Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 44 July 19, 1991 1) Antwerp Yiddish and intro (Melekh Viswanath) 2) Introduction (Joseph Galron) 3) Query (David Hendler) 4) Introduction (Florian Brody) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Jul 91 12:28 EDT From: VISWANATH@DRACO.BITNET Subject: mendele I can't really give a good answer to the question of WHAT variety of Yiddish is spoken in Antwerp. I assume the variety is at least primarily based on geographic origin. There are various relligious groups, but I don't know whether it matters. Another determining factor, I have been told, is whether the language used to converse with the non-Jewish Flemish population is primarily French (older generation and some of the younger) or Dutch (part of the younger population). I am afraid I am neither a Yiddish dialectologist nor a sociolinguist nor a Yid. Johan van der Auwera Comment: I was in Antwerp last week, but I had not read Johan's missive at that time, so I couldn't cock an ear out (?) for the Yiddish. However, I try to speak Yiddish whenever I get the chance and I can report the follow- ing. I went to a Gemore shier in yidish and the yidish I heard was very similar to that I have heard at a khasidish rebbe's shier in boro park (this rebbe in Antwerp was also khasidish). I can't really character- ize it linguistically: I haven't spent enough time on studying the particular characteristics of different yidish varieties; but I do remember that he systemati- cally used ay where standard yidish would have ey (e.g. kayn instead of keyn). I also talked to some people on the street and they did not all have this characteris- tic. Furthermore, I asked one of my frum friends what kinds of khasidim there were in Antwerp and he said bobover, gerer, lubavitch,... all kinds. bekitser, I would say there is no one variety of yidish spoken in antwerp. ___________________________________ Last year, we had a graduate student from New York visiting, who was all three, and who was here to study the contact Dutch-Yiddish situa- tion, but he found it very hard to get enough contacts to do the work. Comment: I am not surprised. Khasidim aren't very open to speaking to non-Jews (or even non-khasids) in yidish. I have found in Williamsburg that it is sometimes difficult to get khasidim to speak to answer a yidish question in yidish (even when their own english is bad). (Although in my case, that might be because 1) I don't look like a yidish speaker and 2) my yidish isn't 100% fluent, rather than that I am not khasidish) ______________________________________ Self-intro: My yidish (in both senses) name, melekh (pronounced meylekh) is a partial translation of my indian name, vis(h)wanath, which means "nath (lord, king) of the vishva (universe, world)" As you may have guessed, I am from India, from the state of Kerala in the south. My mother tongue, however, is Tamil, spoken in Tamilnadu and by some groups in Kerala, and by large groups in Srilanka, Malaysia and Singapore (where it is also an official language). I learnt most of my yidish at the YIVO zumer-program and by hearing it spoken and speaking it. My wife's mother tongue is yidish and she uses yidish almost exclusively to communicate with her relatives, so I hear a lot of it. She also speaks yidish exclusively with our children, while I speak only Tamil to them. I teach finance/economics at Rutgers Univ. (Newark, NJ) and am currently 'into' the study of law and economics, one manifestation of which interest is the investiga- tion of jewish (rabbinic) law in terms of economic theory. melekh (viswanat@draco.rutgers.edu) 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 22:22:36 EDT From: Joseph Galron Subject: Introduction My name is Yossi Galron-Goldschlaeger. I am the Hebraica & Judaica cataloger at the Ohio State Univer- sity Libraries. Yiddish is not my mame-loshn. I was born and lived most of my life in Israel and my mother tongues are Hebrew and German (my parents immigrated to Palestine from Austria and Czechoslovakia). In Tel- Aviv I worked at the Tel-Aviv University (1973-1988) as cataloger and as automation librarian. To date I've published three bibliographies: the writ- ings of and about Yisrael Yeshyahu (Yemenite Mapainik - Histadrut leader, Cabinet minister and Speaker of the Knesset - some of his articles were translated into Yiddish and published in Di Goldene keyt); the writings of Prof. Dov Sadan (Berl Stock) - Prof. for Jewish literature (Hebrew and Yiddish) (I am sure that I don't have to introduce him to the Mendele Mentshen); and a bibliography of the writings of Yeshayahu Avrech, an essayist of the daily Davar and winner of the Israel prize for essays. I compiled another two bibliographies that have not yet been published: A critical bibliography of and about Nathan Alterman (Israeli poet and writer) and a completion of my bibliography of Dov Sadan (his writ- ings from 1984 to 1989). Now I am working on the bibliography of Abraham Shlonsky. Beside my bibliographic work I am cataloging at the Ohio State University in Columbus. Most of the books are Hebrew books (Hebrew literature, Israel -politics, geography, history, etc. and Rabbinical literature) and Yiddish (most of them Yiddish literature). Our collec- tion in OSU is big and with the help of the Melton Center for Jewish Studies we are trying to keep our place as one of the leading collections in the Big Ten. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1991 08:00:00 -0400 From: dave@lsuc.on.CA Subject: forwarded from Usenet I realize this is a question about language and histo- ry, instead of current practice. But perhaps some reader of this group can help explain something. _Shadchonim_ are matchmakers. I understand that. But, as we know, Hebrew words rarely show up in English except via Yiddish. _Shadchan_ is like _shohet_, as far as I can tell, in that people only use it to refer to the man charged by tradition and his community with the relevant task-- making matches of people or making meat of beasts. But Yiddish surely has its own word to describe people who make matches in-formally. I've often heard _yenta_ used to describe a woman who plays this role. In fact, I've only ever used it in this sense, to refer to someone who introduced two people. But I understand that it also means 'an intru-sive or meddlesome woman'. Perhaps the only sense that has been preserved in the Yinglish I hear is the one that involves _desired_ meddling. Now for the questions: 1. Is _yenta_ truly from Latin _gentilis_? If so, how did it become feminine, why does it mean what it does (rather than 'Gentile woman'), and how come people don't use it instead of _shiksa_, which I consider offensive? 2. Is there an equivalent word for men? _Yentl_ is different, surely, but why? 3. Are there other words for matchmakers in Yiddish, of the informal or formal kind? Thanks very much. I know it's complicated but I'd love help. David Hendler hendler@netcom.com 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Jul 91 20:54 GMT From: A.MM@AppleLink.Apple.COM Subject: Introduction Thank you for including me to the Mendele List - I received 1 file so far. Although I do not speak Jiddish except for a few words I understand it at leas partially and I am interested in the language itself and also in its concepts. (in- cluding the aspect of "book" both in Jiddish and He- brew, as I work on a project on building electronic books. My Jiddish is virtually nonexistant as Vienna, that is where I live when I do not work in L.A., is not a very good place to learn it: if you are orthodox -which I am not - you speak Hebrew - otherwise you don't. I know one person in Vienna who speaks Jiddish ... Anyway I look forward to more stuff. Regards Florian Brody PS: Do you know of a bilingual edition (Engl/Jiddish or German/Jiddish) of works of I.B. Singer? PPS I recently found a late 19 c. / early 20c (?) 1 vol dictionary Engl-Jiddish in a shop in S. Monica for approx US$ 100 - I did not buy it but if you are inter- ested I can get their tel# ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.44