Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.225 February 10, 1994 1) Jewish diseases (Sander I. Gilman) 2) Yerushalayim shel Zahav (Joyce Rappaport) 3) Vowel indications (Martin Davis) 4) Kleynkunst, shund (Michael Steinlauf) 5) Wetnurses and the old Russ litlang (Jules F. Levin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Feb 9 15:42:19 1994 From: slg3@cornell.edu (sander l. gilman) Subject: Jewish diseases Those who would like to read more about the myth-making surrounding 'Jewish diseases' such as diabetes should look at my The Case of Sigmund Freud (Hopkins, 1993). Sander L. Gilman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Feb 9 16:29:50 1994 From: "Joyce Rappaport" Subject: Yerushalayim shel Zahav I can only conclude that this is a Zionist message, transmitted with some literary anachronism. Since the song wasn't written until 1967, perhaps the implication is that the dream of finding a land wasn't really fulfilled until then. Do you think this was intended by Spielberg? Joyce Rappaport 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Feb 9 16:30:17 1994 From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu (Martin Davis) Subject: vowel indications [Marnen Laibow-Koser writes:] > I have a several-decades-old Yiddish schoolbook (obviously intended > for English-speaking, probably bilingual, children -- I don't know > the title, author, or date because the cover and title page are > missing), and came across the following anomaly: "ay" is written > with pasakh-tsvey-yudn as usual, but "ey" is written not with the > usual two unmarked yuds, but rather with a tseyre beneath, so it > looks like !!. Has anybody seen this anywhere else? (This same > schoolbook also contains a short story with every sentence in > verb-first order, which I'll post here if people are interested). I have had in my possession for some 55 years a 4 volume Di Yudishe [sic] Folks-Geshikhte by Ben-Zvi which claims to be "nohkh der Folkstimlikher Geshikhte der Yuden fun H. Gretz" and to be "ferbessert" and brought up to date. There's no date of publication I can find and the history seems to end at 1900. The publisher is Hebrew Publishing Company on Canal Street in New York. (The English words in the publisher's name are spelled in Hebrew characters using Yiddish orthography.) The relevance is that ALL vowels are shown explicitly in the text. However not under the Yiddish carrier of the vowel, but instead under the preceding consonant. Thus "Ven" is spelled with the three dots under the pair of vuvs followed by the ayen-nun. In particular this convention is followed for pairs of yuden, the vowel sign being either the two dots or the horizontal line. (I've never learned the correct names for these.) Martin Davis 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Feb 9 16:53:17 1994 From: M_Steinlauf@ACAD.FANDM.EDU (Michael Steinlauf) Subject: Kleynkunst, shund On how to translate "kamershpil" and "kleynkunst-teater," a question first brought up by, I think, Shleyme Axelrod -- For the latter I would suggest (following Nahma Sandrow) "Yiddish literary cabaret," a genre whose pioneer was Moyshe Broderzon in Lodz in the 1920's, and whose history remains to be written (although there are stirrings of interest in Poland by historians of the Polish equivalent (prominent in which was the Jewish joke-skit-shtik known as (linguists take note and help) "szmonces," i.e., shmontses...)). On the general European genre there's a good book by Harold Segal. A good English equivalent for "kamershpil" is tougher; I'll defer to the bine-artistn, who, I hope, are out there somewhere...To entice them, and any other mevinim of Yiddish theater out into sayber-rom, I'll use this opportunity to ask derbay for help with descriptions of pre-war shund teater, a subject very difficult to come by, since what was there ever to "say" about it, in the old days, except that "shund" was..."shund"? Yet today if instead we say "Yiddish popular theater," there could be a lot to say, but for the moment, tsum badoyrn, mainly teoretish. References to articles, reviews, fiction, memoirs would be greatly appreciated, and above all, oyb faran emetser vos dermont zikh vi azoy me hot geshpilt shund in Poyln, lemoshl, mit zekhtsik yor tsurik, un volt dertsu gehat epes deroyf tsu zogn, volt es shoyn geven zeyer un zeyer a fargenign... Michael Steinlauf 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Feb 9 18:33:28 1994 From: Subject: Wetnurses and the old Russ litlang The wetnurse story as I recall it from previous mendeles is doubtless a bobbemaise. There is no problem in explaining either the pronunciation of the old aristocracy, with St Pete norms or Old Moscow norms, or the post-1917 literary pronunciation, in terms of territorial dialects and dialect develop- ment in Russian. Vowel reduction is found in the dialects of a large majority of Russian speakers, and the secondary reduction found in the narrow band of central dialects, includes the territory of Moscow. Aristocrats and rulers everywhere often speak more like peasants than like the urban gentry, because they spend so much time in the country, doing country things like hunting. Read Tolstoy or Turgenev and you will see that they aristocracy didnt need wetnurses to come in contact with provincial dialect speech. Besides, children do NOT pick up regional and social speech norms from the women who nurse them (unless they are lucky enough to get nursed from 10 years on up), but rather from the peer groups in which they are socialized AFTER they leave that initial maternal nest...) Shalom, Jules Levin ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.225 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU 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