Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.076 August 1, 1994 1) Introduction (Susan Harlap) 2) Preserving YIVO's resources (Zachary Baker) 3) A girl named Getole (Dovid Braun) 4) Diminutive plurals (Bernard S. Greenberg) 5) Diminutive plurals (Jules Levin) 6) Without Malice(Zellig Bach) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Aug 94 08:04:00 EST From: HARLAP@biosta.mskcc.org Subject: Introduction Susan Harlap (Kharlap - rashei teyvs of course). I'm a scientist and educator in NY; formerly Prof of Epidemiology and Public Health at Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School. A dilettante student of Yiddish. Susan Harlap 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 31 Jul 94 17:36:40 PDT From: BM.YIB@RLG.Stanford.EDU Subject: Preserving YIVO's resources I'd like to thank Jeremy (Yude) Rosof for posing some questions about disaster preparedness and contingency plans at the New York YIVO (especially in light of recent events in Argentina). Few libraries and archives are truly prepared for the ultimate disaster -- fires, floods, earthquakes, explosions. Many take steps to protect their collections, and the range of steps varies according to the means available, as well as the physical conditions in which the collections are housed. Visitors often ask, for example, "Why is YIVO leaving that beautiful mansion on Fifth Avenue?" (We are in the process of relocating, first to temporary quarters at 555 West 57th Street, and in about two years' time to 15 West 16th Street -- both addresses are now official.) Having spent a grand total of twelve-and-a-half years in that building, I have witnessed more than my share of water leaks, minor floods and falling plaster, in a structure that NEVER was intended to house books and archival records. I have worried constantly that unique documents would be lost forever to a water main break (a frequent occurrence in New York City) because they are kept below street level. I have picked up volume after volume that crumble to the touch -- victims of an unforgiving climate: no air conditioning or humidity controls have ever been in place at 1048 Fifth Avenue, which is hot and damp in summer and winter alike. And then there is the space problem: We simply ran out of room to house our collections, somewhere around 1970, i.e., about 15 years after YIVO moved in. So one answer to the question, What is YIVO doing to protect its collections, is: We're moving out of a poor environment and intend to move into a far roomier and better one (funds permitting). Meanwhile, while YIVO lags somewhat behind many research institutions -- especially the large university libraries to which most MENDEL- nikes presumably have direct access -- we have accomplished a lot to preserve the intellectual contents of our collections. Large portions of the YIVO Archives and Library have been microfilmed -- not enough, but a fair amount nevertheless. The master negatives of these microfilms are stored in a secure site in Upstate New York. The bulk of our pre-1939 European Yiddish press (along with much of our American Yiddish press) is available on microfilm, and about 6,000 Yiddish books have also been microfilmed by YIVO. Other libraries, including the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, Harvard University Library, and the American Jewish Periodical Center (at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati) have also been active on that front. The National Yiddish Book Center's tremendous collecting efforts have also made it easier for the Yiddish librarian to sleep at night. YIVO is not only about Yiddish, however, and it's not only a library. We have not done as much work with our important collections in Hebrew and the Slavic languages (above all, Russian and Polish) as we have with Yiddish, though these too may be available in other libraries. As for our archival materials, there is much work still to be done. I might add that one doesn't just buy some rolls of 35 mm film, put them into a camera and start shooting; in order for a microfilmed archival collection to be truly usable, it must be arranged (organized by a professional archivist), with proper "targets" (brief descriptions) inserted before filming. Preservation -- in whatever format we're discussing (today it's microfilming; tomorrow it is likely to be in digital format) -- is a very labor-intensive (and costly) procedure. The Buenos Aires YIVO's public catalogs were destroyed; what have we in New York done to prevent the loss of that kind of information? Unfortunately, the YIVO Library has not had the staff or funds that would permit us, retrospectively, to computerize our card catalog. We have, however, reproduced the Yiddish portion of that catalog (about 30% of the total), as well as the catalog of our microfilmed press holdings, and this catalog is available for consultation in many libraries. A microfilm was also made, over 20 years ago, of the catalog of religious books (sforim) in our Vilna collection. The YIVO Archives are in the process of producing a printed guide to their collections; in advance of that, descriptions of over 1,000 YIVO Archives record groups are available online, through the RLIN bibliographical database, and diskettes for the printed guide are stored off-premises. To sum up, I'd say that YIVO in New York is somewhat better positioned to withstand the ultimate disaster than our Argentine counterpart was. We are aware, though, that our collections will continue to be at risk as long as they are not properly housed and as long as their contents have not been preserved in an appropriate medium. We are also aware that we have to reach out more to our supporters and potential supporters, so that our financial basis will also be secured, thereby enabling YIVO to continue to serve as THE address for research into Eastern European and Yiddish-speaking Jewry. Zachary Baker, YIVO Library, New York 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 31 Jul 94 16:10:18 EDT From: dovid@MIT.EDU Subject: A girl named Getole Once again to Dr. Zellig Bach: the Yiddish poet Hinde Zaretski (who is now 103 years old, if I'm not mistaken) wrote a poem about the girl named Getole. Dovid Braun 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 17:05:36 -0400 From: bsg@world.std.com Subject: Diminutive plurals Can somebody please speak to the correct orthography and sound of the -x diminutive plural? E or A? What's the deal here? I've always heard "-ax" from native speakers, but seen "-ex" written in many cases. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks, Bernard S. Greenberg 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 16:48 PST From: JFLEVIN%UCRVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Diminutive plurals Not knowing Yiddish linguistics, I have also been puzzled by these plurals. But I've always heard the ending as -(l)ax. As in kinderlax, teyglax, kneydlax. Is this the same or different ending? And is the /l/ always there? I guess I'm asking if the ending is only added to a stem ending in -l? Some general linguist but Yiddish layperson questions? The ending seems to be popular with foods that you normally make a "batch" of, i.e., a collective. In addition to the 2 foods mentioned above, I remember "bletlax" for the "crepes" you make into blintzes. Is this valid? Jules Levin 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Aug 94 01:25:50 EDT From: Zellig@aol.com Subject: Without Malice, but with Aforethought, Genuine Goodwill I ended my note on the Romanization of Yiddish in Mendele (4.059) with the following sentence: Well, I am fully aware of the E-mail network etiquette ("netiquett") not to flame people for spelling errors. But for the life of me I cannot see how a call to "greater care and self-discipline" can by any stretch of the imagination be characterized as "cross and ill-tempered" (Davis, 4.061,4). Interestingly enough, Evelyn Feins (4.060,3), whose "a shainem dank to allah" I satyrized as thanking Allah, found my comment correct and very amusing. Orbach too (4.065,7) referred to my comment as "carping," but Axelrod (4.068,3) readily saw Orbach's totally missing the important point that my suggested "alemen" in place of 'allah" was the correct grammatical dative, and that his example "Loz mir alle zingin" is not relevant to the correction. Mikhl Herzog, the famous cartographer of Yiddish and its dialects, wrote recently (4..040,5) that "in numerous Mendele postings it is... apparent that no effort to learn is taking place." I think of the Mendele khavruse as a learning society (not as yet as a learned society), and I am sure that many Mendele khaveirim wish to learn and do not mind an occasional friendly correction. Zellig Bach ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.076 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