Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.138 January 22, 1998 1) tuleyne (Ellen Prince) 2) To be or not to be ... (Al Grand) 3) Sweater; bal-dover (Joachim Neugroschel) 4) Dvosye Seidman Bilik (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 5) sveter (Alan Shuchat) 6) Kuch Leffel (Norman Fruman) 7) Vilner lasunes (Rick Turkel) 8) petchah and other Turkish words (Dan Slobin) 9) petchah and other Turkish words (Bill Phillips) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:31:11 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: tuleyne Dan Gilman recalls his grandmother's word /tuleyne/ for Italian woman but remembers it being used only for Italian women associated with Jewish men and recalls no analogous /tuleyner/ for Italian men. Well, in the Brooklyn of my youth /teleyne/ was any Italian woman and /teleyner/ was an Italian man. (Frankly, since both my native English and my parents' native Yiddish dropped /r/ after vowels, I heard them both as /teleyne/ -- but I am sure that they were used for men as well as women.) I'd be quite surprised if it's an Americanism since it bears no particular resemblance to the English word, but I don't know -- but I'm sure others here do! :-) Ellen Prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:06:08 EST From: Savoyid Subject: To be or not to be ... Dan Gilman asks if anyone ever heard the expression "To be or not to be; that is where the dog is buried" (Vol. 07.136). Do iz vu der hunt ligt bagrobn is, I believe, a Yiddish idiom roughly meaning "that's where the trouble lies." Thus, to render the first line of Hamlet's famous soliloquy into Yiddish as "Zayn oder nit zayn? Do iz vu der hunt ligt bagrobn" is pure delight! Here are the first few lines in the Israel J. Schwartz 1918 translation [my transliteration]: Zayn oder nit zayn? Ot vos s'iz di frage. Iz eydeler far'n gemit fertrogn shtil Dem shlayder-shteyn ["slings"] un fayl ["arrows"] fun beyzn mazl, Tsi zikh bevafenen antkegn yam fun leyd Un endigen dem kampf? O, shlofn ! shtarbn ! Dos gor! Un visn, az mir makhn durkh'n shlof A sof tsu unzer hartsveytog un vunden . . . At this point the Yiddish _oysyes_ are somewhat smudged in my ancient tome. Al Grand 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:11:10 -0500 (EST) From: ACHIM1 Subject: Sweater; bal-dover In regard to the Yiddish word "sveter" [07.136]: I don't recall ever finding it in a Yiddish European text--but that could be due to my lack of experience. However, the German word "Sweater"--a British (not American) loanword exists: meaning a knitted jacket and not what Americans call a sweater (which both Britons and German-speakers call a "pullover" (the German noun "der PullOver" is stressed on the second syllable). If "sveter" does exist in European or American Yiddish, the precise usage could tell us whether it means a "knitted jacket" (and therefore probably comes from German) or a sweater in the American sense--which would obviously make it an American borrowing in American Yiddish. In regard to a German translation of the various meanings of "bal-dover" [07.136] I would suggest: 1. Der/die Betreffende(r) = person in question 2. "Gegner" = opponent 3. "(Zivil)klaeger/in, Anklaeger(in), Anklagende(r) in the sense of "plaintiff, accuser" 4. "Schuldige(r) in the sense of "culprit" 5. "der Leibhaftige" as a euphemism for Satan Joachim Neugroschel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:36:15 EST From: SHirshan Subject: Dvosye Seidman Bilik: Zise Zikhroynes and Her Writings Beyond her deep intellectual perceptions, the glory of Dvosye Bilik was her free spirit, and we were geknipt un gebundn in youth through the socialistic, free and democratic ideology of the Arbeter Ring. So why do I search for some orthodox format, a ritualistic machinery, to ease my dark feelings at her death? To be with Dvosye, I went to her writings, and recalled how Sholem Aleichem, in his will and in his wisdom, stipulates that if his children are not inclined to say Kadish on his yortsayt, they are to come together and read from his works. I have just reread her presentation in the Conference Proceedings of _Di Froyen_ (published by the New York National Council of Jewish Women's Resource Center.) With her usual insight, she selectively presents and honors Glikl of Hameln as a "miraculous survivor", but now I interpret this work as a mirror of Dorothy's personal depth and strength as a miraculous survivor over many life-threatening problems. Slowly, leisurely, this week I will reread her challenging book _Immigrant- Survivors_ (1981 Wesleyan University Press ISBN 0-8195-5046-3 She sub- titled this "Post-Holocaust Consciousness in Recent Jewish American Fiction" and I recall it as being absorbing, provocative and intense. I will remember her delight in singing, laughing together at khor rehearsals, our wonderful literary battles over lunch in the Automat when we were in mitlshul, and their continuation at Brooklyn College. But mostly, I will remember how she took from life with both hands and willingly did she teach its reapings. We shall all miss her panache. I bid farewell to a most beloved comrade. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 22:35:04 -0500 From: Alan Shuchat Subject: sveter Jim Feldman asks about sveter as the Yiddish word for sweater [07.136]. The Russian word for sweater is sviter, so I imagine sveter isn't only found in American Yiddish. Alan Shuchat 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:06:22 -0600 (CST) From: Norman Fruman Subject: Kuch Leffel I recall having heard the phrase "kuch leffel" used to refer to a meddlesome woman. I suppose the connection is that a kuch leffel manages to get into every pot eventually. Are there other explanations, and is the phrase still used? Norman Fruman 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:49:33 -0500 From: rturkel@cas.org (Rick Turkel) Subject: Vilner lasunes, etc. Diane Rabson wrote in Mendele 07.137 to ask about several words in a litvish-Yiddish song. LASUNES - the Belorussian word "lasun" means "sweet" (the noun, not the adjective) or "someone with a sweet tooth." In Ukrainian it also means "gourmand." KULAHE - can't help on this one - nothing in my Ukrainian or Belorussian dictionaries - but there is a Belorussian word "kulya" meaning "ball" or "bullet" and it may be related. MEKHILE - a Hebrew word (mexila) meaning "pardon, forgiveness>" KUTNITSE - most likely the plural of Belorussian "kutnik," meaning "molar" (the tooth), or possibly as its diminutive, some tool resembling one. Hope this helps. Rick Turkel 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:28:42 -0800 (PST) From: "Dan I. SLOBIN" Subject: petchah and other Turkish words A footnote on Ottoman feet: In Russell Harris's fascinating story of fisnoge [07.137], he attributes petchah to an Ottoman word for foot. Close, but not quite. Here's the definition of pacha [p-a-c,-a] in the large Redhouse Turkish-English dictionary: "1. sheeps' feet, trotters; dish made from trotters. 2. lower part of the leg; lower part of the trouser leg." Apparently what was borrowed from Turkish was not just a noun, used to disambiguate Litvish pronunciation, but the name of a similar sort of food made from an animal's foot. The dictionary also lists pacha dondurmasi "trotter jelly", and pachaji [p-a-c,-a-c-I] "1. dealer in sheep's trotters. 2. small restaurant where trotters are eaten". (For more borrowings from Turkish, see previous Mendele discussions of yarmulke; also Southern Ukrainian prakes, stuffed cabbage, from Turkish yaprak "leaf", as in yaprak dolmasi "stuffed (grape) leaves".) -Dan Slobin 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:25:26 -0800 From: "W.H. Phillips" Subject: petchah and other Turkish words With reference to the footnote on petchah to the Russell Harris article on the double naming of "fisnoge, fisribe" etc. [07.137] Surely the best known Turkish borrowing is "yaghmurluk" - "[cap] for the rain" - now internationalized as "yarmulke." In addition to the Ukraine-Turkey conduit the important Mizrahi community of Bukhara may have provided Yiddish speakers in various other Russias with non-Osmanli Turkic words. The Turko-Tatar linguistic territory is so vast, extending from Sinqiang to Cyprus, that few languages are without such borrowings as "sarai," "chai" etc. An interesting linguistic project might be the identification of Altaic tendencies (agglutination, postposited modifiers etc.) impinging on the fundamental Germanic synthetic nature of Yiddish in those areas such as Azerbaijan where it came into contact with Turko-Tatar languages. These would differ from the Semitic constructions inherently present in Yiddish. Semitic constructs like "House-Peace" are expressed in Turkic as "Peace-House-of-it." The evolution of Yiddish has been so wonderfully improbable that such a discovery wouldn't be terribly startling. Bill Phillips ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.138 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