we shall
find no difficulty in so doing if we found our belief on a good strong
prejudice instead of reasonable arguments.
Let us then permit no man to destroy our faith in Christopher
Columbus. We can find fault with him if we choose; we can refuse to
accept Smith’s or Brown’s or Jones’s respective estimates of his
character and deeds: but let us never doubt that Columbus was a
real Italian explorer; that he served an amiable Spanish Queen and a
miserable Spanish King; and that he sailed across a virgin ocean to
discover a virgin continent.
There prevails to a very large extent the impression that the
voyages of Columbus prove that he was a wonderfully skilful
navigator, and it is also commonly believed that the compass and the
astrolabe were providentially invented expressly in order to assist
him in discovering America. There was, of course, a certain amount
of practical seamanship displayed in keeping the Santa Maria and
her successors from being swamped by the waves of the Atlantic;
but it may be safely asserted that only a very slight knowledge of
navigation was either exhibited or needed by Columbus. The ships
of the period could do nothing except with a fair wind. When the wind
was contrary they drifted slowly to leeward, and when the wind was
fair a small-boy with a knowledge of the elements of steering could
have kept any one of them on her course. The compass was a
handy thing to have on board a ship, since it gave to the sailors the
comfortable feeling which an ignorant man always has in the
presence of any piece of mechanism which he fancies is of
assistance to him; but for all practical purposes the sun and the stars
were as useful to Columbus as was his compass with its
unintelligible freaks of variation. So, too, the astrolabe must have
impressed the sailors as a sort of powerful and beneficent fetish, but
the log-book of Columbus would have testified that the astrolabe was
more ornamental than useful.
The system of navigation followed by Columbus was to steer as
nearly west as practicable on the way to America, and to steer as
nearly east as possible on his way back to Spain. In the one case he
would be sure to hit some part of the New World if he sailed long
enough, and in the other case persistent sailing would be sure to
bring him within sight of either Europe or Africa. In neither case could
he so far overrun his reckoning as to arrive unexpectedly at some
point in the interior of a continent. The facts prove that this was
precisely the way in which Columbus navigated his ship. When
steering for America he never knew where he would find land, and
was satisfied if he reached any one of the countless large and small
West India islands; and on returning to Spain there was as much
probability that he would find himself at the Azores or at the mouth of
the Tagus as at any Spanish port.
The truth is, that neither the seamanship of Columbus nor the
invention of the compass or the astrolabe made his first voyage
successful. Probably any one of the thousands of contemporary
Italian sailors could have found the West Indies as easily as
Columbus found them, provided the hypothetical sailor had
possessed sufficient resolution to sail westward until the land should
stop his way. What we should properly be called upon to admire in
Columbus as a navigator of unknown seas is the obstinacy with
which he adhered to his purpose of sailing due west until land should
be found, no matter if it should take all summer. It was an obstinacy
akin to that with which our great Union General fought his last
campaign. Such obstinacy will sometimes accomplish greater results
than the most skilful navigator or the profoundest strategist could
accomplish. Had the man who discovered our country or the man
who saved it been less obstinate, American history would have been
widely different from what it has been.
As the astrolabe has been mentioned several times in the course
of this narrative, it may be well to describe it, especially as it is now
obsolete. It was an instrument of considerable size, made of some
convenient material—usually either metal or wood, or both—and
fitted with various contrivances for the purpose of observing the
heavenly bodies. When a navigator took an observation with the
astrolabe he immediately went below and “worked it up” with the
help of a slate and pencil, and in accordance with the rules of
arithmetic and algebra. The result was a series of figures which
greatly surprised him, and which he interpreted according to the
humor in which he happened to find himself. A skilful navigator who
could guess his latitude with comparative accuracy generally found
that an observation taken with the astrolabe would give him a result
not differing more than eighty or ninety degrees from the latitude in
which he had previously imagined his ship to be, and if he was an
ingenious man he could often find some way of reconciling his
observation with his guesses. Thus the astrolabe gave him
employment and exercised his imagination, and was a great blessing
to the lonesome and careworn mariner.
It is our solemn duty, as Americans, to take a warm interest in
Christopher Columbus, for the reason that he had the good taste and
judgment to discover our beloved country. Efforts have frequently
been made to deprive him of that honor. It has been urged that he
was not the first man who crossed the Atlantic, that he never saw the
continent of North America, and that he was not the original
discoverer of South America. Most of this is undoubtedly true. It is
now generally conceded the Norwegians landed on the coast of New
England about six hundred years before Columbus was born; that
Americus Vespuccius was the first European to discover the South
American continent; that Sebastian Cabot rediscovered North
America after the Norwegians had forgotten all about it; and that
Columbus never saw any part of what is now the United States of
America. For all that, Columbus is properly entitled to be called the
discoverer of the New World, including the New England, Middle,
Gulf, Western, and Pacific States. Who invented steamboats? And
who invented the magnetic telegraph? Every patriotic American echo
will answer, “Fulton and Morse.” There were nevertheless at least
four distinct men who moved vessels by machinery driven by steam
before Fulton built his steamboat, and nearly twice that number of
men had sent messages over a wire by means of electricity before
Morse invented the telegraph. The trouble with the steamboats
invented by the pre-Fultonians, and the telegraphs invented by the
predecessors of Morse, was that their inventions did not stay
invented. Their steamboats and telegraphs were forgotten almost as
soon as they were devised; but Fulton and Morse invented their
steamboats and telegraphs so thoroughly that they have stayed
invented ever since.
Now, the Norwegians discovered America in such an
unsatisfactory way that the discovery came to nothing. They did not
keep it discovered. They came and looked at New England, and,
deciding that they had no use for it, went home and forgot all about
it. Columbus, who knew nothing of the forgotten voyage of the
Norwegians, discovered the West India islands and the route across
the Atlantic in such a workmanlike and efficient way that his
discoveries became permanent. He was the first man to show
people the way to San Domingo and Cuba, and after he had done
this it was an easy thing for other explorers to discover the mainland
of North and South America. He thus discovered the United States
as truly as Fulton discovered the way to drive the City of Rome from
New York to Liverpool, or Morse discovered the method of sending
telegrams over the Atlantic cable.
We need not be in the least disturbed by the learned men who
periodically demonstrate that Leif Ericson, as they familiarly call him,
was the true discoverer of our country. We need never change “Hail
Columbia” into “Hail Ericsonia,” and there is not the least danger
Columbia College will ever be known as Leifia University. We can
cheerfully admit that Leif Ericson—or, to give him what was probably
his full name, Eliphalet B. Ericson—and his Norwegians landed
somewhere in New England, and we can even forgive the prompt
way in which they forgot all about it, by assuming that they landed on
Sunday or on a fast-day, and were so disheartened that they never
wanted to hear the subject spoken of again. We can grant all this,
and still cherish the memory of Columbus as the true and only
successful discoverer of America.
Most biographers have written of Columbus in much the same
way that a modern campaign biographer writes the life of the
Presidential candidate from whom he hopes to receives an office.
They forget that he was never nominated by any regular party
convention, and that it is therefore wrong to assume, without any
sufficient evidence, that he was the greatest and best man that ever
lived. He was undoubtedly a bold sailor, but he lived in an age when
bold sailors were produced in quantities commensurate with the
demands of exploration, and we cannot say that he was any bolder
or better sailor than the Cabots or his own brother Bartholomew. He
was certainly no braver soldier than Ojeda, and his conquests were
trifling in comparison with those of Cortez and Pizarro.
As a civil ruler he was a conspicuous failure. It is true that the
colonists over whom he was placed were, many of them, turbulent
scoundrels; but the unanimity with which they condemned his
administration, and the uniformity with which every commissioner
appointed to investigate his conduct as a ruler condemned him,
compel us to believe that he was not an able governor either of
Spanish colonists or contiguous Indians. He was not habitually cruel,
as was Pizarro, but he insisted upon enslaving the Indians for his
own profit, though Queen Isabella had forbidden him to enslave
them or to treat them harshly.
He could be magnanimous at times, but he would not undertake
a voyage of discovery except upon terms which would ensure him
money and rank, and he did not hesitate to claim for himself the
reward which was offered, during his first voyage, to the man who
should first see the land, and which was fairly earned by one of his
sailors.
As an explorer, he failed to find a path to India, and he died
under the delusion that Pekin was somewhere in Costa Rica. His
first voyage across the broad Atlantic seems to us a wonderful
achievement, but in either difficulty or danger it cannot be compared
with Stanley’s march across the African continent. We must concede
to Columbus a certain amount of boldness and perseverance, but we
cannot shut our eyes to the faults of his conduct and character.
And yet Columbus was a true hero. Whatever flaws there may
have been in the man, he was of a finer clay than his fellows, for he
could dream dreams that their dull imaginations could not conceive.
He belonged to the same land which gave birth to Garibaldi, and, like
the Great Captain, the Great Admiral lived in a high, pure
atmosphere of splendid visions, far removed from and above his
fellow-men. The greatness of Columbus cannot be argued away. The
glow of his enthusiasm kindles our own, even at the long distance of
four hundred years, and his heroic figure looms grander through
successive centuries.
THE END.
INDEX.
Aguado, Juan, appointed investigator, 185;

investigates, 188;
makes nothing by it, 195.
Angel, Luis de St., 56;
offers to advance money, 57.
Astrolabe, invented, 32;
description of, 276.
Black Crook, thought to have broken out in Spain, 194.

Bobadilla, Francisco de, arrives in Hispaniola, 221;
arrests Columbus, 228;
sends Columbus to Spain, 229.
Boyle, Father Bernardo, 133;
desires to burn somebody, 150, 163;
is disappointed, 174.
Caonabo, 160;
captured, 175;
dies, 193.
Cedo, Fermin, alleged scientific person, 158.
Cogoletto, alleged birthplace of Columbus, 1.
Columbus, Bartholomew, born and translated, 4;
is sent to England, 38;
arrives at Hispaniola, 171;
made Governor of Isabella, 191;
able commander, 209;
arrested, 228;
sails with fourth exploring expedition, 236;
defeats Porras, 261.
Columbus, Christopher, born, 1;
translated, 3;
anecdotes of boyhood, 5;
goes to Pavia, 9;
becomes sailor, 11;
engages in Neapolitan expedition, 12;
deceives sailors or posterity, 13;
does not arrive in Portugal, 16;
does arrive there, 18;
marries, 19;
makes maps, 20;
lives at Porto Santo, 21;
goes to Iceland or elsewhere, 28;
talks to King John, 35;
goes to Spain, 38;
deposited with Quintanilla, 41;
meets Scientific Congress, 43;
goes to Convent of Rabida, 49;
meets committee on exploration, 54;
starts for France, 56;
goes to Palos, 61;
sails on first voyage, 67;
keeps false reckoning, 72;
discovers San Salvador, 89;
sails for Spain, 97;
wrecked, 102;
founds colony, 105;
sees Mermaids, 110;
displays seamanship, 115;
arrives at Azores, 116;
arrives at Palos, 125;
flattens egg, 135;
sails on second voyage, 138;
discovers Dominica, 141;
returns to Spain, 191;
loses popularity, 196;
sails on third voyage, 200;
discovers Trinidad, 204;
invents ingenious theory, 205;
arrives at Hispaniola, 208;
arrested, 228;
sent to Spain, 229;
arrives in Spain, 230;
sails on fourth voyage, 237;
reaches Honduras, 240;
searches for Panama Canal, 240;
founds colony at Veragua, 243;
sails away, 250;
reaches Jamaica, 251;
manages lunar eclipse, 258;
reaches Hispaniola, 262;
returns to Spain, 264;
dies, 268;
is extensively buried, 268;
perhaps is a sun-myth, 269;
character, 284.
Columbus, Diego, born, 4;
Governor of Isabella, 162;
sent to Spain to wait for opening in Connecticut, 177;
returns to Hispaniola, 187;
arrested by Bobadilla, 227.
Columbus, Dominico, combs wool, 3.
Compass, variation of, 55.
Congress of Salamanca, 46;
its tediousness, 45.
Correo, Pedro, 21;
he winks, 25;
is talked to death, 34.
Enriquez, Beatrix, loves not wisely but too well, 41;

is mentioned in Columbus’s will, 267.
Ericson, Eliphalet B., discovers America, 281.
Eclipse, story of, 258.
Egg, story of, 135.
Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 40.
Guacanagari, his affection for Columbus, 101;

his suspicious leg, 150;
falls extensively in love, 152;
protects Spaniards, 175.
Isabella, Queen of Castile, 41.
John, King of Portugal, 29;

his dishonorable conduct, 34.
La Navidad, founded, 105;

destroyed, 148.
Ledesma, Pedro, swims ashore, 249.
Marchena, Juan Perez de, prior of a convent, 50;

makes a night of it with Columbus, 51.
Margarite, rebels, 174.
Mendez, Diego, tries to reach Hispaniola from Jamaica, 252;
succeeds, 254.
Mendoza, Cardinal de, gives dinner, 135.
Mexica, De, rebels, 219.
Ojeda, Alonzo de, is a just man, 158;

captures Caonabo, 175;
arrives at Xaragua, 215;
his interview with Roldan, 216.
Ovando, Nicholas de, sent to Hispaniola, 233;
refuses to let Columbus land, 237;
delays to send aid to Columbus, 255;
finally does send it, 262.
Perestrello, Mrs., mother-in-law of Columbus, 20;

her use of the stove-lid, 21.
Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, fits out ship to join Columbus, 56;
has a brilliant idea, 83;
deserts, 97;
met by Columbus, 108;
reaches Palos, 127;
displays good sense, 128.
Pinzon, Vincente Yanez, fits out ship to join Columbus, 56.
Porras, Francisco de, mutinies, 256;
defeated and captured, 261.
Prester John, who he was, 31;
who he was not, 166.
Quibian, attacks colony, 246.

Quintanilla, receives Columbus on deposit, 41.
Roldan, Francisco, rebels, 210;

compromises, 215;
outwits Ojeda, 216;
drowned, 239.
Ships, rigged by Indianians, 64.
Talavera, De, the Queen’s confessor, 43.

Triana, De, discovers land, 86;
is disgusted, 87.
Villejo, Alonzo de, risks his eyes, 229.

Transcriber’s Notes
“Æt.” is an abbreviation for the Latin “aetatis”, which
means “At the age of”. In the original book, this was printed
with Columbus’ age as running headers on the left-hand
pages, and the corresponding years were printed as running
headers on the right-hand pages. In this eBook, they have
been combined, aligned on the right margin, and included at
the beginning of each chapter, as well as whenever they
change. Consecutive duplicates within chapters have been
deleted. Apparent inconsistencies between the ages and the
years have not been changed.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found in the
original book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was
obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or
correct page references, but a few errors were corrected.
Page 3: “Kolompo” was printed in Fraktur.
Page 239: The phrase “Panama Canal” is in the original
book, even though the year was 1502 and the book was
published in 1881.
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A Guide to Old Literary Yiddish 1st

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La Navidad, founded, 105;

Marchena, Juan Perez de, prior of a convent, 50;

Ojeda, Alonzo de, is a just man, 158;

Perestrello, Mrs., mother-in-law of Columbus, 20;

Quibian, attacks colony, 246.

Roldan, Francisco, rebels, 210;

Ships, rigged by Indianians, 64.

Talavera, De, the Queen’s confessor, 43.

Villejo, Alonzo de, risks his eyes, 229.

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