Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.033 June 20, 1994 1) Biographical dictionary (Odem Vaytman) 2) Biographical dictionary (Dovid Braun) 3) Yiddish and German(s) (Rick Gildemeister) 4) Tzene-rene (Dvosye Bilik) 5) Asch; Glatshteyn (Dan Leeson) 6) German Jewish Names (Allan Fineberg) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Jun 19 21:28:04 1994 From: 74031.775@CompuServe.COM Subject: Biographical dictionary Dear Khaver Noyekh, Please explain how your proposed biographical dictionary of the world of Yiddish letters would differ from the multivolume "Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur"? Odem Vaytman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 13:43:04 EDT From:dovid@MIT.EDU Subject: der leksikon noyekh, veyst ir funem leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur? dos iz tsen-tsvelf bend mit biografishe artiklen vegn di shraybers funem modernem gedruktn yidishn vort. Dovid Braun 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Jun 20 08:49:02 1994 From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Yiddish and German(s) I was very gratified to see Mark Devlin's thoughtful posting on Yiddish and German. The linguistic points especially interested me. My readings on the origin of standard Hochdeutsch and also of Yiddish place them, coinidentally, both in Middle East Franconia. This was a "colonial" area in the early days of German and Jewish eastward migration. It drew from many dialects in the mixed bag of German dialects, as Mark pointed out. The fact that Yiddish and German seem so close has to do with their "origin" in the same area. You go South and Yiddish clearly seems closer to Standard German. Both, also, include a heavy overlay of Bavarian. I called my brother in Germany this weekend, who boards with a peasant couple in Bavaria. I tried desperately to communicate with them, then suddenly realized that it might be easier if I treated the speech as a dialect of Yiddish (I issued that instruction into my brain). I was amazed and delighted to hear that my brother was not "heimgekimen" (should be "nach Hause gekommen". There it was, the German version of "er iz nit gekumen aheym". The only area, as I understand what I've read,that contributed to German but not to Yiddish is the Low German area. German is full of doublets: Waffen = weapons; Wappen = coat of arms. The attitudes that I've surveyed among both German Jews and non-Jews is that "Yiddish is not a language". That comes partly from the psychological stuff Mark talked about. There's one other possibility, and that is that Mayrev Yiddish went through a profound change during the 19th century. The German component of the Yiddish dialects was superseded by local Gentile patois. What was left is what some writers call "Juedisch-Deutsch", i.e. German with many Romance and loshn-koydesh elements used in Jewish contexts, or in certain heavily Jewish occupations such as cattle- and horse-trading. However, once you get out of Germany proper and go, let's say to Switzerland, the full, original dialect still obtains. It resembles standard German much more than the local Schwyzerduutsch patois (from which it has borrowed almost nothing). So, to come back to Juedisch-Deutsch; Germans view this as a set of colorful expressions, but they recognize that these alone do not constitute a language. So there's a real confusion about Yiddish, Juedisch-Deutsch, and Jewish speech. Hearing Jews speaking Juedisch-Deutsch confuses the listener, who calls it "Yiddish" and concludes that these peppered phrases are an in-group slang and definitely not a language. Even Heinrich Heine was confused, since he deplored the "condition of the Polish Jews' German". Rick Gildemeister 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Jun 20 13:55:51 1994 From: Dorothy_BILIK@umail.umd.edu Subject: Tzene-rene Matt Dailey: I hope that in your research on Tsene-rene you have come across my article in Vol 51 93-94 of JBA pp.96-111 which offers a different perception of the Mazorah translation. Dvosye Bilik 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 From:leeson@cedar.fhda.edu Subject: Asch; Glatshteyn [to Noyekh Miller:] Regarding your most interesting comment that you were witness to the change in Sholem Asch, you indicated that the details of that change might come at some other time. It is now another time. I am most curious about Asch because I so enjoyed reading him in the late 40s and throughout the 50s. And it broke my heart when he disappeared. A separate point. You mentioned Glatshteyn. I have only one of his poems and I had to have it read to me because I do not read Yiddish. But I got it because the title was "Mozart" (a favorite subject of mine) and I went crazy when I heard it because it displayed such a love of the composer's music. Do you know anything about Glatshteyn? I have tried to find out if he wrote other poems about Mozart but I can barely find out anything about him, and thus do not know what his background was, and from where grew his appreciation of Mozart. Dan Leeson 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Jun 19 16:58:45 1994 From: afineber@llnj.ll.pbs.org Subject: German Jewish Names A question for fellow-Mendelniks: Some time ago, a friend told me that the family name Arlook has a rather unpleasant origin, namely the German word Arschloch. Any Mendelniks care to comment? Also, I want to thank all those who were kind enough to follow up on my recent posting re the Yiddish/German connection. Allan Fineberg ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.033 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