Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad 2005. ‘“Abba, why was Professor Higgins trying to teach Eliza to speak like our cleaning lady?”: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language’. Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 19: 210-31.
    
    Abba, Why Was Professor Higgins Trying to Teach Eliza to Speak Like Our Cleaning Lady?: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language
    Ghil‘ad Zuckermann
    http://www.zuckermann.org/
    
    1. Introduction Language is such a sensitive issue in Israel that even politicians are involved. In a session at the Israeli Parliament on 4 January 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuked Israelis for using the etymologically Arabo-English expression yàla báy, lit. “let’s bye”, i.e. “goodbye”, instead of “the most beautiful word” shalóm “peace, hello, goodbye”. In an article in the daily newspaper Ha’aretz (21 June 2004), the left-wing politician Yossi Sarid attacked the common language of éser shékel as inarticulate and monstrous, and urged civilians to fight it and protect “Hebrew”. Israeli educators, as well as laymen, often argue that Israelis “slaughter” or “rape” their language by “lazily” speaking slovenly, “bad Hebrew”, full of “mistakes” (see, for example http://www.lashon.exe.co.il). Most Israelis say bekitá bet rather than the puristic bekhitá bet “in the second grade” (note the spirantization of the /k/ in the latter); éser shékel rather than asar-á shkal-ím “ten shekels” (the latter having a polarity-ofgender agreement — with a feminine numeral and a masculine plural noun), baréy mazál instead of bney mazál, lit. “sons of luck”, i.e. “lucky (plural)”. It might be the case that Israeli has several sociolects or dialects. However, I doubt that there is any authentic Israeli dialect which conforms to the rules enforced by Israeli teachers. What public figures and educators are doing is trying to impose Hebrew grammar on Israeli speech, ignoring the fact that Israeli has its own grammar.
    
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    Native speakers do not make mistakes. Rather, Israeli has its own internal logic, which is very different from that of Hebrew. The translator and author Aharon Amir once mentioned to me that former Knesset Member Tufik Tubi, an Israeli Arab, claimed that his Israeli is the best in the Israeli Parliament. Paradoxically, there are many Israelis who agree with him. I have also been told that no one can speak Israeli better than the radio-presenter Zoher Bahalul, who is an Israeli Arab. But such claims are baffling. How on earth is it possible that every educated Arab who knows Israeli, automatically becomes the role model for Israeli native speakers? One can see in some purists’ rebukes the common phenomenon of a conservative older generation unhappy with “reckless” changes to the language — cf. Jean Aitchison (2001). However, prescriptivism in Israeli does have an unusual feature, which contradicts the typical model, where there is an attempt to enforce the grammar and pronunciation of an elite social group. The late linguist Haim Blanc once took his young daughter to see an Israeli production of My Fair Lady. In this version, Professor Henry Higgins teaches Eliza Doolittle how to pronounce /r/ “properly”, i.e. as the Hebrew alveolar trill, characteristic of Sephardim (cf. Judaeo-Spanish, Italian, Spanish), rather than as the Israeli lax uvular approximant (cf. many Yiddish and German dialects). The line The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain was adapted as barád yarád bidróm sfarád haérev, lit. “Hail fell in southern Spain this evening”. At the end of the performance, Blanc’s daughter tellingly asked, “Abba [daddy], why was Professor Higgins trying to teach Eliza to speak like our cleaning lady?” Do you know the difference between an orthodox, a conservative and a reform Jew? The orthodox says borukh ato adonóy “Blessed are you Lord”, the conservative — just like Israelis — says barukh ata adonay, the reform says barukh ata I don’t know… Ashkenazim used to pronounce adonáy “Lord” as adonóy, but Israelis’ pronunciation of the kamáts vowel (Hebrew [å]) now follows the Sephardic ([a]), rather than Ashkenazic Hebrew ([o]). Consider also Standard Yiddish khókh´m “wise guy” (Polish Yiddish khúkh´m) versus Israeli khakhám. Likewise, a non-geminate t is pronounced [t]
    
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    following the Sephardim, rather than [s] as in Ashkenazic Hebrew, as in Ashkenazic Hebrew leshóyn´s “tongues” versus Israeli leshonót. When asked about the phonetics of Israeli, many distinguished linguists therefore claim that the sounds of Israeli reflect the Sephardic pronunciation tradition. However, this paper suggests that this is just “lip service”: The Israeli consonant and vowel inventory, and its intonation and basic stress, reflect Yiddish. Unlike Israeli purists, I believe that the pronunciation of a Yemenite speaking Israeli is the exception, rather than the norm. In fact, such “mizrahi pronunciation” is gradually disappearing because Israeli was created mostly by Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jews and its standards are thus different from the Semitic standards of Hebrew. Furthermore, as indicated by sfirát yehudéy érets yisraél, a census conducted in 1916-18 (cf. Bachi 1956:67-9), the Ashkenazim were the ones most receptive to the “Hebrew revival”: 61.9% of Ashkenazic children and 28.5% of Ashkenazic adults spoke Israeli in 1916-18. The percentage of Israeli-speakers among Sephardim (constituting most of the veteran residents in Eretz Yisrael) and the other mizrahim (excluding the Yemenites) was low: only 18.3% of Sephardic children and 8.4% of Sephardic adults spoke Israeli in 1916-18, whilst 18.1% of mizrahi children (excluding Sephardim and Yemenites) and 7.3% of mizrahi adults spoke Israeli (cf. 53.1% among Yemenite children and 37.6% among Yemenite adults). To obtain an idea of the approximate “real” numbers, note that between 1850 and 1880 approximately 25,000 Jews immigrated into Eretz Yisrael (mostly Ashkenazim), in 1890 a total of only 40,000 Jews lived in Eretz Yisrael, cf. Bachi (1977:32, 77). Between 1881 and 1903, 20,000-30,000 Jews arrived in Eretz Yisrael (ibid.:79). Let us examine Israeli’s phonetics and phonology more closely, so as to uncover its real origins.
    
    2. Sociological Background The colonialist dichotomy between ‘first world’ (Ashkenazic) and ‘third world’ (mizrahi) structures Israeli society, just as much as the hostilities between orthodox and secular Jews. Even the “burekas” films, like snúker (Boaz Davidon 1975), khakhám
    
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    gamliél (Yoël Zilberg 1974) (cf. sálakh shabáti, Ephraim Kishon 1963), which are regarded by many as the epitome of mizrahi culture, are hybridic and modelled, among other things, upon Ashkenazic shtetl life — see kúni lémel, as well as shtétl kabtsíel in Méndele Móykh´r Sfórim’s beémek habakhá. Zionist historians, seeking to map the debates that shaped Israel’s national ethos, have claimed that the battle centres on religion, and that it began with the dispute between Ahad Ha‘am (pen name of Asher Ginsberg, 1856-1927) and Micah Joseph Berdichevsky (1865-1921), both key Jewish thinkers of the early twentieth century. While the religious Ahad Ha‘am wanted the nationalist movement to honour Jewish values (or l-a-goím “light to the Gentiles”, “light among the nations”), the secular Berdichevsky urged that it should promote Western culture. More recently, however, historians have turned their attention to the conflict between Ashkenazim and mizrahim, arguing that it exerts the stronger influence over modern Israeli society and its problems. I would add that this conflict manifests itself most eloquently in the Israeli language. We can learn about the difficulties which the mizrahi experienced in their attempts to propagate their culture from the term zamár kasétot, lit. “cassette-singer”, denoting a singer (crooner) of múzika mizrakhít. For many years, this popular culture, widespread among mizrahim, was not represented in the (at least formerly) Ashkenazicdominated Israeli media. Therefore, the singers had to find an alternative method of disseminating their songs. Audio cassettes were an affordable solution and were sold in Israeli street markets, such as Tel Aviv’s old central bus-station. The first Sephardic record was introduced only in 1974, in a collection by the tsliléy haúd Band, which included the mizrahi version of the song khanale hitbalbela (1934). It is worth noting, however, that such Middle Eastern music now receives normal media coverage and is much loved by many Ashkenazim. By now, it is an integral part of Israel’s hybrid culture. In some cases, however, its popularity results from “inverse snobbery”; it is “cool” for an Ashkenazi to like Zohar Argov (rather than Beethoven). Compare this to the British violinist Nigel Kennedy, who speaks “Mockney”, i.e. fake Cockney, to improve his street credibility. A cynic might argue that such an affectation is similar to the tycoon Richard Branson preferring jumpers to suits, as if he is saying that he is rich enough to ignore the norms.
    
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    There are many stories about Jewish surnames, which touch on issues of self- and group- identity. You might have heard the one about Michael Berkovich who emigrated from Poland to the United States using a fake passport. When asked by the clerk at Ellis Island what his name was, he said in Yiddish shoyn fargésn “already forgotton”, so the clerk wrote Sean Fergusson. And do you know why a Georgian Jewish immigrant was slapped by the female immigration clerk on arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport? When asked his name, he said Bòytishvíli (or perhaps Batiashvíli, shvíli being a common suffix parallel to the English prefix o’ (of) as in O’Connor or to the English suffix -son as in Jacobson, hence “(son) of Batia” — cf. other surnames ultimately named after a mother, e.g. Bashevis “son of Bat-Sheva”, Rifkin(d) “son of Rivka”, Dworkin “son of Dvorka () Israeli [k] and to (t) Yiddish . Hebrew [t†] is pronounced in Israeli [t], equal to (Hebrew>) Israeli
    
    and to Yiddish . Hebrew
    
    [s†] is pronounced in Israeli [tÉs], which did not exist in
    
    Classical Hebrew but which did exist in Yiddish and in Ashkenazic Hebrew, pronounced [tÉs]. Naturally, this does not only apply to the pronunciation of pre-existent Hebrew words. In borrowing foreign lexical items, , Israeli to represent imported [k], [t] and [tÉs], respectively. 3.2 Neutralization of , , and I remember a beloved primary school teacher in Israel lionizing the “correct” pronunciation of the Sephardi Yitzhak Navon (former Israeli President) and the mizrahi Eliahu Nawi (former Mayor of Beer Sheva). In his famous song Aní vesímon vemóiz hakatán, Yossi Banay writes benaaléy shabát veková shel barét, vebeivrít yafá im áin veìm khet “With Sabbath shoes and a beret hat, and in beautiful Hebrew with Ayin and with Het”, referring to the Semitic pharyngeals less by young ones). A language is, in fact, an abstract ensemble of idiolects — as well as sociolects, dialects etc. — rather than an entity per se. It is more like a species than an organism (cf. Mufwene 2001 and Zuckermann 2008). Still, generally speaking, I believe that the Yemenite pronunciation of áin and khet is non-mainstream, exactly the opposite of what Israeli children (pronouncing [none] and [X]) are told. [÷] and [ ], which most Israelis do not pronounce but which are used, for example, by old Yemenite Jews (though less and and are the letters used in
    
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    In Yiddish there is neither [÷] nor [ ], whereas [h] and [/] are very weak. By and large, Hebrew [÷], while [/] and [h] are all “pronounced” in Israeli in the same way: most and — [/], of the time, they are not pronounced. They are only pronounced (both
    
    — [h]) when in a post-consonantal position within uncommon words. Israeli nirá [ni»“a] “seemed (masculine singular)” (where the glottal tish’él [tiS»/el] “interrogated, questioned [ ] is
    
    [h] is also pronounced by some speakers at the beginning of phrases. Compare the frequently used Israeli stop is not pronounced) to the rare
    
    (masculine singular)” (where the glottal stop is pronounced). Hebrew pronounced in Israeli [X], equal to Israeli ¯ [X] () Israeli shidrá “spine, spinal column” (see Sarfatti 1972:186). Anyhow, when the President pressed the point and asked “in which city?”, the child disappointingly replied ber séva “Beer Seva” (instead of ber shéva “Beer Sheva”). In 2002, I gave a talk at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, Honolulu. I was taken to see the Polynesian Cultural Centre, and remember two things in particular. First, a Tongan presenter gave us a lovely big ice-cream in a grapefruit and said: “This ice-cream is for free”. Moments later he added: “The spoon costs 15 dollars!”. Second, I was approached by a blonde woman, who asked in a peculiar accent: “Excuse me, do you like Havaii”, pronouncing Hawaii as Israelis pronounce haváy “way of life, cultural pattern”. The fact is that in the local language Hawaii is indeed pronounced haváy’i, so I replied: “Yes, I like havai’i and thank you very much for pronouncing it so beautifully!”. Her response, which
    
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    took my by surprise, was “You are velcome!”. Yes, the woman was a native Germanspeaker! Similarly, the German-based final devoicing (although it is now established that the natural default of all speakers — not only of Germans — is final devoicing, cf. Singh 1987), means that instead of pronouncing négev, many yékes say négef, which means “plague”. I was reminded of my German friend in Oxford who pronounced liver as [»liwIr] as if to counter-balance her frequent pronunciation of English w as [v] — cf. -What question invites the answer 9W!? -Do you spell your name with v, Herr Wagner? (-Nein, w!).
    
    5. Implications of the lack of vocalization 5.1 Introduction There are additional problems in the writing system used by Israeli, arising from the avoidance of vocalization (vowel marking, nikúd “pointing”, cf. diacritics). I often hear the following “mispronunciations”: (1) mitabním instead of metaavním — for “appetizers”, from teavón “appetite”. Note the distinct mitabním “becoming fossilized (masculine plural)”; (2) maalé edomím instead of maalé adumím — for the toponym Biblical Hebrew the toponym Biblical Hebrew in Joshua 15:7, 18:17 (see Ziv 1996:77; Kol Makom Veatar 1985:313); (3) The hypercorrect yotvetá instead of yotváta — for , mentioned in Deuteronomy 10:7 (see Kol Makom Veatar 1985:231); (4) fára fost instead of fára fóset — for the anthroponym Farrah Fawcett (an American actress). The lack of vocalization in Israeli might even result in a new name. For instance, there is an Israeli named Reviel who is thus called because his mother heard a child misreading
    
    , pronouncing it REVIEL instead of ROYAL (a brand of cigarettes). Often,
    : balében “in the sour milk”, belaván “in ). I remember
    
    the only way of discovering what the writer means is by putting his/her words in context. Consider the homographs spelled white”, balabán “Balaban (a surname)”, belibán “in their heart” (cf.
    
    looking for a Morasha Shooting Range (thinking it might be near Morasha Junction,
    
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    not far from Tel Aviv) because I was asked to go to handgun licence. Israeli
    
    in order to renew a
    
    actually stood for murshé (√rSj) “authorized, allowed, could also stand for mivársha
    
    permitted” (and also “deputy, representative, delegate”). Israeli morashá (√jrS) literally means “legacy, inheritance, heritage”. Finally, “from Warsaw”. Similarly, Israeli “Hilda (a name)”, and Israeli headline can represent both hayaldá “the girl” and hílda can stand for both hashfelá “the lowland” and
    
    hashpalá “humiliation”. Intriguing examples include misreading the newspaper as arafát hayá babún “Arafat was a baboon” instead of arafát hayá bebón “Arafat was in Bonn”. Thus, éven gviról is the common pronunciation in Tel Aviv of Íbn
    
    Gabiról, a street named after Solomon Ben-Yehuda ibn Gabirol (in Latin: Avicebron, 1022-70). This is probably a (subconscious/semi-deliberate) de-Arabicization assisted by (Hebraized) surnames such as Even-Shoshan (a lexicographer; Milón Evenéven sapír (a moshav near éven yitskhák (a Shoshan in one edition or another, is familiar to almost all Israelis), toponyms such as éven yehúda (a town in the Sharon), Jerusalem), éven menakhém (a moshav in Galilee) and
    
    kibbutz in Ramat Menashe). The “mispronunciation” éven gviról is not that noticeable in Jerusalem, inter alia because its inhabitants are more used to the names of medieval Spanish Jewish thinkers. Absurdly enough, Israelis, almost all of whom can read roman letters, sometimes turn to the English transcription on Israeli signs (confused though it may be) in order to find out how to pronounce an unfamiliar Israeli toponym. That said, there are cases in which the Israeli orthography is more effective than the “English”, compare Israeli ' with English Ocalan, the latter sometimes being pronounced [»ok lan] or [o»k lan], as though he were Scottish, rather than a Kurd bearing a Turkish surname meaning “revenge seeker, vengeant” (cf. Turkish öc “revenge” + alan “taker”, cf. almak “to take, get, buy”; his full name being Abdullah (Apo) Öcalan) — cf. the Anglicization O’Hana of the Sephardic surname Israeli okhána. Compare also Israeli ' milóshevich with English Milosevic, usually pronounced [mi»l s´vitÉS] with [s] instead of [S]. The Israeli pronunciation is more faithful to the Serbian. Whereas English tends to maintain the original spelling of surnames, Polish, for example, prefers to adapt the
    
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    spelling to maintain the original pronunciation — cf. Szekspir “Shakespeare” and Waszyngton “Washington”. But the fact that many Israelis sometimes turn to the English transcription on Israeli signs has prompted some linguists and non-linguists to propose romanization. A peculiar form of romanization is already apparent in witty Israeli advertisements, e.g. (speaking, note the schwa below the S), the name of a school teaching English in Z.O.A. House (“Zionists of America House”, Tel Aviv), AEG (note the vocalization) and Z (ze tapuzína “This is Tapuzína (the name of an orange juice drink)”). Incidentally, Japanese also uses roman letters in similar ways for advertising purposes. 5.2 Palindromic stories Yet, its very lack of vowels makes Israeli an ideal medium for palindromic stories, an example of constrained literature which reads the same when the letters composing it are taken in the reverse order. Consider the following, 1671 ' which I wrote several years ago: ( ) ,
    S
    
    ,
    
    , ¯, . .
    
    . ¯ . ¯ , :
    
    . . . . ¯ . .
    
    ,
    
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    ?¯
    
    ? . . .
    
    ?
    
    :
    
    , ?" ¯ , , , ? , , : ":
    
    English Translation (Non-Palindromic) There, she took a “bunch” of roses, and a rat devoured a worm. No pure disaster or suffering was caused. On the street, a Gypsy named Methuselah pushed in mortal danger a doctor dressed in white clothes. It is clear and important to mention that the fellow, who rents flats in Pines Street, remembered a liars' secret and went to fish in the sea of great currents. The currents reserved a certain stream for his activity. He became the strangest in the sea. A band-singer stood and inhaled spirits from a captive commentator. The man stood out and inspired grace in a preparatory course for the sports test. Hatred was created and the desire brought madness. A grandfather rested worn out, handicapped and combed in a Haifa (rest)home. Dew in the maximal aridity burned, thinly spread and full of fire and tears. The audience hinted at who writes a résumé and wishes to fly to the Galapagos, and complained: Who reduces weight? Who gained power from a sea which reduces weight? Who is betrayed by a bride? And who said “An orthodox Jew, coordinator of a (local) branch, chooses property as help”? Its remaining width is black and great. Who washes a grey train (of dress)? A rabbit escaping out of fear, weak and naïve from captivity, plunged a sword into him! Finally, run, flee, impresario, to the tunnels of the filthy individual and to the slope of the moving farmer.
    
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    6. Word-Initial Schwa Mobile Whereas Sephardim pronounce Schwa mobile (shva na) at the beginning of a word, Ashkenazim and Israelis do not. Consider Sephardic shemi “my name” as opposed to Israeli shmi, Sephardic tesha÷÷esre “nineteen” vs Israeli tsháesre, qes†is†a “meatball” vs Israeli ktsitsá, de iya “delay” vs Israeli dkhiá, shelila “negation” vs Israeli shlilá, be ira “choice” vs Israeli bkhirá, keli “tool” vs Israeli kli, and shebira “breaking” vs Israeli shvirá (see §8).
    
    7. Syllable structure The syllable structure of Biblical Hebrew was CV(X)(C). In other words, every syllable consisted of a consonant, a vowel, an optional consonant or vowel and finally, an optional consonant. For example, [/eq.da ], [/¿.t¿] (the long vowel means [qamt] and o that the third slot is a vowel, identical to the vowel in the second slot),
    
    [sòr]. However, the syllable structure of Israeli is (s)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(s). On the one hand, you can have a syllable in Israeli which consists only of a vowel, for example you can have a cluster of up to three consonants preceding the vowel, e.g. “sprint”, strep.tiz “striptease”, zvuv “fly” and well as a cluster of up to three consonants following the vowel, e.g. til.prent “sent a teleprinter”. “or” (Israelis do not usually pronounce the áleph (glottal stop) here). On the other hand, sprint shrimps and ktsitsá “meatball”, as
    
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    Now, there are people who believe that some of the examples I gave here are not in Israeli. I disagree. The fact that the foreign origin is transparent does not at all mean that the word has not entered the Israeli language. What is the plural of shrimp in English? It is usually shrimp (without the s). What is the plural of shrimp in Israeli? It is shrímpsim. Furthermore, if any of the multi-consonantal words enter Japanese, it will receive a totally different treatment. For example, English table is teburu, sexual harassment is seku hara. Unlike Israeli, Japanese cannot keep the clusters because it contradicts the normal syllable structure. When I take the bullet train (shinkansen) in Japan, I always look forward to hearing the waitress asking in a high-pitched whisper aisu kohi aisu kurimu, wa ikaga desuka “Ice coffee, ice cream, what would you like?”. An Israeli might have said ays kofi ais krim, ma barósh sh’khà? There would be no problem whatsoever with the KR cluster in cream, although it would have been impossible in Hebrew. There are many minimal pairs which illuminate this point. First, let me explain what I mean by minimal pair: two expressions differing from each other only in one phonetic feature. For example, the stress of tsfoní “northern” is different from that of tsfóni and thus the two words have different meanings. So what would be an example of a minimal pair related specifically to the difference between the syllable structure of Israeli and that of Hebrew? Compare the Israeli word plástik “plastic” with the Hebrew name ’aplatón “Plato”. The prothetic ’a of ’aplatón was inserted to avoid the cluster PL at the beginning of the syllable because this was impossible in Hebrew. Linguists call this additional vowel a prothesis (cf. French establir ‘establish’, from Latin stabilire). If the Greek word στάδιον stádion entered Israeli today, we would not have added the prothetic i as in itstadyón. What do you call the game played by men with funny-shaped balls? Rugby! And what do you call the game played by two people and two small goals, in which each person starts out with the ball, but can only touch it once? Stánga rather than itstánga! The same applies to Israeli Rabbinic Hebrew spin “(political) spin” versus ’isplånít “plaster, adhesive bandage”, from Greek splēnión.
    
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    The question is, where does the Israeli (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C) structure come from? Well, the syllable structure in Yiddish is identical, although Yiddish can also have a syllabic consonant (CC`). Consider Yiddish érsht s “first of all” or shtrúd , the latter pronounced in Israeli as shtrúdel. As opposed to some English speakers, for example, who pronounce Sweden as swi:d , most Israelis say komunízem rather than komunízm. Intriguingly, whereas Lincoln College (Oxford) is pronounced línk´n (the second l is not pronounced), Israeli students tend to call it línkolen. That said, Yiddish is far from being like Czech, where a whole sentence can have no vowel. For example, Strč prst skrs krk means “Put your finger down your throat!”.
    
    8. Unaspired spirantization None of the Sephardi/Mizrahi communities — apart from the Kurdistani Jews — pronounce a v for a beth without a dagesh, although of course that has become standard in Israeli use. Sephardim used to say shebira “breaking” rather than shvirá as in Israeli. On the other hand, I have already mentioned that most Israelis say bekitá bet rather than the puristic bekhitá bet “in the second grade”. The fricativization of the /k/ is referred to by linguists as spirantization. We all had to study the differences between schwa quiescence (shva nakh) and schwa mobile (shva na) so we could determine when we should spirantize. For example, we “should” say lirkósh “to purchase” but rakháshti “I purchased”, lekhabés “to do laundry” but kibásti “I did laundry”. But, wait a second, many Israelis say khibásti “I did laundry”! And bli khibúdim rather than bli kibúdim “without refreshments”. Are they wrong? Not at all! Their grammar is simply not the same as Hebrew. Netiva Ben-Yehuda told me once about a promo for a movie on Israeli TV in which the presenter said that the movie is about nezirá ve-khómer “a nun and khómer”. How many Israelis would understand the khómer here as “priest” rather than “substance”, e.g. hashish? I think it was the famous Israeli Arab radio-presenter Zoher Bahalul who said eynéy hakahál neutsót bekhár hadéshe ‘the audience is glaring at the grass field (football pitch)’ (but cf. Israeli khára “shit”). The effect might be similar to the old grandmother who caressed her grandson called Shakhar while saying
    
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    Shakhárale, Shakhárale. Professor Yona Sabar once told me an anecdote about a Jew who, while singing in Qabbalat Shabbat bói khalá “Come, bride” (denoting Sabbath), always looked pointedly at the .
    
    9. Penultimate Stress Contrary to the traditional view that the Israeli unmarked stress is ultimate and follows the Sephardic traditions — I believe that the basic stress in Israeli is trochaic (penultimate). This explains, for example, the native pronunciation albáni “Albanian” rather than the prescriptive albaní. When I asked a friend of mine, who has lived in Tel Aviv for years, whether we can meet at rekhóv yehudá hamakabí (Judah the Maccabi Street), she claimed never to have heard of it. I had to pronounce it properly as yúda makábi. Often, the stress of Israeli names and words changes from ultimate to penultimate, as in Yiddish and Ashkenazic Hebrew. In some cases, penultimate stress has several motivations, for example Yiddish influence, endearment, differentiation, Arabic influence, alienation. This is yet another manifestation of the crucially important notion of multiple causation, which is at the heart of Israeli (see Zuckermann 2003a, 2008). Consider the following examples of penultimate stress in Israeli: 1. Anthroponyms, for example the female first names sára, rína, include menákhem, dvóra, kháya, kháim, nákhman, yóna, ¯ kháva and yúda, yóram, brákha, nekháma, shoshána, shíra, yáfa, dína,
    
    éster. Penultimately stressed male first names móshe (cf. Yiddish dávid and móysh´), yóna. As in these examples
    
    in Israeli, the stress of Yiddish polysyllabic first names is never ultimate. The penultimate stress here might imply affection. Compare it to the non-anthroponymic khatúla “female cat”, an endearing form of Israeli khatulá “female cat”.
    
    Furthermore, many of the penultimately-stressed Israeli names, and especially the female ones, can serve as a lexical item when stressed ultimately. For example,
    
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    dvorá “bee”, “farm” and
    
    sará “female minister”,
    
    khayá “animal”,
    
    khavá
    
    yafá “beautiful (feminine plural)”. Thus, it is possible to explain the leafér “to flick ash from a cigarette/cigar” versus hishtavéts “had a heart attack (masculine hitkhabér
    
    penultimate stress as mere differentiation. Compare this with those differentiations that are not related to stress: leapér “to put make up on”, singular)” versus
    
    hishtabéts “was assigned (masculine singular)”, and
    
    hitkhavér “became friends (with) (masculine singular)” versus
    
    “became linked (to) (masculine singular)”. Nevertheless, diachronically, in the cases with penultimate stress, the influence of Yiddish has been more prominent than differentiation. 2. Toponyms, for instance the cities/towns netanyá), gedéra, kháyfa (cf. puristic kheyfá), tvérya, rosh pína, ( binyamína, ) natánya (cf. puristic ríshon
    
    rekhóvot (cf. rekhovót “streets”), ¯ zíkhron,
    
    letsíon or ríshon. Note that the usual stress of Yiddish toponyms is penultimate. 3. Common words, for example ¯ / pársi “Iranian (Jew)”, glída “ice-cream” (cf. Zuckermann 2000:129), tsábar “prickly pear”, a nickname for native Israelis
    
    im/bli khibúdim “with/without sharing (goodies)” (used by children),
    
    (Sabra), allegedly thorny on the outside and sweet inside. (This is analogous to the use of the word kiwi to refer to a New Zealander, not after the delicious fruit but rather after the nocturnal, wingless bird which has a long neck and stout legs.) There are many cases of penultimate plural form, which differentiates a word in the singular from a homophonous one. Consider Israeli explanation can be applied to Israeli pronounced pánim, in contrast to Israeli (both written as ). salím “baskets, vessels” versus sal). The same , is often tskhok sálim “goals scored in basketball” (both based on Israeli
    
    pan “aspect, form”, whose plural, paním “face”. Similarly, Israeli
    
    “laugh” has two plural forms: either tskhókim “funny bits, stories” or tskhokím “laughs”
    
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    In some cases, the penultimate stress is attributable to the influence of Arabic. For example, kháyfa (puristically kheyfá) is pronounced in Arabic [»ħajfa]. This brings , usually yerikhó , the oldest town known in Eretz Yisrael. to mind the case of Israeli yeríkho “Jericho”, which might be a derogatory form of (Hebrew>) Israeli pronounced Correct me if I am wrong, but Israel’s late former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as yeríkho once it became clear that the area was going to be ceded to the Palestinians, as though attempting to create revulsion for this land by hinting that “it is not biblical [jIrò»ħō] but rather alien yeríkho”. Possibly the stress was also induced by Arabic ‫/[ أ‬ar»ri:ħa:] “Jericho”. Thus, penultimate stress can imply not only affection (as in the aforementioned anthroponyms) but also alienation or foreignness (as here). A contrary example, which nonetheless sustains my argument, is Israel’s former Prime Minister Shimon Peres’s pronunciation of the Israeli acronym " “PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)”. In what I perceive as an attempt to “humanize” the PLO at a time when it was widely seen in Israel as a terrorist movement, Peres pronounced 2003b). It seems that a small difference in stress can have huge political implications. Maxima in minimis. An analysis of a tiny linguistic feature can teach us a lot about society. Compare this to the political use of euphemisms, e.g. Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of the neutral peimót, lit. “beatings (of the heart)”, to refer to the stages in the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. Israeli peimót might have been intended to lessen the opposition of right-wing Israelis to such “withdrawal” ( nesigá). Consider also the semantic manipulation of words for religious or political motives is a weapon of the strong and weak alike (see Zuckermann 2006). An Australian example is that ‘asylum seekers’ have become queue jumpers, which has detrimental social connotations. " as asháf, unlike the common pronunciation áshaf (Zuckermann
    
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    10. Intonation While on a state visit to Israel, President George W. Bush took part in a ceremony to honour the country’s fallen. Laying a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier near Jerusalem, he was confused to discover that the inscription read kháim shúster, soldier and tailor. “But why do you give his name?” he demanded of Ariel Sharon. “Surely this soldier is meant to be anonymous.” “Oy!” replied Sharon with a strong Yiddish intonation: “As a soldier he was unknown, but as a tailor?!?”… People familiar with both Yiddish and Israeli find it hard to deny that the intonation of Israeli is very similar to that of Yiddish. Mizrahi Israelis have acquired this very same intonation. Do you remember the Israeli TV commercial for the Toto football lottery, in which a mizrahi Jew is walking in a stadium (built by the Toto) and praising the activities of the Toto Committee? Among other things, he produces a sentence which became a catch-phrase for Israelis: ! , kháim, tadlík et haorót bevakashá “Haim, switch on the (projector-)lights please!”. The relevant fact is that this Israeli, apparently of mizrahi descent, possesses an intonation which is indeed very Yiddish, for example when he states: ! ! ? ! ? ¯
    
    tóto ani memalé kol shavúa? memalé! hatóto mekadém et haspórt beisraél? mekadém! az aní shutáf! Toto (do) I fill every week? I fill! Does the Toto promote sport in Israel? (It) promotes! So I am a part (of it)! (i.e. I am a part of the important contribution of the Toto to Israeli society). At the end of 2004, the New Terminal of Ben-Gurion Airport was advertised on Israeli TV. A woman comes back from Paris and when her family comes to pick her up from the Airport, they ask her about the trip. She does not stop praising the shops and service at… the airport. When one of the family members prompts her to talk about Paris, she replies using a denigrating Yiddish intonation: Paris? Paris!
    
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    The rise-fall intonation in questions expecting a strong negative answer (i.e. “Of course not!”) is also a Yiddish pattern — cf. Weinreich (1956:642) and Blanc (1965:189). For example, !? ¯ atá haréy lo halákhta leshám?! “You did not go there, did you?!” or “Surely you did not go there?!”. Consider also the intonation required for sentences with Y-Movement (i.e. Yiddish movement, left dislocation, cf. thematicization and topicalization). A customer enters a department store in New York and asks the assistant, “Do you have Nike shoes here?” — “No, I am sorry, goodbye!”, comes the reply. The owner, who happens to overhear, takes his employee to one side and rebukes him. “You should have said ‘We have no Nike but I can give you Adidas, New Balance or Hamgaper [Israeli company]’”, he explains. The next day, a customer asks the assistant, “Do you have toilet paper?”, to which he replies, “We’re out of toilet paper. Sand paper — I can give you!”. This construction is, of course, common in Israeli but one needs to use the right intonation. This example raises another issue, the influence of Yiddish and other European languages on the syntax of Israeli (see Zuckermann 2008).
    
    11. Concluding Remarks The impact of Yiddish and “Standard Average European” is apparent in all the components of the language but usually in patterns rather than in forms. The term “Standard Average European” was first introduced by Whorf (1941:25) and recently received more attention by Haspelmath (1998, 2001). That said, Israeli demonstrates a unique spectacular split between morphology and phonology. Whereas most Israeli Hebrew morphological forms, e.g. discontinuously conjugated verbs, are Hebrew, the phonetics and phonology of Israeli — including of these very forms — are European. One of the reasons for overlooking this split is the axiom that morphology — rather than phonology — is the most important component in
    
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    genetic classification. In fact, such a morpho-phonological split is not apparent in most languages of the world and is definitely rare in “genetic” languages. Israeli’s “nongeneticness” makes it a fascinating hybrid language.
    
    Bibliography Bachi, Roberto. 1956. “tkhiyát halashón haivrít beaspaklárya statístit” (The Revival of the Hebrew Language from a Statistical Perspective). Lešonénu 20:65-82. ––––––––– 1977. The Population of Israel. Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem — Demographic Center to the Prime-Minister’s Office in Israel. Blanc, Haim. 1965. “Yiddish Influences in Israeli Hebrew”. The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore and Literature (Second Collection), Uriel Weinreich (ed.), The Hague: Mouton, 185-201. Haspelmath, Martin 1998. ‘How Young is Standard Average European?’. Language Sciences 20:271-87. ––––––––– 2001. ‘The European Linguistic Area: Standard Average European’ in Haspelmath et al. (eds), Language Typology and Language Universals. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter; Vol. 2:1492-510. Hopkins, Simon. 1990. “ivrít veyídish” (Hebrew and Yiddish). Leshonenu La‘am 401:313-8. Kol Makóm veAtár (Israel — Sites and Places). 1985 (1st Edition: 1953). Ministry of Defence — Carta. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sarfatti, Gad Ben-Ami. 1972. “od al haetimológya haamamít” (More on Popular Etymology). Leshonenu La‘am 23:141-3.
    
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    Singh, Rajendra. 1987. “Well formedness Conditions and Phonological Theory” in Wolfgang U. Dressler et al. (eds), Phonologica 1984 (Proceedings of the Fifth International Phonology Meeting, Eisenstadt, 25-28 June 1984), Cambridge University Press, pp. 273-285. Weinreich, Uriel. 1956. “Notes on the Yiddish Rise-Fall Intonation Contour”. For Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Morris Halle (ed.), The Hague: Mouton, pp. 633-43. Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1956 [1941]. Language, Thought, and Reality. Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. John B. Carroll (ed.). Cambridge (Massachusetts): MIT Press. Ziv, Yehuda. 1996. “yerushaláim — shemót savív la” (Geographical Names around Jerusalem). Leshonenu La‘am 47:73-7. Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad. 2003a. Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. London — New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ––––––––– 2003b. “Language Contact and Globalisation: The Camouflaged Influence of English on the World’s Languages — with special attention to Israeli (sic) and Mandarin”. Cambridge Review of international Affairs 16:287-307. ––––––––– 2004. “Cultural Hybridity: Multisourced Neologization in ‘Reinvented’ Languages and in Languages with ‘Phono-Logographic’ Script”. Languages in Contrast 4.2:281-318. ––––––––– 2006. ‘“Etymythological Othering” and the Power of “Lexical Engineering” in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. A Socio-Philo(sopho)logical Perspective’, pp. 237-58 (Chapter 16) of ‘Tope Omoniyi and Joshua A. Fishman (eds), Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture series). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ––––––––– 2008. Israelit Safa Yafa (Israeli, a Beautiful Language). Tel Aviv: Am Oved.
    
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