Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 125 December 11, 1991 1) Various (Mikhl Herzog) 2) Introduction (Meyer David) 3) Lekoved yontef (David Braun) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Dec 91 22:44 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: Various Aren Abramson: I'm still pursuing the vatnmaxer/vatemaxer (listed both ways in different sources). UW Dictionary distinguishes vate 'cotton' from vatn 'wadding'. I assume that they're cognates, by the way. The expression 'xapt im der vatnmaxer' i.e., 'devil take him' is well-known (among Yiddish speakers) & in various dictionaries and compendia of expessions, but noone has yet suggeste d a reasonable explanation of its origin. A Sadan bibliography that I have lead s nowhere. Remind me of the source of your quote. I'll keep trying. Best guess to date: it's a folk etymology of the sparrow grass variety. Of what, I don't know yet. Mikhl. To All: The Fourth International Conference on Research in Yiddish Language and Literature will take place in Jerusalem beginning May 31 1992. Those interested in presenting papers should write to Nathan Cohen, Yiddish Department, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel. Enclose brief CV and two proposed paper topics. To One and All: Volume 1 of THE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ATLAS OF ASHKENAZIC JEWRY: HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS is in press. Publisher: Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tuebingen. Publication date: late summer-early fall 1992. In the pipeline: Volumes 2, 3, and 4. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Dec 91 23:52:47 EST From: Mark H. David (gensym!mhd@harvard.harvard.edu) Subject: Welcome to MENDELE Brokhim hanimtsoyim! It's great to be on this mailing list! My name is Meyer in Yiddish, and here's a brief bio per your request: I host and produce a weekly Yiddish-language radio called The Yiddish Hour on WBRS, 100 FM, a college radio station at Brandeis U, Waltham, MA, which is like my main hobby. The program, which is at 6:00 p.m. on Sundays, turns one year old at the end of December, 1991. The last two shows of the year will feature interviews with Dov Noy (Nov. 22), Sylvia Fuks-Fried (Nov. 22), and Aharon Appelfeld (Nov. 29), all in Yiddish, naturally. It's a lot of fun. My mother is a fluent Yiddish speaker from Subcarpathian Ruthenia. And I studied some Yiddish, along with German, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and Romanian, while earning my undergraduate degree in Linguistics at the University of Chicago, mit yoren tsurik. But most of the Yiddish I know I've learned in the last few years by interviewing people in Yiddish, reading the Yiddish press, attending concerts, plays, lectures, sings, and "vinkels", and generally seeking out the language and its venerable native speakers wherever I can. For a living I write computer software in a supposedly dead computer language: LISP. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Dec 91 14:04:45 EST From: braund@linc.cis.upenn.edu Subject: lekoved yontef Although we often talk of Ashkenaz and the Yiddish speech-community as a unit, it is, naturally, not a monolith. Playing dreydl during Khanike, we might think, is a universal custom in Ashkenaz. I had the opportunity to introduce the Yiddish dialects to my Intermediate Yiddish class at Penn with the timely example of the diversity within Ashkenaz regarding the term for the dreydl in respective Yiddish dialects. Lest you think it's dreydl "un dat's oll" (as Aaron Lebedeff sings), here are some other terms and relevant notes: (1) trendl, trender, trenderl -- towards the west of "Yiddish Land", a vestige of Western Yiddish (spoken in German-speaking territory) [Herzog 1965:53, 57, 58] and Hungarian Yiddish (I assume Western Transcarpathian) [Shoys 1933:187]; (2) reydl (spelled: redl) -- assumably from an interpretation of dreydl as di reydl [Herzog 1965:57]; (3) verfl -- in Zamet/Zamogitia (Northeastern Yiddish) [Shoys 1933:188] (verflekh normally means 'dice'); (4) gor [Yiddish dictionaries of Harkavy and U. Weinreich] -- assumably derived from one of the explanations of the meaning of the letter giml on the dreydl, viz. gor 'all, everything' (Mikhl Herzog, p.c.). Any others? More exact information? And dreydl is not the only Khanike game! Me shpilt in kortn, in blansh, in domine, in kvitlekh, in tsig-un-volf, among others. Gee, I can't wait till Purim when we can discuss grager, greger, dreyer, homen-klaper, etc.! References Herzog, Marvin 1965. The Yiddish Language of Northern Poland: Its Geography and History. The Hague. Shoys, Khayem 1933. Dos yontef-bukh. New York. -- David Braun ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.125