Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.344 May 8, 1994 1) Introduction (Greg Davis) 2) Courland; Voroshilovka (Zachary Baker) 3) Why Ashkenazim (Louis Fridhandler) 4) Oyve butel/iber botel (Isabelle Kreindler) 5) Sh-v-l-l; vern-constructions (Holger Nath) 6) Shopping bag (David Sherman) 7) Sholem Aleichem (Louis Fridhandler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 7 21:22:11 1994 From: gdavis@isnet.is.wfu.edu Subject: Introduction I am a new list member from Winston-Salem, NC, where I am an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Bowman Gray School of Medicine. My knowledge of Yiddish literature (and Yiddish) is scanty, but I am excited about the opportunity to learn through Mendele and the members of the list. Greg Davis 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri May 6 15:22:38 1994 From: BM.YIB@RLG.Stanford.EDU Subject: Courland; Voroshilovka In the Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer (p. 458) we read: "Courland or Kurland..., Lettish Kurzeme, region of W and S Latvia, bet. Baltic Sea and Western Dvina R., which separates it from Livonia... Originally inhabited by Cours, an extinct Finno-Ugric group, the region was ruled (13th cent.) by Livonian Knights; became (1561-1795) a duchy under Pol. suzerainty; passed (1795) to Russia as a separate govt. In 1920 it became part of independent Latvia, except for small S coastal strip (including Palanga) which went to Lithuania; divided into KURZEME and ZEMGALE." Courland's most famous Yiddish native was Max Weinreich, founder of YIVO and author of "Di geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh." He was born in 1894 in Goldingen (Kuldiga). In "Shtaplen: fir etyudn tsu der yidisher shprakhvisnshaft un literaturgeshikhte" (Berlin: Vostok, 1923), he describes the linguistic surroundings of his childhood. Technically speaking, Courland was not part of the Pale of Settlement, but Jews were permitted to reside there. A good source on this subject is the article on Courland in the old "Jewish Encyclopedia." Vorozhilovka: There is a locality in the Ukraine identified in "Where Once We Walked" as Voroshilovka, 26 km SSW of Vinnitsa, with a Jewish population in the 1920s of 1,079. "Where Once We Walked" also lists Voroshilovgrad, a.k.a. Lugansk, also in the Ukraine (270 km ESE of Kharkov -- i.e., quite far east). Zachary Baker, YIVO Library 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 7 11:40:31 1994 From: 74064.1661@CompuServe.COM Subject: Why Ashkenazim? Ikh hob in zinen shteln a poshete shayle. Frier, hob ikh gemeynt az ikh veys an entfer. Efsher neyn. Vi kumt es az me ruft di yidn fun mizrekh Oyrope Ashkenazim? Emanuel Goldsmith in zayn bukh, Modern Yiddish Culture, leygt for az mistome derfar vos As-Skandz (Saxony) klingt a bisl enlekh tsu Ashkenaz. Dos heyst, fun As-Skandz vakst oys Ashkenaz. Another (anecdotal) source offers another explanation. One of Noah's great-grandsons was named Ashkenaz. In the middle ages, the rabbis tried to account for the presence of Jews in Germany even before the Roman Empire. They concluded that after the flood, Ashkenaz moved to the Rhineland. And so, his descendants were naturally known as Askenazim. Can someone shed additional light? Louis Fridhandler. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 7 15:06:34 1994 From: RHLE812@UVM.HAIFA.AC.IL Subject: Oyve butel/iber botel Oyve Butel sounds to me very close to Iber Botel (not sure about the spelling), but in my family it didn't mean "I've got my own tsores" as Meyshe Yankl Sweet has recently suggested. Instead, it described someone with missing marbles -- usually due to senility. "Ikh bin noch nisht iber botel" could be the response to someone's questioning the wisdom of your ideas on some subject or your plan of action. Isabelle Kreindler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat May 7 19:02:13 1994 From: hn6@columbia.edu Subject: sh-v-l-l; vern-constructions 1. Tsanin's _Fuler hebreish-yidisher verterbukh_ (Tel Aviv 1960) translates "sh-v-l-l" as `negirer, farneyner, farleykener'. 2. Shapiro's et al. _Russian-Yididsh dictionary_ (Moscow 1984) very frequently lists the following type of vern-constructions for its aspectual pairs where the difference in aspect is expressed by a change in word order: moknut' `NAS VERN, farnetst vern, durkhgenetst vern' namoknut' `VERN (fitsh-)NAS' blednet' `BLAS VERN' poblednet' `VERN BLAS' krepnut' `VERN SHTARKER, vern gezinter, kumen tsu di koykhes' okrepnut' `SHTARKER VERN, kreftiker vern, farhartevet vern, kumen tsu di koykhes, shteln zikh oyf di fis' The change in word order is not always consistent in the dictionary, but still the change seems to indicate a change in focus. One informant explained them as follows: a. S'iz gegangen a shpreyregn. Az er hot night gehat keyn zontik, iz er NAS GEVORN. versus: b. Ven er iz gegangen oyf der gas, hot zikh plutsem ongehoybn a shturem, iz er GEVORN NAS. Example (a) was to express the duration, whereas (b) the suddenness and completion of the process. The _Russian-Yiddish dictionary_ does not limit it only to vern constructions, but to others as well, e.g.,: mstit' `nekome nemen' otomstit' `nemen nekome' I have not checked literary sources, but does anyone know whether these changes in word order are actually used in literature to express aspectual differences? Holger Nath 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun May 8 04:58:35 1994 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca Subject: Shopping bag > What about "kushik", basket in standard Yiddish but often used in my > youth to refer to a large shopping bag. We use either baytl (baatl, in our pronunciation) or torbe for a shopping bag. My understanding is that baytl is actually more appropriate for a wallet or purse (or, as they call it in New York, a "packe-book"). What exactly are the parameters of a torbe? David Sherman 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun May 8 12:11:14 1994 From: 74064.1661@CompuServe.COM Subject: Sholem Aleichem Andrew Cassel: For some reason, my private message to you was sent back to me as undeliverable. I am trying again, but just in case, I post this on Mendele for you. I received your zeyde's Sholem Aleichem letters very well. They are truly Sholem-Aleykhemdik in tone and spirit. I certainly enjoyed them, and they add to biographical and historical backgrounds. They anchor certain dates and concerns of Sholem Aleichem at a crucial period in his life. I am going to go over them a bit more, and see if I can discern some special insights from them. Zeyer a sheynem dank. Louis Fridhandler. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.344 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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