Survey on American Jewish Language

[pooka]

Huh, I forgot to include that about a third of the books I read as a child were about Jews living in New York.  Of course, I'm replying too late to be part of the survey.

[Tante Shvester]

Hey Rivka, what's the English word for "tallis"?  I know the English word for tefillin and for kippah (even though I'm pretty sure I'd never find the right occasion to use either, and I haven't met anyone else who calls them by their English names), but for the life of me, I can't remember the English word for tallis.  Is there an English word?


I had thought that tallis was an English word, until Scrabble just told me otherwise.

[Jonathon]

The Scrabble dictionary has "tallit" and "tallith." Apparently they like Sephardic but not Ashkenazic Hebrew.

[rivka]

Hey Rivka, what's the English word for "tallis"?

Prayer shawl, usually.

[rivka]

The Scrabble dictionary has "tallit" and "tallith." Apparently they like Sephardic but not Ashkenazic Hebrew.

Sephardic and Yemenite, apparently.

[Jonathon]

I figured I'd missed something in there; the Wikipedia article was not totally clear on where all the forms are from.

[rivka]

I'm not entirely clear on how the various forms have migrated into English (or not). I actually doubt that "tallith" is English because of the Yemenite pronunciation. Historically, it just wouldn't make much sense, I think.

Nonetheless, that IS how Yemenite Jews pronounce the letter in question. ת is a tav using Sephardi pronunciation, a saf in Ashkenazi, and a thav in Yemenite. I don't follow much of the technical bits of this, but I imagine you might.