Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.299 March 24, 1994 1) Various (Mikhl Herzog) 2) Brooklyn in Yiddish literature (Zachary Baker) 3) Introduction (Dvorah Masha Rabson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 23 14:14:23 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Various 1. poylishe yidn Zachary Baker: As a native Torontonian, I can (and do) confirm that Toronto is, historically, a shtut (or shtu:it) fin poylishi yi:dn. I am a mixed breed offspring of some of them. I needn't remind you that Yiddish "poylish" and English "Polish" are sometimes quite divergent concepts. Interwar Vilna was in Poland, but no Jew native to Vilna could normally be described as a "poylisher yid" (or even "peylisher id"). Af tshikaves, let me relate a relevant experience. The interviews I conducted for the Yiddish Atlas were among emigrants from "Congress Poland", as well as from far western Poland. I became quite adept at sounding like a native speaker. I'm sure that all of our field-workers often experienced an informant's amazed response like "how did YOU know that we said something or other that way in our shtetl?". In any event, I was interviewing an informant from Wieruszow (western Poland) in New York in the early 60's, doing my best to sound like a native. At one point he turned the tables on me and asked "in fin vant zentEc alayn?" To which I replied: "khObakh dokh gizUkt a ma mAmiz givEYyn fin leybm vArshi". To which he answered: "khobAld dekEnt azEtsent a rUsishe". 2. Sarg/sargenes Marnen Laibow-Koser: Thanks for your "sidelight on sargenes". It's interesting and for a minute I wondered why it had never occurred to me before. Then it occurred to me: The connection of German "Sarg" to Yiddish "sargenes" is only a visual one. The word-initial German sibilant is [z], spelled "s". Yiddish has both [z] and [s] in word-initial position BUT, with the exception of "say" (as in "say vi say" and "saydn" 'unless', ONLY initial [z] occurs in words of German origin. Ergo, Yiddish words with initial [s] cannot be of German origin, however much they might appear to be. For example, try your hand at Yiddish "soldAt" 'soldier' and "samet" 'velvet'. 3. tush/tokhes Jules F. Levin: Where is the Peter Maher treatment of the subject "tush" and "tokhes"? On the face of it, I don't find the "French connection" too convincing, but I'm prepared to be convinced. The relationship is not much different than that between "(a) nebekh" and "a nebbish". Bob Hoberman is right about the "kh/ch/sh" connection in Western Yiddish (I'd rather avoid his term Juedischdeutsch which has often complicated things in the literature, although he provides a perfectly acceptable definition of it--Bob, is it a synonym for "Yinglish"? clear). The same alternations are to be found in such Western Yiddish words as "milkhik" and "minikh" (= "parev(e)). 4. Wife Beating, Ba undz? Sheldon Benjamin: Ven est a yid kreplekh? Fir mol a yor, ve me shlogt! Purim, ven me shlogt homenen; yonkiper, ven me shlogt kapores; hoshanerabe, ven me shlogt hoshaynes; un a gants yor, ven me shlogt di vayb. Ca anyone confirm the rumor that in Israel, statistics show that the incidence of wife-beating and traffic accidents run neck and neck? Reports on the subject from people who should know, both in Israel and, as it happens in Montreal (I just don't happen to know anything about New York City), are appaling. 5. Anno Siegel, if I may ask: "Siegel" is, as a rule, an acronym for Hebrew "sgan levi". Whence does it derive in your case? Is it German 'seal'? 6. Someone (I've lost track) wondered why I was puzzled by the name "feygele". I wasn't. The surprising name, for reasons I stated, is "Feygl". 7. As promised, more on the "Groyser Verterbukh" soon. Mikhl Herzog 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 23 15:09:05 1994 From: Subject: Brooklyn in Yiddish literature Although I have already replied privately to Dovid-Noyekh Miller, who requested titles of Yiddish and non-Yiddish literature on Brooklyn, I would like to bring the following two books to the attention of those MENDELnikes who, like I, are passionately attached to this nation's fourth largest city: Chaver Paver [Khaver-Paver/Gershon Einbinder]. Bronzvil (roman); un dramatishe shpiln. Los Angeles: Khaver-Paver Bukh-Komitet, 1976. Rodin, David [Dovid/Ali Levin]. A modne meydl fun Bruklin. Tel Aviv: I. L. Peretz, 1973. The latter author, by the way (since I raised the question of translations into Yiddish), also wrote a book called "Amerikana" (Tel Aviv: 1979), which includes his renderings -- in verse and prose -- of several Paul Bunyan stories. Rodin was living on the Bet Herut moshav, north of Tel Aviv, at the time. Talk about "modne"! Zachary Baker 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 23 17:07:30 1994 From: rabson@meeker.ucar.EDU Subject: Introduction I am an archivist in Boulder, Colorado, and also a member of the Boulder Yiddish Vinkl started by Dvorah Halperin Biasca. I don't know much Yiddish, but would like, eventually, to be able to speak and read Yiddish literature, most likely through a formal course of study somewhere. Recently, my uncle told me that his father (actually my great-grandfather who hailed from Vishnevo, now in Belarus) spent his free time writing Utopian stories in Yiddish, filling notebook after notebook. Unfortunately, none of the notebooks seems to be in existence any longer. For Andrew Cassel, who inquired about the definition of "salte-nosis": my maternal grandmother (who is still alive at 101) is from Keidan originally, and she made the "best" saltinosis (according to my mother). It's a triangular-shaped kreplach filled with cottage cheese and my grandmother usually floated it (them) in "milk-soup," and added dollops of sour cream. She was also known to occasionally fill the kreplach with ground-up meat (not hamburger), fried it and served it on the side with brisket. My mother has a recipe for it from a Pesach cookbook, believe it or not, and said she would send it along. I was pleased to see the discussion about the pronunciation of "bubbi" and "zeydi" versus "bubba" and "zeyda" because we have an ongoing dispute in our family about that...no we're not Toronto vs. Montreal, but upstate New York (Syracuse and Rochester) versus Brooklyn. The upstaters say, bubbi and zeydi, and the New Yorkers (downstaters) just the opposite. Lest I perpetuate the war between these two factions, I would just like to say that some years ago when I said "latkee" and "blintzee" to a friend who had grown up on the Lower East Side, I was roundly condemned by her and told that "my" pronunciation was ignorant... My sister believes this really is an issue of where you grew up in America (or in Canada) not where your ancestors came from (two grandparents from Lithuania, one from White Russia, and one from Hungary--her family spoke German not Yiddish anyway). Diane Rabson (Dvorah Masha) ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.299 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 Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net