Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 110 November 23, 1991 1) Reply to Mikhl Herzog (Aren Abramson) 2) Chernishkes, thistle (Yankel Kessler) 3) Kolatch (Yankel Kessler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:32:01 EST From: Aren Abramson Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.106 Please excuse my sloppy typing in my note on nasality. To Mikhl Herzog: I recall now that Uriel Weinreich assigned us an article by someone else on this nasal feature in Yiddish in association with, I think, Polish. As for Mikhl's question to me about "gutturals," I must say that this is a term we phoneticians don't use nowadays. Semitic philologists and the like have used it traditionally to mean certain (consonant) sounds made "deep in the throat." In some scholars' reconstruction of biblical Hebrew, just as Mikhl suggests, 'ayin is said to represent a voiced pharyngeal fricative and Het, its counterpart, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, as found to this day in some varieties of modern Arabic and in Hebrew spoken by Oriental Jews who have long lived in Arab societies. Thus, they are described as pharyngeal fricatives or, if you will, gutturals. There has been a fair amount of instrumental phonetic investigation of them. See, e.g., Laufer & Condax, or El Halees. Aren 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 10:23 PST From: KESSLER Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.107 Could thistle be the flax seed, which in India is used to ease bowel movements for those with hemorrhoids. I know about it because my brother used to get pack ages from his Indian buddy in Delhi. Thistle seeds would have to have the filam ents removed, wouldnt they? The silk parachutes. Kessler 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 10:30 PST From: KESSLER Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.102 In Hungaria, East, it is kolatch, not spelled that way. Rather more like a roun d coffeecake, withor without raisins. Tea/sh kolatch, or kalacs(?) is the coffe ecake my motherinlaw used to make, and I asked for the raisins when I became he r soninlaw, because otherwise it was too dry, needing butter and/or jam to make it palatable, though it was always better than what passes for "Danish" in the USA, which one doesnt eat after 40, I would say, anyway. Just back from Vienna and Budapest: Strudl or strudel still reigns delightfully there. Sour cherry i n Hungary, meggyes, or morellos, that is strudl! But it has to be 0 C to use up the calories. Kessler ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.110