Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.154 October 29, 1995 1) Hob un bin (David Herskovic) 2) Hob un bin (Dan Slobin) 3) Hob un bin (David Sherman) 4) Zhargon (Louis Fridhandler) 5) Asch's God of Vengeance (Hershl Hartman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Oct 95 14:15:40 EDT From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Hob un bin This is a message I received regarding my recent query: ... I presume that it works the same way in Yiddish as it does in German, and that is the following: In forming the past tense, use a form of "to be" (zenen) for verbs of motion and being. All other verbs take a form of "to have" (hobn). Thus: Ikh bin gegangn, ikh bin geforn, ikh bin gekummen, ikh bin gevezn, but ikh hob gezen, ikh hob a briv geshikt, etc. As for geshlofen, I think you should say ikh hob geshlofen, not ikh bin. David Herskovic 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 12:40:35 -0700 From: slobin@cogsci.berkeley.edu Subject: Hob un bin Part of the confusion in applying hobn and zayn is that the category of transitivity, as shown by modern linguistics, is not absolute. That is, a verb can be more or less transitive. Typically, in Germanic languages, participles with _have_ refer to activities without focus on the resultant state, while participles with _be_ can have end-state focus. Both perspectives can be taken with the same verb, for example, compare, in German: Er _ist_ nach Wien gefahren (`he _is_ to Vienna ridden' =he rode to Vienna) versus Er _hat_ gut gefahren (`he _hat_ good ridden' =he drove well). The form with _ist_ (=sein) is resultative: he ends up in Vienna; the form with _hat_ (=haben) describes an ability, without an endstate. The Berkeley Germanic linguist, Tom Shannon, characterizes _be_-auxiliary verbs as being low in transitivity, referring to: "single participant, perfective predicate denoting beginning or end point of a change which the patient-subject (non-volitionally) undergoes and which is not (conceived of) as brought about by another agent-like entity." By contrast, _have_-auxiliary verbs are high in transitivity and report situations in which an agent-subject is in control. Here are other examples of the two perspectives, _have_ and _be_, in German and Dutch. I'd be interested in knowing how Yiddish compares in this regard. German: Viele Leute _haben_ getanzt. (`Many people danced.' Die Kinder _sind_ nach draussen getanzt. (`The children danced to-outside') Dutch (works the same way): Vele mensen _hebben_ gedansd. De kinderen _zijn_ naar buiten gedansd. Durative: German: Es _hat_ heute nacht gefroren. Dutch: Het _heeft_ vannacht gevroren. (`It froze tonight.') Result: German: Das Wasser _ist_ zu Eis gefroren. Dutch: Het water IS tot ijs gevroren. (`The water froze to ice.') Note how the choice of auxiliary, in the same construction, can mean either durative activity or perfective result in this Dutch pair: ...dat ik naar Delft gewandelt _heb_ (`...that I _was walking_ to Delft') ...dat ik naar Delft gewandelt _bin_ (`...that I _arrived_ in Delft') There are, of course, more complexities. Also, the situation was similar in Middle English, and there are comparable contrasts between _have_ and _be_ auxiliaries in French and Italian. If there are linguists on Mendele who want to discuss _hobn_ and _zayn_, I'd enjoy going on with the discussion. Dan Slobin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Oct 95 0:23:10 EDT From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca Subject: Hob un bin Actually, for those who have studied French the hobn/zayn distinction is almost identical in Yiddish as in French. I haven't done a detailed analysis, but in general the words in French that use past perfect "je suis..." instead of "j'ai..." are the ones that use zayn in Yiddish. E.g., je suis alle'e / ikh bin gegangen. As to the dialect differences described by Rick Gildemeister re hobn/hubn: for us, it isn't "ikh hob / mir hobn", but "ikh hob / intsotme". I think Mikhl Herzog has noted in the past that this usage is fairly common among Southern Yiddish ("Polish" Yiddish). David Sherman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 20:12:39 -0400 From: lfridhan@aol.com Subject: Zhargon Hurling epithets can't bruise, hurling epitaphs will. The learned Mikhl Herzog wrote (no doubt while tired) that Sholem Aleykhem did not call himself a _zhargonisher shrayber_ on his epithet (meaning epitaph). True but Sholem-Aleykehm wrote of himself _do ligt a yid a posheter, geshribn yidish-taytsh far vayber_. He died in 1916. However a previous version included in a Nov. 23, 1905 letter to his son-in-law has a fourth line: _do ligt a zhargonist, a shrayber. I'm sure he was suggesting a tragic irony (that adequate recognition of Yiddish literature was lagging), not a disparagement of _yidish_.. Sholem-Aleykhem was fully aware and proud of his great ability as a Yiddish stylist. One cannot be a proud _stylist_ in a medium one disparages or disprespects. Sholem Aleykhem meant no disparagement of Yiddish on his epitaph or anywhere else. At the same time he admired European standards of literature and tried to emulate the great writers (Gogol, Dickens, Wells, etc). Mikhl Herzog is probably right that Philologus doesn't _get it_. He seems not able to pick up irony. Irony is therefore dangerous. Many take it as straight, often engendering wild misunderstanding. Louis Fridhandler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 17:45:53 -0400 From: hershl@aol.com Subject: Asch's God of Vengeance Just to set the record straight, lest literary/theatrical gods take revenge for mis-reading Asch's landmark 1907 work, here is the short summary of the play as it appears in Sol Liptzin's _A History of Yiddish Literature_: The international vogue of Asch's...play, _God of Vengeance_, was given impetus by Max Reinhardt's production in Berlin's Deutsches Theater, with Rudolf Schildkraut in the main role of Yankel (sic) Shapshovitch, the keeper of a brothel. As the father of a daughter whom he tried to preserve from the immoral atmosphere on the lower story of his house, Yankel ordered a Torah scroll to be written and placed in her room on the upper story. He hoped that the Torah's purity would ward off impurity from her. But the God of Vengeance, whom he feared, could not be bribed and brought retribution upon the sinner. When Yankel discovered that his daughter too had succumbed to the infernal temptations from which he drew his sustenance, he raged against the God who punished children for the sins of parents and he hurled God's Torah from the upper story down to the abode of sin and horror. When Asch first read this unpublished play to (Y.L.) Peretz, he was advised to burn it despite its fine literary qualities. when it was played in German, Polish, Russian, French, English, Italian and Danish versions and published in the original Yiddish, Peretz reviewed it as a fine literary work by a flaming talent but also pointed out its shortcomings... It should be noted that Liptzin's abbreviated summary errs, too, in implying that Shapshovitch's daughter, Rivkele, has turned to prostitution. Rather, she is attracted to a young "employee" of her father's, Manke, in a scene described by Itche Goldberg ("undzer dramaturgiye") as "eyne fun di zeyer knape shilderungen fun lezbisher libe in der yidisher literatur, (vos) farmogt a zeltn tsartn un poetishn otem in zikh--one of the very few depictions of lesbian love in Yiddish literature (that) possesses a rare tender and poetic breath." Note, too, that it is not so much to protect his daughter-- whom he regularly beats--that Shapshovitch ("der feter"--the 'uncle') pays for the writing of a Torah scroll, but to buy respectability for himself in the community--akin, perhaps, to the the recent donation of $5 million by the Milken family to a Jewish day school in Los Angeles that will now bear the name of Michael Milken. (Wonder what the God of Vengeance would say to that?) Finally, it should be noted that the play was staged repeatedly in Yiddish, from its first production in New York in 1907 to its performance in the Warsaw Ghetto, and that, in addition to the arrest and trial of the New York English-language cast, a Hebrew version was banned in pre-Israel Palestine. Hershl Hartman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.154