Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.201 November 28, 1994 1) Offers of help (Louis Fridhandler) 2) The "friendly" editorial board idea (Glenn Levine) 3) Experiments (Arn Abramson) 4) Zelig Bakh's matone (Dvosye Bilik) 5) A naye alte mayse (Peter Kluehs) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Nov 94 17:48:50 EST From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: Offers of help I was astonished to sense the fierce resentment aroused by Zellig Bach's offer to help with writing romanized Yiddish. I can't understand that. In solitude, with my computer keyboard, I can construct a few decent Yiddish paragraphs with the silent help of my friends, Weinreich, Harkavy and YIVO. It takes time, and I would not want to burden any volunteers with work I can do myself (to adequate degree). If, some years ago, I was offered the kind of help suggested by Zellig, I would have jumped at the chance. I would not have been shy about using someone's time. An inducement for the teacher: The teacher also learns. Teaching and learning cannot be separated. They are always simultaneous. Yiddish (unlike German) recognizes that phenomenon by using lernen for both simultaneous processes (inserting the reflexive zikh for finer distinction). You could add criticism, too, as an essential element in the soup. It s no shame. All elements are necessary. The teacher will inevitably learn, and will get useful criticism. No guilt should be felt by any helpee, and no helper ever earns the right to be arrogant. To me, it all sounded like a friendly offer, colleague to colleague. It s clear. Those who do not want help need not ask for it. But there's no reason to interpret generosity to the group as a slap in anyone's individual ponim. Reaching for high standards is good. It takes time. Jews have always worked hard to meet such demands. Sure, we can relax and enjoy our attainments, but there's always more to attain. Why stop? I would be happy to volunteer to help where I can, but I fear the possible howls of resentment. Relax. Helpers are not dangerous beasts. Louis Fridhandler 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 17:42:22 -0600 (CST) From: schmuel@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Subject: The "friendly" editorial board idea I would like to express my assent with the refreshing, useful comments made by Dan Slobin and Dan Leeson about Zellig Bach's recommendation that Yiddish texts on Mendele be "corrected" before being released on the network. For as pointless as I find it to debate endlessly about how to best represent Yiddish with the Roman alphabet (I believe Arn Abramson pointed out that a guide is available to anyone interested), I find it even worse to imagine that many of the (perhaps less than fully fluent) speakers of Yiddish out there might choose to not express themselves at all in Yiddish because of some heightened concern for "grammatical" Yiddish. If we were talking about an organized, edited publication in Yiddish (e.g. Afn shvel, di goldene keyt etc.) then I believe no one would question the need for an editorial board (indeed it would be unthinkable to have a journal without one!). But I have always understood Mendele to be a forum for the free exchange of ideas, questions, inspiration etc. I hope others feel as I do, that it would be a shame to impose prescriptivist norms on such a rare situation as this. Glenn Levine 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Nov 94 19:52:24 EST From: abramson@uconnvm.uconn.edu Subject: Experiments Khayem Bochner, a blessing on his head, is trying to add more tasks to my busy life. Most of my speech rsearch is done at Haskins Laboratories, where I am a Research Associate; however, it would not be right for me to use time and facilities there for work, interesting though it might be, that is not supported by one of our grants. I might, nevertheless, be able to squeeze in a little exploratory work in our lab at The University of Connecticut. Although I retired from the faculty there over two years ago, as Professor Emeritus I still access to space and equipment in the Department of Linguistics. For that matter, some of the work can be done in my house! By the way, Khayem's kind words about me force me to demur a bit. Two other members of ours, my colleagues Leigh Lisker and Alice Faber, who are also Research Associates at Haskins, could also do this work. Indeed, Leigh and I have been "business partners" for many years in a series of cross-language studies on voicing, aspiration, etc. There is only one native speaker of Yiddish around here whom I can get to without too much trouble. One or more of you would have to send me the necesary tape recordings on a cassette. As I said in a recent message, the items of interest to us would have to be recorded in identical or very similar contexts. For example: Veyst ir vos er redt? vs. Zeyt ir vemen er ret? I hope these are idiomatic. We would have to have, say, five utterances of each recorded by each informant. Also, the list of items to be recorded should contain as many fake items as real ones, and the whole bunch should be somewhat randomized. That is, we don't want the purpose of the exercise to be obvious to our speakers. (With all respect to the native speakers among us, if any of you offered to record the items, I would like to be assured that you are using very natural, relaxed speech without trying for clear distinctions.) As for Khayem's recollections on aspiration in Yiddish from the literature, I cannot comment, as I have not been following that literature. I hope that Mikhl Herzog can help us in this. My own impression is that the stop consonants /ptk/ are aspirated before vowels, unless preceded by /sh/ as in /shpeyt/ 'late.' I think also that there is no aspiration in such expressions as /bistu/ or /hostu/. My reasoning, and Leigh Lisker's, is that in this context there is no contrast between /t/ and /d/, so, in the absence of what I think is the normaal aspiration, how do we justify insisting on calling that consonant /t/ rather than /d/. These auditory impressions of mine come from listening, both here and in Europe--and, for that matter, Asia--to speakers of a number of Yiddish dialects. As a non-Yiddishist, I have never looked at the question systematically. Let me make it clear that by "aspiration" I mean nothing exotic. It is essentially what we hear at the beginnings of the English words "ten, toe, pear, poor, core" and the standard German words "Paar, Tat, Kind." A cassette can be sent to: Arthur S. Abramson, 43 Timber Dr., Storrs, CT 06268 or to me at: Dept. of linguistics, U. of Connecticut, 341 Mansfield Rd., Storrs, CT 06269-1145 or at: Haskins Labs., 270 Crown St., New Haven. CT 06511-6695 Arn Abramson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Nov 94 01:25 EST From: dorothy_bilik@umail.umd.edu Subject: Zelig Bakh's matone A sheynem dank tsu Zelign far zayn vunderbare matone [Vol 4.188]. ikh kum ersht fun a tsen teg nesie in nyu york, nyu jersi un nyu hempsher mit kinder un eyniklekh.Fun vanen hut der kluger zelig gevust az ikh bin a farbrente on hengerke fun Lord un Taylorn? Dvosye Bilik 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Nov 1994 15:37:00 +0200 From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de Subject: A naye alte mayse mit a por teg tsurik hobn mir gekont leyenen mit mechaye di mayses fun dem shnayderl (Lord un Taylor) un fun dem kendi-men. iz, haynt vel ikh aykh shraybn a naye mayse funem bukh fun Salcia Landmann. Di lererin fregt a shiler: "Vos dos iz: a tragedye?" Zogt der shiler: "Lemoshl yene vokh iz mayn kleyne shvester aroysgefaln fun der vig un hot zikh zeklapt di noz. Hob ikh gehert, vi di mame hot geshrign un geveynt, az es iz geshen a tragedye." Zogt di lererin: "Dos iz nisht keyn tragedye, dos ken hekhstens zayn a tsufal. - Nu, ver fun aykh veys?" Zogt a tsveyter: "Yene vokh hot a ganef geganvet bay mayn boben a por shikh fun balkon. Hob ikh gehert, vi zi zogt tsum tatn: Ey, es iz a tragedye!" Zogt di lererin: "Dos iz nisht keyn tragedye, dos iz a farlust." "Nekhtn hot an oyto ibergeforn a froy." "Neyn", zogt di lererin, dos iz an umglik....Nu, keyner fun aykh veys nisht, vos dos iz, a tragedye?" Zogt Moyshele: "Ikh veys. A tragedye iz, az Stalin iz geshtorbn." "Oysgetseykhnt! Fun vanen veystu dos?" "Ikh hob mir barekhnt azoy: A tsufal iz es nisht, a farlust oykh nisht. An umglik awade nisht. Ken es nisht zayn epes andersh nor a tragedye." Peter Kluehs ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.201 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. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. 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