Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.080 October 20, 1997 1) Indianer (Andrey Bredstein) 2) finger in fist (Bob Poe) 3) the protagonists in Sholem-Aleykhem's "Dos porfolk" (Leonard Prager) 4) Litvak ditty (Hershl Hartman) 5) tongue-twisters (David Sherman) 6) indianer and sneezing (Ellen Prince) 7) zol mir zayn far dir (Dan Slobin) 8) dukhenen (Yosef Weiss) 9) tum balalayke - a Vietnamese song (Michael Godfrey) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 18:22:13 +0300 From: "Andrey Bredstein" Subject: Indianer A por bamerkungen benegeye dem "inyen indianer" vos khoshever fraynt Joachim Neugroschel hot gebrakht in 07.078. > Louis Fridhandler [...] overlooks the fact that in standard southern > German and Austrian the noun "Indianer" also means "turkey". S'iz a groyser sofek tsi me kon inem dozikn fal onemen far a bavayz di dorem-daytshishe shprakh. In Estraykh (afile gor in Padan-Arom ba der malke Shvo, ikh veys) batayt dos vort "indianer" oykh "turkey", ober vos den? "Dos porfolk" iz nisht keyn shprakh-forshung un keyn altmodishe stilizatsie avade un avade oykh nisht: Sholem-Aleykhem hot geshribn af moderner geredter shprakh far dem modernem oylem. Iz vos zshe zol er zikh plutsem in mitn drinen oysnutsn mit epes a dorem-daytshishn dialekt? > any German dictionary will confirm this meaning. Faran lekholhapokhes EYN verterbuch vos in im iz nito aza bataytung: Deutsch-russisches Worterbuch. Leipzig, 1962. Un dos iz lakhlutn nisht keyn kleyn bikhl - s'anthalt arum 40000 verter! > Whether that meaning ever carried across to the Yiddish word "indyaner" is > an issue for further research. Dem gantsn plonter iz ongekumen adank di shpanier: bald nokh Kolumbus iz dershvumen biz Amerike, hobn zey gebrakht tsu firn keyn Eyrope di dozike meksikaner oyfes un meynendik alpi toes, az dos iz nisht keyn nayer kontinent, nor stam Indie, hobn zey di oyfes ongerufn "indishe hiner/hener". Azoy iz geven in frantsoyzish ("dinde" < "coq/poule d'Inde"), althoykhdaytsh ("indianisch han") vi oykh in andere eyropeishe shprakhn. In yidish hobn mir "inditshke/indik" vos kumt gikher fun poylish ("indyczka/indyk") eyder fun rusish ("indyushka/indeyka/indyuk"). Haynt dos vort "indianer". Der eyntsiker batayt say in daytsh, say in english, say in iberike leshoynes iz "der algemeyner nomen far a sakh felker in Amerike". Far a foygl zaynen faran bazundere verter: "Truthahn" (in daytsh), "turkey" (in english) ua"v. > This meaning is not found in the "Indyaner" entry in the Groyser > Verterbukh, but anything is possible Az got vil, shist a bezem... Ober der Groyser Verterbukh iz tsunoyfgeshtelt gevorn mit der hilf fun toyznter yidish-redndike mentshn un af zayn psak derfar kon men zikh lozn, nisht vor? Un es dakht zikh, khuts dem, az di nebekhdike "indianer" hobn nit tsu farzindikn genug tsores in zeyer geto, me zol zey nokh plontern mit di oyfes... A gute vokh! Mit derekh-erets, Andrey Bredstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 18:44:40 -0400 From: poe@ekbos.com (Bob Poe) Subject: finger in fist If I remember correctly, this gesture, called `a fayg' in Yiddish, is used to express simple defiance, etc., like the middle finger in mainstream America, and does not necessarily have a superstitious association. Bob Poe 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 13:20:09 +0200 From: Leonard Prager Subject: the protagonists in Sholem-Aleykhem's "Dos porfolk" As Thanksgiving approaches, the turkey controversy gets hotter. As chief inciter of the fray, I want to express my agreement with _both_ sides. The Yiddish text suggests but never declares that the protagonists of Sholem-Aleykhem's "Dos porfolk" are _indikes_ 'turkeys', whose Hebrew correlate is _tarnegolot Hodu_ 'chickens of India = turkeys'. In the Yiddish, with a single significantly ambiguous exception, they are always called _indianer_ 'Indians' (five times). They are not ducks, or chickens, or geese, or people -- just "indianer." The _kareln_ ('beads') mentioned by the male protagonist may be taken as a figurative term for the female protagonist's _wattle_ ("A fleshy lobe {usually bright-coloured} pendent from the head or neck of certain birds, as the domestic fowl, the turkey, etc." [SOED]) Or, on the other hand, as ornaments called up as part of the wooing strategy of the hero. The relationship of the heroes to turkeyness is in some ways parallel to that of Swift's Houynhmns to horseness -- I strongly suspect Sholem-Alekhem knew _Gulliver's Travels_. The Yahoos in that great and complex work attempt to reduce the noble Houyhnhnms to mere horses. A more radical reduction is experienced by the heroes of "Dos porfolk." The key sentence appears at the very end of the story: "In etlekhe minut arum zenen undzere shtoltse _indianer_, dos gelibte porfolk, gelegn oyf der erd, vi tsvey poshete gekoylete _indikes_." ('In minutes our brave Indians, the beloved couple, lay on the ground like two plain butchered turkeys.' [In Shlomo Katz's translation, this becomes 'A few minutes later our loving pair, the prisoners, lay on the ground'. (Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg, _Treasury of Yiddish Stories_, New York: Viking, 1954, p. 205]. Sholem-Aleykhem understood that people are defined by society in many ways and that these definitions have a determinative force. In a series containing three constructions, the protagonists are 1) "shtoltse indianer" (the term suggesting ethnic particularity, the courage to "be oneself"), 2) "dos gelibte porfolk" (creatures with a private life which is ground down by an institutional mechanism, 3) "vi tsvey poshete gekoylete indikes" ('like two plain butchered turkeys'). Under the guise of ritual (ideology, religion) an elaborate system (transports, slaughter houses), at least in part economically-motivated ("Na dir gelt, na!"), transforms feeling creatures ("lyubenyu... harts mayns... lebn mayns") who wish to live their own lives into kosher-slaughtered carcasses ("gekoylete indikes"). This is no simple allegory -- as evidenced by the fact that we can argue over whether or not the protagonists are turkeys. Leonard Prager 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 16:02:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Hershl@aol.com Subject: Litvak ditty Reuven Fraser's (Vol. 07.077) recalled Litvak-accent ditty is related to the one that my Lithuanian-born shver (father-in- law) recited with great glee, though it seems to be a mockery of his landslayt and their speech. It went: "sabes nokh s'vues hot a siker gesosn a sikse in tsikage." (shabes nokh sh'vues hot a shiker geshosn a shikse in shikage/Saturday after the Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] a drunk shot a non-Jewish woman in Chicago.) BTW, my father-in-law, khayem shteyn (Hyman Stein) came from the shtetl of Yanove on a tributary of the Nieman River and he bragged about two of its accomplishments: it was the birthplace of Morris Winchevsky, the "zeyde" of Yiddish labor poetry and prose, and one of its major Jewish occupations was rafting logs down the river to Germany. Other than in his speech, I have never encountered the term "plitn" for log-rafts. Hershl Hartman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 22:37:28 -0400 From: "David M. Sherman" Subject: tongue-twisters Reuven Fraser writes about rhymes and tongue-twisters, giving the example of the Bostonian "park your car in the Harvard yard". I used to listen to hockey games on radio from all over the Eastern U.S. when I was a teenager (in Toronto), and used to marvel at the Boston (WBZ 1030) pronunciation of "Bo-eston goal scoh-ed by number foh-eh, Baabi Oh-eh" (which in 1972 was a regular occurrence). Back on topic, I sometimes give our kids this tongue-twister as a genuine instruction: "shpil shtil in shpil-shtib" ["Play quietly in the playroom"]. Try that 3 times fast. Or even "shpil shtil mit shpiltsayg in shpil-shtib" (dray mol shnel). Any other contributions? David Sherman Toronto 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 23:25:29 EDT From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: indianer and sneezing Re _turkey_ and _indianer_, I've missed much of this discussion so, for all I know, this has already been mentioned, but the French word for 'turkey' is _dinde_ (f.), _dindon_ and it comes from _d'Inde_, meaning 'from India'. I've never heard of _indianer_ to mean 'turkey' -- but we ate goose in my house, so what do I know. ;) Rita Falbel's recollection of sneezing during someone's statement being evidence for its truth matches my own. And it reminds me of another -- anything with the number seven in it -- of course, when uttered by someone despised -- would elicit 'Zibn! Shoyn a lign!' (Of course, this was usually said behind the person's back, so to speak.) Alexander Maxwell's anecdote about his teacher's having seen Tum Balalayke attributed as a 'Russian folksong' reminds me of something I heard on an artsy FM folk music program, when the disk jockey, in the hushed reverent tones one finds on such programs/stations, announced, 'And the next song is an ancient Yiddish folksong which was collected in the field by the singer herself' -- and she then proceeded to play a rendition of _Rozhinkes mit mandlen_! I'm sure Goldfaden would have been amused to hear that a song from his operetta was 'collected in the field' a century later... ;) Ellen Prince 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 20:29:05 -0700 (PDT) From: "Dan I. SLOBIN" Subject: zol mir zayn far dir (Or, as my grandmother used to say, "Mir zol zayn far dayne beyner"). There are similar expressions in Turkish. "Kurban olayim" (may I be a sacrifice) can be used as a declaration of love or strong affection; similarly, "Canim sana feda olsun" (may my soul be a sacrifice to/for you). I would expect this wish for self sacrifice to have more general Middle Eastern origins. Dan Slobin 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 00:40:09, -0500 From: MCQE03A@prodigy.com (MR YOSEF WEISS) Subject: dukhenen In reply to query about dukhenen. Dukhen in hebrew means bimah or stage. In Shulkhan orukh there is the expression Olim L'dukhon which means going up to the stage for the blessing of the Kohanim. The Kohanim stood on the stage while benching the people. gut Moed, Yussil Weiss 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 1:36:56 -0400 From: MGODFREY@runt.dawsoncollege.qc.ca Subject: tum balalayke - a Vietnamese song The discussion about tum balalayke reminds me of an incident a while back that I have been meaning to pass on to Mendele. A couple of years ago I sang tum balalayke for my Jewish Literature class. My Jewish students, having all been brought up on English, French and Hebrew had never heard of it. My Vietnamese students (the course fit their schedule, what can I tell you?) recognized it instantly and were surprised and delighted that I knew a Vietnamese song, even if the words were strange -- stranger even than English. One of them came up to me after the class to tell me that while he liked my singing and guitar (all three chords) very much, he felt I had got the spirit of the song all wrong. "You must sang it much slower," he said. "Vietnamese songs very sad. Very sad, Vietnamese people." der emes! Michael (melekh) Godfrey ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.080 Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html