Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.104 January 5, 1999 1) der tate mit DI mame (Dovid Braun) 2) Treves, Trier (Leo Secunda) 3) theater (Alan Berkowitz) 4) bodn zakh (Mordkhe Schaechter) 5) bod (Simkhe Drayer) 6) bod (Noyekh Miller) 7) bleyketsn (Mordkhe Schaechter) 8) Cole Porter's attraction to Yiddish melodies (Al Grand) 9) High and Low Culture in Ashkenaz (David Neal Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 00:32:15 -0500 (EST) From: David S Braun Subject: der tate mit DI mame A propos Joachim Neugroschel's posting: In much of the litvish dialect, female nouns denoting animates take the definite article _di_ and the adjectival agreement ending _-e_ throughout the inflectional paradigm. There, you *never* get _der_ + _froy_ (for instance): DI yungE froys shabes-kleyd kh'ze DI froy kh'reyd mit DI yungE froy In other parts of litvish, where the above doesn't apply, there is yet another quirk: as litvish has dispensed with the accusative-dative distinction, you get kh'ken DER froy Any wonder members of the Yiddish-using intelligentsia were hoping to establish a "standard language"? Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 16:33:01 -0500 (EST) From: SECUNDASL@aol.com Subject: Treves, Trier Your are right about the name of the city and that it was called Treves when the city was under French influence. When it became German the name became Trier. The name of the city is derived from the name of the people who settled there - a Celtic people known as Trevener. Rashi had little to do with this city no matter what name. He studied in Worms when this city together with Speyer and Mainz known as Shum were if not the most but at least a very important center of Jewish learning. Rashi used the local dialect that today's Frenchmen would not understand. Some of this even enter into Yiddish where often it is the only place it was still used, e.g. Leilakh. Leo Secunda 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 23:41:48 -0500 (EST) From: "Alan B. Berkowitz" Subject: theater I thank Samuel Millman for correcting my misthought of fifty years ago. It was indeed Maurice Schwartz, not Maurice Evans that graced the stage of the Second Avenue Theatre on the lower east side of Manhattan. My question for Mr. Millman: Were you the tzatzkaleh that used to kick Menashe Skolnick in the ankles and run off-stage? My greeneh Tante used to take me to the theater. I must have seen a dozen performances before the ripe old age of 10. What a thrill. Now that I understand Yiddish a little better, I wish I had the opportunity to see those productions again. Alan Berkowitz Montgomery, Alabama 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 07:07:02 -0500 (EST) From: MSchaecht@aol.com Subject: bodn zakh In response to Arre Komar: The verb bodn zakh/budn zekh is as old as the Yiddish language (l000-l100 yrs), while the German Boden has been introduced approximately 100 years ago in writings about Jewish colonization. It has not become part of Spoken Yiddish. For soil we generally say: erd, in certain expressions also adome/adume. Sincerely, Mordkhe Schaechter New York, NY 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 13:35:02 -0500 (EST) From: "Saul Drajer" Subject: Bod In di letste numern, gevise mendelyaner schraybn farshidene meynungen vegn dem vort "bod". Als baytrog tsu di algemeyne tsemishung, schik ikh aykh mayn eygene kontributsye. Ikh bin nit kayn meyvn tsu zogn tsi "bod" hot oder hot nit a geheymer sexueln inhalt. Ikh ken yo festshteln az, tsum baishpil, in Shpanish, nutstmen dem oysdruk "anda a baniate", dos heyst "gey in bod arayn" ven me vil zikh opchepen fun emetsn. Un dos hot nit kayn shum geheyme badaitung. Oyb emetzer fun di mendelyaner hot Khevls Katz gravirung "Mucho ojo", vos der balibter yiddish-shpanisher parodist hot far-registrit in Argentine in di fertsikste yorn, vet klor hern dem dermontn oysdruk inem kontekst oybn on derklert. Notabene: "baniate" is nit korekt geshribn mit an "n" un a "i". Di tsupasike oysye iz "enie" vos is an "n" mit a pasikl fun oybn (vi di "fey" in yiddish). Bloys shpanishe kompiuters obn aza oysye, un ikh muz zikh tsupasn tsu der algemeyner shtrom fun komputeray mitn englishn oysleyg. In the last issues, some mendelyaners discuss the meaning of "bod" (bath). As a contribution to the general confusion, I would like to add the following: I dont know if the word has or not some hidden sexual meaning. In Spanish, there is an expression "anda a baniate" (which literally means "gey in bod arayn" "go and take a bath"), which has no hidden second meaning, and is used in the same way as the english expression "get lost". If someone have the old 78 rpm record "Mucho ojo", made by the outstanding Yiddish-Spanish singer Khevl Katz in Argentina during the fortyes, will clearly hear that expression with the above mentioned meaning. Notabene: actually the spanish word "baniate" is misspelled. Instead of an "n" plus an "i", the correct spelling is with an "enie", a letter similar to an "n", but with a dash over (like the "fey" in yiddish), which sums the pronounciation of the both before mentioned letters. The fact is that only spanish based computers has that letter in the keyboard. As far as the maistream is: english based computers, I must adapt...or perish! A freylekhe khanike - A happy new year Simkhe Drayer 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 18:29:16 -0500 From: nmiller@mail.cc.trincoll.edu Subject: bod Regarding "bod" Arre Komar writes (8.102) that it's "clear" (though he doesn't tell us on what grounds or on what evidence) that a bod is neither horrific nor bad, then follows with the suggestion that "bod" is a corrupted form of the Germanic "boden", so that "hob im in bod" means "he can go to hell". Maybe. But here's why I'm skeptical. For one thing, the bath-house or "bod" -- if not "horrific" (and no one but khaver Komar himself has called it that) -- wasn't exactly on a par with the beys-medresh either. It was frequently what the pool-hall once was in America, a sort of clearing-house for thieves, fences, smugglers, and for illicit activities generally. (It was also where Jews -- according to their accusers -- allegedly carried out their ritual murders.) It was in short a moyshev-leytsim, a hangout for kortn-shpiler and the like. zikh firn vi a bod-yung, for instance, doesn't refer to a bath attendant's assistant but to a good-for-nothing. Which is also why we have "firn in bod arayn", to be tricked or bamboozled -- as in the celebrated case of Mendele's _benyomin hashlishi_. Nothing remotely connected with the hypostatized boden-bod connection so far. iz eyn zakh. tsveytns, reb Arre to the contrary, "hob im in bod" doesn't mean "he can go to hell". Take these two scenes. --zeyde, mayner a profesor zogt az ronald reagan iz geven fun di greste prezidentn. --hob im in bod dem profesor daynem. * * * --zeyde, netanyahu zogt az er vet nokhamol zign. --hob im in dr'erd dem paskudnyak. The first of these stirring exchanges lets us know that the professor in question is a fool. hobn in bod is the equivalent of being told to go fly a kite or to go peddle one's papers. Like hobn oyf a nisht-gut ort, it's a term of belittlement -- often playful at that -- rather than a curse. The second tells us that a more serious matter is at issue and that a more serious formula is appropriate. (Of course, in dr'erd hobn isn't exactly a death sentence either -- for that there are a couple of hundred eloquent and blood-curdling oaths -- but that's already a separate affair.) So are "bod" and "boden" related? I doubt it. I also doubt that my reasons for doing so are conclusive: I've learned my lesson about being an amateur etymologist. Noyekh Miller 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 07:10:24 -0500 (EST) From: MSchaecht@aol.com Subject: bleyketsn In response to Wolf Krakowski: Ble(y)ketsn iz a sarkastisher oysdrik (shpet-lushn), tatsh: to bleat. Mordkhe Schaechter 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 09:34:09 -0500 (EST) From: Savoyid@aol.com Subject: Cole Porter's attraction to Yiddish melodies To follow up on Sema Chaimovitz Menora's citing Cole Porter's affinity to Yiddish music [Vol 08.102 ] here is what Alexander Chancellor wrote in the Nov. 28, 1998 issue of The New York Times Book Review in a review of William McBrien's _Cole Porter, A Biography_: "Porter once claimed to Richard Rodgers that his most successful songs, with their constant shifting from the major to minor key, were 'Jewish tunes.' Rodgers agreed, and wrote in his autobiography that the melodies of 'Night and Day,' 'Begin the Beguine' and 'Love for Sale,' among others, were all 'Jewish.' He added, 'It is surely one of the ironies of the musical theater that despite the abundance of Jewish composers, the one who has written the most enduring _Jewish_ music should be an Episcopalian millionaire who was born on a farm in Peru, Ind.' " Another Cole Porter song with a Yiddish flavor that Richard Rodgers might have mentioned is "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." What could be more of a Yiddish melodic phrase than Porter's "Da-da, da-da-da, da-da-daddya?" Al Grand 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 22:52:21 -0500 (EST) From: David Neal Miller Subject: High and Low Culture in Ashkenaz The Discussion Group on Yiddish Literature will sponsor a session at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association of America devoted to "High and Low Culture in Ashkenaz." The discussion group meets from 9:00-10:15 PM on Sunday, 27 December, in the Garden Room of the Fairmont Hotel. Speakers include: Seth L. Wolitz (Univ. of Texas, Austin), "The Role of Song in Goldfaden Plays: A Formal and Semiotic Analysis" Sarah Blacher Cohen (SUNY, Albany), "Cynthia Ozick's 'Actors' and the Yiddish Theater" Neil G. Jacobs (Ohio State Univ.), "The Deproblematization of Yiddish in Contemporary Academe" Joseph Sherman (Univ. of the Witwatersrand), respondent The session is dedicated to the memory of our beloved friend and esteemed colleague, Dorothy Bilik z"l David Neal Miller 1998 chair, for the Executive Committee ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.104 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://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html