Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 108 December 4, 1992 1) Sneezes (Debra Halperin Biasca) 2) Amkha (Meylekh Viswanath) 3) Khorbm (Mikhl Herzog) 4) Offensive language (Cal Pryluck) 5) Offensive language (Paul Weichsel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 16:27:01 MST From: DEBRA HALPERIN BIASCA Subject: sneezes and: is grandma from Volhynia? While I reported earlier that my grandmother said, for the second sneeze, "lang leben zolstu ibm" she might have said ". . .zolstu lebm" but not the version Mikhl Herzog has proposed. I don't believe she was from Volhynia, but her origins are a mystery. My uncle says she's from Bardichev, but that was only because he always threatened to take him (my uncle) "back to Bardichev" if he didn't behave. I don't think it had anything to do with her hometown! As potential identifiers, she said "kenna-hora" and something like " zol gezain gezint mit yorn." Maybe this is easy for someone on the list to identify?? Debra Halperin Biasca 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 09:24 EDT From: VISWANATH%DRACO.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Amkha Yitzhak Kertesz BM.lbh@rlg.bitnet writes: >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". That's as it might be. However, in Yiddish, amkha signifies hoi polloi, amoretz, i.e. it's become a specialized term. Meylekh. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Dec 92 10:26 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.Columbia.edu Subject: Khorbm Elliot Gertel: khorbm (with o) is the usual pronunciation of U before R in much of Southern Yiddish--like dorkh (through), korts (short),etc. It's paralleled by the lowering of I before R too: kertser (shorter). The same thing happens before X and gives us forms like kex/kax (kitchen braxn (break), raxt (right) and, to top it off fartsn (14!!!). As for the verb 'to be': The infinitives may vary: (h)ubm/(h)obm; the inflected forms (after mir/zey) have O, (h)obm. From your mother you mu also have heard 'mir omer' or 'ints omer' in place of 'mir hobm'. No? Mikhl Herzog 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 03 Dec 92 10:53:11 EST From: Cal Subject: RE: offensive language Any one else struck by the editor's note about the offensive character of shiksa and shageyts? Are there politer terms to denote non-Jewish women and men? It also occurs that schvartze is also derogatory; my meager vocabulary includes no synonyms. Are there any? Is there a sociolinguistic issue involved here where there are no common terms for outsiders deemed to be unacceptable to the culture? Cal Pryluck 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 10:31:06 -0600 From: Paul Weichsel Subject: RE: offensive language I heartly join with Dan Breslauer in requesting the casting out of the terms "sheygets" and "shiksa" into outer darkness. Very recently I attended a briefing on matters of Isreali political action in which the presenter used these terms in an attempt to get a cheap laugh. He was roundly criticized and I hope he learned his lesson. P. Weichsel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.108