Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.169 March 14, 1998 1) "Datshmerish toyg nit" on The Mendele Review (Itsik Goldenberg) 2) Why does Russian use G and not H and kurve (Ellen Prince) 3) Russian substitution of 'g' for 'h' (A Manaster Ramer) 4) Yiddish toponymy (Zachary M. Baker) 5) Transliteratsye boygn and Yidishe Klangen (Feygl Infeld Glezer) 6) Moyshe Pinchevsky (Shaya Mitelman) 7) Pintshevskiy's bibliography (Andrey Bredstein) 8) grayz (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) 9) Morgen Frayhayt (Hershel Goodman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 10:10:22 -0500 From: "Robert Goldenberg" Subject: "Datshmerish toyg nit" on The Mendele Review The article by Max Weinreich on The Mendele Review: "Daytshmerish toyg nit," opens an issue that has its parallel in YIVO orthography. Both were non-issues amongst my extended family and their yiddish-speaking neighbours, friends and acquaintances when I was a youngster. I recall few litvaks amongst them, and what Weinreich frowns upon was the norm in our circle. I remember my rebbe in kheyder hassling me when I left out a shtumer alef while committing to writing the imaginary letters he was dictating. All those now-unacceptable daytshmerishe verter were the only words we heard and knew for those terms. Mind you, my rebbe was from Austria-galitsye, so what can you expect? Litvaks were considered to be snobs, not to be emulated, even though they were deferred to as kluge yidn. I remember my father mentioning the local tailor, as poor as the galitsiyaner un rumeynisher amongst whom he lived, with unusual deference and respect because he was a litvak, but the way the taylor spoke was nit far undz gedakht. i.e. respect him because he, like litvaks in general, was clever and scholarly, but he talks funny. Weinreich's article is not proste yidish, and for readers like me it takes a lot of time and effort to glean its full content. For me, the subject is interesting enough to merit the time involved. I wonder if Mendele is the place to post words or expressions in articles like this that one cannot find in the usual verterbikher. Those of us who live in isolated communities with no native yiddish speakers to consult might find this helpful, but I'm not sure that this is the right forum. Things could easily get out of hand if mendelyaner were to post long lists of words and expressions they need translated. Perhaps there are mendelyaner willing to help some of us with such things without actually involving the list as a whole. Any thoughts or ideas about this? Itsik Goldenberg Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 21:03:16 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Why does Russian use G and not H and kurve L. Fridhandler asks why Russian has /g/ where German/Yiddish/English have /h/ and 'what linguistic principle (if any) does this obey or illustrate'. The 'why' question I'll leave to the historical mavens but the second question does indeed have an answer -- the linguistic principle at issue is precisely the one that Manaster Ramer and others have been talking about for the past few months -- the *regularity of sound change*. That is, when a speech community 'hears' a sound as something else -- or hears one thing and 'repeats' it as something else -- they do not do it in isolated words but rather across the board. For some reason, Russian speakers at some point started 'hearing' /h/ (which doesn't occur in Russian) as /g/ or at least wound up saying /g/ when attempting to reproduce the foreign (for them) sound /h/. Btw, _Hamlet_ in Russian is, predictably, _Gaml'et_. This is a really big principle, btw -- the basis of historical linguistics. And it was discovered/formulated in the 19th century. Meyer Wolfe raises questions for Hugh Denman's suggestion of a Semitic source for _kurve_, excellent ones IMO. While I don't have answers to his questions (don't know what 'whore' is Bulgarian, etc), I can offer the following from Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language: WHORE, sb. (Scand.) (The _w_ is unoriginal.) Middle Eng. hore. Icelandic hora, an adulteress, fem. of horr, an adulterer; Danish hore, Swedish hora + Dutch hoer, German hure, Old High German huora; Gothiic hors, masc., an adulterer. Allied to Polish kurwa, Church Slavonic kuruva, an adulteress; Latin carus, loving; Welsh caru, to love; Old Irish caraim, I love. (Proto- Indo-European root *KAR.) So I think it's safe to say that there's no basis for assuming a Semitic origin. Ellen Prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 08:59:54 -0500 (EST) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Russian substitution of 'g' for 'h' Louis Fridhandler notes that Russian often uses 'g' for foreign (including Yiddish) 'h' and asks "What linguistic principle (if any) does this obey or illustrate? I am especially interested in how it affects the sounds and spelling of Yiddish words (including place names) in the various pronunciation styles of Yiddish." As far as I know, there is nothing special about Yiddish in this context. Russian uses 'g' for 'h' in words and names taken from all kinds of languages. However, it also sometimes uses 'kh', and the latter is what Russians pronounce in place of 'h' when speaking English, German, etc. The 'kh' usage is also much more recent than the 'g' one. As to the origin of the 'g' usage, it appears to come from southern Russian dialects, which have a sound we may symbolize as 'gh' in place of 'g'. Thus to Southern Russian speakers the letter 'g' actually has the sound value 'gh' and not 'g'. As for 'gh', it is the voiced equivalent of 'kh'. (To tell if a sound is voiced or not, say it alound with your hands firmly over your ears. If you hear a distinct buzzing sound, it is voiced. Otherwise, it is voiceless. If you do this with 'z' and 's', you will find that 'z' is voiced, but 's' is voiceless. Likewise, 'zh' is voiced, but 'sh' is voiceless. 'kh' is voiceless, and Yiddish has no voiced 'gh', and neither does English, but many languages do, incl. southern Russian. 'gh' in turn is at least as similar in sound to 'h' as 'kh' is, maybe more so, and so it is a good choice to substitute for 'h' in a language that has no 'h' sound. The southern pronunciation probably used to be much more widespread than it is today, and there were a few words where even northerns used the southern pronunciation, esp. in words of religious terminology. So what this whole story illustrates is that the way languages represent foreign sounds usually starts out by choosing the phonetically closest sound available in your own language (although the notion of phonetic closeness has never been properly defined!). But then it is quite common for a tradition to develop of substituting your sound X for foreign sound Y even when the phonetics changes (as a result of sound change over time or because of shift from one dialect to another, as in the case before us) and makes no sense any more. In other words, languages often develop purely TRADITIONAL rules for substituting foreign sounds. This is what we have in Russian when 'g' is used for 'h', while the increasingly frequent use of 'kh' instead represents the tendency to 'fix' things by using the sound which is the closest phonetically to the 'h' sound in the currently dominant northern pronunction. A Manaster Ramer PS. The competing substitutions of 'k' and 'h' for Yiddish, German, Hebrew, etc. 'kh' (= 'ch') in English may be a similar case, but I have not studied it in detail. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 07:38:16 -0500 (EST) From: Zachary Baker Subject: Yiddish toponymy Probably the best discussion of Yiddish toponymy in Eastern Europe is the article by Edward Stankiewicz, "Yiddish Place Names in Poland," in vol. 2 (pp. 158-181) of The Field of Yiddish. Zachary M. Baker 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 21:14:22 -0500 From: yiddish1@juno.com (Feigl I Glaser) Subject: Transliteratsye boygn and Yidishe Klangen. 1) Ikh hob nekhtn farefntlekht in Mendele dem shlisl tsu Yidishe klangen un transliteratsye. Iz arayngefaln a fardrislekher toes. Vel ikh prubirnhaynt farbesern: Vi ken zayn andersh. Yesterday, I posted on the Mendele E-mail the Key to Yiddish sounds and transliteration. Unfortunately, I noticed a mistake. So I will try to correct it here: SH is like SH in SHORT (not like S in PLEASURE) 2) Ikh halt nit az es iz di tsayt eyn libhober fun Yidish zol kritikirn andere vos viln az Yidish zol lebn un oyflebn. Ober abisele yoysher. Gevise mentshn, vos hobn take groys visn un a sach baygetrogn tsu farshpreytn dos Yidishe vort, fardinen dem shtekn vos zey hobn gepasknt az m'darf zogn AF (nit OYF), shraybn FINEF (nit FINF), TSUN (onshtot TSU oder TSUM), FIRSHTOT (onshtot FORSHTOT), SHTREKHELE (onshtot SHTRAYKHELE), un dos alts in nomen fun LAYTISH YIDISH. Dos zelbe iz binoygeye daytshmerizmen. S'iz emes, az gevise daytshmerizmen griltsn in di oyern, azoy vi bite (far zayt azoy gut), tante (far mume), denken (far trakhtn), aaz"v. Ober, vi mayn amoliker lerer minkof fun yidishn lerer seminar hot zikh anumlt oysgedrikt: "mikh art nit vos ir zogt als (far vi), afile ven ir volt aroysgekukt fun a "vinde" volt mikh nit geart. Abi ir redt a gutn, daytlekhn Yidish un ayer zats iz gut geboyt -- kumt aykh a yasher koyekh. Ikh bin shtark far an aynhaytlekhn Yidish. Un zikher -- far di ongenumene gramatishe takones funem aynhaytlekhn Yidishn oysleyg -- vos zaynen oysgehamert gevorn durkh di "Yivo" forsher un "tsisho" lerer in Poiln beis der goldener tkufe fun Yidish --un zaynen ad hayom farblibn di rayelste mekoyrim far Yidish reders, Yidish leyeners un Yidishe shrayber. Oyb es vet oyfkumen a nayer dor Yidish keners, veln zey bimeyle shafn naye shprakh formen. Ober m"darf dos oyf zey nit aroyftsvingen un me darf zayn obyektiv vos shaykh dyalektn. Nor di litvakes hobn gezogt AF, a GERUS, ad"gl. Mistome hot men in Besarabie gezogt FIRKUMEN, FIRLEYGN, FINEF, FERTSETN (nisht FERTZNTN) aaz'v. ober mir gefelt dos nit. Un ver zogt, az Alt-Yidish iz davke beser Yidish? Un ver zogt es az araynbrokn mer Slavishe, Englishe un Hebreishe oysdrukn iz beser vi di "daytshmerizmen" vos zaynen gevorn ongenumen durkhn klal? Linguistn kenen nor forshlogn shprakh, lerer lernen shprakh un der hamoyn redners bashlist. A dank far gibn mir di gelegnhayt aroystsuzogn mayne gedanken. Mit frayndlekhe grusn, Feygl Infeld Glezer 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 23:11:54 -0500 From: Serge Mitelman Subject: Moyshe Pinchevsky. Der artikl yz genemen fyn der "Rossiyskaya evreyskaya entsiklopediya" (rislendishe idishe entsiklopediye), Epos, Moskve, 1995, b.2, z.387, yn yztsinoyfgeshtelt fyn Kh.Beyder (a vertlekhe iberzetsing): "Pinchevsky, Moyshe Yakovlevich (1894, Telenesht, Uriver uyezd, Besaraber guberniye, - 1955), a shraber. Ot bakimen a traditsionele idishe religieze bilding (khinekh?). Ot tsikh gelernt yn yeshive yn Odes. Fyn 1913 - yn Argentine. Iz gearbet als a shvartsarbeyter yn Buenos-Ayres, a lerer yn a idisher koloniye, ot tsikh ymtrugn iber deym lond. Di ershte virshes af idish ot er publikirt yn 1913. Yn 1918 ot er arusgelozt yn Buenos-Ayres zan ershtn bikh "Tsvit". Ot arusgetreytn mit artiklen, dertseylingen, lider yn di periodishe oysgabes. Ven er ot tsikh ymgekert kin Eyrope, ot er gevoynt yn Daychland, Belgiye, Rumenye (Basarabye?), fyn 1926 - yn FSSR. Er ot gedrikt zane verk yn idishe bleter yn zhurnaln, ot arusgegibn etlikhe bikher: " Dertseylingen"(1919), "Fir poemes" (1920), "Dys leybn yn toyt fyn Vilyam Svet" (1941). Mekhaber fyn der libreto farn balet "Dus bochandl" (1935). Yn idishe, ukrainishe yn risishe teaters zenen geveyn geshtelt Pinchevskis pyeses: "Gedekte kortn" (1930), "Git deym forgong" (1931), "Eldorado" (1936), "Kolya" (1937), "Ikh leyb" (1947) yn ondere. Yn 1949 er yz geveyn arestirt; yz geshtorbn yn lager." Di merer teyl fyn di politishe asurim zenen geveyn amnistirt teykif nukh Stalins toyt (1953-1954). Nor a teyl fyn zey zenen nokh geveyn af "poselenye" byzn 1955. Ekh meyn, az ir vot gekont bakimen merer informatsiye, oyb ir vot kontaktirt Khaim Beyder (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn), velekher ot gearbet mit di arkhivn fyn di represirte idishe sovetishe shrabers, tsi Ikhil Shraybman (Keshenev), - zey beyde obn gekont zan bakent mit Pinchevski. Akhits deym, Boris Sandler ot tsekh farnemen mit di doles fyn di represirte besaraber idishe shrabers (yn, vi bavist, er ot veygn zey ungeshribn a bikhl ). Agev, zan intervyu mitn kinstler Leonid Pinchevsky (fyn Belts) yz geveyn farefntlekht yn Forverts mit a khoydesh tsirik, s'yz ober a farshpreyter familye. Yn tsiletst, an onderer "emshekh dor" idisher shraber - Mekhl Felzenbaum -aleyn shtamt fyn Telenesht. Ayer-getrayer, Shaya Mitelman. 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 00:46:01 +0300 From: "Andrey Bredstein" Subject: Pintshevskiy's bibliography Additional Moyshe Pintshevskiy's bibliography: Geklibene lider, poemes un mayselekh. - Kiev, 1940. Der bashtan: a piese-maysele far kleyne kinder. - Kharkov, 1935 Di gliklekhe, vos hobn derlebt: dertseylungen. - Kiev, 1938. Yure: a maysele far kinder. - Kharkov-Odes, 1936. Dos lebn un der toyt fun Vilyam Sven: poeme. - 1-er teyl. - Kiev-Kharkov, 1935 Der Lenin-bliml: mayselekh far kleyn un far groys. - Kiev-Lvov, 1940. Fun friling biz friling: lider. - Kiev, 1938. Andrey Bredstein 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 21:48:50 -0800 From: Meyer Wolf Subject: grayz In Mendele Vol 07.165, Mikhl Herzog refers us to an earlier discussion in Mendele on the origin of this word. I apologize for putting him through the mill again; but that discussion was curiously incomplete. Blame the shames, who was good enough to direct us to the relevant numbers of Mendele. Herzog defended the etymology which holds that grayz is derived from Hebrew gri'es (giml-reysh-yud-ayen-vov-sof), which he attributes to Dov Sadan, but was actually first suggested by Zunz. Herzog explains the vocalic development as follows (following M. Weinreich?): "long [i] in medieval German is realized as [ay] in Yiddish (vayn, tsayt, mayn, etc.). The correspondence between [ay] in grayz and [i] in gri'es fits that development." This is however not the whole phonological story: vayn, etc. had single stressed vowels followed by consonants; *gri:'es had an additional unstressed vowel -- so we would expect the outcome to be something like *grayes. And the final consonant also requires some explanation -- how did the final /s/ get voiced to /z/? It looks like some pretty fancy inguistic footwork is needed to defend this etymology, which is also not semantically straightforward (as earlier Mendele critics pointed out) -- Hebrew-Aramaic _gri'us_ means 'diminution' or 'low quality', not 'mistake'. Meyer-Leyb Wolf 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 21:17:16 +0100 From: harold goodman Subject: Morning Freiheit. I am interested in making contact with anyone having issues of or information relating to the Yiddish daily Morgen Frayhayt ( Morning Freiheit). I imagine that some former readers, staff and afficionados are still around but I don't know where to start in order to contact them. Any suggestions? I hope to write a brief history on this major Yiddish newspaper and its contributions. A hartsiken dank. Hershel Goodman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.169 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