Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.093 November 2, 1997 1) fehlen a shtich nez (Bob Werman) 2) shmooze (Marvin Engel) 3) Zayt moykhl, a correction (Louis Fridhandler) 4) A plea for accuracy, care, respect (Louis Fridhandler) 5) Yiddish songs (Dan Leeson) 6) A song my mameh used to sing to me (Avraham Chasid) 7) dav(e)nen cont'd (Meyer Wolf) 8) Shlock or schoch (Beni Warshawsky) 9) Is there a Yiddish version of "The Merchant of Venice"? (Peter Gutmann) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 19:20:14 +0200 From: Robert Werman Subject: fehlen a shtich nez My father, the most gentle person I knew, was not given to cursing. The worst "curse" he would ever evoke was "zohl fehlen a shtich nez [you should lose a piece of nose?]" which hardly sounds a proper curse at all. Can anyone help me with the origins of this phrase. Of course syphillis was known to produce defects in the nose bone structure, looking as if a part of the nose was absent. Could that be it? Or cocaine, which I doubt was part of Jewish culture before Freud experimented with it in the last third of the 19th century, that produces defects in the nasal septum? Thanks in advance. Bob Werman, Jerusalem 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 13:10:49 -0500 From: marvin engel Subject: shmooze I've always heard and used "shmooze" in both senses. My Yiddish conversation vinkl is called "kum shmooze". No kissing up that I've seen, but I'll keep a sharp eye from now on. When I attended a secular mitlshul in the Bronx we had a course called "sotsiale shmooesn". Dvoyre Tarant, our teacher, would not have taken kindly to kissing up either. It was a current events class, if memory serves correctly. The pejorative sense was employed in far less formal settings, sometimes with sexual overtones. Marvin Engel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 13:57:41 -0500 (EST) From: Lfridhan@aol.com Subject: Zayt moykhl, a correction Leonard Prager in a private communication corrected my romanization of part of the Turkish shawl's curses (7.087, 3). I wrote _shrid upolit_, but it should have been _sored upolet_ (remnant and fugitive, according to Harkavy). Leonard kindly ascribed it to a "Freudian slip." Actually, this has more to do with my ignorance of the etymology, and therefore misreading the small print in Harkavy's dictionary. Louis Fridhandler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 13:57:49 -0500 (EST) From: Lfridhan@aol.com Subject: A plea for accuracy, care, respect I heartily second the motion, i.e., Hugh Denman's plea (7.089, 6) that Mendelyaner refrain from misquoting each other. Just as important: to refrain from distorting the sense of each other's comments. Distortion, as much as misquotation, garbles and curdles discussion and productive exchange of views. Thus can be sabotaged Mendele's most valuable yields. For example: I wrote (7.084, 7), "I would bet that ordinary usage [of German] is the influence on Yiddish most likely to operate for Sholem Aleichem's use of indianer in Dos Porfolk." To elaborate my point: Many observe that Sholem Aleichem wrote so that readers should _immediately_ understand what he meant. That was an important principle for him. As a consequence, he used ordinary words that his readers readily grasped. That gave his work that buoyant flow which captivated Yiddish readers of diverse backgrounds _everywhere_. His Yiddish readers were sophisticated but not likely fans of writers who reach for obscure usage. I bet (again) that Sholem Aleichem would have rejected showing off with such verbal quackery. However, Joachim Neugroschel writes about that (7.086, 5), "In regard to Lou Fridlender's comment that Sholem Aleichem would have been in touch only with ordinary German,..." That was decidedly _not_ my comment. Sholem Aleichem was in touch with all kinds of language tendencies. Besides, who is Lou Fridlender? Louis Fridhandler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 11:21:23 EST From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@admin.fhda.edu" Subject: Yiddish songs The things you find when cleaning out a closet!! I just turned up a volume of "Seven Popular Songs from the Yiddish" for voice and piano by Hugo Weisgall, published in 1980 by Theodore Presser of Bryn Mawr, PA. The price at the time I bought them was $10.00. Very professional publication job, too. The seven songs are published under the generic title "The Golden Peacock." There is no information in the publication about the author or the circumstances or, for that matter, the dates of composition. But the songs were apparently recorded by the late soprano, Judith Raskin with Morey Ritt, piano on CRI SD 417, which is almost certainly unavailable at this date. The songs are (with spellings, capitalizations, and translations taken from the volume of songs): 1. Undzer Rebenyu (Our Rebenyu) 2. Der Rebe Elimeylekh (Rebe Elimeylekh) 3. Baleboste Zisinke (The Pretty Mistress) 4. Mayn Harts Veynt in Mir (My Heart, My Soul Cries Aloud) 5. Lomir Zikh Bafrayen (Drinking Song) 6. Shlof Mayn Kind, Shlof Keseyder (Sleep My Baby) 7. Di Goldene Pave (The Golden Peacock) I have no idea why I bought these songs ca. 1980 and I've never heard them. Anyone have an idea about their origin? Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 22:41:32 +0200 From: Abe Chasid Subject: A song my mameh used to sing to me I'm looking for a song that was popular in the 30s & was a favorite of my Mameh who used to go to the Yiddish theater. The words at the beginning are: "yohren zai loifen zai flihen - vellen niosht mehr oisblihen(?) - gayt vek di yohren - fangt men zu zorgen - ........." I'd appreciate any background information + the right words. A groiser dank. Avraham Chasid 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 21:00:41 -0800 From: Meyer Wolf Subject: dav(e)nen cont'd Alexis Manaster Ramer does not address the problem of his proposed semantic development in the change from D-V-V to davnen. First of all, the development from 'to pray quietly' to 'to pray' (in general) is certainly not outlandish, but that is beside the point. davnen just doesnt mean 'to pray (in general), whether or not this is qualified by (Jewish) as U. Weinreich does. For 'to pray', Yiddish shares the German origin verb betn with its sister languages and also has the Hebrew origin verb mispalel zayn. Jews davn minkhe and davn shimen-esre, for instance. If a child is ill, they pray for its recovery, they do not _davn_ for its recovery. On setting off on a journey, they recite tfiles-haderekh, they do not _davn_ tfiles-haderekh. Therefore to gloss it as 'to pray' is imprecise, to gloss it as 'to pray' (in general) is incorrect. Alexis Manaster Ramer's etymology fails semantically because Jews _davn_ shimen-esre. Since shimen-esre is recited quietly by every member of a congregation and then aloud by the bal-tfile or khazn, his etymology requires us to assume that at some point, the bal-tfile was said to first davn shimen-esre quietly, but then to ??? it aloud (whatever other verb was used), which I find outlandish. But outlandish-outshmandish, if this difference in usage were ATTESTED, we would have to accept that it was at happened or at least try to explain it away. As far as I know, this differential usage has never been reported. Perhaps some etymological path other than the one presented by Manaster Ramer will lead from D-V-V to davnen. Because of its semantic flaw (and for other reasons I have not gone into), I cannot agree that Manaster Ramer's etymology is still not ruled out. Meyer Wolf 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 21:01:03 -0800 From: Beni Warshawsky Subject: Shlock or schoch With all due respect to Bob Werman and for Bob's information, there is no confusion between schoch and shlock. Schoch is the sukkah roof and spelled samech-chof-chof. A shlock is placed on the schoch to protect the sukkah from the rain. Shlock, of course, also means a stroke. Beni Warshawsky Valley Village, California 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 02 Nov 1997 17:49:15 -0800 From: Peter Gutmann <97111001@brookes.ac.uk> Subject: Is there a Yiddish version of "The Merchant of Venice"? ikh shrayb an obhandlung iber sprakh in Shakespearens koyfman fun venetsie. wejss ajner fun aykh fun a yidisher iberzetsung fun dem shtik? ikh wejss az dos yidishe teater in moskau hot geshpilt dem "king lear", hobn zey oykh geshpilt dem "koyfman"? a sheynem dank far ayer hilf. I am writing a paper about language in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice". Does anyone of you know whether there is a Yiddish translation of the play? I know that the Yiddish theatre in Moskow performed "King Lear", did they also do a production of the Merchant? Thank you very much for your help. Peter Gutmann ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.093 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