For young translator of sold-out ‘Harry Potter,’ Yiddish is truly his mamaloshen
How Arun Viswanath, the 29-year-old scion of a US literary dynasty, translated series opener ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ into the language of Sholem Aleichem is a story in itself
Times of Israel 23.05.2020
Yiddish linguist Arun Viswanath is the 29-year-old scion of a Yiddish language dynasty in the US.
I was happy to read this news item, but my anthropologists eye caught a detail: how come this east european jewish looking young scholar have a such a Tamoul name ?
On my last visit to Cochin, my dear friend and bibliophile, Rockey Neroth, pressed a recently published book on Cochin Jewry. On the way over to Oman on the flight, I looked through the book and was fascinated by the history of an Indian Jew by the name of Meleykh Viswanath, a professor of Finance at NY area University. He was describing his shabbat encounters with the erstwhile leader of the Cochin Jews, Sammy Hallegua. I remember Meleykh saying about his mother tongue, Tamoul and his adopted tongue, Yiddisch.
When I saw the name, the connection became clear. Arun's maternal line is full of Yiddisch scholars and Yiddisch was his mamaloshen... mother tongue.
Mazeltov to you, Arun.
It was nice to find a photo of Meleykh at the Paradesi synagogue in Cochin
Naches to you, Meleykh..
Language Interests, per Meylekh | ||||
| I am very interested in linguistics and in languages, in general. Some of the languages that I have studied over the years are: |
For those people who are lovers of the English language, I highly reccommend yet another erudite Indian ANU GARG and the daily delightful blog. A Word A Day
Incredible resource and it was there I read about Arun Viswanath today.
