Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.021 June 12, 1994 1) Introduction/query (Gaston L. Schmir) 2) Yiddish stories in transliteration (Irene Glasser) 3) Kinship terms/update (Rick Gildemeister) 4) Plemenek\Plemenitse (Yale J. Reisner) 5) Eynikl; unoka (Holger Nath) 6) Tz'enah ur'enah in English (Matt Dailey) 7) Airplane/ship hold (Shleyme Axelrod) 8) Besarabishe zingers (Rick Gildemeister) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 13:20:39 1994 From: glschm@minerva.cis.yale.edu Subject: Introduction/query I am a newly-hatched member of the Mendele list (as of this morning) and have been having a great time all day reading some of the past issues. I do not speak Yiddish, understand it fairly well (my parents, Polish Jews from Warsaw and Wieruszow [Western Poland, near Wielun] spoke it constantly at home and had to resort to Polish to speak "over our heads") and read it with more or less facility, depending on the material. I can handle historical publications, e.g. about the Holocaust, with relative ease, but have appreciable difficulty with more literary works. I would like to ask for help with the following. Some years ago, I read, possibly in the now-defunct magazine Present Tense, a humorous anecdote, of which I unfortunately remember only the punch line, which I cite here, in the hope that one of your readers will recognize it and be able to supply the rest of the story (and possibly also the source): At a meeting in China between a western traveler and a group of local inhabitants, the visitor makes somes remarks at the end of which one of the incredulous Chinese members of the audience leans over to the visitor and murmurs "emes?" As I recall, the point of the story was to emphasize the ubiquitous utility of "mame loshn". Gaston L. Schmir 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 11:24:13 1994 From: GLASSER@ECSUC.CTSTATEU.EDU Subject: Yiddish stories in transliteration Can anyone recommend to me some Yiddish stories in transliteration, for my friend who wants to read the stories aloud to her mom. Sheyna dank. Irene Glasser 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 13:25:04 1994 From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Kinship terms/update I may have farblondzhet on the use of plemenek in Romania. I had sent Shleyme Axelrod directly my first posting, and it is quite possible that his litvish family's use of these words for niece and nephew may have obtained also in Romania. The library I work in now does not have a copy of the book Stefanesti, so I can't verify it. Maybe someone else can give us the scoop on this from *direct* experience. Oy, s'iz shver tsu zayn a goy! :) Rick Gildemeister P.S. Shleymele, zol ikh hobn a refue shleyme! Es zhuzhet mir der kop, itster. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jun 11 19:04:07 1994 From: REISNER%PLEARN.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Plemenek\Plemenitse In Mendele 4.020, Rick Gildemeister expands the discussion of kinship terms to uncles, aunts and cousins and mentions that in Romania the terms plemenek and plemenitse were used, he claims, for "cousin." I would just note that plemyannik and plemyanitsa are standard Russian for nephew and niece, respectively, and come from plemya, tribe, suggesting a root meaning of something like "kinsman\woman" in a general sense perhaps. Yale J. Reisner 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 20:51:22 1994 From: hn6@columbia.edu Subject: eynikl; unoka to Dovid Brown: This sounds to me more like a connection to Slavic. The Ukrainian term for `eynikl' is onuk, the corresponding Russian one is: vnuk, Polish wnuk. Holger Nath 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 14:01:26 1994 From: mdailey@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: Tz'enah ur'enah in English I have used a version of the Tzene urene in my research on Yiddish women's literature at Ohio State University. The following is the the catalog information from OSU's library on the work: Tz'enah ur'enah, Ashkenazi, Yaakov ben Yitzchak, 1550-1628: the classic anthology of Torah lore and midrashic comment/ [jacob ben Isaac of Janow]; translation from the Yiddish by Miriam Stark Zakon; introduction by Meir Holder, with illustrations from the 1726 Frankfurt am Main edition. Brooklyn, NY : Mesorah Publications: Jerusalem: Hillel Press, 1983-1984. 3 vols. Ill. 24 cm. BS1245J2841983 I found it very helpful, and a lovely work. I hope it will be helpful to you. Matt Dailey 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 17:44:05 1994 From: PTYAXEL@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: airplane/ship hold Odem Vaytman asks how to translate "[cargo] hold [of an airplane]" for his daughter. Harkavy's *english-yidish verterbukh* (1893, 1910, p. 266), gives "last-roym fun a shif". I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Mordkhe Schaechter has dealt with the word somewhere in his _laytish mame-loshn_ series. Shleyme Axelrod 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Jun 10 14:56:21 1994 From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Besarabishe zingers Ikh derman zikh zeyer oft az a groyser teyl fun yidishe zingers un zingerinen zenen geboyrn gevorn in Besarabie, itst "Moldova," eyne fun di amolike shtatn fun Sovetishn Farband. Ize Kremer iz zeyer gut bakant. Eyn lid vos ikh hob lib tsum bestn, geyt azoy: Ven ikh zol ubn fligalakh, volt ikh tsi dir gefloygn.... ... Oy vey vi biter iz mir mayn shmarts, di libe tsebrekht mir Mayne beyner. A zeyer freylekh lid heyst "Vus bisti ketsele baroyges, in vuzhe hosti arupgelozt di nuez?" Vegn dem dozikn lid hot men mit a kleyn mol tsurik geshmuest do bay undzer Mendele. Es hot gehat tsu ton mitn inyen "priyut". Moyshe Oysher iz oykh gekumen fun Besarabie. In mayn gants lebn hob ikh keynmol nisht gehert aza zis kol. Er veynt az er zingt, un di trern kumen oykh tsu mayne oygn. Vos ikh hob haynt do geton heyst, dakht zikh mir, oyf daytsh "Plauderei". Redn a bisl, makhn a vitsele, a bisl fun danen, a bisl fun dortn. A dank Noyekh un undzere vunderlekhe Mendelnikes far der gelegnhayt dos tsu ton. Rick Gildemeister ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.021 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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