Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.171 March 17, 1998 1) YIVO Karski Prize for 1997 (Michael Steinlauf) 2) a frage vegn a "dirty word" (Barry Goldstein) 3) Shraybers: shma-yisroel! (Sholem Berger) 4) vayomer-dovid glitshn (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) [Moderator's note] 5) bar mitzvah vs. ben mitzvah and mir/mikh (Sam Kweskin) 6) Help for learners (Milt Eisner) 7) Hershele Ostropolyer (David Ebner) 8) kurve (A. Manaster Ramer) 9) Why does Russian use G and not H? (Eliyahu Juni) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 15:30:55 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Steinlauf Subject: YIVO Karski Prize for 1997 1997 Karski-Nirenska Prize Awarded to Dr. Ruta Sakowska Dr. Ruta Sakowska of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland has been awarded the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize for 1997. Established by Professor Karski at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in 1992, the prize is awarded annually to authors of published works documenting or interpreting the contributions to Polish culture and science by Poles of Jewish origin and Polish Jews. It bears a stipend of $5000. Dr. Sakowska is the pre-eminent historian of the Warsaw Ghetto and director of the Ringelblum Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute, considered the most important Holocaust archives in the world. The archives were established by the historian Emmanuel Ringelblum and his clandestine organization Oneg Shabat in the Warsaw Ghetto; they document every aspect of the life and death of the ghetto as well as the fate of scores of other Polish Jewish communities. The first volume of a planned complete academic edition of the archives has just appeared in Poland under Dr. Sakowska's editorship. Dr. Sakowska is also the author of "Ludzie z dzielnicy zamknietej" (2nd rev. ed., Warsaw, 1993), a social history of the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as numerous other studies. Professor Jan Karski, who endowed the prize, was the envoy of the Polish government-in-exile during World War II who brought first-hand testimony to the West of conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto and in German concentration camps. The prize is also named in memory of Professor Karski's late wife, Pola Nirenska, a well-known choreographer who lost 75 members of her family during the Holocaust. Previous laureates have been Dr. Eugenia Prokop-Janiec for her work on Polish-Jewish writers in interwar Poland (1993); Jerzy Ficowski, a Polish poet and literary critic who has focused on Jewish themes, and Dr. Michal Frydman, translator of Yiddish literature into Polish (1994); Dr. Marek Rostworowski for his work on Jewish subjects in Polish painting (1995); and the Polish poet and novelist Henryk Grynberg, whose work chronicles his own life as a child survivor of the Holocaust (1996). The jury awarding the prize was chaired by Dr. Michael Steinlauf, senior research fellow at YIVO, who succeeded as chairman the late Professor Lucjan Dobroszycki. The other members of the jury were Dr. Jozef Gierowski, director of the Research Center for Jewish History and Culture at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow; Professor Czeslaw Milosz, 1980 Nobel laureate in literature; Dr. Allan Nadler, director of research at YIVO; Mr. Jerzy Turowicz, editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Powszechny, member of the Polish Bishops' Conference Committee for Dialogue with Judaism, and vice-president of the Society for Polish-Israeli Friendship; and Professor Feliks Tych, director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland. The letter to Dr. Sakowska announcing her selection for the prize reads in part: "Our decision reflects your lifelong dedication...to preserving and transmitting the legacy of the Warsaw Ghetto to future generations in Poland and throughout the world. Through the most difficult moments of postwar Polish history, you steadfastly persevered in this commitment, defending the archives, organizing them, and publishing numerous studies based upon them...Now, as the multi-volume edition of the Ringelblum Archives, under your editorship, finally appears in print, your life's work attains fulfillment. The Karski-Nirenska Award is our way of honoring your achievement, which amounts, after all, to the snatching of memory from oblivion." Dr. Sakowska will be presented with the award at a ceremony in her honor at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw on June 1. Michael Steinlauf 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 14:55:00 -0500 From: Barry Goldstein Subject: a frage vegn a "dirty word" der bruder hot dermont nekhtn a nomen funem amol, a man vos di mame, a"h, hot faynt gehat. zi hot im ale mol geruft a "pots may-oymer" -- "pots" veys ikh, ober vos iz "may-oymer" un vi oyslegt men es? (epes vi "of the worst kind"?) zayt moykhl un a dank. Barry Goldstein 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 10:38:52 -0500 From: "Sholem Berger" Subject: Shraybers: shma-yisroel! Shoyn yorn pruv ikh farleykenen dem zog az keyner shraybt nisht haynt tsu tog af yidish. S'iz ober gring tsu gleybn azoyns, ven me darf tsunoyfshteln materiel af a zhurnal. Ikh'l redn klore diburem: Der Bavebter Yid, vos darf bald aroys mit a nayem numer, neytikt zikh gor shtark in (feike) shrayber un (pasike) manuskriptn. Helft zhe undz aroys! Keyn honorarn, keyn prizn. Nor di velt vet avade ful zayn mit aykh. Un shraybn umzist iz take a mistve (shteyt dokh ergets...). Sholem Berger 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 11:38:07 -0800 From: Meyer Wolf Subject: vayomer-dovid glitshn Long ago, in Vol. 5.283, Andrew Cassel asked about a skating game called something like "vayomer-dovid glitshn". 'Yidishe folklor', Vol. I, #3, March 1962 (published by the Y.L. Cahan Folklore Club of YIVO), in its 'tsvishn yidishe kinder' section, has a number readers letters which describe skating games: not only "vayoymer-dovid-glish", but "kedushe- glitsh", oyse-sholem-glitsh", boyi-besholem-glitsh and others. "vayoymer-dovid-glitsh" is described as: "men glitsht zikh zitsndik, onshparndik beshas-mayse dem kop af der hant." Meyer-Leyb Wolf [Moderator's note: Mendele old-timers know that usually questions to Mendele don't remain unanswered. Even if it takes some time - like in this case. At 9:35 p.m. EST on March 13, 1996 Andrew Cassel sent a question to Mendele, and at 11:38 a.m. PST on March 13, 1998, almost seven hours before the question's second anniversary, Meyer-Leyb Wolf submitted an answer, setting a new record in our informal competition. Message to the recent posters who did not see answers to their queries: never give up hope. -i.v.] 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 23:40:23 EST From: ESSAIKAY Subject: bar mitzvah vs. ben mitzvah and mir/mikh Fun VANNEN kummt VANNET, un far vos hot men nit a BEN MITZVAH nor, in gegenteil, a BAR (Aramaish) MITZVAH? Ver iz shildik? Venn einer iz a Litvak, un der anderer a Galitzianer, vos heyssen di Yidn vos voinen in mizrakh poilen? In dem zingleed "Vu ahin zoll ikh geyn?" iz faran a zatz, "ver kenn entfern mir?". Iz dos gerekht? Far vos nit "mikh"? Nu, ver kenn entfern mir/mikh? Sam Kweskin Boca Raton 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 21:31:18 -0500 From: "Milt Eisner" Subject: Help for learners I am trying to learn Yiddish by reading Mendele, but it hasn't been easy. Could Mendelyaners do us learners a favor? Translate your favorite expressions into literal or idiomatic English so we can learn them. I am referring to the recent commentary on responses to "Vus makhstu?" and "Vus hert zich?" I wish I could understand all of the expressions that were given. Thanks. Milt Eisner 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 22:41:21 EST From: Zzdavie Subject: Hershele Ostropolyer Hershele Ostropolyer was a "vitz" (wit) in Eastern Europe. He has been protrayed as a beggar who always matched wits with the rich and mighty and, invariably, came away a winner. (No one can explain, if this is the case, why he was not also rich.) It is even uncertain whether or not such a person really existed or whether he was a figment of the imagination of the millions of oppressed and starving Jews of Poland --- much in the tradition of the dybbik--- who were desperately seeking some escape from their daily hell. Does anyone know some Hershele Ostropolyer stories he can relate or can someone point me in the right direction to read about his exploits (in English or Yiddish)? Thanks in advance. David Ebner, New York City 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 09:47:19 -0500 (EST) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: kurve If I may respond to Hugh Denman's and Meyer Wolf's excellent questions/ suggestions, (1) All my Yiddish informants happen to come from the area where Yiddish /u/ changes to /i/, and there is no question that the word in question has /u/ anyway, which means that this is NOT an old word in Yiddish but a recent borrowing, most likely from Polish (or perhaps some other Slavic language). (2) The match between Polish (or Slavic) kurva (spelled with 'w' in Polish of course but that is justspelling and has no deeper significance) and Yd kurve is so perfect that any other etymology is higly unlikely anyway. (3) The absence of attestation for kurve outside of Eastern European Yiddish (there I go again, of course, but the fact is that often the simplest way to cut through the Gordian knots of Yd linguistics is to look at Yiddish, not at Eastern European Yd only) again would support the idea that this is a strictly local, Slavic- origin, form. Recall that non-Eastern European Yiddish has only a handful of Slavic forms, koyletsh, khapn, khotshe, and maybe one or two more, and that is IT. (4) There is no way that I can see (but may be someone can help me) that Hebrew could give a Yd form like kurve anyway. First of all, the Hebrew 'u' vowel before 'r' in a closed syllable (i.e., when the 'r' is followed by another consonant) gives Yiddish /o/ or /e/. Hebrew Hurba: (by a: I mean a long a vowel) gives khorbe, not khurbe. This rule was known to Yd linguists and philologists at least as far back as the 1930's. Another point is that, as shown again by khorbe, Hebrew can only have beyz, not veyz in this situation (and I dont see where we could get a vov from), so would have to expect Yd *korbe, rather than kurve (* means that the form is hypothetical). Since the form IS kurve and not korbe, a Hebrew etymology is not possible, QED (assuming all the premises are correct, which I am PRETTY sure they are). Hugh Denman writes: "However, I still believe that a 'proto-Slavic' origin is unlikely. If the derivation were Slav, Preobrazhensky would not have to posit a tentative Old High German source that he himself regards as dubious". I think, w/o having access to Preobrazhensky, that there is a misunderstanding here. Unless I am mistaken, the issue is not whether the word is of Slavic origin but whether it came into Slavic from German(ic) or whether it is native to Slavic (inherited from Indo-European directly). This may be a good place to make a more general point. I have been urging Mendelyaner to pay more attention to the results of Yiddish and general linguistics (I should have added philology, since there have really been few Yiddish historical LINGUISTS per se, as opposed to philologists, the line being of course somewhat fuzzy but not entirely imaginary). Of course, linguists and philologists do not always (or even all that often!) agree, but I think there are some things I think we DO have a handle on and DO agree about. I dont think any linguist would doubt that Yd and Hungarian forms of kurve are borrowed from Slavic, even though as we have seen there is (or at least once was) some dispute as to the ultimate origin within Slavic. I think it might be instructive to make a little list of some of the basic facts of Yiddish linguistic history which all experts do agree on (many of which I think will be surprising to some readers) and those which are still controversial (which may be no less surprising). I myself, as a general linguist who stumbled into Yiddish by accident, tend to view a certain amount of the lore of Yiddish linguistics and philology as itself not up to contemporary standards in linguistics, and the dividing line I tried to draw between experts and amateurs is also somewhat fuzzy, but nevertheless I feel we must start to draw SOME lines and try to make it clear that not EVERY suggestion regarding Yiddish that occurs to someone is equally tenable given what has been learned in the last 100 or so years. For example, the idea that nebekh comes from German nicht bei euch (or the like), although it was supported by some leading Yiddish philologists who were by no means innocent of linguistics is, I would say, no more tenable today than the idea of kurve being of Hebrew origin (which I don't think any specialist has ever proposed). Of course, this does not mean that we should not discuss ideas which may turn out to be incorrect. On the contrary, it is only by discussion that we can decide just what IS correct. A. Manaster Ramer 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 18:06:25 +0200 From: Eliyahu Juni Subject: Why does Russian use G and not H? A.M. Ramer and E. Prince replied [07.169] to L. Fridhandler's question [07.167] with explanations for why Russian replaces /h/ with /g/ in words which Russian has borrowed/acquired from other languages. Although the title of L. Fridhandler's post implied that this was his question, its content asked why Yiddish has /h/ in _place-names_ where Russian has /g/. In most cases, Yiddish got its place-names from Russian (and other dominant languages), and not the other way around; the explanation required is for why Yiddish replaces /g/ with /h/ in words borrowed/acquired from Russian. The regular sound change involved, I think, is as follows: (Some) Slavic languages have (or had) a voiced H, while Yiddish has a voiceless H, but no voiced H. Yiddish speakers "heard" the voiced H (which is a guttural sound) as /g/ (which is a voiced sound made at the back of the mouth: same voicing, similar place of articulation), and thus used /g/ in place-names (and other words?) whose Slavic parallels had a voiced H. They could have just as well substituted a voiceless /h/ for the voiced H (same place of articulation, different voicing)--and sometimes did, resulting in double Yiddish place-names (e.g. Horodne/Grodne). (I originally looked into this informally regarding the Horodne/Grodne variation in Yiddish; I imagine it would work similarly with a voiced guttural fricative ['gh']. The Ukrainian-speaking linguist who I asked thought this might imply that Yiddish-speakers prioritized voicing over place of articulation when identifying foreign sounds. He made a similar comment contrasting English and Yiddish regarding the priority of place of articulation vs. rounding, using "Minkhn" vs. "Munich" as supporting evidence.) Eliyahu Juni ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.171 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 Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 7.071 October 5, 1997 1) Mein Veib's Fis (Robert Werman) 2) davening (Sema Chaimovitz Menora) 3) Song Lyrics (marvin engel) 4) Yiddish Anarchism (john patten) 5) chemical glossary (Stanley F. "Shimke" Levine) 6) galerete (Wolf Krakowski) 7) languages and dialects (Alexander Maxwell) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 05:21:44 +0200 From: Robert Werman Subject: Mein Veib's Fis Ron Robboy writes: "The Litvish speaker would characteristically pronounce the sounds /s/ and /sh/ in the same way, as /s/. Thus the word _fish_ (fish) would be pronounced /fis/, becoming a homonym with _fis_ (feet)." While a patient in a Jerusalem hospital, my next bed neighbor, a Litvishe speaker, said to me, "Ich hab lib mein veib's fis." I was initially confused, thinking he meant that he was a foot fetishist. Only after some thought did I realize he meant he loved his wife's fish. A sisse, gesunte yahr. Bob Werman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 02:11:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Lights4607@aol.com Subject: davening The American Jewish History listserv had a request for the origin of the word "davening." There were many interesting responses and I would like to hear what our esteemed Mendele sages have to offer on this word. A gut gebensht yor to all. Sema Chaimovitz Menora Chicago, Il 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 13:10:45 -0400 From: marvin engel Subject: Song Lyrics I have listened closely many times, but can't catch all the words to a song that appears on the Yazoo Records CD: Dave Tarras, Yiddish-American Klezmer Music 1925-1956, track #13. It is listed as: A Vaibele A Tsnien, The Bagelman Sisters with Abe Ellstein Orchestra (1942). The Bagelman Sisters were aka The Barry Sisters, if that helps. Thank you all in advance. Its great to know you are out there. a gliklikhn nay yor aykh alemen. Marvin (meyer) Engel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 19:03:29 +0100 From: john Patten Subject: Yiddish Anarchism Dear Mendele, a very belated reply (sorry!) to Gertrude Dubrovsky's message about the Stelton colony: Paul Avrich's 'Anarchist Voices' has a large section on this (I've been told). On the subject of Left-wing song, which seem to have broken out of late, readers might be interested to know that recordings of a couple of David Edelstadt's songs are still circulating around the Anarchist movement here. john patten 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 21:26:22 -0400 From: "Stanley F. (Shimke) Levine" Subject: chemical glossary Steve Cohen asks about where he can publish his chemical glossary [7.059]. Although he has already spoken to Dr. Schaechter, perhaps he should return to him and ask whether the League for Yiddish, which he heads, would publish it. They have published a number of glossaries authored by Schaekhter himself, including a botanical lexicon. Stanley F. "Shimke" Levine Aiken, SC 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 23:51:09 -0500 From: "Wolf Krakowski, Paula Parsky" Subject: galerete Regarding David Herskovic's posting regarding "galerete' or "gale" [7.070]: In my house, it was called "galer", and none of the children would eat it. Imagine green garlic jell-o... It is interesting to hear about the connection of this dish with the Gerer Khsidim. My Mom comes from Czestochowa and two of her uncles were indeed, Gerer Kh'sidim. Her father, who supported his two brothers , was a follower of the Zuryker Rebbe. Would any Mendelyaners happen to have any information about the Rebbe? A git, gezint, gliklekh un gebensht yuer. Wolf Krakowski 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 23:24:28 -0500 From: Alexander Maxwell Subject: languages and dialects As long as we're on the topic of languages and dialects, I thought I'd put in my two bits. The difference between a language and a dialect is not well-defined, nor well-definable. The obvious test of mutual comprehensibility, has many wierd counterexamples: swiss understand High German, but not vice versa, Afrikaans-speakers understand Dutch, but not vice-versa: so are they different or not? Peter Slomanson also alluded to class considerations that one doesn't associate with language: Consider an uneducated speaker of cockney english and an uneducated Mississippian with a strong southern accent. Probably they would have great difficulty understanding eachother, yet if both of them went to University and learned their respective standard pronunciantions, they would understand eachother easily. Who is learning whose language/dialect? What IS important are written languages. Written languages are always a little bit artificial, because everyone's common speech is subtly different from the 'correct' form of their speech... I notice that in my own (native speaker) english I omit the helping verb in an informal request: "want a banana?" instead of "do you want a banana?" But written standards differ from eachother in definable ways. But then this issue of dialects does not arise. If you write a letter in written Serb anyone can see immediately that it's not written Croat. Even if the words would have been the same in the latin alphabet, there's still no confusing one linguistic standard with the other. The key to this language/dialect issue is that languages are more prestigious, and are associated with nation-hood. I am a history student, and my topic is comparative Slavic nationalism, and let me tell you: every group that wants to call itself a nation, claim independance etc. etc. routinely claims that their local speech is different from the standard language used by the group they're rebelling from. And people who are against that group, they respond by saying, no, no, you just speak a dialect of whatever, it isn't another language at all. It reaches absurd lengths: I've had Slovaks tell me that Slovak is totally different from Czech, that Czechs and Slovaks can't understand eachother, and we have this conversation despite my never having studied Slovak, with me speaking my (at the time not very good) Czech. The Bosnians are in an even more unenviable position: Serb and Croat don't always get the respect they crave as different languages, even though they have different scripts, so you gotta pity the Bosnian (Muslim) nationalist who has to try and convince the outside world that Bosnian is a distinct language from either. (They use the latin alphabet like the croats, and have been introducing arabic and turkish words to try and differentiate themselves.) If anyone says that scripts and consciously introduced words is not a function of linguistics but of politics, I respond Yes, that're precisely my point. Linguistics is interesting and a great pleasure, but you shouldn't try to use it to justify political points. Manaster Ramer's observation that Weinreich was "at least part of the time" a linguist is absolutely correct, but he wasn't being a linguist when he claimed that mideaval Yiddish was a language not a dialect, he was propagating his conception of Yiddish nationalism based on a language. All the linguistic-based nationalisms I've examined, and there have been several, project the distinct national sense as far back into the past as is even remotely plausable. (The Slavic Macedonians have the nerve to claim that Alexander the Great was one of them: not merely the claim that Alexander was not Greek, which assertion can actually be made vaguely tenable, but he was the direct ancestor to the Slavs who migrated in the sixth century!) Yiddish national identity is of course extremely contested: there's a great quote where Stalin (of Birobozhidan fame, unless I have my dates wrong) says that the Jews aren't a nation, because they haven't got a national territory to inhabit. Strange what people will look for as necessary components of 'nation'-hood. Weinreich was covering his bets in an extremely conventional way. These status games are still important today: the current criteria for getting a group established as an official minority in Austria include the possession of a distinct language. I learned this from an Austrain Roma politician. The status of the Roma 'dialects' as a 'language' means the difference between official recognition and subsequent financial support by the austrian government. This is about politics, not linguistics. It is also worth pointing out that politics can change written and even spoken languages: words and even grammatical constructions are adopted for political reasons. German "Augenblick" comes from an anti-foreigner wave back at the time of the 30-years' war: before that time the Germans said "Moment" like everyone else. (They also wanted to introduce 'Gesichtshorn' for nose, but that failed to fly.) American 'hot dog' is from the first world war: Wiener was clearly undesirable; stinking austrian dogs, etc etc. Anyway, Linguists as such aren't interested in this status debate over languages and dialects. If you tell a linguist that Yiddish has a strong 'verb-goes-in-the-second-place" word order rule, just like German, the similarity is interesting to him. If you tell him that Yiddish reflexives don't decline by subject, but German ones do, that's interesting too. But if you use such factoids to argue that Yiddish obviously therefore is a dialect of German/is it's own language distinct from German, the pure lingust shrugs his shoulders, whatever you say, buddy. I hope that my fellow mendele khaverim are neither too put out by my slavic examples nor bored by my ranting, but I _am_ after all writing my theis on these very issues and simply could no longer sit idly by! Zeyt gezunt! Alexander Maxwell ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 7.071 Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html