Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 73 September 25, 1992 1) Greek cognate of potz (Victor Bers) 2) Basserool (Ellen Prince) 3) Birnbaum (Zev Kesselman) 4) Es, a-, -et (Eli Katz) 5) Es and dos (Nick Leibovic) 6) Literary archive (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Sep 92 19:41 EDT From: VBERS@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Greek cognate of potz? In classical Greek (the only type I can speak of) there is a well-attested word "posthe" (macron over the last vowel for eta) which carries the expected meaning, i.e. potz, but can also refer to the prepuce or (less to the point) a stye on the eyelid. Posthe does give you a dental, whereas the more basic form whence it probably comes, peos, doesn't. So far, maybe, so good, but the semantic bridge from potz to the buttock cleft of the Turkish word quite eludes me. Victor Bers 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Sep 92 22:04:43 -0400 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Basserool mischa, that's extraordinary, about 'basserool'!! thanks a lot! ellen 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 92 10:53 JST From: Zev Kesselman Subject: Query It's a common enough name, but it's not in my dictionary. Just what kind of tree is a Birnbaum? Zev Kesselman Zev@Hadassah.Bitnet 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 92 10:54:29 -0700 From: katz@Sonoma.EDU Subject: es, a-, -et In a frenzy of file housekeeping I obliterated the original presentation (including the examples) of Mikhl Herzog's very interesting "es" query, as well as his more recent "a"-prefix query. (1) Regarding the former I was finally able to retrieve from my (personal not computer) memory two lines of an old Camp Kinderland song which I knew had something to do with the "es" question, but eluded me for days: ver flit es in nakht arum? es flit a moskitele arum, zum, zum, zum. Now the "es" in line (2) is an unproblematic non- referential (filler) "es". But the "es" in line (1) looks like one of Mikhl's. In this example it almost seems as though there was an interrogative transforma- tion without application of a deletion rule. A typi- cal pair would look like this: Es shteyt a mentsh in gas. Ver shteyt in gas? i.e., wi th the "es" deleted in the question. The particular "es" in the song is thus reminiscent of the optional retention of the subject in a Yiddish rela- tive clause: "Der yid, vos (er) redt mit mayn froy, iz mayn shvoger." Any ideas on this? (2) Regarding the "a"-prefix question, if I remember correctly, it had to do with such forms as "adurkhgelofn". I think this is a case of analogy as part of a process that goes something like this: MHG directional prefix "her" becomes "a" in Yiddish, as in "arayn" or "aroys", in the meantime losing its specific directional orientation (toward the speaker), and becoming instead simply a marker of direc- tionality. This is then added to directional particles either obligatorily as in "avek" ("a" plus MHG "wec"), or optionally, as in "adurkh", and even redundantly as in "ahin" and "aher". I'm pretty sure that this is the right answer if in fact I remembered the right question. (3) Here's another question to throw into this inter- esting pot: In "Zetst zikh avek un rut zikh opet." where does the clitic "-et" come from? I haven't done any serious looking, but my first thought is that it occurs only on the separable prefixes "op-(arop-)" and "on-" (pos- sibly also "oyf-") when they are in fact separated. It strikes me as less formal or more casual than the standard form, and it's surely rare in literature. Eli Katz 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Sep 1992 11:57:58 -0400 (EDT) From: BPHKNL@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: es & dos: ellen prince. dear ellen, regarding es & dos as fillers and would i understand a sentence with such exactly as without them,iam not a linguist.like you know it's not like it was my bag(read academic discipline).therefore i cannot give you an acdemic discourse on fillers. but it seems to me it says more about the speaker than the meaning. sorry i can't ve more enlightening. nick leibovic. 6)--------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 92 13:02:46 EDT From: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Subject: Yiddish archive [From Gella Schweid Fishman] RICH YIDDISH LITERARY ARCHIVAL COLLECTION NOW ACCESSIBLE TO SERIOUS STUDENTS AND RESEARCHERS A rich archival collection that documents the life and creative writings of the American-born Yiddish poetess, Rukhl Fishman, has been organized and is now being made accessible to serious students and researchers of modern Yiddish literature. Rukhl Fishman was a striking figure in post-World War II Yiddish poetry. She was the only American-born poet, as well as the youngest, among the Yiddish writers' group in Israel called "Yung Yisroel", and was praised as the "young hope" and "the youngest child of Yiddish verse". In 1978, a few years before her untimely death (due to lupus), she was awarded the prestigious Israeli Manger prize for her published writings. She lived in Kibbutz Bet Alpha and died in 1984 at the age of 49. The trilingual archival collection (in Yiddish, Hebrew and English) includes handwritten manuscripts of her published and unpublished poetry, correspondence (dating back to her childhood years in Philadelphia), documents, photographs and taped interviews of collected reminiscences. Those interested in researching this material may write to: Gella Schweid Fishman 3340 Bainbridge Avenue Bronx, NY 10467 [The shames also takes this opportunity to wish all subscribers a ksive v'khsime toyve un an oysgebentsht yor.] ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.73 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.