Yiddish (Ukrainish): Pronunciation of יי

[Squee100]

Sources disagree about whether יי is pronounced [ej] or [aj] in "Ukrainish" (Southeastern) Yiddish, but no source I checked says that both pronunciations are used (in SEY that is). Note that I'm only talking about יי, not ייַ.

 

[duvija]

My family said 'ey'. Their area was Poland/Russia but their shtetl would now be in the Ukraine, so I can't trust their pronunciation. It's probably a mixture.

 

[Squee100]

Did they say 'u' for open-syllabic אָ, 'ey' for open-syllabic ע, 'oy' for וי, and 'i' for ו?

 

[duvija]

They were not totally consistent, but I believe this was because the community of Jews in Uruguay came from all over and they made up some kind of 'standard'. My big surprise was to realize (when I started studying Linguistics) that when I was a child, I had no problem talking and understanding my friend's parents' Yiddish but they were all using absolutely different vowels. Sounds funny but I haven't studied the issue at all. For 'child acquisition of language' it's an interesting problem.

 

[Drink]

It should be /ej/. This was one of the main distinguishing features between "Poylish" and "Ukraynish".

Not that in classical Ukraynish, the long ע was pronounced /i/, but in more modern times (probably around the turn of the 20th century) most speakers started correcting it to /ej/.