Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.225 December 8, 1994 1) Cryptic language (Bob Rothstein) 2) Western Yiddish and thieves'language (Marion Aptroot) 3) When Sholem-Aleykhem defied the censor (Louis Fridhandler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 07 Dec 1994 23:17:21 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Cryptic language In writing about Yiddish influences on Polish (_International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics_ 25/26 [1982]), I had occasion to quote the comments of two great Yiddish linguists on the subject of Yiddishisms in European underworld slang. Max Weinreich, in his 1940 article on Yiddish in the _Algemeyne yidishe entsiklopedye_, pointed out that the Yiddish influence on neighboring languages is almost exclusively on the language of "the lower strata of the population or of specific groups (e.g., student language)" and that "in creating their secret language thieves have recourse to those linguistic elements that are unknown to the majority of the population." Ber Borokhov, on the other hand, writing in 1913, argued that "Jews have always constituted a large percentage of thieves' and swindlers' gangs. This explains the fact that a large number of words from Yiddish can be found in the thieves' dialects of the nations of the world, in particular in Germany. These are mostly corrupted Hebrew and Aramaic words." Bob Rothstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 23:59:35 -0500 (EST) From: aptroot@husc.harvard.edu Subject: Western Yiddish and thieves'language On Wed, 7 Dec 1994 Jules Levin wrote: > What unites all this, or at least what should be brought into the > discussion, is the role of Yiddish/Hebrew in traditional European > criminal cant. A few years ago at a semiotics conference in Berkeley, > someone gave a paper on a dictionary of Berlin criminal jargon published > by the Police Chief of Berlin in the 19th century. There is a longish > introduction to the dictionary written by the police chief himself. At > one point he states that the criminals do not want outsiders to > understand their language, and he quotes a saying of theirs to the effect > that one shouldn't teach their jargon to the "marks". The police chief was not from Berlin but from Luebeck, I believe, certainly from Northwest Germany. His name is F.C.B. Ave-Lallemant and his book _Das deutsche Gaunerthum in seiner social-politischen, literarischen und linguistischen Ausbildungen zu seinem heutigen Bestande_ (4 vols. Leipzig, 1858-1862) was undertaken as a criminological study, a description of German thieves' language, Rotwelsch. While he was working on it, he became fascinated with the Yiddish language and decided to write a special section on Yiddish and compile a dictionary of this language. He states very clearly that Yiddish is not the same as Rotwelsch and that many Hebraisms in Rotwelsch couldn't have come from Yiddish. Of course there are words and expressions that did come from Yiddish, but Ave-Lallemant was one of the first to realize that the two "languages" were distinct. It is because of this, that his work includes _two_ "dictionaries": a Yiddish and a separate Rotwelsch dictionary. This is not to say that there was no influence of Yiddish on Rotwelsch, only that it is much less significant than suggested by a couple of contributors to Mendele. If a nineteenth-century German police chief finds it necessary to make a distinction between Yiddish and Rotwelsch, why aren't Yiddish enthusiasts prepared to do so? Marion Aptroot 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 07 Dec 94 23:45:33 EST From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: When Sholem-Aleykhem defied the censor The recent talk of censorship on Mendele seems to be just idle talk. But it reminded me of the times of Sholem-Aleykhem when the work and personal safety of writers were truly threatened by tsarist censorship. I was especially reminded of a little known work by Sholem-Aleykhem, "Der Feter Pinye Mit Der Mume Reyze," published by Bikher Far Ale. On the flyleaf is printed, "Povoleno tsenzuroyu, Varshava, 11 Marta 1905" [Permitted by censor, Warsaw. March 11, 1905]. It was a political satire on the Russo-Japanese War in the form of an allegory. Hulking, clumsy Mume Reyze represented Russia, while lean and agile Feter Pinye represented Japan. It was published before the tsarist officials realized its meaning. Later, it dawned on them and the copies were confiscated. Here is what Mume Reyze was like according to Sholem-Aleykhem: A hoykhe, a gezunte, dos ponim fet, di hent megushem grob, di negl shvarts, a kol fun a mansbil, a harts fun a toter, a karge, a foyle shtik, nit aza shlekhte, vi an ongebroygezte af der gantser velt, zeyer a proste zakh - ot dos iz geven di mume Reyze. Nokh a mayle: gehalten fun der akhile un lib gehat, zol zi mir moykhl zayn ... tsvishn undz vet dokh es mistome blaybn, ikh volt dos aykh gezogt glaykh, past dos ober nisht far keyn froy ... bekitser, zi hot lib gehat dos trunk, un dafke oft, un dafke a poshet bisl yash, un dafke fun a tey-gloz. Gezogt hot men, az dos iz a khalas. Andere hobn gerekhnt, az dos iz ir gekumen beyerushe fun ir elter-elter-bobe, geven, zol hobn a likhtikn ganeydn, a gants erlekhe, nor a groyse trinkerin. (My translation) Strong and tall with chubby face. Big, thick, clumsy hands with dirty fingernails. Mannish voice. A Tartar's heart. A stingy, lazy piece of goods. Not so cruel as angry at the world. A common creature. There you have her: Aunty Raisa. Another noble quality: she loved to stuff herself with food, and worshipped (may she forgive me, and this will go no further than between us, probab- ly).... I'd come right out with it, but this.... This does not befit a woman. In short, she adored her drinks, and really often; and always plain old booze; and only from a tea glass. Some said it was a sickness. Others figured it came down to her from her great-great granny who (may her paradise be bright) was a virtuous woman, but what a guzzler! * * * This was not the first time that Sholem-Aleykhem had stuck his neck out in defiance of censorship. Louis Fridhandler ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.225 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. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu