Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.219 December 7, 1994 1) Id/yid, ippies/yippies (Shleyme Axelrod) 2) Thank-yous (Sol Steinmetz) 3) Kristlen un yidlen (Moshe Waldoks) 4) Biz 120 (Dan Leeson) 5) Dialect variants (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Dec 1994 11:26:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptyaxel@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: id/yid, ippies/yippies A fellow-Mendelyaner writes that he and his "idene" went visiting last week. Now, "idene", "id","idn", "idish" were so pronounced 60 years ago when I was the child of Litvakes in Brooklyn. That was also the spelling: [shtumer alef-yud-daled ...]. "Yid-", etc., beginning [yud-khirek yud], have now become standard. The Yiddish Forverts has resisted the standardization, and, with a few exceptions, like the Mloteks' contributions, continues with "id-", etc. Fair enough, I guess: two Jews, three shuls, as the joke has it. But look what the resistance to [yud-khirek yud] has led to. In their obituary of Jerry Rubin, the Forverts writes (12/2/94, p. 28) "er iz geven, tsuzamen mit abi hofman un poul krasner, a mitgrinder fun di 'ipis' [shtumer alef-yud-pey-yud-samekh], di rosheteyves [initial letters] fun 'yut interneshonal parti'." Thus, while acknowledging through their yiddishization that the English nick-name of the group must have been "Yippies", the editors seem forced to write it as if the English word were "Ippies". Shleyme Axelrod 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Dec 94 16:39:21 EST From: ssteinmetz@randomhouse.com Subject: Thank-yous to Zellig Bach and Mikhl Herzog I deeply appreciate Zellig Bach's "Campaign for a new edition of Steinmetz's book" (4.90 and 4.213). Allow me, however, to correct the e-mail addresses at the University of Alabama Press. They are: nmitchell@ua1vm.ua.edu and jzigler@ua1vm.ua.edu The title of my book is _Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America_. Oykh a hartsikn yasher-koyekh tsu undzer khoshevn khaver un lerer, mikhl herzog, farn ershtn band fun zayn monumentaler _der yidisher shprakh- un kultur atlas_ vos ikh hob gehat der koved un di hanoe tsu bakumen fun im a por teg tsurik. kh'muz zogn a por verter vegn dem af english az ale zoln farshteyn: This work-in-progress, _The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry_, is one of the great monuments of Yiddish scholarship. Marvin (mikhl) Herzog is performing a tremendous service to Yiddish dialectology and linguistics in bringing to completion the work conceived by Uriel Weinreich, of blessed memory, and launched by him and Professor Herzog. The introductory material is brilliant, especially Chaper IV (The Systematic Dialectology of Yiddish), and the series of maps are stunning in their detail and comprehensiveness. The work is bilingual, equally useful to Yiddish speakers and Anglophones not proficient in Yiddish. No scholarly work on the dialects of Yiddish can be done today without reference to this great work. Sol Steinmetz 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 16:37 EDT From: waldoks@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Subject: Kristlen un yidlen Attributed to Heinrich Heine, I believe. It refers to the fact that Jewish fashion follows Christian fashion. Maybe he was prophesying the phenomenon of glatt kosher chinese restaurants. mit kovid Moshe Waldoks 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Dec 1994 16:47:47 EST From:leeson@aspen.fhda.edu Subject: Biz 120 The former conductor of the San Jose, CA symphony orchestra is named George Cleve. His father was well into his 90s when he died and I would frequently visit him to talk Yiddish. He once confided in me that, as a youngster when studying medieval German poetry in a largely Gentile class, "the other students were having trouble, but to me it was mostly Yiddish." Anyway, to my point: whenever I would, in reference to him, say, "biz a hundert und tsfantsik" he always corrected me by saying, "a hundert und fehrtsik." When I would inquire why, his response was always the same: "Inflation!" Felix Cleve was, perhaps, the world's leading authority on Anaxagoras and I concluded this by looking up articles on Anaxagoras in 5 different encyclopedias. Each was by a different author, but each noted, as the most important resource in their bibliography Dr. Cleve's writings on the subject. His Yiddish was so refined and elegant that I would just sit and listen to him speak on a variety of topics (including Brahms) for hours. Biz 140!! Dan Leeson 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Dec 94 00:47 EST From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu Subject: dialect variants Arre Komar: "gegangn" would be quite unusual; "gegangen" (with "bin" except among Litvaks who say "hob") is more usual; note also "gegan" (NOT just an abbreviation) and "geganen". Variation is regional but map has not yet been plotted. Central Yiddish "Ikh hob dikh/zi lib", Litvish Yiddish "ikh hob dir/ir lib" (Standard requires the accusative forms "dikh/zi") I have never heard or read a mention of "oon" in Yiddish. Can you trace the source of your informationm? tshatshke vs. tsatske The distinction you offer is a nice one. I know it from my own experience but I've simply not been conscious of it. There are other dialectally variant pairs that are similarly exploited: e.g. "pupik/pipik" 'navel' [or 'gizzard'] (derived from Eastern Slavic) as against"pempik" 'fat belly'/'chubby fellow' (derived from Polish). Where are your parents from? The most "yidishlekh" relative pronoun is "vos" regardless of gender or number: er iz der vos ...; zi iz di vos . . .; zey zaynen di vos . . . . Definitely "faran(en)" not "es git". Logic shmogic! The system that uses "x" vs "kh", "c" vs "ts", etc, like the International Phonetic Alphabet, also requires the extensive use of diacritics and often of unusual symbols that are ordinarily available only to specialists. We can't even transmit them on E- mail. I always use it in rendering dialect variants in the Atlas, but not in transcribing Standard Yiddish. Mikhl Herzog ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.219 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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