Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.106 September 7, 1995 1) Seredipsk (Zellig Bach) 2) Mer shprikhvertlekh (Bernard Katz) 3) Yiddish proverbs (Dovid Yosef Hershkoviz) 4) Grammatical queries (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 22:30:40 -0400 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Seredipisk In a recent number of Mendele there was a request to explain what kind of yontef (holiday) is "seredipisk" (Mendy Fliegler, 5.097,4). Well, I'll answer it with the following story as an illustration: The mother would get up every weekday morning at 7:00, and by 7:30 had her son's school lunch ready packed. By then he would come down the stairs from his bedroom, always in a hurry, have a quick drink of orange juice, grab a bite of buttered white toast, kiss his mother goodby, and rush out the door on his way to school. This morning, however, not a sound from him. So his mother climbed the several steps to his room, knocked on the door, and asked: "What's the matter? Are you alright?" Without opening the door, the son answered: "I'm alright, Mom, but I'm not going to school." She reverted to Yiddish, as it was her wont whenever she became emotional: "Zu'nyenu, gib mir dray si'bes farvos du vilst nit geyn in shul." [Sonny, dearest, give me three reasons why you don't want to go school.] The son replied from inside his room, with the door still closed: "The students don't like me; the teachers don't like me; and I hate school." "Gor azoy?!" his mother continued in Yiddish [Is that so?] Un ikh vel dir gebn dray si'bes farvos du muzt geyn in shul." [And I will give you three reasons why you must go to school.] "Ershtns, bin ikh dayn muter, un a mamen darf men folgn; tsveytns, bistu 53 yor alt; un dritns, bistu der shul direktor." [First, I'm your mother, so you must listen to her; second, you are 53 years old; and third, you are the school principal.] That is "seredipisk" (nothing to do with a serendipitously "found" holiday). It is a hilariously invented special name for an arbitrarily invented "holiday" solely out of laziness. In psychological terms it is the making of an always "terUtsimdikn" (looking for excuses) id to counteract the reality demands of the ego calling for self-respecting action. Zellig Bach Lakehurst, NJ 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 20:27:04 -0400 (EDT) From: bkatz@uoguelph.ca Subject: Mer shprikhvertlekh Hob ikh take anandersh tzu oysgeben: Besser a mise latte vi a shaynem lokh! Bernard Katz Guelph, Ontario 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 06 Sep 95 19:31:00 EDT From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Yiddish proverbs I beg to differ on a couple of translations that have been given to Yiddish sayings. Vinter fun dire varft men nisht. Adah Lapin explained, Literally: One can't throw winter out of the apartment; actually 'One can't get rid of misery'. I took it to mean literally: One is not evicted in winter; akin to lightning doesen't strike twice in the same place. As to Shleyme Axelrod's proverb "beser dray tog gezint vi ayn tog krank" I believe it is used when one has agmes neyfesh (aggro) over matters other than health it would be said as if to say as long as you're healthy the rest doesn't really matter. A ksive va'khsime toyve far aykh alemen un a gut gebensht yor. Dovid Yosef Hershkoviz 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 95 22:59 EDT From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu Subject: Grammatical queries Concerning Beatrice Santorini's questions: a) I'd offer the following glosses of Zaretski's sentences: (1) Oy, ligt men in drerd! 'Boy, are we in deep doo-doo' (2) Vinter fun dire varft men nisht. 'You don't evict someone/get evicted during the winter' (What's the truth value of that interpretation?) (3) Lomir geyn, ver vuhin es geyt. 'Let's be off, each wherever (he's going)' (4) Vos mir shtot un ven mir, ven yarid, az keyn ferdl darf ikh nit. 'Whatever do I need the city and the fair for, when I have no need of a horse?' b) "a lange tsung": 'a talkative person' (perhaps 'a gossip'?) c) are examples of "es" like the following (orthographically "s'") restricted to poetry? (4) Ven gefeln s'vet in klayzl, zogn zolstu zey ... (5) Un vu gefaln s'iz a shprits fun undzer blut, ... I'd say so. Yes! Instances like _S'iz tsu mir gekumen a kuzine_, in which _s'_ is in sentence-initial position, should not be considered counterexamples. d) Zaretski is right to favor (6) Sara kluge zi iz! (7) Vi zi hot zikh getsaplt in zayne orims! over the question word order in exclamations. No "native speaker" would say (6) *Sara kluge iz zi! (7) *Vi hot zi zikh getsaplt in zayne orims! As to whether, the question word order for exclamations is really "completely impossible", I wouldn't preclude its occurrence in Yinglish. e) Several asides: i) Zaretski is usually right; ii) Zaretski 1926 is preferable to Zaretski 1929. The latter is part of his Soviet inspired "revizye/mea culpa". iii) For the history of Yiddish linguistics, a close comparison of the two editions would probably yield some interesting insights. iv) A dissertation (U of Mich, 1982) by Zelda Kahan Newman, (who may be lurking, or tending her garden in Ber Sheva) is an analysis of a number of interesting features of Zaretski 1926. Mikhl Herzog ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.106 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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. 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