On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:11:23 UTC, Suprlmn@aol.com opined:

In a JewishGen message dated 6/12/2006, Michael Herzlich
mherzlich@yahoo.com writes:

<< Does anybody have any comments about the given named Yale in the very
early 19th century for someone most likely in modern day Belarus. >>

My mother always referred to an older brother as 'Yale' but since there
doesn't seem to be such a name in Yiddish, I wondered about that. When
I started concentrating on her pronunciation, I realized that her brother's
name was probably JOEL, because of the way she pronounced other words with
that vowel sound. Perhaps it's a local thing; she was born in Bialystok.

B'shalom, Susan Pearlman
Nee Szejna-Dwera SZEJNMAN-KOSLOWSKY in Bialystok, Poland

To illustrate to doubters, if any remail: your own name is a perfect example
of the phonetic phenomenon you describe. "Dwera" is what Yiddish does to
"Dvora"; exactly what is done to "Yoel" in order to produce "Yale". Notice
another example in my list of surnames below in the first "O":
Noachowicz>Neachowicz. It is not peculiar to the neighborhood of Bialystok,
but is characteristic of Yiddish in a much larger area.

The friendly "B'shalom", by the way, although it fits well into the habits
of English speakers, is a greeting entirely unknown in places where Hebrew
is actually spoken.

--
Stan Goodman, Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel

Searching:
NEACHOWICZ/NOACHOWICZ, NEJMAN/NAJMAN, SURALSKI: Lomza Gubernia
ISMACH: Lomza Gubernia, Galicia, and Ukraina
HERTANU, ABRAMOVICI, LAUER: Dorohoi District, Romania
GRISARU, VATARU: Iasi, Dorohoi, and Mileanca, Romania

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