Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 136 January 14, 1993 1) Mr. Boym in the Closet (Berl Hoberman) 2) Consonantal shift (Yankel Lantz) 3) Onkl/feter (Mikhl Herzog) 4) The Forward (Goldie Gordon) 5) Yiddish typesetting (Mark David) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Jan 1993 14:14:44 -0500 (EST) From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Mr. Boym in the Closet My student Ken Wishnia is working on a translation of Sholem Aleykhem's short one-act play "Mister Boym in klazet". It depicts a confrontation between a veteran New Yorker whose Yiddish is full of English and his "green" sister, whose Yiddish is maybe a bit heavy on the Slavic. We've managed to identify most of the obscure (to us, at least, and to his father and my mother) words and phrases, in some instances by consulting a Slavist friend, but there are a few puzzles left. Can anyone help with the following? We can guess, but does anyone know? "holedrantses": Some sort of insulting term; 'hooligans', 'good-for-nothings'? kleytl: 'bar, barroom'. It's a room within an inn or tavern. "shnaydn bay der neyditsh". Sew with a machine? Some specialized form of sewing? What's the feminine of the good Amero-Yiddish word "lendlord"? Sholem Aleykhem uses "lendlorikhe" -- what's that -khe suffix? I seem to remember some discussion of it in Mendele last year, but can't recall the details. [See especially 1.112, 1.114, and 1.115 nm] Berl 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Jan 1993 16:53:49 -0500 (EST) From: STU_RWLANTZ%JMUVAX.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: consonantal shift Is it just coincidence that there is a sound shift in Sephardic/ Ashkenaz which appears to parallel one in Indogermanic? I think of emet/emes and das/dat, for example. Yankel Lantz 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 21:51 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.Columbia.edu Subject: Onkl/feter To Eli Katz: although marginal to the point of your message about your "onkl", it's an interesting phenomenon--onkl/feter, that is--that has it Western Yiddish parallels as well: younger people called their grandpare "oma and opa" while they knew their great grandparents by thje terms wit which their own parents addressed them "fra:le" and "ha:rle". My own aun and uncles were also "onkl" and "tante" (sometimes "auntie") while I cal my parents aunts and uncles "mime" and "feter". You and I seem to be of same vintage. Best regards. Mikhl. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 21:37 EST From: Goldie Gordon Subject: Jewish Forward Shalom Mischa van Vlaardingen, I tried to bitnet you directly but my e-mail was undelivered, so I hope you read my message on the network. I am the person who arranged for the Jewish Daily Forward to send to you directly a subscription form for the newspaper. I am curious to hear from you after you get the actual newspaper and have made the time to read through its contents. If you have any problems, I am only a local phone call away from the New York Office of the Jewish Forward. Mazel Tov on acquiring a second dutch Mendelnik. With Yiddish regards, Goldie 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 01:38:48 -0500 From: mhd@world.std.COM Subject: RE: Yiddish typesetting There's a Yiddish font called Mordkhe that was made truly Yiddish using Fontographer. The process and some technical issues, e.g., why a Hebrew font isn't good enough, were discussed in an issue of the Yugentruf journal a year or so ago by the font's creator, Adam Whiteman. Dorothy Wasserman has a company, Wasserman Associates, that sells this font. They're in NYC. She introduced herself electronically as a mendelnik in Mendele Vol. 2 no.46, giving her email address: 71201.3150@CompuServe.COM Nobody on Mendele responded a while back when I asked how the Yugentruf journal and Afn Shvel were published by computer, so I asked Gitl Schaechter myself recently. I was a little surprised by the answer: "We still take it to the Hasidim in Brooklyn for typesetting." She indicated, however, that they did expect to be able to do everything by computer eventually. Mark David ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.136