Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.303 March 29, 1994 1) Sholem Aleichem's yortsayt (Louis Fridhandler) 2) Name origin & Sholem Aleykhem's yartzayt (Anno Siegel) 3) Introduction (David Ferleger) 4) The Yiddish word "Tren" (Dan Leeson) 5) Yiddish Magazines (Odem Vaytman) 6) Bessarabish loshn (Rick Gildemeister) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 25 20:32:35 1994 From: <74064.1661@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re:Sholem Aleichem's yortsayt Meyer David asks about the exact English and Hebrew calendar dates of Sholem Aleichem's death. He died on May 13, 1916. It was the 10th of Iyar. My calculation makes it 5676. Louis Fridhandler 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Mar 26 06:53:07 1994 From: Subject: Name origin & Sholem Aleykhem's yartzayt In Mendele 3.299, Mikhl Herzog asked: >"Siegel" is, as a rule, an acronym for Hebrew "sgan levi". Whence >does it derive in your case? Is it German 'seal'? Could be. Apparently some makers of signets received the name "Siegel". Another etymology I've read about is a (southern German) diminuitive of the first name "Siegfried", "Siegele" or "Siegel". While I can't rule out a Jewish origin, there is nothing to confirm it. In Mendele 3.302, Meyer David (mhd@world.std.com) asked: >Could someone please supply the exact English and Hebrew dates of Sholem >Aleichem's death? Thanks. Shalom Rabinowitsh died in New York on 10th of Iyyar, 5676 (May 2nd, 1916). Anno Siegel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 25 23:38:39 1994 From: DFERLEGER@delphi.com Subject: Introduction Hello. David Ferleger here. New to internet. Lawyer - do civil rights law. Child of Holocaust survivors - my mother was in the Warsaw Ghetto till it was destroyed and then in Maidanek and Auschwitz etc. And my father, from Chmielnick, Poland, survived in a hole under a stable. So I grew up hearing Yiddish and Polish both. I understand a bissel Yiddish, but dont speak Yiddish. And found this little mail list as I looked for Yiddishe places in Internet. I live in Philadelphia, PA USA. david ferleger 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Mar 26 11:36:02 1994 From: leeson@cedar.fhda.edu Subject: The Yiddish word "Tren" Jack Lubowsky comments that he thought the Yiddish word "tren" meaning sexual intercourse was a family in-word and was not aware that it was a general Yiddish term for the act (though it is more vulgar than the rather medicinal "sexual intercourse"). The word gave rise to a Hollywood-cum-radio joke that dealt with two characters. (And if you don't see this one coming from a mile away, you need glasses.) The male actor was George Brent, and the fictional radio personality was (you guessed it) Helen Trent. The joke was "George Brent while Helen Trent." Does it need a translation? The word is also important in the telling of the joke about the visit to the zoo of an old man and his grandson. The grandson gave a running commentary in Yiddish on the various animals that they were seeing. When they came to the laughing hyena, the grandson described it in the following way: "Ehr pisht ein mohl a vokh, Ehr kahkt ein mohl a monat, Ehr tren ein mohl a yohr" to which the grandfather replied "Und dos is die lechedickeh chaya? Vos lochet ihr?" Dan Leeson 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Mar 27 15:58:54 1994 From: <74031.775@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Yiddish Magazines Dear Shames, Recently you requested names addresses and subscription rates for Yiddish magazines. Please add these to your list. Yiddishe Kultur - Khoydish Shrift Funim Yidishn Kultur-Farband 1133 Broadway Room 1019 NY NY 10010 USA 212-691-0708 annual subscription $20 Lebns-Fragn - Aroysgegeybn fun der Bundisher Organizatsiyes in Isroel 48 Kalisher Street Tel Aviv 65165 Israel Annual subscriptions - In land 30 Shkalim, Overseas by airmail $20 Unser Tsait 25 East 21 Street 3rd Floor, NY NY 10010 USA Annual Subscription $15 Odem Vaytman [A sheynem dank! nm] 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 28 17:34:27 1994 From: Subject: Bessarabish loshn I saw Ellen Prince's name on some earlier postings (I've only been on Mendele a couple of weeks now, Zachary Baker of YIVO having referred me). I'll never forget about 8 years ago she was on the Forverts Sho on WEVD with Moishe Rosenfeld, and she discussed Sarah Gorby, and we heard so many great (and sad) tunes.Ellen remarked what I myself have noticed that Romania and Bessarabia (the latter now the Former Soviet Republic Moldova) produced a lot of music, and coincidentally, influenced my Yiddish pronunciation, since I love Yiddish music and have been exposed to a lot of it since my teens. Anyway, Sarah Gorby was from Kishiniev, in Bessarabia and sings like the Malke haYofi (hope I got that right; I know I'm close). I remember when I was eighteen, living in D.C., and there weren't very many Yiddish speakers around that I knew of. Down the block aways was a little bakery, manned by a charming older couple from Argentina. I was still a native speaker of Spanish then, having come from Peru in 1961, and I detected an accent. Well, I asked and they said they were Jews from Bessarabia. We switched out of Spanish into Yiddish and I was struck deaf and dumb. I remembered from Weinreich's College Yiddish that there were dialects, but this was really epes andersh. Khob gehat keynmol nisht gehert azoyns! They goofed on me a lot, because of my Litvak pronunciation, and they told me some of the peculiarities of the way they spoke. They told me that for them "wood" and "everything" were pronounced the same: Olts. For me it was a real eye-opener. I really like the way it sounds. Moyshe Oysher olevhasholem was from there too. Two features I especially like are the raising of final e to almost an i. Also, darkening the a to o, so you get "toti" instead of tate. Ellen's presentation was interesting from an intellectual standpoint, too, and since I'm from everywhere I especially liked her discussion of dialect shift. I arrived here at age 8 with a British/Latin accent that within four years shifted to inner Tidewater pronunciation. And when I speak Yiddish, I move from the literary standard to the stage pronunciation very easily, since that's what I hear when I hear performances, by and large. It's funny how life is; in 1970 there weren't that many secular people speaking Yiddish, least of all a gentile like myself. It was a real koved when I was asked to m.c. a Yiddish radio program; the two older men that asked me were involved with broadcasting, and they said that my pronunciation was pretty good. We talk about daytshmerizms -- I've been told that my speech has no trace of the German I heard all around me during my youth. That for me is the nicest compliment I ever heard. Anyway, before I ramble further, I just want to say that I have met other non-Jews who for various reasons have learned Yiddish and speak it well. That's a phenomenon that doesn't get discussed much, but I'm sure Polish servants in Jewish houses spread the use of words like "altinke" kleyninker, etc. Rick Gildemeister ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.303 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