[Mesorah] Cholov Yisroel or Chaleiv Yisroel?

[Seth Mandel]

As is my wont, I left several items for my elder and superior, R DB, to 
correct me on.  It greatly pleaseth me that others of our esteemed chevra 
pick up on these items.  I do not claim that I am always m'khawwen to the 
'emeth when I leave my trail, but I do have the general kawwoanoa (how doth 
that please the the chevra to represent a qoamatz?) to leave a trail.
In addition to the issue of hakhoamenu (not -meinu) zikhroanoam livroakhoa, 
I left other crumbs.  Since R DB, alas, who inhabiteth a divers time 
continuum, hath not yet i-picked up mine trail, I do wish to point out other 
crumbs:
1) A spelling 'QWM is exceedingly strange for something spelled 'KWM, and, 
forsooth, is not comely.
2) The word 'akum meaning crooked is only pronounced such in 'ABaZit.  In 
classical Hebrew, the word is 'oaqom, with an implicit double m at the end, 
as is true of most adjectives of that mivneh.  Although not attested in the 
T'NaKh, it is fairly common in the Hebrew of HaZaL.

Regarding R. Akiva's comment, "Does R' Seth really expect me to believe that 
the people who read this would have read it as "Harav Moshe Ben Maimon", and 
not as "Harambam"?":
I expect no one to believe anything.  After seeing in my own lifetime how 
thousands of Jews have abandoned one of the tenets of our faith that was 
affirmed for two thousand years, I have despaired of expecting people to 
believe anything.  All I expect to do is to bring supporting evidence for my 
position, and then people can believe as they wish.
Unfortunately, I have no recordings of people reading Jewish texts and 
"talking in learning" two hundred years ago, much less 500 (I do think that 
we would have some difficulty understanding the MaHaRiL, who attests that in 
his time people were still distinguishing the h.eth from the kaf).  I 
deliberately gave two examples, however, to make a point.  The readings 
"akum" and "rambam" may be old, but the reading "shlita" is a new invention. 
  My beard is grey, but not so long, and I remember a time when the reading 
"shlita" did not exist.  'Twas only written, and in speech a locution such 
as "zol zain gezunt un shtark" was employed.  I can still remember the first 
time I ever heard anyone say "shlita": it was on the radio, when Butman or 
another Lyubavitcher was saying over something that the late Lyubavitcher 
leader had said on a "farbrengen" carried on the radio.  It sounded very 
strange to me (being a curmudgeonly nitpicker even when I was in kurtze 
hoyzen) then and still sounds strange.
Once one has witnessed the change of a written abbreviation to a spoken 
pseudo-word before one's eyes, the idea that once upon a time, far far away, 
Jews did not pronounce abbreviations as words but pronounced the actual 
words represented by the abbreviation does not seem so strange.  True, 
American government-speak excels in inventing new words from abbreviations, 
such as NASA (although the real name is still uttered) and Humvee (I have 
not heard the real name for a long time).  But there are multiple shards of 
evidence that Jews did not pronounce most abbreviations as words.  One is 
that most old manuscripts write out numerical abbreviations: "dalet ammoth" 
is written as "arba' ammoth."  Another, even more telling, is that many old 
manuscripts vocalize the abbreviations to indicate how the real words are to 
be read: HaZaL is written HaZiLi.
Unlike changes like geshem to goashem, I am not claiming that the change to 
pronouncing abbreviations as words was due to a single person who thought he 
knew diqduq, nor that the change occurred for all words at the same time.  I 
am sure it was a gradual process, with readings such as HaZal getting into 
vogue earlier, since it saveth many syllables.  As the American 
government-speak shows, this is a tendency that has established itself in 
other languages.  But the final incontrovertible proof lies in the 
realization that until the advent of printing, most Jews did not view Hebrew 
so much as a written language, but as a holy tongue.  Jews shared 
manuscripts of mishnayoth, with many clustering around the one copy extant 
in the Beth Medrash, and some just listened.  If one is not looking at the 
written text, but reciting half by heart, the impetus to "read" 
abbreviations as if they were real words is minimal.  And unlike the 
situation since the 18th century, when abbreviations have been standardized, 
before printing and in the period after printing was first developed, an 
abbreviation such as 'KWM alternated with printings/writings such as "'ovde 
kokhoavim," whereas nowadays one will only find "hoaloav 'KWM" printed.  And 
other abbreviations, not standard nowadays, were also employed.  This 
indicates that abbreviations were still viewed as such, rather than actual 
words.  But I am sure that the reading of some abbreviations as words began 
in the 18th century, and gradually became more wide-spread, among more 
people and over more words, during the past 250 years.


>From: MPoppers at kayescholer.com
>To: "Seth Mandel" <SethM37 at hotmail.com>
>CC: "David Bannett" <dbnet at zahav.net.il>,"Akiva Miller" 
><KennethGMiller at juno.com>
>Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Cholov Yisroel or Chaleiv Yisroel?
>Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:19:51 -0400
>
>
>
> > Chazal (oops, I mean chachamenu zikhronom livrokho) <
>Actually, I hope you meant "chachamenu zikhronam livrakha" [qamatz gadol
>consistently applied] ;-), and even better might be "chakhamenu zikhronam
>livrakha" [khaf consistently applied], and a nit picker might note the
>first word's accent and earnestly request a transliteration of "chakhameinu
>zikhronam livrakha."  But as RDB is the well-known picker of all things
>nitty while I'm but a spontaneously-generating ba'al chayyim by comparison,
>I prefer he inform Mesorah of these vital matters.
>
>Best wishes to you and your family for a shanah tovah um'suqah (yeish omrim
>"umsuqah") from
>--Michael Poppers via RIM pager

_________________________________________________________________
Get a FREE small business Web site and more from Microsoft® Office Live! 
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/aub0930003811mrt/direct/01/