Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 35 July 2, 1991 1) Usage (Sheldon Benjamin) 2) Responsa (Mikhl Herzog) 3) Usage (Yankel Kessler) 4) Introduction (Martin Minow) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Jul 91 22:06:09 EDT From: sbenj@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: RE: Vol 1.34 Introduction; query; response Regarding the usage of "af tsalokhes..." I had always thought that the phrase had to do with a particular kind of bad luck (I've always been impressed at how many ways one can refer to luck in Yiddish). I took it to mean, no matter what you do, it still comes out wrong. Something like the efforts underway in Boston to undo the state's fiscal problems. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 1 Jul 91 21:36 EDT From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: To all and sundry To Kessler: NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO! "es geyt mir in lebn" means 'it concerns me very much', 'it's a matter of life (or death?)'. To Dave: i)"es geyt mir in lebn" means 'it concerns me very much', 'it's a matter of life (or death?)'. ii) As Bob Berk points out, "af tselokhes/tselukhes" means 'for spite'. 'On purpose' is better expressed by "bekivn". iii) As for patah and komets. Remember that these are marks on paper, not sounds. You're asking how a certain sound in Hebrew became a different sound in Yiddish, how [a] became [o/u]. Right? The answer that fits most cases with respect to Yiddish words of Semitic, German, and Slavic origin is this: both long [a:] and short [a] in open syllable, in all of the stock languages yielded [o] (in Standard and "Litvish" Yiddish) and [u] (in Poland and the Ukraine). As examples, think of a word that rhymes with "tselokhes". Got it? Also, compare Yiddish "zogn/zugn" with German "sagen", Yiddish "bobe/bube" with Slavic "babe?". Of course, there is also a Yiddish regional variant "babe" in Volin(?) and Galicia, with still another "bobe" alternant in neigh- boring Podolia, Bessarabia" (where we'd expect to find "bube"). There ARE words that don't seem to obey this rule, for example, "nakhes" but, I'm getting carried away. If you're hungry for more, see Max Weinreich's "History of the Yiddish Language", Chicago, 1980. iv) Would you consider "al-pi-toes" 'mistakenly' a more suitable term for 'accidentally' in the contexts in which the need arises with your children? To Bob Berk: From UW's dictionary: These seem to me to be the most useful: chance "der traf" by chance "al-pi-traf" law of chance "der trafgezets" at random "af traf" random sample "der trafmuster" Have you tried Mordkhe Schaechter for a lexicon of mathematical terms (or are you his source?)? Try the YIVO library for Yiddish math textbooks pub- lished in pre-war Poland or the Soviet Union. To Nicholas Eshelman: There are a variety of Dictionary projects in the works but they are not simply intended as an "update" of Weinreich. Why dou feel it needs updating? Do you need more English to Yiddish or the reverse? For the latter, see Harkavy, 1928 (Yiddish-English-Hebrew) recently republished by YIVO. To Johan van der Auwera: I'd be pleased to learn about the varieties of Yiddish you encounter in Antwerp. Are variations determined by geographic origin only, or are they also related to membership in the various Hassidic groups that I assume are represented in the Yiddish speaking population? Can you tell yet? 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Jul 91 22:26 PDT From: KESSLER Subject: RE: Vol 1.34 Introduction; query; response In my family, when something was af tselokhes, it was to say, Up shit's creek, or down the tube, or lost and hopeless, ferfuhln, or ver fallen, as it were, lo st, goodbye. What did the speak in Bessarabia, in my fami- ly? Yankele 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Jul 91 06:19:45 PDT From: Martin Minow 02-Jul-1991 0908 Subject: Introduction I'm Martin Minow. My Yiddish is almost, but not quite, non-existant (it was the language my parents spoke when they didn't want the kids to listen), but I did pick up some at an evening course at Harvard Hillel a few years ago. Since my handwriting is so bad even I can't read it sometimes, I adapted a text editor for Yiddish (showing that the spirit of Krasvilevke [spelling?] is still alive in America). (If anyone's interested, I do have software that lets you print Hebrew/Yiddish from an Atari PC.) During the 1960's and 1970's, I was a linguistics grad. student in Sweden, where I saw the disappearance of the formal-informal pronouns -- the recent discussion in Mendele on formal-informal in Yiddish sounded very familiar. One other thing worthy of note here: my mother's maiden name is Rose Mitnick. She was in the same high-school class as Leo Rosten and thus appeared as the heroine in "The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N." (I'd like to find a copy of that book, by the way.) Martin Minow minow@ranger.enet.dec.com ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.35