Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.053 July 11, 1994 1) Introduction (Raizl Miller) 2) Teu teu teu (Yude Rozof) 3) Skvira (Arn Abramson) 4) Childhood Misconceptions (David Sherman) 5) Ortografye (Khayem Bochner) 6) Shakti (Meylekh Viswanath) 7) Cultural Events (Paula Horwitz) 8) Solent (Jules Levin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 12:27:39 -0700 (PDT) From: remiller@netcom.com Subject: Introduction Ikh hays Raizl. This summer I am attending the Uriel Weinrich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at Columbia University through Yivo and Columbia. I volunteer at Yivo, where I am currently cataloging a collection of photographs by Menachem Kipnis taken in Poland in the 1920's. Also I serve as a docent at the Jewish Museum in New York City. I am interested in Yiddish language and literature and Eastern European Jewish history. A sheynem dank. Renee "Raizl" Miller 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Jul 1994 19:27:49 -0400 (EDT) From: jrosof@sas.upenn.edu Subject: teu teu teu During a recent conversation with friends in Germany, my mitshmueser listed a bunch of happy events followed by "Teu teu teu" read /toy/. This sounded very much like konehore and shpay oys dray mol (spit out thrice) in yiddish superstition surrounding the evil eye. Am I correct in supposing this etymology for the German expression? I also would like to repost my question on knibbers which does not seem to have been posted as a result of last week's confusion. My father from Brooklyn has an expression "a little weak in the knibbers," which is roughly equivalent to "nisht mit alemen, a bit under the weather." What the heck are knibbers? Is this from Yiddish? Yude Rozof 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Jul 94 21:43:32 EDT From: ABRAMSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Subject: Skvira David Sherman asked about the location of Skvir in Europe. I have found an entry for Skvira on p. 93 of Cohen, Chester G. (1989). Shtetl Finder. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books. "Skvira, SW of Kiev "West of Belaya Tserkov.A branch of the Twersky dynasty of chassidic rabbis was based in Skvira, dating from Yitzchak Tversky 1912-1885." Cohen says there is an article on Skvira in the Encyclopedia Judaica, 1971. Also, it is number 6107 in erl Kagan's 1975 book Sefer Haprenumerantn (Hebrew Subscription Lists). Arn Abramson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 2:11:48 EDT From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca Subject: Re: Childhood Misconceptions Leah Zazulyer writes: > This story has made me curious about other possible childhood > misconceptions about Yiddish, or Jewishness. Any out there? Our kids have gone through brief stages of thinking that someone who doesn't speak Yiddish isn't Jewish. The explanations get confusing because of the double meaning of the word _yidish_, of course. (We speak to them only in Yiddish, so there's no opportunity to clarify with the English terminology.) There's also the misconception that a man who doesn't wear a yarmulke isn't Jewish, which can happen to kids who grow up in Orthodox communities. David Sherman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 10:04:27 -0400 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: ortografye Peter Kluehs shraybt: > majn erschter briw in jiddisch Nu, borekh-habe! S'iz zeyer sheyn tsu zen vi emester lernt zikh yidish! > Derf ich aich onmutn asa ortografie oder hobt ir liber as ich lern > schrajbn as ir schrajbt in der YIVO ortografie? Mir volt take liber geven ven ir shraybt mitn Yivo-transkriptsye. Der kop dreyt zikh mir shoyn genug ven me nitst nor _eyn_ sistem ;-) Dos bisele daytsh vos ikh ken iz koym genug, ikh zol kenen farshteyn az ven ir shraybt "zi ss'is", vilt ir zogn "tsi s'iz"; far di vos kenen nisht di daytshe ortografye, iz dos in gantsn nisht tsu farshteyn! Nu, yeder onheyb iz shver! S'iz gut vos ir hot gemakht an onheyb; lomir hern vayter fun aykh! Khayem Bochner 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 10:23:37 EDT From: pviswana@andromeda.rutgers.edu Re: mendele@shakti zayt mir moykhl--dos hot gor nisht tsu tin mit yidish. nor ikh miz epes zogn vegn dem! I am glad that even though I don't normally had power breakfasts and power lunches, I do now subscribe to a mailing list that operates out of a 'power' computer! Shakti, the new (?) name of the computer from which mendele operates is a sanskrit word, which means power, and which also represents the female deity, usually thought of as the consort of Shiva, who is himself also thought of as androgynous. So, it is also a politically correct name (methinks, anyway). Meylekh Viswanath 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 13:59:48 -0400 (EDT) From: PQH5922@ACFcluster.NYU.EDU Subject: Cultural Events Thursday, July 14 The Jewish Book Center, 45 East 33rd St. New York City is having a book fair from noon to 7:00pm and Yiddish film at 6:30. Fair FREE, film$7. The Yiddish concert at Lincoln Center last week was terrific. Even the heat couldn't stiffle the spirit as over a thousand came to hear, sing and dance. Anyone who missed it, or out of towners interested in planning a tirp here to coincide with a Yiddish event can catch the concert at on or more of the followingtimes: Wed. Aug. 3rd 6:30 at Henry Hudson Park in Riverdale; Thurs. Aug. 4th 6:30 at McDonald Park, Forest Hills; Wed Aug. 17th 6:30 Cunningham Park, Flushing; Sund. Aug. 14th 6:00 Kensico Dam Plaza Valhalla; and Sun. Aug 21st 7:00 at Seaside Park, Brighton Beach. Paula Horwitz 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 12:28 PST From: JFLEVIN%UCRVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Solent Regarding "solent" (Solent Green?). This must be a misremembered [tsolent]. My father's family, REAL Litvaks, pronounced it [tsount]. This Litvak dialect pronunciation, brought to America in the great wave, and well-represented in my family (those who heard my cousin Sol Goldstein, whose postumous troubles have been on the front page of the Forward, heard a perfect rendition of this dialect feature--in English and Lith, as well as Yiddish!), began to retreat after the turn of the century and the spread of standard Yiddish from urban centers. Jules Levin ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.053 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