Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.187 December 25, 1993 1) Counting Rhymes (Howard Gershen) 2) The yiddish-vietnamese connection (Ellen Prince) 3) Freg/frog (Moshe Taube) 4) Daytsh ba' Litvakes (Pe'rets Mett) 5) Patshi Patshi (David Sherman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 17:00:46 1993 From: howard@boxhill.com (Howard Gershen) Subject: Re: Counting Rhymes Not exactly a counting rhyme, but here's a cheer my Dad created for some kind of Purim competition my Hebrew school class was involved in lo those many years ago... Two goes inta four Four goes inta eight Heh Team! Heh Team! Geh gazinta hayt! I leave it to the transliteration mayvens to come up with the correct Roman lettering. :) howard gershen 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Dec 23 17:02:54 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: the yiddish-vietnamese connection noyekh, that's wonderful! i'm going to look for the recording here. thanks! as to how it might have happened, here's one possibility. i know of at least one russian song and one romanian song both recorded by a (predominantly) yiddish singer that turned up as french songs in the '50s: the russian 'pomn'iu, pomn'iu' turned up in french as 'le galerien' and the romanian song 'el trineo' turned into 'johnny, tu n'es pas un ange'. so we know that some eastern european songs were known to some french songwriters. ok, now vietnam was a french colony for a long time, the vietnamese must have heard french songs. so my hunch would be to check whether this particular yiddish song had a french version during the period of indochina... ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Dec 24 05:47:19 1993 From: Taube Moshe Subject: freg/frog For Roslyn You're saying: in mayrev yidish iz geven der substantiv "frog" un in mizrakh yidish iz geven der substantiv "freg" vi lemoshl ton a freg (oykh ba Mendelen) 1. Why geven? "freg" in mizrakh yidish is still in use. 2. In what other turn beside ton a freg do you find it? and what is the plural of this substantive? In my view this is not a real substantive but an ad hoc stem derived from the verb, just the "substantive" koketir is derived from koketirn, and is to be found nowhere outside the `stem-constructiuon' (Shekhter's term). These "substantives" have some particularities of behaviour. Some of those I explained in my paper "The development of aspectual auxiliaries in Yiddish", Word 1987. Best, Moshe Taube 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Dec 24 06:42:26 1993 From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk (Percy Mett) Subject: Daytsh ba' Litvakes Berl Hoberman pointed out correctly (mendele Vol. 3.183) that Lite had a border with ostproysn (Germany). Stupid of me to forget. After all, which Jew in poyln or lite was not an expert on German? Like the Rov who travelled on a boat and was welcomed aboard by the Captain in his best German. At which the Rov told his shames "gey zog dem kapitan az ikh farshtey nor daytsh" Or the German who was accused (in Lite!) of stealing a horse. Since the magistrate spoke no German, who better to interpret than a Jew? Judge: Tell the accused that he is on a charge of stealing a horse. Interpreter (to German): der odn zogt az du host gelakhet a sus. German: Was? Interpreter repeats: der odn zogt az du host gelakhet a sus. German: Ich verstehe nicht. Interpreter (to Judge): der goy iz nisht nor a ganef - er iz a ligener oykh. er iz bkhlal nisht kayn daytsh. So presumably there are very few yiddish speaking regions which were a significant distance from the (vast) German speaking empire of the 19th century. In which case it is hardly surprising that there is a strong modewrn German influence on yiddish. After how long has yiddish been spoken in America, and look at the influence that English has had there. I suppose everyone has heard the story of the immigrant who (having forgotten? fenster) said "khvoyn shoyn draysig yor in ameyrike un khveys nokh als nisht vizoy mzogt 'vinde' oyf english". pe'rets 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Dec 24 14:18:39 1993 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: Patshi Patshi [Ted L. Steinberg writes:] > In response to Leonard Pitt's question, I have no personal > experience with pishy pashy, but in my wife's family it was used to > refer to what in English is called pat-a-cake, the old hand-clapping > game. That's different. That's: patshi patshi kikhelekh di mame vet koyfn shikhelekh der tate vet koyfn zekelekh far 's fisalekh I've heard several variations. We do this with our kids. (Well, our youngest is almost 3 so we don't do it much anymore.) David Sherman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.187 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