Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.345 March 1, 1995 1) More tekheser (Ruben Frankenstein) 2) Noyfes Tsufim (Michael Wex) 3) Vaybertaytsh (Mikhl Herzog) 4) Heshl (Dovid Braun) 5) Geography and pronunciation (Howard Gershen) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 13:26:38 +0100 (MEZ) From: frankens@mibm.ruf.uni-freiburg.de Subject: More tekheser I am surprised to read Michael Shimshony`s entry. He seems to have a special censored edition of Even-Shoshan`s _Hamilon hekhadash_. My edition and all other Hebrew and Yiddish dictionaries (except Weinreich) have "tokhes" or "tukhes". Even-Shoshan brings even both variants of the Swabian greeting (related to Goethe, in his "Goetz von Berlichingen"): "shak li baTakhat" and the finer implied "yi-shakeni" whereas Alcalay brings just the last one. Yiddish knows of course many synonyms for "tokhes": from German: "hinterer", "hinten", "der hintern", "hinterteyl", "gezes", "shteys". >From Hebrew: ""okher" (hebr. akhor, akhorayim); mixed: "hinterkhey- lek"; slavic: "zod". Bernstein has a lot of phrases with "tokhes", both in his general part and of course in his "Rustica, Erotica"-part. Some examples: "Osser-khazer iz keyn shvu`e, "kush in tokhes" iz keyn klole". "Purim iz keyn jontef, kadakhas iz keyn krenk un "Kush in tokhes" iz keyn klole". "Tate, mame, bobe, zeyde, kusht in tokhes unz beyde" - azoy zogt a yung poor-folk, vos hot khasene gehat gegen dem vilen fun di eltern un di ibrige kroyvim. "Kush mikh, vu di juden hoben gerut! - d.h. in okher arayn. Men beruft zikh nemlikh oyfn posek: "Vayakhnu be-tokhes". "Kak, az der tokhes iz tsu!" - d.h. vi zol men a zakh oysfiren, wen di mitel felen? "Mit eyn tokhes ken men nit tantsen oyf tsvey khasenes". Would you like to read more? Ruben Frankenstein 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Feb 95 09:16 EST From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu Subject: Vaybertaytsh [Regarding] Paul Pascal's 19th century text (4.342): I don't know the answer to the basic query but, I'm _really_ impressed with the beautiful job he's done of rendering the text in transcription. It's also clear that this is a text based on the dialects of Eastern Yiddish. I mention this because the breakthrough of Eastern Yiddish int print was only a few decades old at the time. A question of my own to Paul: Why do you write _kreyn_, not _kroyn_? Mikhl Herzog PS: Bob Rothstein, re _gikher_: Thanks, I didn't know. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Feb 95 04:50:43 EST From: 76252.147@compuserve.com Subject: Noyfes Tsufim (Vaybertaytsh) The Noyfes Tsufim--or Tsifim, to give it its "correct", frum aroysreyd --about which my ben-ir Paul Pascal was wondering, is a Yiddish version of a reasonably well-known Hebrew collection of the same name by the Rebbe Reb Pinkhes of Korets, surname Shapira, an early and important student of the Besht. The extent of his influence was rather diminished by his support for the Rebbe Reb Yankev-Yitskhok of Polnoye against the Rebbe Reb Duber Mezritsher (der groyser maggid) for the post of official successor to the Besht--which is hardly to say that he was not without considerable influence on the development of what's called Beshtian hasidism. The Rebbe from Korets was an important and vocal partisan of the Zohar, and is on record as claiming that it was the Zohar which kept him a Jew. Noyfes Tsifim is a collection of his own toyres, observations and segules, as well as a not unimportant record of certain otherwise unrecorded sayings and opinions of the Baal Shem Tov himself. The publishers themselves are as interesting as their publication. The Shapiro brothers (I don't think they were related to the Koretser Rebbe, but I couldn't be sure) were--and to some degree, in the right circles, still are--a mainstay of fact-based Yiddish folklore. I'm no bibliographer, and to the best of my knowledge their operation was based in Slawuta, but their accusation by Czarist cops, subsequent running of the gauntlet and exile to Siberia (circa--I don't have the appropriate materials to hand--1840-55), as well as their personal seyfer toyre, are stories still told orally wherever Jews who speak Yiddish and love their Yore Dea gather. I was born in 1954, and I first heard this as a folktale. I'm assuming that Paul's volume was published by their firm. As to Paul's question about kabbala in Yiddish, even if we ignore the Yiddish translation of the Zohar done by Rabbi Yidl Rosenberg of Montreal in the 1920's (er iz geven Mordkhe Richlers zeyde) as being late--we can't ignore such common Yiddish expressions as klipe and sitre akhre, the popularity of Yiddish versions of kabbalistic ethical works, the entire genre of sippurei tsaddikim and the general trend of many customs and superstitions--for instance, the backward-buttoning phenomenon of traditional Jewish male garments, the standard rationale for the wearing of a gartl (although the latter derives ultimately from the gemore)--or any standard siddur, even nusakh ashkenaz. If you've ever said Brikh Shmei when the Torah is taken out, you've recited a passage from the Zohar. And remember, this is the stuff that puts the yid into yidish. Michael Wex 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 22:16:02 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Heshl (Vaybertaytsh) I have nothing to say about the Noyfes Tsoyfim edition, but noticed the name of one of its authors: Yehoyshue-Heshl. I think I've noticed this name combination previously as well. So it looks like the etymology of the name _Heshl_ is Yehoyshue, which I'd never realized before. (This is assuming the pairing is a common pairing and that it's a pairing of an ufruf-nomen with its diminutive, a lamoyshe-meshll and others recently discussed.) So at one point, or in a certain dialect(s) the stress in the name corresponding to the Biblical 'Joshua' was probably on the 2nd syllable: [yeho'yshue] (although now it's on the 3rd, [yehoyshu'a] -- thence the nicknames _shi'e, shi'tsye, shike, shikl). Hmm... Dovid Braun 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 10:02:54 -0500 From: howard@boxhill.com Subject: Geography and pronunciation On Sunday I visited the Jewish Museum's exhibit on "Jews from Tsarist Russia", which was based on Sh. An-sky's ethnological/anthropological work in early 1900s E. Europe. One of the themes that was repeated throughout the exhibit was that shtetl life was not as monolithic as modern American-born Jews might think. Variations in design of clothing, architecture, and ritual objects were shown--e.g., a caftan from Byelo- russia (Belarus) was distinct from one from Bessarabia, for instance. This got me thinking about the whole frequently-discussed issue of Litvak vs. Galician pronunciation of words and phrases in Yiddish, and how you could make an educated guess of a person's origin based on how they say certain words. I even recall a TV movie where a character claimed to be able to name a person's hometown just by hearing them pronounce the word "water". So, here's a question to get _Mendele's_ brains working: can this system work backwards? If I'm doing family history research, and I come across someone who doesn't recall where their family came from, what are some Yiddish words (let's say no more than 10) that can be used as "benchmarks"? These "benchmark words" would be a list of Yiddish words and their variations in pronunciation for Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Bessarabia, Romania, Bukowina, or other major regions of Jewish populations in the Pale. It should be possible to narrow down this person's family's home region by asking them to say certain words. Has this been done before? Has it been proposed and shot down? Howard Gershen ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.345 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. 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