Part I – When Yiddish Enters the Machine

A Yiddish poem about chips, processors, memory and networks may sound unusual. Yet after publishing די טשיפּלעך שפּילן זיך אין מכשירלעך – The Little Chips Play in Little Devices – something unexpected happened. It reached readers far beyond the circles that usually encounter contemporary Yiddish poetry, often through the English translation accompanying it.

Perhaps this should not be surprising. The question is not whether Yiddish can speak about computers, but what happens to these objects when Yiddish speaks about them.

די טשיפּלעך שפּילן זיך אין מכשירלעך

צוּערשט אַ קאַסטן, אַן אײ ־ אַ ליגפּלאַץ, פֿאַרמאַכט, זאַנפֿט, לעבלעך, מיט שלאָפֿנדיקע כוחות דאָרטן, דער פּראָצעסיסאָר האַלט נאָך זײַנע חשבונות און שטילקײט ביז דער שטראָם קומט אַרײַן –

The Little Chips Play in Little Devices

At first, a box, an egg – a place to lie, closed, gentle, alive, with sleeping forces there; the processor still keeps its reckonings and silence until the current comes flowing in –

אױטאָמאַטישװײַז ־ הײבט עפּעס אָן צו אָטעמען.

automatically – something begins to breathe.

The diminutives tshiplekh and makhshirelekh bring technology close without making it childish. The machine begins almost as an egg. Somewhere it is hatched in a technical nest where silicon, copper, metal and heat lie together. Human fingers place “limb beside limb” and wait until the little light blinks.

The poem does not pretend that a computer is biologically alive. It notices instead how easily our technological vocabulary already approaches the language of living things: machines wake, programs run, memory fails, systems die. Here that vocabulary is carried back toward birth, growth and eventually healing.

דער עקראַן עפֿנט די מסגרות, דער לױפֿער רירט זיך, בײַטן לױפֿן װי קלײַנע צעלן פֿון אײן אָרט צום צװײטן, דער זכּרון זאַמעלט נעמען, צײכנס, בילדער, שטימען, דאָס מכשירל װאַקסט מיט אַלע נײַע טעקען.

The screen opens the frames, the cursor moves; bytes run like tiny cells from one place to another. Memory gathers names, signs, images, voices; the little device grows with all its new files.

Zikorn, memory, already opens more than one meaning. Computer memory stores information; human beings, languages and communities remember differently.

עס װאַקסט אַרײַן אין נעץ־פֿאַרבינדונגען, אַרום דער גאַנצער װעלט, די צושטעלער רופֿן זיך איבער פֿון לאַנד צו לאנד, פּאַטקעס גײן דורך קאַבלען, פֿיברעס, לופֿט און װעלן, און װער זעט די פֿילע פֿאַרשײַדענע קרײַזן אונטערן עקראַן?

It grows into network connections around the whole world; the providers call to one another from country to country. Packets travel through cables, fibres, air and waves — and who sees all the many different circuits beneath the screen?

A small device has moved from its nest into a worldwide network. A finger touches a screen and words, images and voices cross continents, while the immense structure making this possible remains largely invisible.

Yiddish knows something about such crossings. It too has travelled........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)