Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.016 May 28, 1993 1) Bintel Brif (Jesse C. Rabinowitz) 2) Literature (Malkah Winters) 3) Idioms, a simile (Shleyme Axelrod) 4) Rosl/dutsn (Eli Katz) 5) Tshaynikes gehakte (Katriel Nissan Leibovic) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 25 17:32:28 1993 From: panisse@mendel.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Bintel Brief I am a member of a Yiddish reading group that meets weekly in the Hillel Building at the University of California in Berkeley under the sponsorship of "Lehrhaus Judaica." There are roughly 15 students in the group composed of University students, University graduates, professionals, and retired individuals. Their backgrounds in Yiddish are also varied, but I would say that none of the individuals in it could be described as an "expert" or a "native" speaker. I am one of the elder members of the group. As a youngster, I studied Yiddish in a Sholem Aleichem Folkschule in the Bronx and in "Jersey Homesteads" (now named "Roosevelt"), New Jersey before the establishment of Israel. I am very surprised to find that the general level in Hebrew is much higher than that in Yiddish among the members of the group. We have read, with great difficulty, a variety of works including various short stories of Sholem Aleichem; Selected Stories of I.L. Peretz, translated by Eli Katz, 1991; poetry contained in several of the recent bilingual translations that are available, and a Yiddish edition of "The Magician of Lublin" by I. Bashevis-Singer, published by I.L. Peretz Publishing House of Tel-Aviv. The group felt that it might be very rewarding for us to read "Bintel Brief". I am familiar with an English edition of the work that is still available: (A Bintel Brief. Isaac Metzker, ed., 1971; Schocken Books, New York, 1990.), but I do not know whether the original material is available in Yiddish. My reason for contacting "Mendele" is to find out whether the original Yiddish letters ever existed in the form of a book or whether the letters only appeared in Yiddish in the "Jewish Daily Forward." I have not been able to obtain an answer to this question that is authoritative. A reference to this work (The Schochen Guide to Jewish Books, B.W. Holtz, Schocken Books, 1992) states: Bintel Brief "makes available in English a remarkable collection of letters, originally published in the famous "bintel brief" ("bundle of letters") daily advice column of the Yiddish-language "Jewish Daily Forward." However, this source doesn't contain any information about whether the original Yiddish letters are available. We would be interested and thankful for any information concerning the availability of the original letters in Yiddish as published in the "Jewish Daily Forward." Jesse C. Rabinowitz 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 25 23:10:04 1993 From: "Margaret E. Winters" Subject: Literature I'd like to second (or third, or fourth...) the comment that even linguists are interested in literature. Like many others who are professionally in linguistics, I came to it for more rigor than a literature degree seemed to offer, but never lost my enjoyment of reading literary works and, to some extent, keeping up with literary analysis. Not contributing does not mean not reading and enjoying the discussion. Malkah 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 26 18:01:38 1993 From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: Idioms, and a simile 1. "es redt zikh azoy [azey]" = easier said than done; that's what *you* think. (In the documentary "Partisans of Vilna" produced a few years ago, one of the interviewees, who had taken part in the Vilna ghetto resistance, is describing the events; the interview takes place in Israel, and he speaks in Hebrew. As I recall, he says something like "What we needed was some guns and ammunition, and we'd be able to hold them off." Then, wryly, "Es redt zikh azey." Then back to Hebrew.) 2. "vi amol" = from time to time; rarely. 3. "yoshke pandre" = a disparaging name for Jesus Christ. Is the second element Slavic? Hebrew? Does it refer to out-of-wedlock birth? 4. "moyshe kapoyer" = someone who does things punkt farkert. 5. "afn himl a yarid" = much ado about nothing; a tempest in a teapot ***************** And speaking of yaridn--"Funem yarid", boring or not, has at least the distinction of beginning (maybe in the hagdome) with the funniest simile in the world. From memory: A mentsh is geglikhn tsu a stolyer. A stolyer lebt un lebt, un dernokh shtarbt er. Un azoy iz mit a mentsh oykh. --Shleyme Axelrod 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 26 18:44:03 1993 From: katz@Sonoma.EDU Subject: rosl/dutsn Zev Kesselman and Dovid Braun discuss "er dreyt zikh arum azoy vi a forts in rosl". I don't think it is particularly problematic. "rosl" is not only "brine", it's also broth, and ,in connection with "rosl fleysh", something like gravy. So the expression would translate something like "a fart in the gravy" (kh'bet iber ayer koved)--a place where it REALLY has no business. It even has a certain ring to it in English. D.B.'s "frantsoyz in rosey" is wonderful, but my guess (it's only a guess) is that it is more likely to be a euphemism for the "forts in rosl" than its source. As far as "dutsn/duken/ditsn/diken" is concerned, my mother who came from [di] country in Volin, and who always used the form [di] for the 2nd person singular, nevertheless said "dutsn", not "ditsn". Whether this was pronunciation was a personal accomodation. or whether it reflected her native dialect, I don't know. Eli Katz 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 27 14:46:20 1993 From: BPHKNL@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: Tshaynikes gehakte vos hakt ir a tshainik ir gelernte, ir filologn, ir filosofn funn "es dreit zich vi a forts in a roizl", az yeder posheter id veist az a forts kumt fun hintn az men hot tsu fil gaz in boich un a roizl vakst in gortn. a forts ken shtinken, oy ken dos shtinken! ober a roizl shmekt gut gut. un dertsu hot a roizl bletlech geformevet vi a vortex.alzo,ken zich a forts dreien in a roizl? un vi dreit zech gor aza geshtunk in aza shmekedikn blimale? zogt mir dos ir filosofn. katriel nissan leibovic. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.016