Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.121 October 22, 1993 1) Introduction (Ezra Kurnow) 2) The holem in Ashkenazic Hebrew (Steven Jacobson) 3) Tsherida (Shleyme Axelrod) 4) Tsherede (Khaim Bochner) 5) A shayle vegn shikh (Noyekh Miller) ______________________________________________________ The shames would greatly appreciate your cooperation in these small matters: If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu If you want to discuss personal business, please write to: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Please provide a Subject: line. Please sign your articles. A dank. 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Oct 20 14:34:34 1993 From: Ernest Kurnow Subject: Introduction I am Ernest (Ernie) Kurnow. In Yiddish Ezra. I'm Professor Emeritus of Statistics at New York University,but am still teaching. I've been bilingual from the day I learned to speak. I'm a 1927 graduate of the Arbeiter Ring Mittelschul. Are there other alumni out there? Seit mir alle gezunt, Ezra 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Oct 20 19:44:43 1993 From: STEVEN A JACOBSON Subject: pronunciation of the holem in Ashkenazic Hebrew I have read that the pronunciation of the "holem" in Ashkenazic Hebrew was [OY] as in Hebraic words in Yiddish (in other than a final unstressed syllable). However, in the Jewish sunday school which I attended (in Calif.) in the 1950s we were taught that the "holem" was pronounced [O], and this was said to be the Ashkenazic pronunciation (along with certain other features which were different from the Sephardic pronunciation). They never said anything about an [OY] pronunciation in words like "borah" or "leolam". Why was the supposedly Ashkenazic pronunciation we were taught different from that which I read about in Weinreich's history of Yiddish and other books? Is it a dialect difference? If so where does our "Jewish Sunday school" dialect stem from? Steven Jacobson 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Oct 21 16:36:55 1993 From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: tsherida U. Weinreich defines "tsherede" as "flock"; Harkavy adds "herd" and "gang". So the import of the line that Bob Poe's mother recalls (bin ikh mir a tsig, un peyger oykh in tsherida) may have to do with a feeling of common cause or common fate. Another--less likely--interpretation is suggested by "tshere", for which Weinreich gives "turn//es iz gekumen mayn tshere=my turn came"; so, "I'm a goat, and my turn to die is coming too". Maybe both? --Shleyme Axelrod 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Oct 21 18:54:00 1993 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: Re: tsherede Bob Poe writes: > A phrase that my mother remembered from her childhood was: > "Bin ikh mir a tsig, un peyger oykh in tsherida." > She translated "tsherida" as "field", "pasture", "meadow"; Actually "tsherede" is a slavic word for 'flock'. > "I [too] am a goat and [have the right to] die [with the others] in the > pasture." The overall meaning here is about the same, I'd say ... -- Khaim 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Oct 20 17:58:33 1993 From: noyekh miller Subject: A shayle vegn shikh When we discussed Yiddish words for slippers last year, no one mentioned _meshte_. I found it in Sholem Aleichem ("Di Freylikhe Companye") and only then remembered that it was my bubbe's word for her felt slippers, but not the one my zeyde used for his "romeos" (pantuflyes). The rest of us wore shtekshikh. I remember this as well: every time my bubbe mentioned her meshtes, my mother laughed. I never asked why. Now I wonder this: My grandmother came from a dorf, her husband and children from a shtetl. Might _that_ be the cause of the mirth, meshtes being Slavic and boondockish, the other two German or French and urbane? Snobbery in Shpikov? Kholile! I hope there's a better answer. Noyekh _____________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.121