Last week I posted some thoughts in response to a public lecture given by Rabbi Reuvain Mendlowitz regarding Ksav Chabad (the Alter Rebbe's ksav). I felt he did not represent the issue fairly, and since I had received questions about it from a number of people I felt it made sense to write a general response. After I posted my response on this forum, Rabbi Mendlowitz reached out to me by email and we ended up having a respectful and productive email exchange regarding the relevant issues surrounding Ksav Chabad. His position is a lot clearer to me now, and I think he also took certain things on board that I clarified with him. The purpose of the Stam Forum (at least back in it's heyday before all the whats app groups took over) was to connect sofrim from around the world, to promote achdus and build bridges, as well as to offer support and advice. In that spirit, I felt I should write a follow up post, to clarify some of the issues and misconception...
A few years ago, I sent this question to Dr. Marc Caplan, Tadetnick Professor of Yiddish studies at Johns Hopkins University.
ReplyDeleteHe did some research and wrote back that "Vellish" is from the German "wälsch," which means "Foreign."
The original German word literally means "Welsh," and is the old German/anglo saxon word for the celts, to whom they collectively labled: Welsh.
How Vellish is that?!
I also did some research on this a while ago and came up with a similar answer: "Vellish" is from the old German word welsch meaning “Romanic” — which was originally a reference to the French and Italians.
ReplyDeleteIn Yiddish the word came to refer to Jews from Spain and Portugal, and in STAM the word came to refer to all Sfardi-style writing.
Good question and even better answer. Tks!
ReplyDeleteA response from someone I know who has a good yedia in these sort of things...
ReplyDelete"My guess - and I bet I am right - is that it originally meant "Italian," since "welsch" and "welschland" were archaic German names for Italian and Italy. So it was probably the form of the ksav which originated, or was felt to originate, in Italy. Don't be thrown off by the fact that it refers to the Sefardi ksav. First of all, until recently Sefardim were called "Frenks" in Yiddish, which is obviously derived from "French." For that matter, the Sefardim in Greece and Turkey used to call Italian Jewish merchants who lived among them "Francos."
By that token, by "Welsch" was also meant many things. See here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Welsh#Etymology
where you can see that it is a term that meant many things in different parts of Europe. It is the origin of Wales, and from it is derived the Celts and also the Gauls (which refer to the French). Similarly, it also used to refer to "Southern Europe" in general, and not only Italy.
To sum up: I think it meant Italian, but don't assume that it actually came from Italy. Most people who used it were only calling it what they already knew it was called."
As you can see a similar response to what is mentioned here already.
i saw last week in a sefer (i forgot which, it was written at least 100 years ago), that vellish is the name of the city that first started using those letters for their printing press
ReplyDelete