Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.299 May 8, 1997 1) Bashert (Ruben Frankenstein) 2) Diminutives of Yiddish names (Joachim Neugroschel) 3) "Big" (Sam Weiss) 4) Freedman Yiddish Music Collection at Penn (Kathryn Hellerstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 10:58:02 +0200 (MESZ) From: frankens@mail.uni-freiburg.de Subject: Bashert "Bashert" is derived from the Middle High German "ez ist mir beschert" - something alloted to someone by god or destiny, nowadays in modern German understood as presents given on Christmas. It is similar to the english word "share" together with a verbal prefix "be-" imposing the influence on one certain person. Ruben Frankenstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 13:21:53 -0400 (EDT) From: achim1@cris.com Subject: Diminutives of Yiddish names In regard to the discussion of abbreviated forms of Yiddish names, these may not necessarily be diminutives (in the sense of affective alterations). Yiddish (like English) shortens and often abolishes certain unstressed syllables--no matter what the origins of the given words. German words like "Branntwein" and "Baumoel" become "bronfn" and "baymel" respectively. In American Yiddish, "Operator" became "oprAYter." And so on. Biblical names starting with an unstressed syllable tend to lose that syllable in Yiddish (except when the bearer of the name is called up to read from the Pentateuch in synagogue). So that Isroel/Isruel quite naturally became Srol/Srul, which is not a nickname, but the normal pronunciation in Yiddish--though obviously forms like "Srulnik" are true diminutives. (However the name of the country has always retained the first syllable: Erets-Yitsroel, Medinas-Yisroel, etc.) But just compare Yiddish names like Shloyme, Elye, etc. with the original Hebrew forms. and compare Yiddish "Brayndl" with its Teutonic ancestor "Bruennhilde". There are also false diminutives like "Yentl" (probably from Italian "gentile", and "Rivke"--the latter having also back-formed a base name "Rive." In regard to most diminutives, Yiddish has a certain advantage over any of its component languages (except for Italian): it can form a first- and then second-degree diminutive: tish, tishl, tishele. sometimes the diminutive has a different meaning from the base word: "knop" is a knob, "knepl" a button, and "knepele" a small button. Historically the Yiddish word "bukh" meant "volume, tome" (from Middle High German "buoch" meaning "book. In modern Yiddish, traditionalist and orthodox Jews referred to a modern secular book as "bikhl"--a pejorative diminituve. I wonder if "biklh" was back-formed into "bukh"--if so, then that explains how the Yiddish word "bukh" acquired the modern meaning of "book". Then again, it could have been taken over directly from modern German like so many Yiddish words borrowings during the 19th and 20th centuries--including the German word "Band" (volume) which passed into Yiddish (bant) with its German meaning "volume" thereby replacing the older usage of the Yiddish word "bukh". Joachim Neugroschel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 13:47:21 -0400 (EDT) From: sweiss@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us Subject: "Big" Ellen Prince (6.297) speculates that the source of The Forward's idiosyncratic way of calling a _makher_ a "big" may be via a loan translation of _groyser_. A more likely Yiddish model word would be _godl_ (meaning a V.I.P. or distinguished person) which is based on the Hebrew for "big". Old-time New Yorkers, however, will recognize this type of journalistic coinage as the legacy of the colorful telegraphic headlines favored by The New York Daily News, where you might read something like [I'm making this up....] "Red Med To Wed Fed" to indicate that a Soviet doctor married an FBI agent. Sam Weiss Baltimore 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 15:19:17 -0400 (EDT) From: khellers@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Freedman Yiddish Music Collection at Penn The University of Pennsylvania Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Robert and Molly Freedman Archive of Jewish Music. onsisting of more than 3,000 songbooks, reference works, and sound recordings, the Freedman Archive is estimated by scholars to be the largest and most important collection of Yiddish music in private hands. The Archive has been assembled over a period of thirty-five years by the Freedmans, and it includes the spectrum of Yiddish music: folk songs, art songs, theatre music, musical comedy, and klezmer music. It spans art and the camp, secular and sacred, high culture and popular culture. The Archive represents a very special way of documenting the social and cultural trajectory of the Yiddish-speaking community of the twentieth century. The Archive is accessible through computer database created by the Freedmans for the collection. This remarkable tool includes over 25,000 entries which index exhaustively the bulk of the Archive. It is capable of locating particular artists, titles, genres, Biblical references, poems, and other categories of interest. Because the collection has been so extensively indexed it can answer hitherto unanswerable questions and open up the field of Yiddish music to scholars in new ways. At present, the database is only locally accessible. In time, however, the Library hopes to be able to make it available on the internet. An inaugural celebration of the Archive and of the achievement of the Freedmans will be held this coming fall at Penn, when the Archive will be formally open as part of the Penn Library's collections. For further information, contact Michael Ryan, Director of Special Collections, at 215-898-7552 or ryan@pobox.upenn.edu. Kathryn Hellerstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.299