Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 24 June 14, 1991 1) Introduction (Sigrid Peterson) 2) Olovesholem (David Sherman) 3) Replies to Mikhl Herzog (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1991 16:24 MST From: Sigrid Peterson Subject: Introduction I am Sigrid Peterson, a doctoral student in Hebrew/Jewish Studies, or something, at the University of Utah. I also have a doctorate in Counseling Psy- chology and am a licensed psychologist.-- as a fellow bi-doc seeker once said. Yiddish I learned (Ikh hob Yidish gelernt?) while working in New York City for seven years, and living on the upper West Side. Anything no one wanted the _Shiksa _ to understand was expressed in Yiddish. Since I understood German pretty well, I could catch everything except the punch lines to jokes. I don't know what the rules are for the distinction, but there is Yiddish I can under stand, and Yiddish where every word is over my head. I can watch an episode of Heritage: Civiliza- tion and the Jews, and understand every Yiddish word; then watch _Avalon_ and all the Yiddish goes by me. I am a fluent reader of German, and I found the recently posted 19th-century Yiddish letter readable and inter- esting to translate. My focus for study is the spiritual *experiences* of Jewish women, for which I will need as much knowl- edge of Yiddish as I can gain. It will be at least a year and a half before there is faculty available to teach Yiddish. I am now and then working through lessons in Uriel Weinreich's _College Yiddish_. (The faculty member, Harris Lenowitz, said he didn't know Yiddish, when I asked him something about "dutsn, irtsn." Since his vita indicates that he has consulted on a Yiddish film (_di mensh ohne velt_) and recent MENDELE issues have explored the ramifications of the _dutsn, irtsn_ problem, I assume that was his answer "on one foot.") In any case I will have to find someone at the Synagogue or JCC who is willing to take Yiddish, as courses with only one student do not fly. In the meantime, I can be building my knowledge of biblio- graphic resources in Yiddish. Thanks to the National Yiddish Book Centre, our University Library has a good Yiddish collection, which will probably wind up in deep storage unless someone uses it soon. I appreciate both mail.yiddish and MENDELE, be- cause they keep my curiosity about the language going, which sends me back to Weinreich on an irregular basis. By the way, I still don't get the punch lines of most _vitzen_. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1991 23:34:00 -0400 From: David Sherman Subject: RE: Vol 1.22 I found Mikhl's miscellaneous comments fascinating. The discussion of "oylemObe" reminds me of a question I've had for some time: Are there dialect variants of "olovesholem" (olov hasholom) when used to refer to a deceased woman? The correct Hebrew is "aleha hashalom", but I don't believe I've ever heard a Yiddish version for a deceased woman that is different from that for a man. David Sherman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1991 From: Noyekh Miller (nmiller@trincc) Subject: Some replies to some of Mikhl's questions Mikhl Herzog writes [Vol 1.22]: b)Even in Eastern Yiddish, where both "b" and "v" can occur in the same position, there are regional b/v variants; thus, "gribn/grivn, gribenes/ grivenes, oybn/oyvn 'above', heyvn/heybam 'wetnurse'; c) Also in the East, there are sporadic variants in which b/v are substituted for one another: "borbes 'barefoot', shtibl 'boots'" and "arves 'beans', ariver 'over'. Nope. Keyedue, we spoke only perfect Yiddish in Shpikov. However, I had an uncle who substituted an 'm' for a 'b' in blintzes. I have the vague feeling that he did so mockingly. His wife was, I think, from Bessarabia or Poland; was he perhaps teasing her? (Try to remember whether your mother ever dropped her "v" altogether in such words as "tsvishn, tsvogn 'to was and comb the hair', keyver-ovex, malekh-hamoves" (thus, "tsishn, tsugn, keyverOes, malekhamUes".) No. The 'v' was always present. 1. I didn't think I was writing about Canadian/US differences. What did I say to suggest that? My point was that, as a child and as a youth (Vi kumt aza yungerman tsu redn aza sheynem yidish?), I spoke Yiddish only to adults. I addressed them ONLY as "ir" (except for grandparents, parents & their siblings) and everyone addressed me as "du". Nor mal, no? Same as you describe, I think, or am I missing something? You didn't suggest Canadian-U.S. differences. I, being for my sins a sociologist, tried to account for what you reported earlier, [Vol1.17] that you were predis- posed to say 'du' before you came to the U.S. I real- ize from a more careful reading that the difference between us does not lie in our boyhood experiences with contempo-raries (something I'd entirely overlooked) but in our _expectations_ of how we should be addressed by contemporaries. So most of what I wrote was wrong. The riddle, however, remains. Why should we have had different expectations? Why didn't you hear 'zey' as a term of respect until you went to Israel? On the face of it, i.e. on the basis of what Toronto and Ontario once looked like to this observer, (a more recently- arrived Yiddish-speaking population, a compara-tively formal Canadian culture, etc.) I would have predicted the opposite. 3. As for the other indirect reference, "vus zugt der ruv?", I've had friends (in Toronto) who never addressed their own parents directly: "Vus vil der tate?", "Tsi vil di mameshi zix zetsn?" They did this but never said 'zey' to other unfamiliar adults? 5. Deriving from this form of address, the Yiddish euphemism for 'wife' is "tsi herstu?/tsi herste?" Thus "mayn tsi herste" 'my do-you-hear?' or 'my are-you-listening? Grist for the feminist mill. That's a new one for me. As for feminists (I hope Sigrid Peterson, for one, is reading this) the list of less-than-complimentary names that men use for their wives must be very long. And even to their faces; I.J. Singer's memoirs tell of his favorite uncle who ad- dressed his (uncomplaining) wife as 'Beyme', Volhynian for beheyme. I wish someone could either work up such a list (and for other social relations as well) or, if such lists exist, point us to them. 6. I don't know the Portuguese-Romanian hypothesis (even in its discredited version). Please enlight en. I still don't remember the proper name nor the source, though I'm looking for it. Briefly, it suggests that language-communities that are furthest removed from the center change more slowly. Therefore Portu- guese and Romanian not only have similar words that are closer to Latin, but Italian has changed more than Spanish. This is the sort of thing non-linguists glom onto and never let go, as I'm sure you know from a lifetime of fending off home-made experts. (Even so, you don't have half the troubles that we have in a world where every freshman, rakhmone-litzlan, is k'mat b'yerishe a pop-sociologist.) ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.24