Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 50 July 25, 1991 1) Yidtype (Raphael Finkel) 2) Fayvish (Noyekh Miller) 3) Isaac Bashevis 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1991 18:04 EDT From: BERK@ZODIAC.BITNET Subject: RE: Vol 1.45 Yiddish type >/* yidtype.c -- A program which generates ASCII based Yiddish text. */ would some tayere neshome explain what one is to do with (or about) this program listing for yiddish type (yidtype.c) contained in vol 1.45? a dank. borok 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1991 From: Noyekh Miller Subject: Fayvish [As shames of these pages, I'm disappointed at the seeming lack of interest in Mikhl Herzog's question: what well-known English word is derived from borekhAbe? This will not do, my friends: lovers of the language as I know you to be--and mayvinim to boot--there should have been a flood of answers. Nu, meyle, maybe you were all on vacation. So the game is still open.] Ot dos iz di kashe mayne: Fayvish. First of all, following Harkavy and Even- Shoshan, I assume that it and Faybush (as well as Fayvel) are the same. I've also always assumed that the name is derived from Phoebus Apollo. In fact I've used it for years as an example of how difficult it is for people of one period (even when they "share" the "same" "tradition"--all such words being suspect) to sort out what went on in another... Ober nisht dos bin ikh oysn. Comes Max Weinreich and, completely ignoring this etymology, asserts that the name is from the Latin Vivus and is therefore a relexification of Chaim. Now this may have the unintended effect of making Fayvish more acceptable among those who are put off by a Jew named for a Greek god. Ober epes klingt es nisht, it doesn't ring true, because all the Fayvishes I've known (2) and the Americam Philips (a half-dozen at least) get themselves called to the Torah by the singular 'Jewish' name of Shrage; and Shrage as Even- Shoshan and every other authority will tell you is the Aramaic for light. Not a Chaim in a carload. But Weinreich, who surely knew this, pays no attention. Instead, in a brief note, he agrees that Shrage means light but claims that it's an Aramaic relexification for Uri (my light). In brief, while everyone else says Fayvish=Phoebus=Shrage, Weinreich says Fayvish= Vivus=Chaim and Shrage=Uri. Now I was brought up in the shadow of another Max (Weber) and just as I can't imagine criticizing him lightly I'm leery of saying a krum vort about the other M.W. So who will solve this retenish? Noyekh 3)---------------------------------------------------- Isaac Bashevis is dead. When Sholem Aleichem died in 1916 the grief was for a friend. Singer was not so much a friend (he knew too many of our secrets for that) as, together with Chaim Grade, our last link. We've always lived in the past and now we are the past. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.50