Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.159 March 3, 1998 1) Introduction, spinach cholent and a ptcha story (Deena H. Mersky) 2) Soviet Writers in Translation (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 3) khale khalelyes (sylvia schildt) 4) Kurve (Dan Gilman) 5) Yidish vi a sod (Miki Safadi) 6) Eliezer Schindler (Ellen Cassedy) 7) The story of Yiddish nasal vowels (A. Manaster Ramer) 8) A nekhtiger tog (Lee Dembart) 9) p'tsha Hungarian (Stanley Werbow) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 02:58:11 -0600 From: dmersky@mail.utexas.edu (Deena H. Mersky) Subject: Introduction, spinach cholent and a ptcha story Spinach cholent sounds zeyer geshmacht mit an interessant tam- if I were to make any kind of cholent I would give this one a try. At least ten years ago, when there seemed to be more time for everything, there was a circle of women friends here in Austin who got together very rarely and irregularly for the sole purpose of enjoying our Jewishness. We were all first generation, long time Texas residents, but originally, by various routes from the Northeast. We called ourselves The Yentas, and those of us with daughters had Yentas- in- training. ( I can't speak for the others, but mine have all entered very gracefully and naturally into full blown yentahood. I couldn't be prouder.) Strangely enough, we were all social worker or psychologist psychotherapists. Our usual activity consisted of going off for a day to interesting outlying towns, to poke around, explore, have lunch, using the car trip as an opportunity to tell Jewish jokes, use as much Yiddish as possible in conversation and to share stories of our very diverse Jewish backgrounds. Several times we shared a holiday meal--usually at Hanukah. ( Be patient, I'm getting to the ptscha) One time we were together, discussing what our next activity might be, and the idea came up to gather for a non- holiday , but totally jewish meal, and we teased our palates talking about everyone's favorites--holischkes, kasha varnishkes, pirogen, stuffed derma, and so on. I had never seen, let alone eaten pstcha, but had read about it and had seen recipes. So I asked if someone would make it. Several of the others were not intimately familiar with it, but knew what it was--more or less. There followed a collective sharing of ptscha-lore. Then one of the women interrupted , and said, " I know what we can do-----let's have a ptscha-ma party !" We never did it, but it's a memory I cherish, since the days of the Yentas seem to be over. and it surfaced only because I 've been fairly recently introduced to mendele and the ptscha discussions. As a mendele newcomer, I have a few more comments. First, I am not personally offended by the disparity between the professional linguists, and the others, like myself, who enjoy reading all of the entries for the simple reason that they love Yiddish. The observed impatience or intolerance to me is a Jewish characteristic. I have spent , at various times a total of two years of my life in Israel, the most intense Jewish experience one can have. The vitality I associate with Jewish life in that country reflects people being totally engaged in every detail of life and living--pushing, shoving, driving like maniacs, interupting, shouting, and so on. Coming from the quiet, if not silent household of my childhood, I rather enjoy the tumult and strong sense of engagement (from time to time, at least) I have enough quiet in my life to look forward to a little jousting now and then. Finally, just another word about myself. Although my parents were quite learned in both Yiddish and Hebrew,I learned neither in my home,since they only spoke English to us, and if they spoke Yiddish to each other it wasn't very often. But I was sent to Camp Boiberik at a very young age-- five, in fact, and continued to go until I was 13. My last summer there I have memories of everyone talking about the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how the war would soon be over. But my most compelling memories of Boiberik were the annual summers' end "Felke Yontif", complete with music, dancing, and lavishly ornate costumes made from hundreds of bolts of cheap fabric. The most powerful memory of all was the grand finale, every year, when we all sang, to the theme of Beethovan's Ode to Joy: Alleh menshen zinen brieder Shvartzeh, viseh, roiteh, galeh, Misht die farben oistzuzamen Sis an oisgetrachte miseh. Shvartzeh, viseh, roiteh, galeh, Misht die farben oistzuzamen. Alleh menshen zinen brieder Fun ayn taten un ayn mamen. A few years ago I returned to Camp Boiberik , newly incarnated as the thriving Omega Institute. The lake had amazingly shrunk, exploding my lifelong pride in traversing it at a pretty young age. I found the spots where I broke my foot; where we played volleyball; where we had Yiddish stories and songs around the campfires; where Leibush Lehrer held my hand as the youngest child as we lead the entire camp to the dining hall, still in use, but no longer serving the pitchers of cold borscht which I loved, and boney gefilteh fish which I hated. If I write again it will be a one-liner! Deena H. Mersky Austin, Texas 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 09:12:27 EST From: SHirshan Subject: Soviet Writers in Translation For Leah Zazulyer, a few more prose translations: Isaac Babel _You Must Know Everything (Stories 1915-1937)_ Carrol and Graf 1984 ISBN 0-88184-027-0 Isaac Babel _The Collected Stories_ Criterion Books 1955 Howe and Greenberg, editors _Ashes Out of Hope_ Fiction by Soviet Writers Schocken Books SB605 Short Stories by Bergelson (Joseph Schur, The Hole through which Life Slips, and Civil War) Moshe Kulbak (Zelmenyaner) and Der Nister (Under a Fence: A Revue) I wonder if Leah is searching only for the Soviet poets.... Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 16:02:29 +0100 From: creativa@charm.net (sylvia schildt) Subject: khale khalelyes als kinder hobn mir geshpilt in "telephone" vos vayzt on vi verter vern tzemisht be'es men git zey iber fun eyn oyer in tzveyen. ikh shlog for az "khale khalelyes" iz a farmishenish fun "ale kholeryes." amerikaner yunge nitzen dos vertl af english " ale drerden" -- iz dos nisht in der zelber zhaner fun folksvertl? agev, vegn amerikanizmen b'khlal -- mayne balibte lerer fun arbeter ring shul, mitl shul un lerer seminar, zaynen geven zeyer gegn anglitzimen .es hot gemuzt avekgeyn a bisl tzayt kdey me zol kenen farshteyn az gevise anglitzizmen megn ungenumen vern vi emese yidishe verter, punkt azey vi slavizmen un andere eyropeyishe elementn. di lerer hobn meyre gehat az yidish zol nit farshvindn vern in di anglitzizmen. aderabe,amerikanizmen hobn tzugegebn nokh mer nuantzn. verter vi: boitchik, olraytnik, shop, dzhob, avekmufn -- shpiglen op dos lebn fun milyonen yidn iber 4-5? doyres. as kids we played "Telephone" which shows how words get mixed up as they pass from one ear to the other.I suggest that "khale khalelyes" is a mixed up version of "ale kholeryes." yougn american jews use the term ale drerden -- isn't that the same genre of folk expression (as khale khalelyes?) a propos, about americanisms in general, my beloved a.r. shul, mitl shul and lerer seminar teachers were very against -anglicisms. some time had to pass before we could understand that certain anglicisms could be accepted as genuine yiddish words, just as with slavisms and other european elements. these teachers had feared that yiddish would disappear in these anglicisms. on the contrary, anglicisms actually added more nuances. vords like: boitchik, olraytnik, shop, dzhob, avekmufn -- mirror the life of 4-5? generations of jews. sylvia schildt baltimore maryland 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 04:44:25 -0500 From: Dan Gilman Subject: Kurve Every so often, one feels the need to describe someone in a less than palatable fashion in Yiddish. In just such a case, I have noticed that one of the stock insults in my family's old neighborhood for a woman is "kurve." I worry about offending the sensibilities of mayne khaveyrim, so I will charitably translate this as "lady of the night." I can't find the word in any dictionary (vos far an oyftreyslung!), so I can't be 100% sure of the spelling. This evening, a friend of mine from Hungary mentioned the word, and was pretty certain that it is Hungarian. Another in our group actually wondered if Yiddish borrowed it from Hungarian, or the other way 'round. So, does anyone else know this word, and where it comes from? Dan Gilman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 15:45:21 -0800 From: michaela safadi Subject: Yidish vi a sod Hot men a mol genutst di yidishe sprakh vi a besodike sprakh far politishe oder militerishe sibes? Ikh red nisht vegn eltern vos hobn geredt yidish k'dey di kinder zol nisht farshteyn vos me zogt. Ikh freg tsi me veyst, oyb a mol hot a yidish-redendike kahile genutst Yiddish vi a 'kod' sprakh kegn politishe oder militerishe sonim. Ikh zukh spetsifishe tsitaten. Has Yiddish ever been used as a secret language for political purposes? I'm not talking about parents who spoke Yiddish so the children would not understand what was being said. I'm asking if anyone known whether at any time a Yiddish-speaking community used Yiddish as a code language against political or military enemies. I'm looking for specific citations. Miki Safadi 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 20:36:33 EST From: CassBlum Subject: Eliezer Schindler Who is or was Eliezer Schindler? He is the author of a poem entitled "undzer yidish," a stirring paean to the Yiddish language, which appears on Emanuel Goldsmith's wonderful learning tape, "I Love Yiddish." Does anyone know when and where he lived, when he wrote the poem, what else he wrote, what he was known for? A hartsikn dank, Ellen Cassedy Bethesda, MD 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 09:19:26 -0500 (EST) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: The story of Yiddish nasal vowels W. H. Phillips's gracious posting nevertheless is not right. Polish nasal vowels are older than the nonnasals found in corresponding words in almost all other Slavic languages, so that the Polish nasal in, e.g., ra,k 'of hands', pronounced more or less 'rongk', represents a state of affairs more like that found in the ancestral form of all Slavic languages than e.g., the Russian nonnasal in ruk. We know this from many sources, such as the way Slavic words were represented in foreign languages a thousand or so years ago and the way foreign nasals come out in Slavic, the fact that the oldest Slavic alphabet, createdby Cyril and Methodius, had special letters for two nasal vowels, from the Indo-European etymologies of the words in question (where Slavic nasals correspond to sequences of vowel + nasal consonant), etc. For example, the neuter singular ending which is -ya in Russian (e.g., imya 'name') but -e, (a nasal 'e' vowel) in Polish corresponds to the -en ending in e.g. Latin nomen. And by the same token Yiddish nasal vowels in words like mayse represent the original early Yiddish state of affairs, not some kind of late development, and certainly not one due to Polish influence. In fact, Polish influence on Yiddish is much overrated and could only affect dialects spoken in Poland, but the Yiddish nasals occur or once occurred over a much larger territory. It may be of interest to note that ayin becomes a nasal not just in these special cirucmstances in Yiddish (in my view, whenever it occurred before another consonant), but as someone noted some weeks ago in Italian Hebrew as well. Even more interesting is teh fact that the Arabic ayin, which is cognate with the Hebrew ayin, comes out as a nasal in some languages of Muslim peoples which have borrowed Arabic words, esp. in Acehnese, one of the languages of Western Indonesia. It is a general rule of thumb that any change you find in the history of one language canbe found in the history of some other totally unrelated language. This is usually taken as evidence that sound change over time is not arbitrary or conventional but rather a reflection of human physiology or perhaps the psychology of speech production or perception. A. Manaster Ramer 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 10:14:29 EST From: Dembart Subject: A nekhtiger tog "A nekhtiger tog" is something that's impossible, right? What does it derive from? Leo Rosten says in "The Joys of Yiddish" that "nekhtiger" comes from German "na[umlaut]chtiger" (nightly) and literally means, "a nightly day," i.e., an impossibility. But Fred Kogos says in "A Dicitionary of Yiddish Slang & Idioms" that "nekhtiker" comes from Yiddish "nekhtn" (yesterday) and literally means, "yesterday's day," i.e., gone forever and therefore impossible. In their "Yiddish Dictionary Sourcebook," Herman Galvin and Stan Tamarkin give the same derivation ("yesterday's day.") Who's right? Lee Dembart 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 10:33:04 -0600 From: "Stanley N. Werbow" Subject: p'tsha Hungarian My wife's grandparents came from Hungary, and their term for p'tcha was "kotcheninnye." I don't recall having seen that word among the long lists of variants for the calve's foot delicacy. From the dictionaries (both Weinreich and Harkavy) I am led to associate "kotshen" with cabbage and rolling, so that I wonder whether my wife's memory is off and "kotcheninnye" may have to do with rolled cabbage. Can someone confirm? Stanley Werbow ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.159 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