Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.086 October 26, 1997 1) Duchenen and superstition (Ronald Florence) 2) silver dollars for the bride (Dan Leeson) 3) Fig (Robert Werman) 4) Blindness on looking at the Cohanim while duchaning (Robert Werman) 5) turkey and Indianer (Joachim Neugroschel) 6) a shlak! (Mendy Fliegler) 7) Isaac Meir Dick (Ron Robboy) 8) Tumbalalayka in Vietnamese (Itsik Goldenberg) 9) tumbalalayka (Helen Abeles) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 12:34:57 -0400 From: ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence) Subject: Duchenen and superstition I think it was commonplace for a father or bubba to wrap his tallis around a child during the dukhenning, and to warn the child not to look: `The first time you look you'll go blind; the second time you'll die.' It was probably equally traditional for the smart-aleck child to respond, `If I go blind the first time how can I look a second time?' Ronald Florence Maple Lawn Farm, Stonington, CT 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 10:52:42 EDT From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@admin.fhda.edu" Subject: silver dollars for the bride I remember silver dollars being given to a bride at her wedding for the purpose of providing the needed silver in the event that a pidyon habend was required, that being the ceremony for the redemption of the first born son. So giving silver dollars is the Jewish equivalent of the Italian hopeful wish, "May your first born be a masculine child." Dan Leeson Los Altos, California 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 19:57:42 +0200 From: Robert Werman Subject: Fig Gilad J. Gevaryahu write authoritatively about the use of the word "fig" in various translations, including Yiddish. I would like to add a footnote: "Fig" in some Mediteranean languages [Italian, for instance] is a slang representation of the female sexual organs. Bob Werman, Jerusalem 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 20:06:36 +0200 From: Robert Werman Subject: Blindness on looking at the Cohanim while duchaning Paul Ilie reminds us of the superstition of getting blind on looking at the Cohanim while they were duchaning. My mother of sainted memory, descended from a well known Cohanic family [Shattin] was an affirmer of this traditional belief. She told me that if I were to look at the Cohanim while they were duchaning, I would surely become blind in one eye. I asked, "And if I looked again?" Answer: "In the other eye, too." "And if I looked again?" "Blind in your third eye!" Azoy geyst! Bob Werman, Jerusalem 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 15:16:40 -0400 (EDT) From: ACHIM1 Subject: turkey and Indianer All this talk about turkeys is ruffling a lot of feathers and making people give one another the bird--and a bird in the hand can easily be translated as a fig, except when you're eating crow..... in regard to Lou Fridlender's comment that Sholem Aleichem would have been in touch only ordinary Germany, I wonder. First of all, "Indianer" was certainly ordinary German for (inter alias) "turkey" in Austria. Secondly S.A. like many other Yiddish speakers of his era certainly could and did read German, and an enormous amount of German literature has come out of Austria during the past few centuries (not just Freud and Hitler). So Sholem Aleichem might very possibly have found the word "Indianer" meaning "turkey" in an Austrian novel or newspaper. then again, he might not. For me the point is more mute than moot since, in order to set the fox (fiks mit a biks) to guard the henhouse (no chicken he) I've decided to translate the story for an anthology I'm contracting for--and to play on what might be a pun I think I'll render "indyaner" as "Turk"....etv--at the risk of coming up with a turkey. then again, I might not. if there are any objections (and I'm sure you give fig) please insert them in my suggestion box, and we'll talk turkey I hope I don't step on too many toes--or should I say claws? incidentally, Al Grand's Yiddish version of Iolanthe, or at least the song that ran in Mendele, was quite grand and grandiose...too bad the audience for translations into Yiddish is even smaller than the readership for English translations of Yiddish. Joachim Neugroschel 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 17:11:15 -0200 From: emenems@juno.com (Mendy Fliegler) Subject: a shlak! Khaver Dovid hot mikh dermant vegn a klule vos mayn tate fleyg shrayen oyf a soyne.... "A shlak zol im trefn..." . M'stam hot er gemeynt az der 'ruf' fun a suke zol faln oyf zayn kop?! Mendy Fliegler 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 14:40:10 -0700 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ron Robboy) Subject: Isaac Meir Dick Steven Cassedy inquires about Ayzik-Meyer Dik's _Der shivim moltsayt_ (07.084). David G. Roskies published "An Annotated Bibliography of Ayzik-Meyer Dik" in _The Field of Yiddish: Studies of Language, Folklore, and Literature_, Fourth Collection, ed. Marvin I. Herzog, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Dan Miron, and Ruth Wisse (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1980), pp. 117-84. In it, he reports he has seen copies of _Der shivim moltsayt_ at Widener (Harvard) and YIVO (New York) libraries. Roskies' entry (#144): _Der shivim moltsayt_ (The seventieth birthday feast.) Pseud. AMaD. Vilna: Rom, 1877, 90 pp. (W[idener], Y[IVO]). The rags to riches story of Tobias Moser, son of a melamed from Mezritsh. in the preface, Dik outlines his literary philosophy. There is a lengthy Dik bibliography reproduced in Zalmen Reyzen's Leksikon [s.v. Dik, Ayzik (Yitskhok) Meyer], which he bases on that of Khaykl Lunsky, who was the librarian of the Strashun Library in inter-war Wilno. In that entry, Reyzen cites _Der shivim moltsayt_ as one of the examples of works carrying "characteristic Prefaces" that are important sources for Dik's biography and "velt-anshyung" [Weltanschauung?] (vol 1., p. 733). Ron Robboy 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 18:28:48 -0400 From: "Robert Goldenberg" Subject: Tumbalalayka in Vietnamese My friend Seymour Frydrych of Toronto asked me to submit these comments on his behalf, in regard to the Vietnamese version of Tumbalalayka, recently under discussion on Mendele. Seymour told me that after reading the letters about this, he brought a Yiddish recording of Tumbalalayka to his office and played it for his Vietnamese secretary, who has been in Canada for about 15 years. She immediately recognized the melody and said she remembered hearing it as a child, as a popular song with both French and Vietnamese lyrics. She said it dates back to the French era in Vietnam, then Indo-China, and thinks that it was popular there first with French lyrics, and that later on lyrics in Vietnamese were used. She cannot recall any of the words now, but if she is able to get them, they will eventually find there way to Mendele. Itsik Goldenberg Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 20:54:04 +1100 From: Helen Abeles Subject: tumbalalayka I'm sorry if this has alredy been posted, but I've missed a few issues. Regarding the lines, 'vos ken vaksen, vaksen on regn?' The reply we have always used is "protsenten kenen vaksen, vaksen on regn.' Harvey Spiro's Sneeze protocols sound like those in my family except that they go on further. `Tsum gezunt!' alone, or else 'Gezunt, tsu leben, tsu lange yor. Tsu vaksn, tsu kvellen, a chosen tsu veln, tsu der chupe tsu shteln' Helen Abeles ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.086 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html