Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 106 December 3, 1992 1) Sneezes (Yossi Galron) 2) Khalerya (Bob Werman) 3) Khalerya (Gerald M. Phillips) 4) S'iz geven erev nitl (Sheldon Benjamin) 5) Khurbn of goyim (Yitzhak Kertesz) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Dec 92 21:13:57 EST From: Joseph Galron Subject: Sneezes If we speak about sneezes, my mother (who doesn't speak Yiddish, but German) told me after the first sneeze "Zur Gesundheit!", after the second time "Lebe Wohl!" and after the third sneeze "Donnerwetter!! Wo hast du dich wieder Verkuehlt?" Joseph (Yossi) Galron 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 7:13 +0200 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: RE: Khalerya A short medical note on cholera. The disease is almost unknown in the States but we had some here in Israel, 60 cases at one go, a few years ago. The disease is characterized by severe acute liquid diarrhea, accompanied by dehydration, often enough to be be fatal. The disease is self limiting and is almost never fatal now, with intravenous fluid replacement. Cholera, lo aleynu, is bacterial in origin and spread from waste products ingested. In our case, it arose from the use of waste water for irrigating crops on the West Bank and Gaza. This has been stopped. __Bob Werman rwerman@vms.huji.ac.il 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 10:17 EST From: "Gerald M. Phillips 238-2943" Subject: RE: khalerya More on khaleria: My grandmother was nominally Jewish, traveled with a band of Tzigane in Hungary. My grandfather, also nominally Jewish had faked his way into the Hungarian army, and with his handlebar mustache was the veritable epitome of the Magyar offizier. They had a collection of curses in an argot of Yiddish, Hungarian, and whatever language the Tzigane spoke, Rom, I think. When they encountered my other grandparents, grandfather a British anarchist and grandmother, an Orthodox Russian Jew, they took on even more curses, and eventually became skilled in translating them into English so the grandchildren would fully understand them. I wish I had access to their rich vocabularies now. Gerald M. Phillips 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 02 Dec 92 01:42:21 EST From: sbenj@Athena.MIT.EDU Subject: S'iz geven erev nitl Can anyone in Mendele Land help me with a most important query? I am looking for a humorous Yiddish translation of 'Twas the night before (you should pardon the expression) Christmas. I saw such a translation somewhere about 20 years ago (?Yugntruf) but can't find it anywhere, and I'd like to use part of it in connection with a Chanukah party in a few weeks. If anyone knows of same and can post it, I'd sure appreciate it... und tsu aleh, a gute nacht! Sheldon Benjamin [A zifts. Dos eynikl fregt baym shames: Zeyde, farvos fallen aroys bay dir di hor? Entfert der zeyde: fun eggrevation.] 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 11:45:29 PST From: Yitzhak Kertesz Subject: Khurbn of goyim I was the one who asked about khurbm, but I did not hear it. It first appeared on Mendele in early November, apparently in the Ohio-dialect (Midwestern Yiddish), and several others repeated it. I have no doubts that A. Abramson was phonologically correct, but I still think that it is almost impossible to pronounce, at least with my Hungarian lips. Imagine the difficulties that I have with my e-mail address, and how I envy M. Herzog/ZOGUR. (Did he ever reveal how much one has to pay for such a custom-made electronic license plate?) Speaking of M. Herzog, his question (2,104#3) on Sege (fem Segte) turned out to be very interesting. Werner Weinberger: (Die Reste des juedischdeutschen.) knows these word, but is so unsure about the origins, that he would even suggest Hebrew: zeh goy (!!!) But in an old dictionary I found under Se›gen: sign, esp. sign of cross, from Latin signum. How is this? The next step would be to check the Grimm multi-volume dict., to which I don't have access here. I was puzzled by fellow-Itzhak Jeff Finger's comment about censored and uncensored books. The Rabbis did use various words to describe non-Jews, some used these as synonyms, others had a system for nokhri, akum, oved elilim, Edom (Rome), arelim, etc. I am not sure that writing for a Jewish audience there would be too much self- censorship. On the other hand, censorship by "goyim" only appeared in the 16th century in Western Europe. The importance of the Medieval manuscripts, incl. the ones in the Vatican is that they show a more reliable, uncensored text. In order to be fair, the mss. of the Vatican are accessible to scholars, and many Jewish scholars researched them over the past hundred years. Considering how much more the Vatican could do on behalf of the Jewish "goy", I don't think it would be wise to let them off the hook with returning a few manuscripts. The opposite of goy is, of course, "amkha" meaning a Jew. This shift in meaning results in a very interesting reading of the Chumash, when God tells Moses (after the golden calf incident) "Ki amkha ha-goy hazeh". Yitzhak Kertesz BM.lbh@rlg.bitnet ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.106