Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.027 June 16, 1994 1) Introduction (Allan Fineberg) 2) Learning Yiddish (Mark Devlin) 3) Shabeysenakhts (Yude Rozof) 4) Eynikl, Wlochy, spuzhet, karahulke (Bob Rothstein) 5) Transliteration (Avrom Yitzkhok Blair) 6) Yiddish handwriting (Margaret Mikulska) 7) Passive-voice translation help (Andy Cassel) 8) Sabbetai Zevi (Andrew Sunshine) 9) Sabbetai Zevi (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 16 13:44:46 1994 From: afineber@llnj.ll.pbs.org Subject: Introduction I've decided it's time to stop lurking and introduce myself. I grew up in a very Jewish neighborhood in Jersey City, with Yiddish-speaking grandparents on my father's side of the family and English-German speaking grandparents on my mother's side. When I tried to speak Yiddish to my father's mother she would wince at the germanness of it. But I still love Yiddish, since it carries with it so many memories for me. My other languages are Spanish and Esperanto. Mendele has been a real treat, and an educational one, for me. There is something that I have wondered about, and perhaps one of the non-Jewish German-speaking Mendelniks can answer this. My wife has many non-Jewish relatives on her father's side of the family in Germany. When they have visited here, I have played Yiddish music for them, and otherwise exposed them to the Yiddish language, hoping to initiate some conversation on the subject of the German/Yiddish connection, a subject of great interest to me. Yet there never is any reaction from them, as though this strange tongue, which must seem tantalizingly familiar and yet unfamiliar to them, was something they are seemingly deaf to. I can't understand this lack of curiousity in their part. Is it some kind of misguided politeness, or just a lack of curiousity, or what? Anyhow, to the shames and all my fellow-Mendelniks, greetings and salutations from Fair Lawn, N.J. Allan Fineberg 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 15 20:48:03 1994 From: mdevlin@acs.bu.edu Subject: Learning Yiddish Rick Gildemeister's recent posting spurs me to toss a question into the collective lap of the _Mendele_ readership. Mr. Gildemeister, you mentioned that you were neither a born Jew nor a _ger_; though I cannot judge the purity of your Yiddish, at least it seems, well, Yiddish. I am also a gentile greatly interested in the Yiddish language. I know German and a bit of Russian, so I can usually understand written (trans- literated) Yiddish; I'd like, however, to improve on that (I am a New Yorker by birth, so Yiddish IS in a way at least a part of my mother tongue). My question is, then, how did you learn Yiddish? Make that two questions: can you (or any other readers) recommend a book for learning the language? I'd especially like something that will teach me the Hebrew alphabet as used for Yiddish, but failing that, a "guide to Yiddish in transliteration" will do. Thanks to all. Mark Devlin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 15 20:55:52 1994 From: jrosof@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Shabeysenakhts [ref.: Mendele Vol 4.023] A kleyne bamerkung: Alpi mayn zikorn darf men zogn oder shpeysenakhts oder shabeysenakht ober keyn mol nisht shabeysenakhts. Der ershter hot men genitst tsvishn di poylishe un af dorem, der ershter iz a vort ba litvakn. Meyn pratim vegn dem meg men gefinen in Yidish Tsvey, fun D"r Motkhe Shekhter. Yude Rozof 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 15 22:25:47 1994 From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Eynikl, Wlochy, spuzhet, karahulke 1) In his etymological dictionary of Russian Max Vasmer connects Russian _vnuk_, Ukrainian _onuk_ etc. only distantly with German _Enkel_, which derives from Old High German _enencheli_ 'grandson' (or 'grandchild'?). The latter is explained as a diminutive of OHG _ano_ 'ancestor', _ana_ 'grandmother', which are in turn related to Latin _anus_ 'old woman' and Lithuanian _anyta_ 'mother-in-law'. Vasmer suggests that the Slavic term for grandson or grandchild may be connected with "this old word from children's language." 2) Yale Reisner has it almost right: Polish _Wl/ochy_ is the name of the country (Italy); an Italian is _Wl/och_ (pl. _Wl/osi_). The term apparently goes back to an old Germanic word for stranger or foreigner (applied to Romans and Celts); it shows up as well in geographic and ethnographic terms like Wales and Walloons. (I'll leave it to Henry Sapoznik or Michael Alpert to comment on _volekhl_.) 3) Avreymel Cassel asked about _tsespuzhet_ and _karahulke_. The former, applied to horses frightened by lightning, is presumably from Russian/Ukrainian dialectal _spuzhat'_ 'frighten'. The latter, used in the context "khaverim ... shoin avekgefirt in karahulke," is most likely Russian _karaulka_ 'guardroom' from _karaul_ 'guard, sentry' (of Turkic origin). Bob Rothstein 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 15 22:48:59 1994 From: ablair@top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: Transliteration To Irene Glasser: There are a number of transliterated Yiddish works ranging fron "good" to "feh!" Here are a couple I picked out for you: 1. Royte Pomerantsen: I. Olsvanger; Shocken Books; New York 2. Gut Yontif, Gut Yor: M.B. Jaffe; The Citadel Press, New York 3. Onions and Cucumbers and Plums: Sarah Z. Betsky, Ed.; Wayne State University Press, Detroit Enjoy Avrom Yitzkhok Blair [The shames notes that since Arn Abramson is in Thailand at the moment there may be talk about "transliteration", but warns that when Arn returns vet zikh tun khoyshekh. ;-^] 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 16 00:23:01 1994 From: mikulska@faust.Princeton.EDU Subject: Yiddish handwriting Larry Rosenwald asks for help with Yiddish handwriting. If memory serves, Dovid Katz's "Grammar of the Yiddish language", publ. by Duckworth, London 1987, contains examples of all letters of the Yiddish alphabet in their handwritten form (including final forms, where applicable), and even instructions on how to write them (i.e., the direction and order of strokes). Margaret Mikulska 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 16 07:07:48 1994 From: acassel@philly.cerf.fred.org Subject: Passive-voice translation help Thanks to those who responded to my earlier request for help. If a beginner may impose again, I'm finding myself confused about the use of the impersonal or passive-voice pronoun. Specifically I'm trying to translate the following, also from mayn zeyde's zikhroines: "Nokhdem, vi men hot zikh shoyn oysgelernt abisel shvimen in tifenish ibern kop, iz the grester ambitzie aribertzushvimen dem gantzen taykh biz oyf yener zayt vaser. Un az men filt zikh shoyn bikhoyles tzu vagen aza unternemung, lozt men zikh avek mit der beglaytung fun tzvey gute shvimer fun beaytebertzushvimen dem taykh. Un az men dergraykht dem anderen breg, meynt men, az men hot gemakht a rayze arum der velt, oder men iz ongekumen in di vaytere midboyres. "Oyfn breg tzit men zikh oys oyfn zamd tzu genisen di zigraykh ferdinte hanoe fun oysruen zikh, kedey zikh ontzushepen mit genug koyekhes tzu shvimen tzurik..." I have the general drift of what's happening; where I bog down is in figuring who the subject is when you have multiple actors: When does "men" refer to the "shvimer" vs those observing/accompanying him? Is there a grammatical rule here that I'm missing? Weinreich isn't much help, I'm afraid ... Andrew Cassel 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 16 11:51:08 1994 From: ANSUR@CUVMB.Columbia.edu Subject: Sabbetai Zevi In reply to Hugh Kottler's inquiry about Yiddish literature regarding Sabbetai Zevi (or however one latinizes the name), I'm sending the following bibligraphical reference: M. Vaynrakh [Weinreich], [A Yid- dish poem about Sabbetai Zevi from 1666.] _Tsaytshrift_ 1 (1926), 159-172. Regarding Ashkenazic false Messiahs, there is the case of Jacob Frank concerning which see Gershom Scholem's _Kabbalah_ (NY : New American Library, 1974), pp. 287-309 [bibliography on 308-309]. [This article on Frank is reprinted from the _Encyclopedia Judaica_, I believe.] Interestingly, apropos of the question of the ethnicity of the (false) Messiah, it appears that Jacob Frank was taken for a Sephardic Jew (a perception that he himself encouraged--Scholem says he "spoke Ladino when he appeared in public" [288]). Andrew Sunshine 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 16 14:51:38 1994 From: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu Subject: Sabbetai Zevi I can rarely find what I need, but I'm pretty sure there's a play by Zvi Cahn (he wrote regularly for the Forverts) "Shabsai Tsvi"; and I'm positive about a play by Aaron Zeitlin, "Jacob Frank". Noyekh Miller ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.027 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu