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Why is it that everyone calls Tosfos, Tosfos and not Tosafos. There seems to be a general consensus that they are called Tosafos.
Because in a living language, people pronounce things fast and naturally. It’s a sign you are alive. In a dead language, such as Latin or Sumerian, everything is pronounced correctly all the time since the forces that affect living languages no longer are at work.
If the Germans won the war, their scholars studying Judaica (who were building up a massive library by pilgering sefarim all over Europe) would have pronounced everything exactly and correctly, unaffected by any living people who really cared about the materials.
Where I come from they are called Tosafot.
It is for the same reason that the fourteenth word in this sentence isn’t spoken out in full.
Litvaks call it Taysfus.
Why use three syllables when you can convey the same information with two?
Because many people in many communities, particularly Haredi Ashkenazi ones, are totally unconcerned with proper dikduk and usage of the Hebrew language.
rebdoniel: avak lashon hara? please be careful. Anyway the entire talmud bavli is full of ‘not-proper’ dikduk of lashon hakodesh. There are deep reasons why yidden have not used proper dikduk in ordinary speech in the generations after nevua. Even when it comes to tefilla the matter is debatable. Things are not so simple.
For the same reason why it is “yontif”, and the shem Hashem is often prodounced “Adin…” instead of “Adon…”
Probobly why in English we pronounce “of” as “ov”. The “V” sound requires less energy than the “F” sound.
There is no end to the examples available.
rebdoniel:
1. Many frum Jews are speaking Yiddish, not Hebrew. Various vowel and consonant shifts occured, as they have in German.
2. What defines proper Hebrew? Certainly it requires careful differentiation between ? and ?, and respect for the dagesh in all letters where it occurs (including daled and gimmel). The accent of Jews from Yemen might be the closest. The multiple “S” and “T” letters are all mistakes (natural ones, as many language evolve along similar lines) — note how all American mispronounce the gutteral “gh” as in how we would have written Ghanukah had there been any English-speaking Jews in the middle age.
3. Had the Jewish people been wiped out, Hebrew would have been frozen and there would be a “right” pronounciation. But we surived and have been writing, and speaking, Hebrew for millenia, and like all languages, it evolves.
4. Obviously the correct pronounciation is the way Ha-Shem spoke to us at Sinai. If the correct pronounciation was of any halachic significance, I’m sure that Torah would have been given on CDs so the matter would be clear.
Because people slur words when they speak quickly. Eventually it becomes part of the “shprach.” Then again, there are some people who are so upset at the idea of anything breaking their lockstep conformity that they cry nazi.
we call it that because it sounds better.
We yekkes call it Towsfowss
high
zaidy78, no native speaker of English pronounces “of” with a voiceless labiodental fricative. Otherwise, it would be pronounced the same as “off.”
I call them Rashi.
K Shkoyach we also say yuntif and chulamoid and shalashudes
That’s Yiddish though.
K Shkoyach we also say yuntif and chulamoid and shalashudes “
That’s Yiddish though. “
Uh… no… that’s actually HEBREW – Yom Tov, Chol Hamoed, and Shalosh Seudos. Most Yiddish is an amalgam of Hebrew and German that has been slightly re-worked.
yiddish is english with a yiddish accent
oomis- no, in yiddish the way to say seudas shlishis is shaloshudes in one word.
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