Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 192 May 6, 1993 1) Introduction (Yohanan Weininger) 2) Id/Yid (Dvoyre Biasca) 3) Various (Eli Katz) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 5 10:28:59 1993 From: Yohanan Weininger Subject: Introduction Shalom, Chevre, Today it rained in Jerusalem. A good sign. Unusual for Iyar. My name is Yohanan (John Weininger), I'm a library student at Hebrew Univ. I'm originally from Schenectady, NY. Made aliyah in Feb. 1992. I've worked here in typing, translating, printing. Now I'm doing library studies (Judaic Studies library track), including this course in communications, internet access good thru 9/93. I'm a pitzel intelligentz for Yiddish. My only formal Yiddish study have been in: - the beginner's class at Columbia YIVO Summer 1981 (lererin Chava Lapin); and - auditing the Yiddish bibliographic orientation course this last semester. This is my first ever posting on Internet. Neat that there's a Yiddish newsletter. I'll spread Mendele's scope about. Tack up a print out of Mendele's address and doings on the department bulletin board, Municipal library, etc. Look forward, with time and better emacsing to share notes on Jerusalem's Yiddish library resources. Zeit gezunt. Yohanan 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 5 17:10:47 1993 From: Debra Halperin Biasca Subject: Re: Id/Yid I am wondering if the id/Yid issue is operative in the "itst" "yetst" pair? I learned "itst" from my Russia-via-Argentina teacher Pesach Fiszman. When I said "itst" to a Russian immigrant, she didn't know what I was saying. Finally she said "oh! you mean *yetst!*" Pesach said he was always conscious of his "accent" (from?) which prevented him from easily pronouncing the "y" of Yidish. Can anyone shed light on this? Is it hypercorrection? Dvoyreh Biasca 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 5 18:57:59 1993 From: katz@Sonoma.EDU Subject: various A. My request for idiomatic expressions elicited two responses. One was from Mikhl Herzog elaborating on "Gut morgn, Gele" by adding the phrase "retekh trog ikh". The second came to me directly rather than through Mendele, and moreover I don't know who sent it. The sender either did not receive or did not respond to my query regarding his identity. (Please tell me who you are!). He sent the following contribu- tions: 1. "Er hot ir (zi) avekgezetzt af a lyeyke." He jilted her. 2. "Khotsh gib im dos telerl fun himl." He is unreasonably demanding. 3. "(Verb-n) vi a shikerer goy pisht." To (verb) sloppily or awkwardly. E.g., "Er shraybt vi a.s.g.p." He has a terrible handwriting. 4. "A nayer gast in shtetl!" Roughly = "Di tsveyte teg yontef!" 5. "Es bayst mir in beytsim." I couldn't care less. 6. "Me redt, me redt, un me shushket zikh." Said when someone says something revealing that he/she hasn't been following the discussion, or hasn't understood what has just been clearly stated--for example, by asking a klots-kashe. 7. "Klap zikh kop on vant un shray `Bravo!'" In response to "What's to be done?" in situations where no course of action is satisfactory. Also in response to "I'm bored, but I don't know what I want to do." Since then, perfect silence. So I'll make a brief comment on the submission, and add a few more of my own in hopes of stimulating further contributions. Number 7 is a conflation of two that I know separately. "Shlog zikh kop in vant" was used when one had unsuccessfully tried everything, in the sense, "all you can do is shlog..." When kids complained that they had nothing to do, the response bay undz was "patsh zikh in tokhes un shray bravo." That reminds me: when a kid rejected all of the foods that were being offered he was told, "Es broyt mit tsung." How about these?: Er makht zikh nit visndik. He acts as though he didn't notice, wasn't aware, didn't know. Er tut azoy vi nit im meynt men. Similar to the preceding. Zi iz aroys fun di keylim. She lost control (got very angry). Er krikht oyf di glaykhe vent. He is beside himself. Es tut zikh oyf tish un oyf benk. There's a lot of activity, lots going on (with a hint of confusion). M'hot im genumen oyfn tsimbl. He was called upon [not in a friendly way] to account for his behavior. Let's have some more! B. Ya tebe dam. I'm glad to have the Russian gloss, which reminds me of its Germanic calque "Ikh'l dir (bald) gebn", which, as someone pointed out regarding the Russian, is a mild threat. It can be strengthened in the following manner: "Ikh'l dir gebn, vestu hobn!" C. Slippers Has anyone mentioned "pantofl"? In my home it was used interchangeably with "shtekshikh", with the lat- ter much more frequent. Those were the only two words I knew for "slippers", but I recall that some time in 1937 or 1938 I heard a song on WEVD called "Lekoved Shabes" one of whose couplets ran something like "lekoved shabes, tu ikh oys di shkrabes". I asked my grandmother the meaning of "shkrabes" and she said they were "shtekshikh". Harkavy, however, has "shkrab" 'worn out shoe'. D. "Shtokh' is from "shtekhn", to stick or prick, particularly the thrust of a needle in sewing. "A shtokh" is a stitch, or figuratively, a dig. Eli Katz ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.192