The New York City Public Schools have officially declared Jewish English, now dubbed Hebronics, as a second language. Backers of the move say the city schools are the first in the nation to recognize Hebronics as a valid language and a significant attribute of American culture. According to Howard Ashland, linguistics professor at Brooklyn College and renowned Hebronics scholar, the sentence structure of Hebronics derives from middle and eastern European language patterns, as well as Yiddish. Professor Shulman explains, "In Hebronics, the response to any question is usually another question with a complaint that is either implied or stated. Thus 'How are you?' may be answered, 'How should I be, with my bad feet?'" Shulman says that Hebronics is a superb linguistic vehicle for expressing sarcasm or scepticism. An example is the repetition of a word with 'sh' or 'shm' at the beginning: "Mountains, shmountains. Stay away. You should want a nosebleed?" Another Hebronics pattern is moving the subject of a sentence to the end, with its pronoun at the beginning: "It's beautiful, that dress." Shulman says one also sees the Hebronics verb moved to the end of the sentence. Thus the response to a remark such as "He's slow as a turtle," could be: "Turtle, shmurtle! Like a fly in Vaseline he walks." Shulman provided the following examples from his best-selling textbook, Switched-On Hebronics:
Question: "What time is it?"
Remark: "I hope things turn out okay."
Remark: "Hurry up. Dinner's ready."
Remark: "I like the tie you gave me; I wear it all the time."
Remark: "Sarah and I are engaged."
Question: "Would you like to go riding with us?"
To the guest of honour at a birthday party:
Remark: "It's a beautiful day."
Answering a phone call from a son: Email, shmemail! Luck and happiness will or will not come to you regardless if you send it to another eight people!!! |