Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 129 January 1, 1992 1) Query (Bob Berk) 2) Vatnmakher (Sigrid Peterson) 3) Various (Ellen Prince) 4) Various (Mikhl Herzog) 5) Query (David Sherman) 6) Introduction (Moishe-Nussen Eytan) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 18:04 EST From: BERK@ZODIAC.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.128 does anyone know the etymology of the word lukshen (noodles)? also, i have heard it claimed that it was used as a family name in 'russia'. can anyone corroborate that? bob berk@zodiac.rutgers.edu 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 16:05 MST From: Sigrid Peterson Subject: Khapt im der vatnmakher A couple of weeks ago I was talking with another New York expatriate, Dr. Philip Hammond. He grew up in Monticello, New York in the heart of the borscht belt; he later taught for a while at Brandeis. When discussing a third person, he suggested I tell him to "khapt im der vatnmakher....or khapt im der teakettle, it's the same thing." Did we go round on this in the beginning? I'm not sure. Sigrid Peterson sigpeter@cc.utah.edu 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 19:01:10 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.128 >From: Aren Abramson >Subject: Vatnmakher >As for Ellen Prince's foray onto the field, it was fun to >read, but she seems to have forgotten that the oath can be >laid upon us folk as well as horses. Aren (Re: Mendele, >Vol. 1.127) you flatter me, arthur. i did not forget that the oath can be laid upon people as well as horses--i never knew it in the first place. i never heard the damn thing before and the only example you gave was to a horse. gey veys... >From: dave@lsuc.on.CA > >Sparrow grass? What is this a reference to? in an effort to atone, i shall answer this: 'sparrow grass' is a nonstandard variant of 'asparagus', which was 'folk-etymologized' into 'sparrow grass'. in case the problem is the term 'folk etymology', that's when speakers hypothesize that some word comes from something on the basis of its sound (or spelling) but are wrong. a very similar folk etymology that made it into the standard language is 'gooseberry', which had nothing to do with geese--it was a folk etymology of the french 'groseille'. or so i've read. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 14:58 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.128 "sparrow grass" = 'asparagus', an otherwise unintelligible word. As for ober/oder. There's no confusion. The usage is regionally consistent: ober do ober dort: 'either here or there'. Standard Yiddish, of course: oder....oder. Aren Abramson: can you retransmit your message on 'ayin (with 'chapter & verse'). May I quote you? Bob Hoberman: Can you do the same for me? May I quote you, too? Anyone else? Best for the new year. Mikhl. Anyone on the line that knows about "Smilies"? 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 17:45:26 EST From: dave@lsuc.on.CA Subject: dollar Whenever I've seen $ written in Yiddish, it's "dolar" (with a daled). Hardly surprising. But people I know, including my in-laws (originally from Stashiv, Poland, came to Toronto in 1948) use "tuler". Even allowing for the komets-aleph dropping to a -u-, which is consistent with their (our) accent generally, how does the daled become a tes? Is this a local phenomenon? I sometimes wonder if I'll be understood when speaking to Yidn in, say, the US, if I use "tuler" to refer to the unit of currency. 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 19:03:39 GMT From: me@SUZUKA.U-STRASBG.FR Subject: Personal introduction Noie`h, I'll try to reply point by point (in English, being a non-native speaker of Galitsianer, and having trouble with technical Comp. Sci. words). Forgive me my personal translitteration of Yiddish, I do not have the patience to learn YIVO or something like that; real Yiddish is written in Hebrew anyway. Nor to pretend to speak Litvak (or even to be a Misnaged, although `Hassidism isn't my cuppa tea either). I am a survivor of the lost generation of European jewry, having come through the war aged 8 with no more Father nor the 22 grand-parents, uncles, aunts and cousins on my mother's side (shet`hi) or the 27 on my father's side who went up in smoke (just one word on the subject, after that no more: it is a sinister joke to say the Akaide didn't happen; it happens be`hol doir vudoir). Half of my family is Galitsianer from Galicia, the other half Ukrainian from the hungarian side of the Carpath mountains. My main interest in Yiddish is try to salvage for the future generations what can be salvaged of the great Jewish culture that exists no more, be it the Talmidei Ha'humim or the yiddish writers who catered for the ordinary people. All around me I see people writing Noie`h mit ziben grazen, even the ones whose mamelushen was Yiddish. It is not only physical destruction that we must resist. And some of the israelis try very hard to be more Kenaanim than Jews. Zait gezund ==Moishe Nussen (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( # Michel Eytan # Voice:+33 88 41 74 29 # # (on Sparc1 under OpenWindows v.2) # # # Labo. Informatique, Logiques, Langages # Secr:+33 88 41 74 26 # # Dept. Info., Univ. Strasbourg II # # # 22 rue Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg France # Fax:+33 88 41 73 54 # )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.129