Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.262 January 4, 1995 1) Fun meylekh (s)abestkes tsaytn, fun khmeltnitskis tsaytn (Dovid Braun) 2) Raysn (Dovid Braun) 3) A heymishe khasene (Andrew Cassel) 4) Gedabrrt (Eli Katz) 5) Matke Botke (Harvey Spiro) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 04 Jan 1995 00:27:35 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Fun meylekh (s)abestkes tsaytn, fun khmeltnitskis tsaytn The forms people heard are _fun meylekh (s)abe'tskes tsaytn_ and _fun khmelnitskis tsaytn_ for something old. The former refers to the Polish king Jan Sobieski; the latter to Bohdan Chmelnitski of the Chmeltnitski Massacres. Dovid Braun 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 04 Jan 1995 01:10:48 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: raysn To Michael Steinlauf: The long-awaited acknowledgment ;-) Thanks for correcting me as to the composition of the Vaad Arbe Arotses/'Council of Four Lands'. Memory served me incorrectly when I cited M. Schaechter as having said "somewhere" that the words _lite veraysn_ 'Lithuania and White Russia' were in the title of the Council. As I had recalled (incorrectly, alas), he had brought this as testimony to the fact that Jewish natives of Lite and of Raysn have distinct regional identities, while non-litvishe and non-vaysrusishe lump these people together and call them all _litvakes_. After a visit to my permanent home where the bulk of my library is, I got to the bottom of my (mis)recollection. The actual source with the actual text follow: M. Schaechter, _Laytish mame-loshn_, pp. 46-7, fn. 1: "zol es zayn fartseykhnt in a heore: ba yidn fun poyln un ukraine iz raysn poshet a teyl fun lite. di raysishe yidn gufe hobn ober a klor visikayt fun zeyer identishkeyt [sic!, leyen: identitet -- DB], vi me ken zen funem banits ba tsunzern ("raysn tsi lite") un andere litvishe-raysishe shraybers, vi oykh funem altn nomen fun bund: "yidisher arbeter-bund fun lite, poyln un raysn". der arumnemiker banits fun _lite_ vi an eyberbagrif far der kovner lite, letland, estland, raysn iz azoyernokh beiker a dorem-yidisher termin. "ikh bin nit ken litvishe, nor a vaysrusishe", hot mir farzikhert di almone funem poet A. Berger, "ersht in amerike hot men mir gezogt, az ikh bin fun der lite". [...] [The whole issue was brought up a few months ago in my response to Dvosye Bilik -- who was responding to a yet earlier posting of mine. My grandmother, of the Grodne area, used almost the same exact words as the above-cited Mrs. Berger.] To end on a purimdik note: surely you'll agree, Michael, that it's historically accurate to say that the Bund and the Council of Four Lands were one and the same thing. ;-) ;-) ;-) I'll argue this in a future posting, bli-neyder. Dovid Braun 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 21:58 edt From: acassel@philly.cerf.fred.org Subject: A heymishe khasene, cont. Last month I asked for help with several words from a 1940 memoir I'm trying to translate vegn "a heymishe khasene." Many thanks to those who responded. Here's another passage, with some intriguing but baffling expressions . Can anyone help?: oyf morgn, shabes, is abisele shtiler vi nekhtn, akhutz fun firen di yunge vaybl in shul, eyn aliya dem yungen man, aynladn balebatim oyf koved, makhn a l'khaim tzubaysn kikhlekh mit gehakte hering , vinshn mazltov un arikhes-yomim far khosn v'kale, geyt der tog avek shtil. m zikh op a guten tsholnt un men leygt zikh tzu shlofn, oyneg-shabes, ober nokh havdole, aha a zmires, un ver ken fargesn a heymishn zmires, fray far alemen <(*)>. oyb ir hot a grivne a gilden in keshene, kent ir araynkumen un hobn a tantz. Un di tentz zaynen gantz bilig, draysig kopikes far a kadril, a ; 25 kopikes a beygele, 20 kopikes a valtz, un a brug tantz is , d.h. a tzugob, un di kaviliern leygn zikh tzunamen di por groshn, , vi men zogt do. * four words I in (I presume) Hebrew, spelled: kof-lamed, daled-kof-fey-vov-nun, yud-vov-tof-alef, vov-yud-alef-kof-lamed. Nokh amol, a dank Andrew Cassel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 12:18:05 -0800 (PST) From: katz@sonoma.edu Subject: Gedabrrt Perl Teitelbaum is surely correct that "prr" means "whoa" rather than "giddyup". I apologize for having mixed them up. But that doesn't change my view that "gedabrrt" is meant to characterize the balegole's style of davnen. Eli Katz 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jan 3 16:13:13 1995 From: hjs@nrc.gov Subject: Matke Botke In Mendele 4.256, Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan asks about the expression "Motke Botke's tzeitn" and who Motke Botke was. "Matke Boske," (not sure of the precise spelling), is Polish for "mother of God," i.e., Mary. I'd guess that Czech and other related Slavic languages have close variants of that. Like something from "Khmelnitzkis yorn, or Melekh Sobyeskis tzeitn, I believe it just means something "pretty old." Harvey Spiro ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.262 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