Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.185 April 10, 1998 1) a zisn pesakh? (Yosef Gilboa) 2) nokh a mol kurva: yidish un portugalish (Alan Shuchat) 3) Yiddish in the Ukraine (Mikhl Herzog) 4) Olaskov (Charne Schaechter) 5) "wiped off the map" (Dovid Braun) 6) bagrisung, der geredter yidish (Dovid Braun) 7) ABC versus alef-beyz (Vivian Aldridge) 8) NYBC Website (Henny Lewin) 9) copyright register (Sheva Zucker) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 12:31:34 -0700 From: AJ Gilboa Subject: a zisn pesakh? Lee Dembart writes in [07.183]: "And regardless of what you think about transliterated dictionaries, a zisn pesakh to all." "A zisn pesakh"? I admit that I have heard this expression before but can anyone tell me its origin? Fraylich, kosher ... OK. But how is sweetness associated davka with pesakh? Rosh hashono is associated with sweetness, as in "shana tova u-metuka", but pesakh? Pesakh kasher v'sameakh to all. Yosef Gilboa 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 09:47:56 -0400 From: Alan Shuchat Subject: nokh a mol kurva: yidish un portugalish Ellen Prince shraybt: "the Bulgarian word for 'whore' is _kurva_. Will it now be claimed that Yiddish may have infiltrated Bulgarian as it's been claimed to have infiltrated Old Church Slavonic?" Efsher iz do an andere farbindung. Etlekhe yor tsurik ikh bin geveyn in drom-portugal. In der gegnt s'iz geveyn a beyg in veyg. Bayem beyg iz geshtonen a hoyz mit a shild, "Casa de la Curva." A freylekhe un gezinte peysekh tsu alen. Alan Shuchat PS As I recall, this was near the town of Tevira. In the same general area, there was a road sign indicating the way to "Sinagoga." We went in that direction for quite a distance, but found neither a shul nor a town named Sinagoga. Any ideas as to what this could have been? 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:58:19 -0400 From: "Mikhl Herzog" Subject: Yiddish in the Ukraine Many of Bob Poe's questions (07.183) are answered in my article "Yiddish in the Ukraine" which appeared in _The Field of Yiddish III_, edited by Herzog, Ravid, and Weinreich (Mouton & Co. 1969). A series of maps depicting the distribution of numerous features will help locate the areas in which particular towns are likely to be found. The same volume includes articles on Belorussian Yiddish (Uriel Weinreich), and Western Yiddish (Steven Lowenstein), and a major work on regional variation in the Yiddish case and gender systems (Meyer Wolf). Mikhl Herzog 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 10:54:56 EDT From: MSchaecht Subject: Olaskov Bob Poe asked about the dialect in Olaskov [07.183]. I was delighted to find a landsman! My mother was also from Olaskov, but fled with her family in 1918 after some terrible pogroms and they eventually made their way to USA in 1921 after many adventures. Since you gave no dates or names, I have no basis for comparison. We were the Bilmes-Anbinder family. Olaskov was on the Bug river (pronounced Beeg) across from Krivoye Ozera (in Yiddish: Krivozere, changed by the Soviets to Pervomaysk) in the region near Uman. Most of your observations are correct - toteh, momeh, but - af der politse, afn tish; arifgeyn - but - tsenoyf; ekh for oykh; gleyb for gloyb. If it weren't for my husband Dr Mordkhe Schaechter I wouldn't have found you! Hope to hear again soon. Charne Schaechter 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 11:20:19 EDT From: David S Braun Subject: "wiped off the map" A recent posting on Mendele contains the following: "the village no longer exists! (It was called [...] and was destroyed in WW II.)" I've heard this said innumerable times by innumerable people re Eastern European places of Jewish origin (not by Eastern European-born individuals, but by their children or grandchildren). Also the phrase "this town/shtetl/ village was wiped off the map." I've always struggled to understand exactly what these mean, i.e. what people believe is the actual status of these "no longer existing" places. Anyone who uses these phrases, please enlighten me. (I understand that the Jewish population and Jewish institutions of those places were destroyed, no longer exist, or that areas that once had dorf or shtetl status have been incorporated into other villages/towns/cities since WWII, but these are different statements.) Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 11:26:25 EDT From: David S Braun Subject: bagrisung, der geredter yidish ikh vil hartsik bagrisn (mayn perzenlekhe bakante) feygl infeld glezer afn onheybn onteyl tsu nemen in MENDELE. di folklor-shtiklekh (vi azoy reders fun eyn yidishn dialekt lakhn fun di dialektn fun andere) zaynen kheynevdik, farvaylndik. feygls ton iz ober fardrosik, nokh mayn meynung: s'iz a shod, s'iz iberik tsu lakhn funem faktishn, funem geredtn yidish. dovid braun (Cambrisge, MA) 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 18:50:50 +0000 From: vivaldi@es-basel.ch (ES-Basel) Subject: ABC versus alef-beyz Im Mendele 07.182 Sylvia Schildt laments that people who profess an interest in Yiddish are not prepared to learn to read the original script. I agree with a lot of what she says, BUT: She was responding to a request for suggestions for transliterated dictionaries and I would maintain that there is a need for these dictionaries. Let me say why I am also looking. My interest in Yiddish has no obvious cause; I am not, for instance, from a Jewish family. In order to read it I spent a lot of time looking for good dictionaries. Most of what bookshops wanted to order for me was in transliteration and I more or less turned my nose up, even if I did buy one or two. Then I started subscribing to Mendele. I also received the Mendele Review, complete with literature. Suddenly I needed transliterated dictionaries because even with quite a lot of imagination and a lot of work trying out all the alef-beyz spellings I considered possible, I still couldn't find all of the words I needed in my alef-beyz dictionaries. Not so long ago I would probably have needed such a dictionary a couple of times to be able to read Sylvia Schildt's letter. Incidentally, in reading transliterated Yiddish I have come to realise how many words I can read in Hebrew script without knowing how to pronounce them because I understood them in context but never looked them up, because I found them in a dictionary without a guide to the pronunciation or because my memory fails me. Transliteration does me good! Since reading electronic Yiddish I have come to value the not particularly comprehensive paperback dictionary published by Duden which is only Yiddish-German. It omits most of the vocabulary that is easily understood by the German-speaking readership it was produced for in order to make room for more words of Slavonic and Semitic origin. The transliteration is very "German", but you get used to that. (Loetzsch, Ronald: "Jiddisches Woerterbuch", Dudenverlag 1992, ISBN 3-411-06241-X). Vivian Aldridge Basel, Switzerland 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 14:55:15 -0400 From: Henny Lewin Subject: NYBC Website Mazl Tov! The National Yiddish Book Center has a website: www.yiddishbookcenter.org Check it out! Henny Lewin 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:02:12 EDT From: SCZUCKER Subject: copyright register Tayere Khaveyrim, Ikh hob shoyn a por mol onteyl genumen in der diskusie mit a por verter ober ikh hob zikh rikhtik nit forgeshtelt. Ikh heys Sheva Tsuker, Ikh bin a lerern fun Yidish in Duke Universitet in Durem, Tsofn-Karolayne, un di mekhaberte fun dem tekstbikhl Yidish: An Araynfir, Loshn, Literature un Kultur. Efsher kent ir, Mendelyaner, mir aroyshelfn mit a por inyonim. Ikh vel shraybn af, if, uf, eyf, oyf Yidish un dernokh iberzetsn dem tamtses af English. Ikh zukh informatsie vegn drukrekht benogeye etlekhe Yidishe shraybers. Tsi ken emetser mir zogn tsu vemen me darf zikh vendn vegn iberdrukn epes af Yidish fun Yankev Glatshteyn, Itsik Manger, un Kadye Molodowky? Ikh volt oykh gevolt visn ver es halt dos drukrekht far di rekordirungen fun dem retsitator Herts Grosbardn? Der disk vos ikh hob iz aroygegegn gevorn fun EAV -- Educational Audio Visual in Pleasantville, NY ober ikh ken di firme nit gefinen. Kentik az zey eksistirn shoyn nit. Tsum badoyern hot YIVO nit di informatsie, khoch me volt gemeynt az zey voltn gedarft hobn azelkhe yedies. Af vifl ikh farshtey iz dervayl nito kin eyn tsentrale organizatsie vu me ken gefinen di informatsie. S'iz a shod az yeder vos darf azelkhe informatsies muz ale mol unheybn fun 'snay. Aroysgevorfene arbet! Ikh bin greyt tsu haltn aza reshime. Zol yederer vos hot informatsie vegn drukrekht far velkhe s'iz nit Yidishe shraybers tsushikn di informatsie. Di reshime vet men haltn in Mendele-Arkhiv, un oykh in YIVO, in Natsionaler Yidisher Bokher-Tsentrale in Amherst, vi oykh in Medem-Bibliotek, un andere farinteresirte organizaties. mayn Epost, ayin post, blitspost, oder blitsbrivl-adres iz sczucker@aol.com Ikh hof az ikh vel hern fun aykh. Aderabe, git loshn un a zisn Peysakh! Sheva Tsuker I would like to find information on who holds the copyright for the Yiddish works of the following Yiddish writers: Yankev Glatshteyn, Itsik Manger, and Kadye Molodowsky. I also wonder if anyone can tell me who would hold the copyright for hertz Grosbard's recordings. The one I have is published by EAV--Educational Audio Visual in Pleasantville, NY but I can't seem to track them down. Since none of the likely organizations seems to keep a list of these things, I would be quite willing to keep a list of who holds the copyright for various Yiddish writers. It seems silly to have to reinvent the wheel each time we need such information if someone has already gone through the often complicated process of finding out. Do send me any information you have on copyrights for any Yiddish writer, good, bad, or indifferent, and I'll see that the proper institutions have a copy so that people needing this information can readily find it. Happy Peysakh to all. Sheva Zucker ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.185 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