Vernacular Voices - Kirsten A. Fudeman Jewish Culture and Contexts

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genre. Equally common are the words describing pain and suffering in the elegy: sofrir (suffer), dolor (grief), poine (pain).142 Meder (melder) and ‘asqer, in contrast, belong to a semantic field concerned with Jewish study, and their use contributes to a “poétique de contrastes.”

      I have come across at least one possible example of the opposite kind of hybridity. Eight manuscripts of Joseph Kara’s (b. 1050–1055, d. 1120–1030) commentary to Jeremiah gloss Hebrew we-hitpalleshu (“and roll yourselves [in dust, etc.]” Jer. 25:34) as velopu/volopu, which seems to consist of the Old French root velop-/volop- (cf. infinitive veloper, voloper; “envelop”) and a Hebrew plural suffix. (The expected reflexive pronoun is missing.) It is possible that all eight manuscripts reflect an earlier copying error. It is equally possible, however, that Kara wished the morphological structure of the French gloss to mimic that of the Hebrew, possibly to call attention to the fact that, in the second-person plural imperative, Hebrew makes a distinction between masculine (hitpalleshu) and feminine (hitpalleshnah) that French does not.143

      Words like ‘asqer, qadmeneis, and volopu may represent the coupling of Hebrew and French in medieval Jewish texts at its most intimate, but medieval texts in both Old French and Hebrew offer many more examples of switching from one language to the other for practical or stylistic reasons. In medieval Hebrew texts, French words are sometimes set off by linking expressions such as (she-)qorin (“[that] they call”), (she-)lo‘azin (“[that] they render in French,” or lit. “a language other than Hebrew”), or be-la‘az (“in a language other than Hebrew,” i.e., French). At other times the words are fully integrated into the Hebrew syntax, preceded by the Hebrew definite article prefix ha- (“the”) or prepositional prefixes meaning “to” or “in,” or the conjunction we- (“and”). The Maḥzor Vitry contains many examples of this kind.

      (THEY WASH THEIR HANDS AND THEY SAY THE BLESSING “ ‘AL NETILAT YADAYIM” [i.e., the blessing recited upon washing the hands]. AND THEY PRESENT THE BOWL FILLED WITH HERBS AND TAKE SOME OF THE chervil [Old French cerfueil] AND HE SAYS THE BLESSING “BORE’ PERI HA-ADA-MAH” [i.e., the blessing recited over products of the soil].)144

      Old French cerfueil (“chervil, wild thyme”) is prefixed with the Hebrew definite article ha- and governed by the preposition min (“from”). In the next example, two French nouns are conjoined with the Hebrew conjunction we- (“and”).

      (OVER [THINGS MADE FROM] THE FIVE KINDS OF CEREALS, SUCH AS PASTIES AND BISCUIT [oblees WE-chantel] … THEY SAY THE BLESSING “HA-MOṢI’ LEḤEM [MIN] HA-AREṢ” [i.e., the blessing recited over bread].)145

      In his commentaries, Joseph Kara sometimes weaves Hebrew and French together into a single piece of grammatical fabric. The final word of his Old French gloss on Isa. 6:8, Des (“God”), is written clearly. It is in the nominative (subject) case. Its verb is Hebrew omer (“says”).

      Des O[MER] ET MI ESHLA[KH]?

      (God SAYS WHOM SHALL I SEND?)146

      In his comments on Isa. 66:18, Kara begins a sentence in Old French, ending with the past participle of the verb doner (doneid), “give.” He could have followed it with the Old French subordinating conjunction que (“that”) but instead uses the Hebrew equivalent, she-, and completes the sentence in Hebrew.

      BA’AH. BE-L[A‘AZ]: ço me fera avenir e tu m’a[s] doneid SHE-AQABBEṢ ET KOL HA-GOYIM WE-HA-LESHONOT U-VA’UWE-RA’U ET KEVODI (“BA’AH” [COMING; Isa. 66:18]. In french: That will make me approach; and you have allowed me TO GATHER [LIT. THAT I WILL GATHER] ALL NATIONS AND TONGUES, AND THEY WILL COME AND SEE MY GLORY)147

      In these two examples, Kara switches from one language to the other with no apparent didactic or illustrative purpose. Not so in the next, where the Hebrew preposition el intervenes between a third-person singular French verb (future tense) dirad (“will say”) and a French noun phrase, ta virtance (“your faithfulness”). In Hebraico-French texts, function words are often run together. It is nonetheless striking that there is no space between the preposition and possessive article here, coming as they do from two different languages. This phrase glosses Hebrew yodia‘ el-amittekha (“declare your faithfulness”; Isa. 38:19).

      dirad EL ta virtance BE-L[A‘AZ]

      (will say TO [i.e., will declare] your faithfulness IN FRENCH)148

      French dire (“say”) normally would not take a preposition in this context, but the Hebrew verb it glosses (yodia‘: “will make known”) does. So that the gloss might reflect word for word the structure of the Hebrew original, Kara incorporates the Hebrew preposition.

      The thirteenth-century Hebrew-French wedding song beginning El giv‘at ha-levonah, from the New York manuscript of the Maḥzor Vitry, contains another example of the weaving together of Hebrew and French through syntactic government. The Hebrew noun phrase et shen sela‘ ha-eitan (“the tooth of the hard rock”) is the object of a verb, as shown by the presence of the accusative particle et. The governing verb is not Hebrew, but French: the infinitive eiproveir (“try, put to the test, experience”).

      ET SHEN SELA‘ HA-EITAN

      tu ve[n]ras ja eiproveir

      (You will come to experience the tooth of the hard rock.)149

      The Hebrew-French wedding songs, discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4, stand as proof that medieval Jews mixed Hebrew and French in their oral artistic culture.

      Another artifact of the Jews’ oral culture is an Old French sermon fragment remarkable for the occasional use it makes of Hebrew for concepts easily expressible in the vernacular, such as sha‘ah (hour, time) and rasha‘ (wicked). Not so surprisingly, Hebrew is also used for proper names like yeḥezqel (Ezekiel), nevukhadne’ṣṣar (Nebuchadnezzar), and miṣrayim (Egypt), as well as words identifying the beginnings of Bible verses, such as wayyassev (and he led; Exod. 13:18), and words denoting culture-specific figures, objects, and concepts such as kohen (priest), kohen gadol (chief priest), and par‘oh (Pharaoh). The syntax of the French is also heavily influenced by that of Hebrew. We read, for example:

      Parole ansanble les anfanz de YISRA[’EL] e retornerount e pozerount devant PI HAḤIROT antre MIGDOL i antre la mer devant BA‘AL ṢEFON ancountre lui pozerez sur la mer.150

      (Speak with the children of Israel and they will turn around and encamp before PI-HAḤIROTH between MIGDOL and the sea, in front of BA’AL TSEFON; you will camp opposite this place, on the shore.)

      Old French antre (between) is repeated here, not in accordance with French grammar but rather to copy the syntax of the Hebrew bein … u-vein: bein Migdol u-vein ha-yam.

      The Hebrew element is balanced by the use of French for Bible verses that a highly literate Jew would have learned also in Hebrew, as well as by decidedly non-Jewish turns of phrase like notre Sire (our Lord) and mer ruve (Red Sea): we might have expected to find Dé or Gé, words for God found in other Hebraico-French texts, or mer

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