Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 45 July 24, 1992 1) Introduction and query (Shulamith Berger) 2) Introduction and query (Dan Slobin) 3) Yiddish in the former USSR (Victor Bers) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 09:16:11 PDT From: Shulamith Berger Subject: Introduction and query Well, after all this time I'm finally getting to introduce myself. I'm the archivist at Yeshiva University and also do some Judaica cataloging, which is what's prompting this belated first message. I'm trying to catalog two books on Lachoudisch/Lekoudesch (depending) on whose spelling you prefer, and can't quite get a handle on them. The cataloging records I have indicate that it's a German dialect, but don't agree on whether or not Lachoudisch/ Lekoudesch is the name of the dialect, a term used for Yiddish elements in German in general, or a term for Yiddish in German in particular regions. The titles of the books are Lachoudisch: Geheimsprache Schopflochs and Lekoudesch: Integration Jiddischer Worter in die Mundart von Rexingen bei Horb. Any help will be appreciated. Shulamith Berger 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 14:31:21 -0700 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU Sunbject: An introduction and a query I am Dan Slobin, a psycholinguist at the University of California at Berkeley. I'm not a native speaker of Yiddish, but when I was six my mother sat me down after dinner--in Detroit in the forties--and taught me to read and write Yiddish, first working through "Der Onheyber" and later "Mayn Shprachbuch." Many years later, my first published article was on Yiddish pronouns of address (Word, 1963, 19:193-202), submitted with encouragement from Uriel Weinreich, and based on interviews with my grandmother and her generation. Over many years I corresponded with my grandmother in Yiddish, and have a corpus of several dozen letters that she wrote to me. I have been analyzing these letters from various points of view (formulaic language, representation of kinship structure, epistolary organization). Here's my query: I once asked my grandmother how she learned to write letters. She was born in 1888 in Uman, Ukraine. She told me that her father hired a tutor for her and a small group of girls--it must have been somewhere around the end of the last century--to ensure that they would be literate in Yiddish and Russian. She remembered that they used a letter-writing manual as a guide. I have found several such manuals in the YIVO library, but they only present model letters, with no explicit instructions. Does anyone know of manuals that also gave instructions about how to write letters: what to include, what opening and closing forms to use, how to organize them, etc.? I'm eager to know the extent to which my grandmother's very formulaic letters might have been based on explicit instruction in the art of letter writing. Dan Slobin (slobin@cogsci.berkeley.edu) 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 23:20:15 EDT From: Victor Bers Subject: Yiddish in the former USSR Sid Resnick has asked me to pass on to MENDELE the following translation of a statement issued by the Committee for the Revitalization of Yiddish and Yiddish Culture in the Soviet Union [sic]. It was printed, af mame loshn avade, in the July 10 Forverts. The Committee for the Revitalization of Yiddish and Yiddish Culture in the countries of the former Soviet Union considered the appeals addressed to it by Yiddish writers in Moscow and by Aaron Vergelis, the editor of the former "Sovetish Heymland," for our help in publishing the new journal, "Di Yiddishe Gass," which will be issued in place of "Sovetish Heymland." After a lengthy and intensive discussion it was decided to offer this assistance despite our own severe objections to the editor Aaron Vergelis for his past sins (khatoim). It was acknowledged that "Sovetish Heymland" in the past two years changed its tone and attitude to Yiddish cultural activists and Yiddish writers in other countries and to the State of Israel. It is our understanding that in the countries of the former Soviet Union there exist today no institutions other than the milieu of "Sovetish Heymland" which both desire and are capable of rallying the remain Yiddish cultural forces to revive the Yiddish secular culture which came into being in the old Russia and was so cruelly suppressed by the Commmunist authorities in the Soviet Union. We hope to achieve this revival through our joint efforts. In order for this rapprochement to be mutual we will request that in this new journal there shall also be printed, without censorship, articles and literary works by writers in the United States and in other countries. We took into account the opposition which had revealed itself in the Yiddish cultural world to any collaboration with "Sovetish Heymland" and its editor, Aaron Vergelis. It is our view, however, that the time has come to set aside such objections and to assist in all efforts which will be undertaken to rebuild a Yiddish cultural life for the millions of Jews who still live there. Signed by Harold Ostroff, WIlliam Stern, co-chairmen and by Joseph Mlotek, secretary. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.45 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.