Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.230 December 12, 1994 1) Origins of a Russian Antisemitic Slur (Ben Alpers) 2) Borkhes (Arre Komar) 3) Frankraykh (Alan Astro) 4) "Geooghit" (Dovid Braun) 5) Western Yiddish (Marion Aptroot) 6) Yidishe tsaytungen (Jay Lee) 7) Pareve/rotwelsch (Reuven Frankenstein) 8) Lite/Raysn (Michael Steinlauf) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 94 16:16:21 EST From: blalpers%pucc.bitnet@yalevm.cis.yale.edu Subject: Origins of a Russian Antisemitic Slur In an article I was reading recently about Russian politics today (and a disturbing picture it painted!), the author noted the prevalence among the antisemitic Russian far right of the phrase "people who mispronounce the letter 'r'" as a derogatory expression for Jews. When I read this, I assumed the origin of this slur was the difference between the Yiddish "r" which is pronounced in the back of the throat [linguists, pardon my discription of pronounciation . . . I'm sure there's a more proper terminology] and the Russian "r" which is pronounced by tapping the tongue behind the teeth. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that Russian Yiddish speakers I have heard pronounce Yiddish "r"s like Russian "r"s. Like most invidious ethnic stereotypes, I assume that Jews mispronouncing Russian "r"s is a false generalization with its roots in some real, observable phenomenon. So the questions for my fellow Mendelniks are: 1) What is the geographical distribution of Russian-style "r" pronounciation among Yiddish speakers? 2) If Yiddish speakers in Russia pronounce their "r"s as Russians do, what is the origin of this antisemitic slur? Ben Alpers 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 22:15:01 -0500 (EST) From: komar@yu1.yu.edu Subject: Borkhes This evening I had dinner with an elderly Jewish couple from the Rhineland. They reported that the word khala was unknown to them until they come to this country. The word for the twist bread in the grandparant's home was borkhes. However there was an important caveat: borkhes was explicitly and exclusively milkhig. Is that a local idiosyncratic usage or is that the proper common understood qualification? Arre Komar 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 94 21:18:29 CST From: aastro@vm1.tucc.trinity.edu Subject: "frankraykh frest yidn" & "gliklekh vi got in frankraykh" Does any mendelyaner out there know the origin of an expression I've heard--"frankraykh frest yidn"--referring to the rapid assimilation of French Jewry? Has anyone else even heard the expression? Also, how German do people feel "gliklekh vi got in frankraykh" is? Does it have real yikhes in Yiddish? Alan Astro 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 23:55:30 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: "geooghit" ????? Dan Leeson: How do you pronounce this word? Can you describe its pronunciation relative to the sounds of other, more familiar, Yiddish words? Dovid Braun 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 06:30:11 -0500 (EST) From: aptroot@husc.harvard.edu Subject: Western Yiddish I would like to thank Rick Gildemeister for the apology on Vol. 4.227. I am glad you understood the reason why I felt I had to react. I didn't mean to write twice; my first posting somehow disappeared on its way to the shames only to arrive five days later. Marion Aptroot 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 07:58:14 EST From: jmlee@ucs.indiana.edu Subject: Yidishe tsaytungen Last week I finished my first semester of Hebrew, but I am afraid my Yiddish has suffered a little bit. Afraid of creeping Germanisms, I thought it best to write in English. I thought it would be good to improve my Yiddish with a subscription to a newspaper. Could anyone blitzl me information about addresses, rates, &c. of some Yiddish periodicals? mayn kumindekes blitzl shrayb ikh oyf yidish. Jay Lee [A comprehensive list of Yiddish publications in Israel was put together by Leybl Botvinik and is in the archives under the filename: "periodicals_israel.faq" It can be downloaded via anonymous ftp. It would be a great service to all if we had a comparable list for other parts of the world. nm] 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 15:49:24 +0100 (MEZ) From: frankens@mibm.ruf.uni-freiburg.de Subject: Pareve/rotwelsch Nit fleysh, nit milkh --_pareve_ This word seems to be a hard nut. Two proposals: Harkavi meynt s`iz efsher fun daitsh "bar", milhokhdaitsh "par", vos heyst "naket, pust, on inhalt". Bernstein meynt az es kumt fun polnish "parowy" (= gedaempft, i.e. cooked in steam, neither with butter, nor with lard) nit mit puter un nit mit shmalts. Rotwelsch is the german thieves` Latin, the language of the underworld. Rot meaning beggar and welsch - foreign, incomprehensible language. Reuven Frankenstein 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 11:51:52 -0500 (EST) From: m_steinlauf@acad.fandm.edu Subject: Lite/Raysn When Dovid Braun points out the distinction between Lite and Raysn, I certainly agree; Moyshe Kulbak's marvelous poem "Raysn," for example, about generations of lumberjack Jews in the forest primeval, certainly depicts White Russia rather than Lithuania. (But does anyone know more about the origins of the name "Raysn," and to what extent it designated an area that overlaps with today's "Belarus"?) But when Dovid wants to prove his case by citing Mordkhe Schaechter, that two of the four lands of the Council of the Four Lands were "definitely" Lite and Raysn, I must disagree. The "lands" of the Council were Great Poland (western Poland), Small Poland (western Galicia), Red Russia (eastern Galicia and Podolia, i.e., Ukraine), and Volhynia (northern Ukraine). While early in its history, the Council also represented Lithuania, from 1623 there was a separate Lithuanian Council (with no mention of "Raysn," so far as I know). In general, this is all extremely complicated business, because geographical terms such as "Lithuania/Lite" not only designate not-necessarily-overlapping areas, with, of course, different cultural significance for, e.g., Jews, Poles and Lithuanians, but in each case there seems considerable variation in these meanings/designations over time. The Polish designation "kresy" (borderlands) sums it up best, I suspect, but that doesn't make all the other terms go away. Michael Steinlauf ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.230 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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