Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.119 October 2, 1994 1) Introduction (Motl Aronson) 2) The Rabinershe's Husband (Moyshe-Zekharye Beker) 3) Az der bubbe vot gehat.. (Bob Poe) 4) Az der bubbe vot gehat.. (Howard Kaplan) 5) Workshop on Yiddish in the computer age (Yosl Berman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 23:03:52 -0400 (EDT) From: marnor@minerva.cis.yale.edu Subject: Introduction I am a third generation American, whos parents left the Jewish ghetto of Boston for the suburbs of New York. Also left Yiddish behind and rarely used what little they did know. For some reason not quite known to me (but it seems to have a political root) I've always had some interest in Yiddish. Studied German in high school, the closest thing offered (and besides my sister was doing French, and I didn't want to do what my sister was doing, (no way)) and by the time I left college I was reasonably bad in it. Wrote occasional letters to my grandpa (from Poland) in German and he answered in the same. Studied Yiddish briefly at Gratz College in Philadelphia, with an interesting melange of people who could read it fluently from their Hebrew studies, but didn't understand a word, people who couldn't read but knew a lot of phrases from their childhood but mixed it with so much "Yinglish" that it was incomprehenisible to most and then me who understood the lion's share due to my german knowledge, but I couldn't read a word (never studied Hebrew.) I then moved to Amsterdam and studied Dutch, intensively. So now what little Yiddish I was learning is trashed, my German is seriously compromised and spoken with a Netherlandish accent. Go figure. I also play clarinet but not nearly well enough to do any serious Klezmer. Would like to meet people in the New Haven area to actually pursue the spoken and written part of Yiddish, so that I can add that too to may array of confused languages. Wouldn't mind jamming with some equally bad klezmer musicians as well. Mark (Motl) Aronson P.S. I'm totally new to the Internet and email as well. Learning this language as I go along too. Wish me luck. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94 11:35:41 PDT From: BM.YIB@RLG.Stanford.EDU Subject: The Rabinershe's Husband Vi ruft men on "der rabinershes man" af yidish? Moyshe-Zekharye Beker P.S. Bay undz in Braunstoun Bruklin iz do azelkher. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94 15:00:42 EDT From: poe@keps.com Subject: "Az der bubbe vot gehat.." In 4.118, Zellig Bach analyses Steven Pinker's transcription: Az der bubbe vot gehat baytzim vot zie geven mein zayde in great detail, finding evidence in the spelling of a Central Yiddish dialect (loosely and ungrammatically recorded). Clearly, Pinker is unaware of the YIVO conventions and is employing an ad-hoc romanization, based on phonetics and influenced by German spelling. But I would argue against the CY classification. The spelling "mein" for "mayn" is Germanic and indicates Pinker's choice for a romanization of the "ay" diphthong. Therefore, I think it probable that when he uses the "ay" spelling, he intends it to represent something else--presumably the "ey" diphthong, but rendered according to *English* phonetics. Thus, in a YIVO-like transcription he would have written (I believe): Az d[i] bube vo[l]t gehat beytsim, vo[l]t zi geven mayn zeyde. This is consistent with Northeastern Yiddish, except for the sub- stitution of "bube" for "bobe". This last consideration would seem to indicate a Southeastern dialect (except that "mayn" would tend to be drawled, as "ma:n", but that detail could easily have been overlooked under the weight of the German cognate). So I vote for SE. On a related note, if the original source actually had "di bobe", shouldn't it have had "der zeyde", instead of "mayn zeyde"? In general, under what circumstances do Yiddish speakers use the definite article, rather than the possessive pronoun, or *both* ("di mame mayne")? Bob Poe 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 16:57:13 EDT From: hkaplan@woods.uml.edu Subject: As der bubbe vot gehat... I stopped reading Mendele a while back because I was sick of the grammarians. Visions of correctniks with rulers in their hands hovering over me and my barely legible scrawl crept into my head. Today I decided to give it another try and, boy, things are getting worse. Poor Pinker, the MIT linguist, gets slammed for gender errors, romanisms, germanisms, you-name-it-isms. All because of a few words in Yiddish about grandmothers, grandfathers and balls. A shande, I tell you. Now there's talk of a "Correct Yiddish" for Mendele contributors. I say it's time for a schism: Let those whose only joy is gerunds, past tenses, flogging others and answering such questions as "does anal retentive have a hyphen" form one group. The rest of us can be on our merry way as language free spirits, literature enjoyers, joke tellers. So, what do you say? Howard Kaplan 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 01 Oct 1994 19:04:47 EST From: berman@mars.senecac.on.ca Subject: Workshop on Yiddish in the Computer Age On Sunday, October 9, as part of the Second International Conference of Yiddish Clubs, I will be leading a workshop titled "Yiddish in the Computer Age". I will be describing some of the many different ways in which Yiddish Language and Culture has adapted to computer technology. I will be demonstrating a Yiddish word processing system using WordPerfect, talking about other software which can be used for Yiddish, and introducing the workshop members to the idea of the Internet; in particular to the Mendele list. We will be connecting live to the Internet, as part of the workshop, and accessing some issues of Mendele that have some interesting content. If anyone has any suggestions for the workshop or would like to send a salutation or message to anyone at the workshop, please reply before next weekend. Thank you for your help. Yosl Berman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.119 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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