Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.027 July 19, 1998 correction (Leonard Prager) 1) Alter Kacyzne's mayse (Moyshe Moskowitz) 2) "shidekh" (Goldie Morgentaler) 3) Boris Sandler Mkabl Ponim Zayn (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 4) nerayen (Lucas Bruyn) 5) narayen (pe'rets mett) 6) nerayen (Bob Rothstein) 7) Yiddish and Aramaic (Susan Ganc) 8) "beit midrash" or "beysmedresh" (pe'rets mett) 9) Source of a Yiddish book (Bob Rothstein) 0)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 00:11:00 +0300 From: Leonard Prager Subject: correction _di shidekh_ in _TMR_ vol. 02.021 should be corrected to _der shidekh_. The mistake appears a number of times in the introduction and once in the body of the story. Leonard Prager, ed. 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 16:24:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Morris Moskowitz Subject: Alter Kacyzne's mayse Ikh ken nisht aroysshlogn fun gedank Alter Kacyzne's sheyne mayse, "Der Shidekh in Partshev," vos ir hot gedrukt in Mendele Review 02.021. A dank tsu Leonard Prager un Lucas Bruyn far zeyer vikhtiker arbet. Kh'ze nokh Rokhlen, vi zi zitst afn kufert vi Turandot, un Gnendl ken nisht aroplozn di hent fun Rokhl's sheyne, mit-trern-badekte fis. Avade tsit "di fule vayse naketkayt" fun Rokhlen nisht nor Gnendlen, nor oykh mikh. Ober ikh meyn az di erotishe shtimung iz nor eyn teyl fun der kinstlerisher gantskayt fun der mayse. Khotsh di shtark-erotishe stsene, vi Alter Kacyzne bashraybt zi, kumt for in a kleynem, farshtiktn alker, ze ikh, mit der hilf funem mehaber's dimyon, gor an andere stsene. Do shpiln Lesbos and Eros a role, nor zi iz a sublimirte, ayngeviklt in misterya un benkenish. Kh'ze a breytn, ofenem feld, badekt mit levone-zilber, un ot geyen Rokhl, Gnendl, un andere yunge un alte layt. Zeyere orems zenen oysgeshtrekt tsum oysgeshterntn himl, un zey brengen zeyere lang- farhoylene khaloymes, zeyere tifste un intimste hishtapkhus-hanefesh vi a korbm tsu der Got fun der Nakht. Ot dos hob ikh dershpirt in Alter Kacyzne's mayse, un nisht der ipush fun farfoylte shvomen. Moyshe Moskowitz Highland Park, N.J. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 14:48:14 -0400 (EDT) From: goldiem@total.net (Chava Rosenfarb) Subject: "shidekh" As far as I know, "shidekh" is a masculine noun, so it was quite disconcertng to find it feminized to "di shidekh" in the heading title and introduction to the story by Alter Kacyzne. The actual text by Kacyzne has it correct as "der shidekh," but whoever wrote the introduction seems not to have looked at the text, and the mistake is made more than once. I know it is difficult to keep the Yiddish masculine, feminine and neuter nouns straight when one is used to English, but I think an effort should be made, especially in the Mendele Review, in the interests of keeping the language from deteriorating any more than it has already. Goldie Morgentaler 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 11:58:51 -0400 (EDT) From: SHirshan@aol.com Subject: Boris Sandler Mkabl Ponim Zayn I am not a linguist, nor an academic, but as a lover of Yiddish and of words, it behooves me to welcome, for all of us, Boris Sandler as the new editor of the Yiddish Forward. While we parse and play with derivations and defintions of fendl and pamelekh, nobody has taken the several moments to note how he lights up the sky with innovative additions in his editions - pages glowing with literatur, introducing new writings to evaluate, new Yiddish styles, new writers! (our own Sholom Berger)....honoring the beloved master Sutskever on his 85th birthday.... new pages about Yidishe Moleray - Chagal and Modigliani.... an enlightening literarisher togbukh with thumbnail sketches of our legacy of authors.. Is anybody here? Does anybody care? Do we only pay homage to the dead? The King is dead. Long live the King. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan New Hampshire, U.S.A. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 13:22:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Marion Troia Subject: nerayen re: Avrum-Yankev Amkraut's question about nerayen/eytsn in Vol.08.022 Weinrech's dictionary does give eytsn, geeytst. That is not an answer to your question. I don't know whether there is a regional difference in usage between 'eytsn' and 'gebn an eytse'. May be the first is more literary. 'nerayen': Weinreich gives: naray - suggestion, offer, tender, recommendation and: narayen, narayt - suggest offer, tender. In Polish there is the word: 'narada' - consultation, councel, conference. I don't know how the one could be related to the other, but they sound a bit the same. (Russian has: narjad: order, warrant; duty, detail.) Lucas Bruyn. 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 07:35:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Percy Mett Subject: narayen Avrum-Yankev Amkraut hot gifregt (Mendele 8.022) vegn dem vort 'nerayen'. Harkavy fartaytsht narayen: to help a person to a thing, to procure pe'rets mett 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 23:58:44 -0400 (EDT) From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: Nerayen Avrum-Yankev Amkraut asked about the galitsianer verb _nerayen_ (8.022). Ukrainian _naraiaty_ and its Polish source _naraic'_ mean 'advise; recommend'. The Polish root was originally _rad_, as in Polish (and Ukrainian) _rada_ 'council', whence _rajca_ 'councillor' (from _radz'ca_). The Polish root in turn is a borrowing from Germanic: cf. Yiddish _rot_ 'council, board' and _rotn_ 'advise, counsel'. Bob Rothstein 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 16:46:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "Susan Ganc" Subject: Yiddish and Aramaic I enjoy all the varied postings on Mendele. Thanks for introducing me to Tzvi Kanar's DER TOITENMARSH which I used as reading material for my Yiddish literature group here in Houston; we were all touched by the narrative. I have a question about "Yakum-purkn zup" mentioned at the end of the narrative. The book Vidervuks had an excerpt from this story & in their dictionary they defined yakum-purkn as "strange" or "mudne"( in Yiddish). An older Yidddish speaker (Riga, b. 1910) defined it for me as a "mishmash". Question: how did this Sabbath afternoon prayer come to have such a meaning? I have just had time after several busy months to read my mendele list & in an old posting someone trying to remember a saying with "hindik ... " Since no one seems to have answered this, I'll try. The woman who I learned most of my Yiddish from (b. 1888, Korostishev, Ukraine) once told me the following annectode: When she was a child & she or her siblings would pester their mother asking repeatedly,"what's for dinner?", the mother would answer sarcastically, "kakapitzi mit indik zoimen" . "Kakapitzi" is, I assume ,a nonsense word which doesn't soundo very nice, served with "turkey seeds" I remembered the saying because it struck me as very funny! Our mayvinim on mendele have discussed the relationship of Aramaic to early Yiddish. The question if I understand is whether the Aramaic was a spoken language or a language only read and studied by proto-Yiddish speakers. I've always been impressed at what seemed to me like a pretty high percentage of Aramaic words in the Loshn-koydesh sector of Yiddish. But it seems like few of the Aramaic origin words are "every day words"(i.e. food, body, family words) which you would expect from a spoken language. Most of them seem to be the type you would use in discussion (i.e. aderaba, mistome, etc); I had always assumed that these would have been used by the yeshiiva-bekhorim who read talmud in Aramaic & therefore interjected Aramaic words from their reading. into the spoken language.I'd like to hear more on this matter . Special thanks to Noakh Miller who explained how to change the romanizations on mendele to "real" Yiddish. All I can say is awesome! Susan Ganc 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 07:35:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Percy Mett Subject: "beit midrash" or "beysmedresh" "beit midrash" was mentioned in the article on Yiddish in Canada I don't know how many chassidic children are at home in a beit midrash, but I bet most of them could find their way to the beysmedresh..... perets mett 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 23:58:55 -0400 (EDT) From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: Source of a Yiddish book Ezra Gordon (8.023) asked about the source for a book mentioned in the _Forverts_: _A hundert yidishe shtetlekh fun Ukraine_. The book, the first part of a planned multivolume work, is actually in Russian: _100 [Sto] evreiskikh mestechek Ukrainy: Istoricheskii putevoditel'. Vypusk 1: Podoliia_ (ISBN 5-89007-008-9.) (The two-page English summary gives the English title _Historical Guide "One Hundred Shtetls of Ukraine." Issue 1: Jewish Communities of Podoliya_.) It was compiled by Veniamin Lukin and Boris Khaimovich and published in 1997 by the Jerusalem Center for Documentation of the Diaspora Heritage and the Institute for Investigation of the Jewish Diaspora (Petersburg Jewish University). I obtained my copy from the Victor Kamkin Bookstore in Rockville, Maryland. Bob Rothstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.027 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