Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 12 June 14, 1992 1) Makhn a tel (Victor Bers) 2) Shlemiel (Herbert Davidson) 3) A request (Fishl Kutner) 4Kibitser, shlemiel, shlimmazel (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 09 Jun 92 20:39 EDT From: VBERS@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: "Makhn a tel" Hint in leynkreiz kmat a birgerkrieg: In "Die Ershte idishe republic" Sholom Aleichem writes "...hot gemacht a tel fun undz alemen." Eyner a mitglied hot bemerkt az "tel" iz cognate with the Tel of Tel-Aviv, the root meaning of the Hebrew word being mound or ruin. Shouts, hoots, catcalls. Nobody spoke in his defense, and I was too ignorant to have an opinion. On arriving home, I consulted M. Weinreich's History of the Yiddish Language, p. 680 in the Eng. trans., and that does look decisive to me, but I thought that it would make a nice illustration of the immense resources of MENDELE if a few of you linguistic mevinim would send in your opinions for me to take to our group, where any etymological discussion can turn into warfare. Victor Bers 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 09 Jun 92 16:28 PDT From: Herbert Davidson Subject: Re: Mendele Vol 2.11 In re Shlemiel. At the beginning of the Book of Numbers [7:36 nm] the prince of the tribe of Simeon is Shelumi-el, and that comes out in Polish/Galician pronunciation as Shelimi-el/Shlimi-aal, hence Shlemiel. Numbers describes the division of th e twelve tribes into groups of three. In all but one instance the largest of t he three tribes in the group was the preeminenttribe in the group, and its prin ce was therefore the preeminent prince.The exception: the group containing t he tribe of Simeon. Although the tribe of Simeon was the largest, a smaller tribe, that of Reuven, was the leader. Since in the popular view, someone who fai ls to receive an honor that is his due has lost out and been taken advantage of, Shelumiel > shlemiel becomes a popular sobriquet for a person who lets himself be taken advantage of. Herbert Davidson 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 13 Jun 92 10:49:54 -0700 From: Philip Kutner Subject: Request for software info from Australia Received request from NYT contact, Bobbi Zylberman, to help Pearl Rozen, Sholem Aleichem College, 11 Sinclair St., Elsternwick 3185, AUSTRALIA. Need info Yiddish software--games, letter recognition, et. for children. Philip "Fishl" Kutner 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 13:18:18 -0400 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Kibitser, shlemiel, shlimmazel [Martin Davis writes:] >In my family the word "kibitzer" always meant joker, and a >kibitz was a joke or a tease. My parents were from Lodz. >Comments would be appreciated. yup, in my family too (central yiddish), a kibitzer was a joker. the verb, however, was usually used for the card game activity. so 'he's always kibitzing' could mean 'he's always joking', but it more often meant 'he's always butting in when you're playing cards'. however, 'he's a regular kibitzer' only meant 'he's a real joker'. go figure. [Bob Werman writes:] >As someone who is pre The Joys of Yiddish but coeval with >H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, I can assure David Sherman that the >soup spilling separation of shlemeel from shlemazal >antedates The Joys. and it predates hyman kaplan--my father's version, which i first heard over 40 years ago (and which i doubt was new then) had the shemiel sticking his foot out in a theatre aisle and the shlimazl tripping over it. re somebody's (david braun's?) claim (i accidentally deleted it) that shlemiel/shlimazl are dialect variants of each other, i find that hard to believe. my family, strictly central yiddish, had both terms and they were NOT synonyms. a shlimazl was always an unlucky shlemiel, whereas a shlemiel could be lucky or not. (they were used in different situations--something bad had to befall a shlimazl for him to be called that, whereas a shlemiel had to do something dumb.) shlemiel had many -- shmendrik, shmegegi, nar, even khokhem (which i never heard used non-sarcastically), whereas i can't think of any for shlemazl. the english translation, for me, would be 'poor slob' or 'poor bastard', rather than 'fool'. Ellen Prince ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.12 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.