Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.175 November 11, 1994 1) Introduction (Philip Feinsilver) 2) Jewish American Immigrant Literature (Dvora Masha Rabson) 3) Prokofiev (Dvorah Halperin Biasca) 4) Prokofiev (Arre Komar) 5) Bunke (Dovid Braun) 6) A note on double consonants (Dovid Braun) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 11 Nov 94 08:16:32 CST From: ga3613@siucvmb.siu.edu Subject: Introduction Hello. My home is in Carbondale, IL. I like dogs, cats, and music. Just one comment. My impression has been that a main feature of Yiddish is that it developed partly at least due to the fact that Jews used Hebrew characters to write their languages. Thus, apropos romanization, it seems that the converse should be of interest. Namely, how to write English (e.g.) using Hebrew characters. Philip Feinsilver 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 11:54:36 -0700 From: rabson@meeker.ucar.edu Subject: Jewish American Immigrant Literature The Boulder Yiddish Vinkl will meet Sunday, November 13, 1994 at 1 p.m. at Bonai Shalom. Robin Jones, a Ph.D. candidate in American literature who teaches Jewish-American literature at C.U. (University of Colorado) will discuss Jewish-American works, autobiographies and novels which describe the early life of Jewish immigrants, their struggles with language, American culture and assimilation. For further information, contact Debra Halperin Biasca, biasca@colorado.edu. Dvora Masha Rabson 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 14:36:58 -0700 (MST) From: biasca@horton.colorado.edu Subject: Prokofiev I'd like to respond to Dan Leeson's post about the Prokofiev piece which he recently heard performed by Russian Immigrants. The name of the piece was given as " Overture on *Yiddish* Themes", although Dan had previously heard it called "Overture on *Hebrew* Themes." I think Mendelniks have previously discussed the confusion between speaking "Jewish" (like my parents did) rather than "Yiddish" (like I try to do) which has occurred in the US. I have noticed this issue cropping up in Russian before-- confusion (mine?) confusion between the terms for 'Hebrew' and 'Yiddish.' The first time, I was tutoring an immigrant from Leningrad and talking to her about some Yiddish expressions (her grandmother spoke Yiddish but she didn't). She and her husband then had a discussion amongst themselves about whether I was talking about 'Idish' or 'Ivrit.' The husband had no language to associate with "Idish" as I recall; and there was general confusion as to how we could distinguish between 'Hebrew' and 'Yiddish' in Russian. I also noticed a comment by Aaron Lansky in the Pakn Trager a couple years back when he was delivering books in the former Soviet Union somewhere (exactly where?) and someone said to him 'Ivrit?' and he took it to mean 'Hebrew', I think. I had the feeling that Mr. Lansky and the Russian speaker did not have the same understanding about this word. Perhaps another Mendelnik still has the Pakn Trager and can clarify. Finally, there is a current publication published in Moscow in Russian and Yiddish. On one side of the journal we find Cyrillic characters which I'd transliterate as 'Ebreiskaya Ulitsa' while on the other side, in undze r tayere yidishe oysyes, we find 'Yidishe Gas.' This is just like the titles noted by Dan Leeson for the Prokofiev piece, isn't it, where 'Yiddish' is the English equivalent of 'Hebrew' in Russian? Can anyone comment on the possibility of a dual naming system in Russian like we had/have in the US for the Yiddish language (Jewish vs Yiddish)? For Jewish people in general (unless this is not an appropriate subject for Mendele)? For example, in France, they call me an Israelite rather than 'Juive.' Are these are related issues? Are they, perhaps, part of a euphemism/dysphemism process which we have also seen applied to other minority groups? Comments? Dvorah Halperin Biasca 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 22:07:53 -0500 (EST) From: komar@yu1.yu.edu Subject: Prokofiev overture The Prokofiev overture should really be called "on Yiddish themes" since that is what it is. He used in a very prominant place a rather well known Yiddish folk song "Zayzhe dir gezunt mayne tayer eltern" which he learned from his NYC room-mate and prominant Yiddish theater actor, Boris Tomashevsky. I suspect that several other melodies were also Yiddish songs of the same provinance however I am not able to idntify them explicitly. While I'm on the subject of music, some time ago there was a discussion of the Shostakovitch work of a similar sort. In that case the songs were composed by Shostakovitch in a very powerful and moving way keeping strongly to the mood and sentiment of the Yiddish folk poems, several of which were known to be set to their own folk music. I have heard at least two of them performed on records. One had the refrain "Ot, ot, ot azoy est di tsieg fun dakh di hoy." I was wondering if anyone would know a reference where I could track down the entire song. The second song is of some interest with regard to the discussion of "petshke". In that song the refrain is from a young man to his shy girl friend to "gib mir dayne pishkeynu" meaning of course her mouth ...evidently derived from the diminutive of the Hebrew "pe". Could it be that the use of petchke for chin has a similar etymology? Arre Komar 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 03:11:25 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Bunke _bunke_ (pronounced by the locals [bunki]) is a 'teapot' in the language of Yiddish-speakers in the towns between Bialystok and Grodno (and other places as well?). My grandmother, from Sukhovolye (Polish: Suchowola) told me that _bunki_ was what it was called in her town, but when she visited Grodne as a child, she learned that the locals there called it a _lyak_. Sukhovolye is a neighbor of Yashenofki (Polish: Jasiono'wka) and Grayvi (Polish: Grajewo). Dovid Braun 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 03:30:46 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: A note on double consonants Note that the Romanization/transliteration/transcription system that we have (and a yasher-koyekh for working on it and making it public!) needs a pitsinke refinement: double consonants ARE okay when they reflect the meeting of two morphemes, one which ends with the same letter that the other begins with. (If you're not familiar with the term, a morpheme can be defined very loosely as a 'piece of a word'.) So the correct transwhatever-you-call-it-ization is farrekhenen and not farekhenen onnemen and not onemen mittantsn and not mitantsn even though, in fact, the consonants are pronounced as if only one were present. The spelling of such complex words with only one consonant (as in the second column of the "chart") was one of the inovations (sic!) of the Soviet Yiddish spelling system. The eradication of the final letters and the phonemicization of the spelling of words of Semitic origin get the most attention; but this too was one of the radical moves of the Soviet Yiddish spelling system. (I doubt anyone will be able to project any anti- Zionist, anti-Hebrew, anti-Hebraist, anti-religious, anti-Jewish- traditionalist reasons behind _this_ move, as people often do for the other, more blatant, changes.) Dovid Braun ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.175 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. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. 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