[78-L] Benny Goodman

[Donna Halper]

On 6/26/2016 9:19 AM, Jeff Sultanof wrote:
> Most likely it *was *Yiddlsh, especially during that period. Among most
> Jewish families, Yiddish was spoken in the home, and English was spoken out
> in the world. Parents relied on children to teach them English, which they
> learned in school and out on the street.
>    
I'd be shocked if it weren't Yiddish.  Most European Jewish immigrants 
spoke Yiddish as their lingua franca-- it had different accents (folks 
from Lithuania pronounced words slightly differently from folks who came 
from Russia or Poland-- for example, you said "zy gezoont"-- you should 
be healthy till next we meet... a way to say goodbye-- if you were a 
Litvak, a Jew from Lithuania.  But if you were from Russia, you 
pronounced it zy ge-zint), but it was the common language for Jewish 
immigrants, and I grew up in a bilingual home as a result.  My parents 
were born here-- my mother's side from Lithuania, and my father's from 
Russia. Their parents and relatives were not born here, however, and 
Yiddish was used both to communicate with the relatives and to speak in 
a "code" when my parents didn't want us kids to understand what they 
were saying (which is how I learned it). And yes, it's true that the 
children were expected to learn English and translate for their parents 
and other relatives, much like we see today with immigrants from China, 
Vietnam, or Spanish-speaking countries.  As for Benny's mother, 
biographers note that she never learned to read or write (schooling for 
girls in many countries back then was limited or was not a priority).