Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 205 April 2, 1992 1) Ukrainian/ Yiddish tapes (Dovid Braun) 2) Bialik (Dan Breslauer) 3) Yiddish for Hebrew-speakers (Mikhl Herzog) 4) Introduction (Brett Kessler) 5) Introduction (Elliott Zak) 6) Two questions (Zev Bar-Lev) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Apr 92 14:16:41 EST From: David Braun Subject: Ukrainian songs Thanks to Robert Rothstein for the Ukrainian song -- was hoping someone would come up with a source for me (and was actually expecting that *you* would). I don't know Slavic folklore collections well. Here's the actual text of the Slavic song with the same melody, transliterated into the Yiddish system and with (assumably) Yiddish phonology since I know it from a Yiddish-dominant non-speaker of Ukrainian: pshiekali panyetshi ritshenike upyetshi (2x) hop moyey ritsheniki hop moyey yatshni hop moyey ritsheniki nyebi vishli smatshni Would you mind telling me what dialect of what Slavic lg this is and what is the exact meaning. Will be much obliged. ----- Learning Yiddish by tape can be done, at considerable expense yet with considrable pleasure, from the book/cassette series _Shalom Yiddish_ produced a number of years ago in France and available for English- and French-speaking learners. Written by Yitskhok Niborski and Dvoyre Kosman. Costs over $100 because you're also getting some 25 cassettes with two graphically attractive volumes of text. Don't know who the distributor is in France or USA, but I know the League for Yiddish, Inc. has it on its list of available Yiddish resources. The address: League for Yiddish, Inc. 200 West 72 St. New York, NY 10023 Phone: 212/787-6675 The series is very lively and recommended. Niborski is a very, very popular Yiddish teacher in Paris. Dovid Braun 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 14:35 CST From: Dan Breslauer Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.203 Most of this is beyond me. But as for imprecations... Bialik, who, of course as you know, spoke Yiddish, was once conversing with Ravnitzki in Yiddish, on the streets of Tel Aviv. A young lad criticized him for not using Hebrew. At which point Bialik switched to Hebrew and told him "Lech Le'Azazel," loosely: Go to the devil. When his cursing was reported to the authorities, Bialik explained that biblically Azazel refers to a place, not to the demon who dwells there, and since the place is close to Jerusalem, he was merely advising the lad to take a little stroll! Dan Breslauer, University of Kansas 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 92 17:09 EST From: ZOGUR%CUVMB.BITNET@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.202 Israeli students wanting to learn Yiddish should consult the Hebrew version of Uriel Weinreich's "College Yiddish". It's called "Yidish LaUniversita". Mikhl Herzog 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 92 21:54:53 -0800 From: Brett Kessler Subject: Introduction Sholem aleykhem, 'kh heys Brett Kessler. Ikh tu arbetn in Natural Language forshung in Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto, Calif, un in der fraytsayt shtudir ikh lingvistik in Stanford. In an earlier life fleg ikh katalogirn di Yidish-zamlung in der bibliotek fun Indiana University, un der teglikher kontakt mit 'n loshn felt mir zeyer a sakh hayntike tsaytn, kuk ikh aroys af Mendelen mit groys kheyshek. Brett Kessler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Apr 92 9:31:13 EST From: Elliott Zak Subject: Introduction Dear Noyekh, I am the Middle East cataloger here at Columbia University, with responsibility, inter alia, for Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Hungarian and Romanian. Sincerely, Elliott (Eliezer Yosef) Zak 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Apr 92 12:16:01 -0800 From: zbarlev@sciences.sdsu.edu Subject: two questions on yiddish: (1) Is there an easier way to say "please" than _zai azoi gut_? Can this expression be contracted in ordinary speech e.g. to _za zoi gut_. Or is even _zai gut_ possible? Is _ish bet_ ever used to request something, and/or that someone do something? (2) Is the diphthong _ai_ always contractable to _aa_ (long _a_), in those dialects that have this change? I've seen a whole bunch of these _aa_ (i see much more yiddish in transcription than i hear), but don't know if those who do it, do it all the time. E.g. I know a lot of people say _zaa gezint_, but do _vaan_ and _flaash_ (for "wine" and "meat") occur as well? In other words, is this across-the- board sound-correspondance? thanks for any help, Zev Bar-Lev ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.205 Submissions: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu Business: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.