Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.012 June 17, 1998 1) khalaburde (Miroslawa Bulat) 2) -shtaygn un shteyger (elye palevsky) 3) Etymology (A Manaster Ramer) 4) The name "Shirley" and William Safire alert (Mikhl Herzog) 5) help in translating Sholom Aleichem (Aliza Shevrin) 6) Chemistry texts; Swiss/Yiddish (Gitl Dubrovsky) 7) yidish verterbukh farn nets (peter kluehs) 8) nerayen (Avrum-Yankev Amkraut) 9) Universal declaration of human rights (Refoyl Finkl) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:34:50 GMT+2 From: Miroslawa Bulat Subject: khalaburde On May 26 Louis Fridhandler asked about the meaning of the word "khalaburde". According to "Slownik jezyka polskiego"[Dictonary of the Polish language], vol. 1, Warsaw 1978 a Polish word "halaburda" means a roisterer, a rioter, a shouter. This is an old word but some people in Poland still use this word in this meaning. According to "Slownik jezyka polskiego" [Dictionary of the Polish language], ed. by W. Doroszewski, vol. 3, Warsaw 1961, the Polish word "halaburda" or "haraburda", apart from meaning 'a blusterer, bully, hector, roisterer, rioter', also used to mean 'a disturbance, fuss, scene, fight, brawl, quarrel, row'. This word has come into the Polish language from the Ukrainian language. In the Ukrainian language its form is "galaburda". According to "Slovnik ukrainskoj movy" [Dictionary of the Ukrainian language], Kiev 1970-71 it is a dialectal form which means the same as "b'eshk'et". "B'eshk'et", in turn, means 'a disturbance, fuss, scene, scandal, confusion, tumult, turmoil, row, brawl'. Miroslawa Bulat 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 11:09:41 EDT From: EPalevsky1@aol.com Subject: -shtaygn un shteyger me ken shtaygn in shteyger ober nit shteygn in shtayger . -shtaygn- is a verb meaning to go up, to climb etc. and is, I believe, considered -daytshmerish- in some common usages. Nevertheless, as a verb, according to mendele khaver Yankev Lewis, specifically describing spiritual elevation through religious learning and discourse, it should be considered a thoroughly Yiddish word. -shteyger- is a noun meaning the manner or mode of something. -der vos shtaygt lebt gevis af a yidishlekhn shteyger. afile der vos geyt zeltn tsi keynmol in shil nit arayn ken zikh oykh oyslebn af a yidishlekhn shteyger-. elye palevsky 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 10:55:01 -0400 (EDT) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Etymology Dear Mendelyaner, I have as many of you know for some considerable time been tilting at the windmills of (what I consider) invalid etymologizing in Yiddish. I think I have just come up with a new way of making the point. It turns out that dictionaries of English slang used to (maybe still do) often give fanciful etymologies of words which are obviously of Yiddish origin, e.g., ganef from gone off!! Now, how do we KNOW that this is meshugge and that ganef is from Yiddish? I don't know how, but we do. And THIS is what I mean when I say for example that we KNOW that kurve is from Slavic kurva and not from Hebrew, that davenen (whether you accept my tenative etymology or not) is definitely NOT from Turkic or from Aramaic, and so on. A Manaster Ramer 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 18:52:58 -0400 From: "Mikhl Herzog" Subject: 1. The name "Shirley"; 2. William Safire alert! 1. For those who have not seen today's New York Times (Sunday June 7), an obituary records the death, at 92, of the noted sports columnist Shirley Povich. I quote: "The name Shirley for a boy was not uncommon in Maine. He was born on July 15, 1905, in Bar Harbor to parents who were orthodox Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. . . . Mr. Povich was the eighth of 10 children and was named for a grandmother, Sarah, or "Shirley," as it was loosely translated into Yiddish." Get it? The grandmother was surely name "Sorele", in Litvish "Shorele". If we new just where she was from, perhaps from the northeastern Polish towns (where Litvish Yiddish was spoken), Grajewo (Yiddish "Grayvi") or Lomza (Yiddish "Womzi"), we might assume that "Shorele" was actually called "Shoreli"; hence, English "Shirley". ( I think that "Sarah Lee" of cake and cookie fame has a "Sorele" origin, as well.) Can anyone confirm that "the name Shirley for a boy was not uncommon in Maine"? Among Jews? Litvish-Yiddish speakers? Or is all that coincidental? 2. The NYT (Week in Review, May 24, p.3) ran a piece by Peter C.T. Elsworth which ran as follows: "Berlin, laid within the Soviet Zone, but was controlled by all four powers. On June 24, Stalin lay siege to the citie's three western zones . . . ." Nuff said! Mikhl Herzog 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 19:25:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Howard Shevrin Subject: help in translating Sholom Aleichem Dear lovers of Sholom Aleichem, I am currently working on a translation of SA's epistolary novel,"The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl," a sequel to the first, beloved "Menachem-Mendl." As usual, I come across words, phrases and events whose meaning - literally - and figuratively, I caanot find in dictionaries or by asking people in Ann Arbor. I thought I would take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and experience contained in Mendele to ask your occasional help in defining an "untranslatable" for me. For instance: 1) REML-as in, ir darft dos hubn tzum reml tzu farentfern zikh... 2) DI SHVESTER DI M'SHUMDES- Does this have any more meaning than the literal? 3) SKUT This is a start. I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate any help at all. Aliza Shevrin 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:35:57 EDT From: GDubrovsky@aol.com Subject: Chemistry texts; Swiss/Yiddish Re: Chemistry Texts. Among the Jewish farmers of Farmingdale, NJ, whom I interviewed for me book on the American rural experience was Marilyn Tenenbaum. She gave me her school notebooks from her days in Vilna [I think it was Vilna] in which she took notes in Yiddish on chemistry, biology, and physics. I deposited the notebooks with YIVO and they are available to anyone interested. Re: Swiss Deutch and Yiddish. In 1960 I was in Zurich, Switzerland, for the first time. I do not speak any language fluently except English and Yiddish. It was freezing cold and I needed to buy something warm. I went to a department store, could not make myself understood in English and so I switched to Yiddish. The salesgirl understood me perfectly, and was able to give me what I wanted. I was so intrigued that I invited her to have coffee with me when she was free, and we had a whole conversation; she speaking her language and I speaking Yiddish. She was not Jewish. Certainly, the languages have a similar source someplace. Maybe it was in the horse trading that went on across the Swiss Border, sometime long ago. Or maybe it wasn't so long ago. Just thought I'd add my two cents worth to this discussion. Another thought I want to share: I love Mendele on Line. Gitl Dubrovsky 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Jun 1998 21:50:00 +0200 From: pelokoha@t-online.de (Peter Kluehs) Subject: yidish verterbukh farn nets shalom khaveyrim, ikh khidush zikh, az s'iz nisht faran bay undzer khevre a sakh interes oyf tsunoyftsushteln un oferirn dem oylem aza yidish verterbukh. ikh volt mit groys hanoe mitgearbet in der kompyuter-redaktsye, araynklapn di yidishe verter mit dem sheynem program Q-Text. avade zenen faran a por tsendlik mendelyaners vos farmegn genug tsayt un hislayves far aza groyse oyfgabe. efsher konen undzere dray shamosim zikh a mol durkhshmuesn mit azelkhe meyvinim vi Mordkhe Shekhter un Steven A. Jacobson, kedey tsu gefinen a meglekhkeyt vi azoy me organisirt dem inyen? vos meynt ir? zayt gezunt un shtark peter kluehs wehrheim, germany 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 21:26:17 EDT From: Amkal@aol.com Subject: nerayen? in a poesie fun Nudelmann in dem englishem Forward hob ikh geseen dos vort "geeytzet". Asoy vi ikh hob dus kainmol nit gehert vot ikh geren gevolt vissen vu men hot dus genitst. Bay unds fleg men sugen oder "gegeben an eitse" oder "nerayet". Efsher vaiss emetser fun vannen es nemt sikh "nerayet"? Avrum-Yankev Amkraut 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 08:58:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Raphael Finkel Subject: Universal declaration of human rights I have been contacted by the UN asking if the UDHR is available in Yiddish so they can put it on a web site in honor of the 50th anniversary. Does anyone on this list know of such a translation? men hot zikh nor-vos geshtelt in farbindung mit mir fun dem LF (lender farayn) mit a bakoshe tsi ikh veys oyb di universale dekleratsye fun mentshn-rekht gefint zikh ergets af yidish kedey men zol kenen araynleygn af a vebszaytl lekoved dem 50tn yubiley derfun. tsi ken emetser oys|helfn in dem inyen? Refoyl finkl ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.012 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