Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.080 August 10, 1995 1) Klor-vays tsigele (Andrew Cassel) 2) Rhyming (Mikhl Herzog) 3) A Nay Kleyd (Bernard Katz) 4) Yiddish fonts (Brenda Fayerman) 5) Yiddish in translation (Morrie Feller) 6) Mock-"Yiddish dialect" pop songs (Joel Rosen) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 23:00:21 -0400 From: cassel@libertynet.org Subject: Klor-vays tsigele Can anyone give me a short exegesis of the "klor-vays tsigele" motif in Yiddish literature? I know it shows up in lullabyes and such, but I get the sense it has at times been used to convey some symbolic meaning -- I'm just not well-read enough to know what. And on an unrelated note: In Mendele 5.072 I posted excerpts of a recent interview with Josef Levinson, editor of "Yerushalyim d'Lita" in Vilna. For anyone interested, I have now completed a translation (with great help from Mark Alsher and Paul Pascal) which I will be happy to email on request. Andrew Cassel Elkins Park, PA 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 95 23:06 EDT From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu Subject: Rhyming Did Rokhl Korn rhyme _kleyd_ and _layd_? Shleyme Axelrod's transliteration of Rokhl Korn's poem reveals a problem that I myself continue to have with the word _layd_. He has the poet rhyming _kleyd_ and _layd_, but _layd_ only occurs as the first person singular of the verb _laydn_, i.e. _ikh layd_; it does not (i.e., "should not") occur as a noun. There are two related nouns in Yiddish. The one derived from the infinitive is _dos laydn_ (singular). Alternatively there is a singular _di leyd_ (to rhyme with Rokhl Korn's _kleyd_),and a plural _leydn_, as in the expression _in leydn un in freydn_. Mikhl Herzog 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 23:42:51 -0400 (EDT) From: bkatz@uoguelph.ca Subject: A Nay Kleyd Many thanks to Shleyme Axelrod for transcribing Rokhl Korn's poem. I don't have access to Ruth Whitman's anthology, however, and I find my- self at a loss in translating the 3rd line of the 2nd stanza and the word "faldn" in the 5th line. For the latter I get "folds" but this is given as "falbn" in Weinreich's dictionary. For the former I get: "And it's an every white-glass knot" which doesn't quite make it -- problem being the "every" ("yeder"), I think... Can someone help me out? A sheynem dank! Bernard Katz Guelph, Ontario 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 23:10:15 -0400 From: b.fayerman@netaxis.qc.ca Subject: Yiddish fonts My name is Brenda Fayerman and I am the technology coordinator at Bialik High School in Montreal. We are a non-religious day school and we teach Yiddish as a compulsory subject (as well as English, Hebrew, and French). There are 700 students and Yiddish is streamed in every grade (beginner to advanced levels). We produce several in-house Yiddish texts and my question is: do any Yiddish fonts exist? We are currently using Hebrew fonts in Dagesh but we have difficulty when we want, for example, double vov or double yud with a patach etc. Any help would be much appreciated. As well, I am working on integrating CD-ROM and Internet into the teaching of every subject at the school. Any advice or resources for the use of technology in teaching Yiddish would be very useful. Brenda Fayerman Montreal 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 22:46:49 -0700 (MST) From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Yiddish in translation A sheynem dank to Hershl Hartman for his response (Mendele 5.078) to my comments about Yiddish in translation. I agree with him that it would be interesting to have a survey among Mendelyaner such as the one he has suggested. It would be nice if enough members of this list would respond to qualify as a mini-survey. In response to Miriam Isaacs (also Mendele 5.078), the readings which were aired on radio in Los Angeles were only in English. The National Yiddish Book Center has in the past produced tapes in Yiddish which were read by professional actors (I have most of them), but as far as I know they were never read on the air. I agree with her about the importance of aural comprehension, and I did make use of these tapes in teaching my Yiddish classes here in Phoenix. Morrie Feller Phoenix 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 12:44:51 +0100 From: uclhhfd@ucl.ac.uk Subject: Tin Pan Alley's mock-"Yiddish dialect" pop songs The question I wish to pose here does not, strictly speaking, concern Yiddish: indeed, it concerns an instance of the deliberate bastardization of Yiddish and the satirization of the language and its speakers. I am writing a Master's thesis on the Jewish songwriters and song publishers of Tin Pan Alley and the role that popular music played in the acculturation of Jewish immigrants to American life. Of particular interest to me are the hundreds of English-language "yiddisha songs" that Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths composed in the decade before the First World War. These songs, written in mock-"Yiddish dialect" (punctuated by frequent "oys" and Yinglish malapropisms) and performed on the Vaudeville stage by "Hebrew Comics," enjoyed enormous popularity; American popular cultural legends such as Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson were among those that wrote and performed them. While their depiction of Jews is often offensive -- and their spiteful misuse of Yiddish undoubtably apalling to Yiddishists -- songs like "Abie, Take an Example from Your Fader", "At the Yiddisha Wedding Dance", "That's Yiddisha Love", "Yiddle On Your Fiddle, Play Some Ragtime", "I Want to Be an Oy, Oy, Oyviator (A Yiddisha Plea)" and "Cohen's Yiddisha Band" provide the historian with a fascinating glimpse of contemporary Jewish attitudes towards Americanization and the ways that popular music and theater mediated the Americanization process. I would be very grateful to any Mendele readers who might care to share thoughts about, or better still, recollections of, Tin Pan Alley's "yiddisha" song craze. My grandmother recalls seeing Sophie Tucker peform "My Yiddishe Momma" on vaudeville in both English and Yiddish; but I am interested not so much in songs like "My Yiddishe Momma" or the Yiddish "crossover" hit "Bey Mir Bist Du Sheyn" as I am in this genre of English-language, faux-"Yiddish dialect" pop songs. Joel Rosen London ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.080