Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 133 January 5, 1992 1) Geveyn un geveyzn (Bob Goldberg) 2) Folk etymology (Ellen Prince) 3) Ober/oder and etymologies (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Jan 92 15:51:20 PST From: xidak!poseidon!bob@uunet.UU.NET Subject: geveyn un geveyzn What is the difference (if any) between "geveyn" and "geveyzn"? As far as I know, both are the past tense of the verb "zayn" (to be), as in "ikh bin geveyn eyn aleyn" (I was all alone) or "ikh bin dortn geveyzn" (I was there). I believe Weinreich has them as alternative forms, but my grandmother used them both. I think she used the longer "geveyzn" at the end of a long sentence, perhaps for emphasis: "ikh bin dortn in varshe tsvey vokhn geveyzn" (I was in Warsaw for two weeks), while the shorter "geveyn" was used immediately after the helper verb: "ikh bin geveyn in hospital" (I was in the hospital). ... Bob Goldberg 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 03 Jan 92 22:11:23 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.131 >From: VISWANATH@DRACO.BITNET >Subject: folk etymology > >Regarding folk-etymology: > >Ellen Prince writes: > '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. ... >Consistent with my suggestion is the following >characterization of folk-etymology: (if read with stress on >'a tout prix') Vendryes: l'etymologie populaire est une >reaction contre l'arbitraire du signe. On veut a tout prix >expliquer ce dont la langue est bien incapable de fournir >l'explication. ok, melekh, vendryes said it more elegantly than i did, but the gist is the same--one pulls apart some word and notes that its PARTS sound like (or, sometimes, are spelled like) some other words and then concludes that the original word is made up of those (smaller) words. the larger (i.e. original) word would be the ARBITRARY part but breaking it down into smaller, known parts makes it NONARBITRARY. (of course, the smaller parts are themselves arbitrary--a sparrow is called a sparrow for arbitrary reasons and the same for grass--but sparrowgrass is nonarbitrary.) (asparagus, of course, is arbitrary.) >Other viewpoints on folk-etymology: > >Ramon Anttila defines folk-etymology as a process of >replacing unfamiliar shapes with more familiar ones. This >would not seem to be true in my case. dreydl is certainly >not an unfamiliar construct to me, or indeed to anybody on >mendele. This definition would, however, justify the >classification of sparrowgrass/asparagus as folk-etymology. (minor point--it's raimo--he's finnish, not hispanic.) ok, same thing--except 'unfamiliar' is not a good term--he means 'arbitrary'. and then you'll see that dreydl, while familiar, was arbitrary--unanalyzable--until it was recast as di reydl. ok? here's another example that may help clarify it. the melted cheese dish 'welsh rabbit' was folk-etymologized (by some very literate folk) into 'welsh rarebit', since they couldn't figure out what it had to do with 'rabbit'--'rabbit', tho familiar enough, was totally unmotivated as a name for melted cheese and hence arbitrary. 'rarebit' somehow made sense. now, it was in fact 'rabbit'--apparently (or so the story goes), if welsh hunters came home empty-handed (without some nice juicy rabbits), their wives would make a meal of melted cheese and call it welsh rabbit. so you see, folk etymology involves reanalyzing some apparently arbitrary/unmotivated string of sounds into one that 'makes sense'. back to yiddish--my father had a wonderful folk etymology for 'nebekh'--he insisted it was an acronym for 'nisht bay aykh gedakht'. i kid you not. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Jan 92 23:53 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.131 Dave: re ober . . . ober--I'd have to check to be sure, but offhand, its use as 'either . . . or' is probably Southeastern anyway. I'll check it out in due course. In any event, "ober" continues to mean 'but'. Bob Berk: I've discovered the article I mentioned to you: "Pasta", The Atlantic Monthly, Jul;y 1986: "Other Arabic sources of the time [the 10th century], refer to fresh noodles as 'laksha', a Persian word that was the basis for words in Russian, Hungarian, and Yiddish." The author, Corby Kummer. Quote him, not me. Anyone, test your teeth on 1) the etymology of 'gra(y)zn' 2) the origin of the phrase 'noyekh mit zibn gra(y)zn'. Happy New Year ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.133