Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 203 April 1, 1992 1) Various (Bob Rothstein) 2) Yiddish for Hebrew speakers (David Hirsch) 3) Yiddish for German speakers (Dovid Brenner) 4) 'Matri' (Martin Davis) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Mar 92 23:57:37 -0500 F2rom: ROBERT.ROTHSTEIN%SLAVIC.umass.edu@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Reply to Mendele Vol 1.192, 196-97, 201 A) [Purim--Mendele 192] In connection with "Shoyshanes-yankev" Dovid Braun refers to a Polish or Ukrainian text. From the words he quotes, he seems to have in mind the Ukrainian humorous folk song "Pishla maty na selo" ("Mother Went to the Village"), the refrain of which begins "Hop, moi hrechanyky." Hrechanyky are distant relatives of blintzes (which are, by the way, called "mlyntsy" in Ukrainian) made from buckwheat flour with yeast and eggs. The Purim song "Yakhne-dvoshe" ("Hop, mayne homentashn"), text by Y. Pirozh- nikov, was set to this Ukrainian melody. B) [Daytsh] Yet another version from Salcia Landmann's _Jiddisch: das Abenteuer einer Sprache_: A Volga-daytsh iz geshtanen far a rusishn gerikht, bashuldikt in der geneyve fun a por ferd. Azoy vi keyn dolmetsh iz in shtetl nisht geven, hot zikh gemoldn a yid un zikh barimt, az er ken daytsh "vi vaser". Der rikhter (oyf rusish): "Fregt dem bashuldiktn, farvos er hot geganvet di ferd!" Der yid: "Reb daytsh, der oden fregt aykh, farvos ir hot gelakkhent di susim." Der daytsh: "Ich verstehe nicht." Der yid, oyfgeregt: "Vos heyst, ir farshteyt nisht? Men fregt aykh, farvos ir hot gelakkhent di susim!" Der daytsh: "Ich verstehe nicht." Der yid (oyf rusish): "Her rikhter, er farshteyt oykh nisht keyn daytsh." C) [The Yemenite curse--Mendele 201] What Henry Mullish cites as "gey kebetten materi!" is based on an obscene Russian way of saying "go to hell!", namely "idi k ebene materi" ("idi" = imperative of 'go'; "k" = 'to'; "ebene" = a variant dative passive participle of 'futuere' [as they used to write]; "materi" = dative of 'mother'). Bob Rothstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Apr 92 06:51 PST From: "David Hirsch, Bibliographers Group" Subject: Yiddish for Hebrew Speakers re: Mayer Goldberg's request Weinreich's College Yiddish is available in Hebrew. The title is "Yidish la-Universitah". David Hirsch, UCLA Research LIbrary 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 09:47 CST From: glaa303@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Yiddish grammars/textbooks for German speakers Sure there's Birnbaum for German speakers interested in learning Yiddish, but has anyone created something zayt moykl more up to date? I've had this problem in tutoring Germans in Yiddish. Or is the idea tsu treyf? Dovid Brenner 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 92 11:21:17 -0500 From: davism%turing.cs.nyu.edu@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: "matri" This is inspired by Henry Mullish's item. Once in a while, when my mother was quite angry, she could be heard to say or mutter: "Geh chutoff matri!" As a child I never knew or wondered what this meant. As an adult, I realized that it was only the "geh" thast I could recognize as Yiddish. I guessed that the "matri" was slavic (Polish in my mother's case) for "mother" and this imprecation was what Solzhnitzn has called a "mother oath" (what can be heard on the sidewalks of New York as "your mother" or worse). Am I right? Is "chutoff" as vulgar as I imagine? Is it Hebrew, or (despite the usual give-away three consonants) Polish? Can my mother really have been in the habit of using Polish expressions of a kind that would never never have passed her lips in Yiddish or English? Martin Davis ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.203 Submissions: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu Business: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.