Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.074 August 9, 1993 1) Sukkah decorations (David Sherman) 2) Sukkah decorations (Moshe Waldoks) 3) Pseudonymity (Moshe Waldoks) 4) Standardized transcription why? (Bob Hoberman) 5) Beheyme (Bob Hoberman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 6 13:58:12 1993 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: Sukkah decorations and cultural borrowing I've found the discussion on using Christmas decorations for sukkahs fascinating. We've done it for years; if you go shopping at G & Son (a large general store in Boro Park) in September you'll find a good selection. I think Reyzl hit the nail on the head with her comments to the effect that the less one is solidly grounded in Jewish religious observance and ritual, the more "nervous" one is that "someone" will think one is borrowing/using Christian traditions. I believe it's also related to how comfortable one is displaying one's own observances/traditions without feeling self-conscious. On a related point, the best time for buying Purim costumes is, of course, in November, when all the leftover Hallowe'en stuff is on sale. (That's in the secular stores, of course; I haven't been in Boro Park in March.) David Sherman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Aug 9 11:06:30 1993 From: WALDOKS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Sukkah decorations A por yorn zurick hot a zeyr interesante Rebbe in New England gepaskent az afile "pumpkins" zenen kusher far sukkos. Dos heysst az men gibt a klorer blick oyf dem Amerikanisher Thanksgiving zeyt men az di Pilgrims hobn mistomeh gepravet Thanksgiiving nisht sof November , ober Sukkes zayt. Di emesdike "harvest" fierung is takeh Sukkos. By the way in looking for some Thanksgiving table liturgy. Az men sitzt baym tish muzn men kidish makhn, I found a yidish translation of the traditional Tahnksgiving tale in "Gut Yontif, Gut Yohr (edited by Maria Jaffe). It adds the right Yidish feel to Thanksgiving. A great wit, Milton Himmelfarb?, once said that the reason Jews are thankful on Thanksgiving is that the Pilgrims didn't find a a pig. mit kovid, Moshe Waldoks 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Aug 9 11:09:40 1993 From: WALDOKS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Pseudonymity Sholen Aleychem worked so well for Shalom Rabinowicz. I had once thouht of changing my name to Moshe Exit. I'd have my name up in lights in most public buildings , it's easy to spell and it's as common a word as shoelm aleychem was to the average Jew not to very long ago. All the best, Moshe Waldoks 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Aug 9 15:54:45 1993 From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Standardized transcription why? I've been thinking about the debate a couple of months back between those who insisted that all writing of Yiddish words in Latin letters should be in the standard YIVO system, and those who prefered more flexibility. I don't think it was really a matter of linguists vs. non-linguists, with the linguists opting for formality and rigidity for reasons special to our own discipline. The impetus for standard transcription comes partly from a desire to see Yiddish treated like all other languages, with a sense of behaving responsibly to the language as it presents itself to us on its own without the interference of English habits nor as a jargon that can be written any way you like; in this it is analogous (but not identical) to the impetus to standardize Yiddish spelling, vocabulary, etc. (I'm NOT in favor of efforts to standardize Yiddish spelling.) On the other hand I think it comes from a horror of what was done often years ago, when Yiddish was written in Latin letters as much as possible like German, Ihr versteht was ich sog? Yiddish is a language like all other languages, but yet it is not just a version of some other language. I've been noticing that the newspapers sometimes respell names of people and places from Eastern European languages which use the Latin alphabet, for instance adding an h to make the sh sound when it is written in Croatian or Hungarian or Polish with a s (in some cases with a diacritical mark that is lost in English). But they don't do the same with Scandinavian names, whose pronunciations are equally unpredictable to most American readers. Most of us would like Yiddish to be treated like the latter, not the former: Yiddish has its own way of doing things, why "pander to the ignorant", kaviyokhl? So much for motive; it still doesn't determine what ought to be done. Bob Hoberman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Aug 9 16:13:56 1993 From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Beheyme Here's a bit of information relating to Arnold Kuzmack's question about beheyme. The wonderful Hebrew slang dictionary by Dahn Ben-Amotz (Dan Ben-Amots) and Netiva Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang (Milon Olami le-Ivrit Meduberet), lists it with two pronunciations: behemA (accent on the -A), which is the normal Hebrew pronunciation for the word when it simply means large domestic animal, and behEYme, a pronunciation borrowed from Yiddish, as is the plural behEYmes (the plural in its literal meaning is behemOt). (Not only is the stress different, so is the vowel /e/ versus /ey/.) Both are defined as "a term for a stupid person, idiot" and marked as both masculine and feminine. The illustrations which are given are: "Don't waste your words. This (masc.) behEYme won't understand you." "And this (masc.) behEYme is going to study law yet." "This (fem.) behemA doesn't know the multiplication table by heart." No reference to fatness. Bob Hoberman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.074