Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.083 August 18, 1993 1) Yiddish orthography (Ellen Prince) 2) Shnipishok; Patshutsh (Zachary Baker) 3) -ian (Glikl Lorenz) 4) Introduction (Bonne London for Charles Nadler) 5) Pushke (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Aug 17 11:42:03 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Yiddish orthography to howie/itsik-ayzik: i don't know if you're being tongue-in-cheek, but, if you're serious, you gotta be kidding. first, standard yiddish orthography corresponds to standard yiddish pronunciation: the reason there's a vov in _gut_ is exactly that it's standardly pronounced /gut/, for example. second, i wouldn't exactly say (except sarcastically) that yivo 'arbitrarily chose basically a litvak norm'--the choosers were basically litvaks! if they'd been basically galitsianer, standard orthography might look very different... finally, i've never heard that standard yiddish is disallowed on the stage; what i've heard that's special about the stage is that teater-yidish is ALSO allowed (except in the yiddish state theatre in moscow, as reported to me by emil gorevits, where only standard yiddish is/was allowed). ------------------------ to moshe and others, re grobyan: with all due respect to the erudition and wit of germans and slavs, i have a lot of trouble believing that grubyan owes its origin to a pun on latin. and, moshe, to say 'notwithstanding the place of the accent' is to say a BIG 'notwithstanding'! how is the german 'grobian' stressed, btw? germanic stress patterns are very very predictable and, if the german is stressed on the final syllable, it's hard to believe that it's not a late borrowing from some other language or else a compound noun. ellen prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Aug 17 11:42:06 1993 From: BM.YIB@RLG.STANFORD.EDU Subject: Shnipishok; Patshutsh Rick Turkel (MENDELE 3.081) refers to two places with funny- sounding names, both of which really happen to exist. Shnipishok = Snipiskis, a suburb of Vilna/Vilnius. Patshutsh = Buczacz/Buchach (Yiddish: Bitshutsh), a famous town in Eastern Galicia/Western Ukraine, birthplace of the great Hebrew writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon and the Polish Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum (who, among other things, was a devoted Yiddishist and contributor to pre-World War II YIVO publications). Zachary Baker, YIVO Library 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Aug 16 14:24:03 1993 From: Dagmar C G Lorenz Subject: -ian Re: Beatrice Santorini's reply concerning -ian. The idea that there is probably a (common) Latin root sounds convincing. And yet: are Christian and grobyan (Grobian) --- grobianus --- on the same level. On the other hand: one never knows... Glikl Lorenz 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Aug 17 13:29:36 1993 From: "London, Bonne R." Subject: Introduction My name is Bonne London as, as I have access to e-mail, I am functioning as a shaliach for my good friend Mr. Charles Nadler. Mr. Nadler is originally from New York but has been an active leader in the Jewish community of Sacramento California for over 40 years. He twice served as President of Congregation Mosaic Law and, with his late wife Aileen, was one of the founders of Kenesset Israel Torah Center, the orthodox synagogue in Sacramento, where he also served as President. Mr. Nadler is the retired Dean of Instruction of Sacramento City College. In addition to training scores of Sacramento children for Bar and Bat Mitzvah, he served as Hebrew School Principal for the Sacramento Bureau of Jewish Education. Mr. Nadler is an active supporter of Chabad of San Francisco and Chabad of Sacramento. He reads and speaks yiddish and for many years has written a column "Yiddish Corner" for the Sacramento Jewish newspaper. Mr. Nadler can be reached by writing to brlondon@ucdavis.edu. Bonne London 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Aug 17 13:30:36 1993 From: noyekh miller Subject: Pushke I've always assumed that _pushke_ is derived from the Polish _puszka_ and let it go at that. The other day however I ran across a reference in Zangwill to a _pyx_ which resembles exactly the metal box with a lock found in most orthodox shuls. Pyx (