Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.012 May 22, 1993 1) Yid(d)ish (Meylekh Viswanath) 2) Yid(dish) (Arn Abramson) 3) Knocking one's head against the wall (Martin Davis) 4) Yiddish literature (Arn Abramson) 5) Glick (Jascha Kessler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 20 17:04:10 1993 From: VISWANATH@draco.rutgers.edu Subject: yid(d)ish I hope Arn has realized from my last posting that I had no intention of stubbornly ignoring his explanation of the difference between transliteration and transcription. However, I am unclear as to how I am perceived as having 'come around to the point of view expressed by him and others.' As I pointed out in my last post, and as is clear from my original posting, I was simply requesting Mendelenikes' opinions regarding the use of 'yiddish vokh' as opposed to 'yidish vokh.' It was certainly clear from the very beginning that there was a sacrifice of consistency in the use of 'yiddish vokh': I don't think that was an original contribution that any of the respondents made. As I see it, Arn and others simply expressed a preference for consistency over any accomodation for readers (of the English text under discussion) who may be more comfortable with 'yiddish' rather than 'yidish', who may not be familiar with it at all, and who may indeed find it confusing. I except Ellen from this unswerving stand for this kind of consistency; she pointed out (in the context of mazl tov) that one may treat certain words used in Yiddish as borrowings into English, and hence (with a different kind of consistency) use the English spelling. I have suggested some advantages for the use of the spelling 'yiddish' in english text (even in 'yiddish vokh'). I have not seen any discussion of the disadvantages of such usage, except for assertions of the value of consistency. I fail to see the value of such adherence to Arn's kind of consistency. However, having already missed an important point that Arn made in his previous posting (transcription vs transliteration), maybe I have overlooked other points that were also made. If so, I stand ready to say an 'al kheyt.' Meylekh 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 22 00:07:28 1993 From: "Arthur S. Abramson" Subject: Re: yid(d)ish Meylekh, I have indeed seen your latest posting. By coming around to our point of view --mine, Ellen's, etc.--I meant only what you yourself have said. Wwhen writing material IN Yiddish, use the Yivo transcription; when writing English with Yiddish loanwords in the text, use what has become the conventional English spelling for those adopted words. E.g., Ikh es laks "I eat smoked salmon." But, they sell lox in that store. That is to say, it seems that "laks" has been taken into English, at least in urban areas, and people who know no Yiddish will have lox (so spelled in luncheonettes) and cream cheese on a bagel (from Yid. "beygl")! In my own last posting I made the point that even inan English (or French, German,Polish,etc.) sentence, that is, any language written in roman script, the quoting of a Yiddish expression, name of a periodical, etc. would require the standard Yivo transcription; wqriting it in Yiddish script (Hebrew letters with Yiddish orthographic rules) would be awkward. So also, if I want to cite a Hindi or Sanskrit term in English, I cannot normally write it in Devanagari script for the general reader, so I use a standard roman orthography for that language. Thus, I might mention dharma or the like, even though the spelling may not convey Indic pronunciation values to the English reader. So also if I cite a German, French, or Polish word in its standard roman spelling, I don't necessarily expect most monolingual English readers to have more than a rough idea of its pronunciation. (In a language class I might use a phonetic transcription, perhaps one based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, as a teaching aid.) Regards, Arn In my posting of a few minutes ago, I said I had seen you last posting. It turns out that I had seen the one just before the last sent to Mendele by you. Anyway, I think my long response to you covers cases like Yidish Vokh.Rendered in English, it would be, I guess, The Yiddish Week. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Davis: Fri May 21 18:41:14 1993 From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu (Martin Davis) Subject: knocking one's head against the wall As I type this I have in front of my eyes on my bulletin board two reproductions of panels from a painting by Peter Brueghel the elder from a museum in Antwerp. The various panels in the painting show various folk proverbs in visual form. The two I have show (a) a man pissing at the moon (b) a different man (with astonishingly one bare foot) beating his head against a brick wall. No I don't think this has to do with davening. Martin Davis 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 22 00:25:50 1993 From: "Arthur S. Abramson" Subject: Yiddish literature In response to Bob Werman's plaintive posting and Elyet Hersh Gertel's comment, let me tell you that at The Univ. of Connecticut we have a reading group that meets every few weeks over lunch for a brief Yiddish conversation and then a serious reading of works--over the years--by such writers as Sholem Aleykhem, Y.L. Perets, Bashevis Singer, and others. A few other local members of Mendele are in our group. If some of the more literary types among us can start the ball rolling, perhaps some of the rest of us can try to join in. Arn 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 22 15:38:50 1993 from: kessler subject: glick My father used to say, Treft mir a glick! That is, A mischance, a disaster, a calamity happened today. In other words, in English, "I was walking down SEven th Avenu at lunchtime, andI "That's all I needed, I ran into ...[my creditor, say. Jascha Kessler ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.012