Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 130 January 2, 1992 1) Learning Yiddish (Mark Lerner) 2) Housekeeping and other matters (Noyekh Miller) 3) Toler un lokshen (Herb Basser) 4) Toler un lokshen (Mikhl Herzog) 5) Toler (Ellen Prince) 6) Introduction (Basya Meyer) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 17:38:32 EST From: micah@vax135.att.COM Subject: sources for learning Yiddish. do you know sources for learning Yiddish, i.e. good books to learn it from? at the risk of alientating myself so early, i'd like to find one which does not have an anti-religous stance; sorry if this terminology is offensive. thanks. /m micah@vax135.att.com 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Jan 91 From: nmiller@trincc Subject: Vinter vakatsies Mendele will temporarily stop transmitting on Sunday. The shames is going away for a couple of weeks. I leave you with this question: How does one say: I'm going bird-watching (or even worse: birding)? The task is not simply a matter of translation but of staying at arm's length from what's being described, otherwise you wind up with such wooden terms as 'vinter vakatsies', zol eyn Got nor rakhmones hoben af unz far azelkhe zind. Of course there's the old portmanteau "l'havdil". Or you might say: zayt mir moykhel/ir zolt mir antshuldigen, etc. But what about having the term itself express the idea? [Keeping one's distance from the birds is not even such a new concern. We all remember Bialik's first line and most of us have since learned that the poem on other grounds was bitter not sweet. Is it not possible as well that the poet is throwing our modern Europeanist-Romanticism back in our faces: what's this business with birds? Do Jews really think of a bird as tzipor nakhmedet? Thus Bialik. And in a similar vein the thoroughly assimilated Walter von Rathenau: when a Jew tells you he hunts _and enjoys it_, he lies. For good measure, consider how unsuccessful modern Yiddish writers are at describing nature or even the supposed sentiments of their characters when observing same. Even I.J. Singer couldn't get away with it.] Enough. Which of these do Mendele's readers prefer? (The shames, b'avoynosov arabim, was once involved with surveys of various kinds and will on request summarize the results to the nearest decimal place.) a. Ikh gey zikh arumdreyen/arumvolgern mit di feygl. b. Ikh vel khoyker v'doyresh zayn .. c. Ikh muz zikh tsukuken tsu .. d. Ikh gey zikh basheftikn mit .. e. None of the above (give us your formula)____________________ That's one question. The second I scarcely dare to raise: how does one translate such terms as tufted titmouse, downy woodpecker, long-billed marsh wren? Zayt mir alle gezunt. Mir veln zikh nokhamol zunoyfkumen in tsvey vokhen tsayt. Noyekh 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1992 16:19:47 -0500 From: fishbane@epas.utoronto.CA Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.129 Of course everyone knows "tuler"-- how else could they auction off aliyas-- "fahrtzin tuler tzum drit'n muel. as for lukshin as a family name in russia. My close friend marty lockshin teaches at york in toronto, it was always the wish of my the late frank talmage to introduce him to james kugel at harvard--- "Lokshin Kugel" ! h. basser 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 16:20 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.129 There's a prominent Lokshin family in Toronto. As for the currency, there is both English 'dollar' and German 'Thaler'. Both are refglected in Yiddish: doler (invariant) and toler/tu:ler. 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Jan 92 16:27:28 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.129 in my house (mother's family from poland, father from carpathian mts in slovakia), it was categorically /tuler/. never heard it with a /d/ before i was yivo-ized. weinreich's dictionary has /toler/, but marked as something 'generally avoided by the most careful stylists, but on whose admissibility in the standard language there is no full consensus'. whew. 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 17:10:04 EST From: lmeyer@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Subject: Introduction I am a grad student who knows little yiddish, but has great interest and little time. I have been reading mail.yiddish for some time; that's how I heard about this list...I read to learn what I can. I also share mail.yiddish (and probably this as well...) with friends who know more yiddish but have less net access. Basya Meyer __________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.130