Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 13 June 15, 1992 1) Etymology of -lekh (Yankele Matisoff) 2) Query (Vicki Fromkin) 3) Yiddish Conference (Daniel Frank) 4) Sheliel, shlimmazel (Yankel Kessler) 5) Sheliel, shlimmazel (Dovid Braun) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 13:10:42 -0700 From: matisoff@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Diminutive plural -lekh Khevre, Does anybody have a good etymology for the diminutive plural ending -lekh, as in fiselekh, hentelekh? In other words, where does the velar spirant come from? By the way, has anyone ever seen my 1979 book, Blessings, Curses, Hopes, and Fears: psycho-ostensive expressions in Yiddish? It has passed virtually unreviewed these many years. I have a few copies I can let you have wholesale. Yankele ("Moycher-Sforim") Matisoff Dept. ofLinguistics University of California Berkeley, CA 93720 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jun 92 19:50 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: query Translation need of: mise mishune/mishine (hope my use of YIVO transcription is not too off) Thanks Vicki Fromkin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 19:14 BST From: DFRANK@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: YIDDISH CONFERENCE IN JERUSALEM I wonder whether any Mendele readers/contributers who attended the recent Yiddish conference in Jerusalem would be willing to report on it? Daniel Frank Wolfson College Oxford and the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 16:24 PDT From: KESSLER Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.06 Dear MENDELE, Did I miss this attribution? viz., The schlemiehl drops his butte red toast,because he is that; the shlimazl drops his buttered toast, but it alw ays lands buttered side down. Yankele Kessler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 20:15:28 -0400 From: David Braun Subject: shlimazl, shlemiel etc. Ellen, I think you deleted a word from your text by accident because I didn't understand your point about shlemiel, shmendrik, nar, khokhem, shmegegi. I, as an American who's been exposed to shlimazl in Yiddish and English and shlemiel in English have the same feeling as you regarding their respective meaning: the former has no luck in life and the second is a 'poor slob'. Note, though, that two of the other fools you mention are also American creations: shmendrik and shmegege. (Actually, I'm not so sure about the latter, because Stutchkoff lists a similar form, _shmegde_ in the combination _shmegde mit esik_, but re the former, we know who coined the word! [I wish I remembered who the coiner was and where I know this from; my argument will remain weak till I find out.]) Sure your family used these, as did many families in America. Apparently, and not surprisingly, America has brought numerous forms together which were not current in one and the same region in the Old Country, or non-existent in the Old Country. I learned a similar fact just recently: here in the US we wish parents of a newborn zey zoln derlebn tsu firn dos kind tsu der khupe, or zey zoln fun im/ir derlebn a sakh nakhes, or, the formula I used (and had no idea where it came from:) ir zolt fun im/ir derlebn yidishn nakhes. It turns out that specifying _yidishn_ nakhes comes from the German Jews/speakers of Western Yiddish. I had surely never heard this blessing from one of them but from my ilk, Jews of Eastern European descent. The Western Yiddish blessing merged with the one used by the mizrekh-yidn and now we all, in Ashkenaz III, use it. a gutn! Dovid Braun ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.13 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.