Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.181 December 23, 1993 1) Pishe-peyshe vs. patshe-patshe kikhelekh (Dovid Braun) 2) Yiddish counting-out rhymes (Dovid Braun) 3) Daytshmerismen (Pe'rets Mett) 4) Written yiddish v. speech (Pe'rets Mett) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 11:23:59 1993 From: David Braun Subject: pishe-peyshe vs. patshe-patshe kikhelekh Ted Steinberg, might you not mean patshe-patshe from the rhyme "patshe-patshe kikhelekh" as the Yiddish pat-a-cake (and not pishe-peyshe)? Dovid Braun 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 11:28:21 1993 From: David Braun Subject: Yiddish counting-out rhymes Having broached the subject of children's folklore (hurray!), would readers please submit the Yiddish counting-out rhymes they are familiar with (with all relevant info: when they used it, where, how, from whom they learned it, from where that person is/was). A dank in foroys! Dovid Braun 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 13:54:17 1993 From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk (Percy Mett) Subject: daytshmerismen men hot asakh arumgered dem inyan. khvil nokh epes tsuleygn. koydm kol, siz a groyse nafke mine tsu men ret vegn daytshe lshoines and daytshen gramatik vos litvishe lmooshl nutsn, vi ellen prints hot shoyn bamerkt. dos is likhoyre shtark b'kavone. m'idekh gise az galitsyane hobn gikhapt a bisl daytsh bmeyshekh hundert yor (mer afile) unter dem estreykhn keyzr, iz nisht aza groyser khidesh bey mir az s'hot zikh arayngevortselt in shprakh. ober men zeet az afile in kongres poyln, un afile bay gor frume yidn, vos hobn keyn shaykhes nisht mit modernkeyt, hot men genutst fil (ot, bamerk zikh on!) 'daytshe' verter. men muz nisht davke nutsen an oysdruk fun loshnkoydesh. tsvey bayshpiln: in unzer kreyzn (vi oykh tsvishn khsidm in yrushela'yem - ikh hob dos bashtendigt mit mayn zun vos voynt dort) zogt men "gevezn" khotsh ikh aleyn bin mer noyte tsu zogn "geven". a sakh mentshn shraybn "yuden" "yudish" d.h. yud-vov-dalet-... avade oyf poylish yidish vet dos genoy azoy oysgeret vi "yiden" "yidish" ober ir zet vi di daytshe shprakh hot zikh arayngedreyt, nisht vor? ober legabe di daytshe verter vos zenen 'sinonimen' (khken nisht ka anderen vort: darf men efsher onheybn mit di anglishizmen - vegn zey iz faran gor asakh tsu shraybn) vos iz azoy shlekht az m'hot tsvey verter mit eyn badaytung? farkert, s'shraybt zikh beser azoy, un s'ret zikh beser azoy. amol nutst men eyn vort un amol an anderen. pe'rets kh'hob yetst (antshuldigt, shoyn vider a daytshmerism: atsund) adorkhgeleynt dos 'imeyl' brivl, un ikh ze az ikh gishribn: asakh fil lmooshl bayshpil lshoines shprakh shat nisht! pe'rets 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 14:17:24 1993 From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk (Percy Mett) Subject: written yiddish v. speech Neil G Jacobs writes [Vol. 3.174]: >etc. Furthermore, the issue of written vs. spoken language can also >be important; Max Weinreich (1928, "Di yidishe shprakhforshung in >17-tn yorhundert", in *Tsaytshrift*) notes a difference in the >amount of German influence in written documents versus what must >have been the spoken Yiddish of the time. I find this fantastically interesting. I was just reading the booklet "a klimentover yid dertseylt" published in Poland shortly after WWII which is an account of a survivor of the khurbn in Poland who somehow made it through those horrors. In his story he gives a detailed account of what he lived through. What interests me is that I just couldn't square the language in which the book is written with the the yiddish that my father (born in Klimontow and lived there until age 14) spoke. Even allowing for some change in my father's language, it just didn't add up. Besides the language difference, the places were almost all given their Polish names e.g. Ostrowiec (ostrotvtse), Sandomier (tsouzmir), Opatow (apt), Tarnobrzeg (dzhikev) etc. I am quite certain that yiddish speaking Jews referred to towns by their yiddish names. Not to mention the constructions (and spellings) in the book e.g. der hoykh (heykh), ongehoybn (ongeheybn) and so on. Maybe what happened was that the story was transcribed by a literary author (who may or may not have been a local person) and words were deliberately respelt to conform to a publishing norm. pe'rets ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.181 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files