Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 138 January 19, 1992 1) Pronunciation (Hershel Bershady) 2) Yankev and manse (Khayim Bochner) 3) Yiddish textbooks (Khayim Bochner) 4) Yiddish in Egypt (Aren Abramson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 06 Jan 92 23:47:53 EST From: "Dr. Harold Bershady" Subject: PRONUNCIATION Re. Mendele vol. 1.132: Bob Goldberg's query on clues to pronunication via rhymes in songs: As kids we used to sing: Oy khanuke, oy khanuke A yontif, a sheyner A lustike, a frelikhe A brokh of deine beyner... "We" came from a little town near Kiev -- Sokolifke. According to my rela- tives, the town numbered no more than 200 souls. But the Sokolifke cemetery in Buffalo -- a city which apparently remains the mecca of former native Sokolifke rs -- contains several hundred graves of original Sokolifkers. No Sokolifker I know would claim to be a Galitzianer or Litvack -- heaven forfend! They all say they're "Ruhshshish." The point of this little story is: who knows how widespread this particular haccent is? Or exactly what kind? Bob's bube, from noy Shtot near Krakow, seems to share many similarities of accent with my fami- ly. There are a few differences. My bube used to say -- I reproduce this pho- netically rather that orthographiucally -- mawe-mehle, taw-tehle, not mamele, tatele. Kayn-e-hora, bubele, etc., seems to capture Sokolifke sprakh. Hershel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Jan 92 15:40:39 -0500 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: RE: "yankev, manse" Berl Hoberman writes in Mendele Vol 1.131 > So are we back to square one for Yankev, ma:nse? Well, since the subject has come up again, I'll write what I was thinking before, but didn't get around to writing before. I don't think the phonology of pharyngealization in Semitic has anything to do with this. Why? 1) These "intrusive" [n]s occur in the environment of 3 loshn koydesh consonants: ayin, aleph & he. Ayin was originally a pharyngeal glide, but aleph (glottal stop) and he (ordinary [h]) were not. 2) The one other consonant that was originally pharyngeal is khes. To my knowledge, the "intrusive" [n] never shows up in words with khes. So I think that pharyngeality is a red herring. (Vi zogt men "red herring" oyf yidish?) What ayin, aleph & he have in common? Well, he as often become silent in loshn koydesh words, while ayin and aleph have become silent everywhere (ignoring the fact that they're used to spell vowels in non-loshn koydesh words). So I think the answer is more likely to have something to do with the phonetics of vowel coalesence or compensatory lengthening than with pharyngeality. -- Khayim 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Jan 92 15:58:03 -0500 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: RE: textbooks micah@vax135.att.com writes in Mendele Vol 1.130 > 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 I haven't seen any other replies, so I'll give it a stab; It's hard to answer without knowing your language-learning background. The best reference for beginners in U. Weinreich's "College Yiddish". The main problem with it as a textbook is that it presumes a good deal of familiarity with grammatical terminology: back when it was written, most college students had had a year or two of Latin. Many people nowadays have trouble with this; if you don't, I recommend this book. The easier books I'm familiar with are particularly good for people who start out without already knowing the aleph-beys, but that's not likely to apply to you if you're religious. For the record (and from memory): 1) "Learning Yiddish in easy Stages" by Marion Herbst (??). 2) a booklet + cassette combination by Yudel Mark (the title escapes me). 3) "The Yiddish Teacher" an old (30's) book whose author escapes me. I hear that Sheva Zucker is writing a new textbook, and I have high hopes for it, but as far as I know it isn't available yet. With respect to religion, the only book I know that mentions an explicit attempt to avoid being offensive is Schaechter's "Yiddish II". I don't think any of the books are openly hostile; while I can't judge what you might find offensive, I know observant Jews who teach from "College Yiddish" without discomfort. -- Khayim 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jan 92 13:17:38 EST From: Aren Abramson Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.134 I too would like to hear abouty the Jewish community in Egypt. Aren ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.138