Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.159 November 1, 1995 1) Hob un bin (Khayem Bochner) 2) Dialects and standards (Khayem Bochner) 3) Neshome keyn rozhinke (Rick Turkel) 4) Khushim ben Dan (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Oct 95 11:43:37 -0500 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: Hob un bin Dan Slobin mentions some of the complexities of "haben" vs "sein" in German (and the Dutch equivalents), and asks how Yiddish compares in this regard. To the best of my knowledge, Yiddish has nothing like this at all. "Zey zenen getantst" sounds completely unfamiliar, and wrong, regardless of the intended meaning. I've checked the grammatical literature I have at hand: Zaretski(29), Mark(78) as well as Weinreich(68). Just about the only case they mention where the choice of auxiliary depends on meaning is the distinction between transitive and intransitive "hengen": "Dos bild iz gehangen oyf der vant." vs "Ikh hob gehangen dos bild oyf der vant." (And Mark points out that even this distinction is systematically observed.) None of them mention distinctions like those in German, even though I think it's safe to assume that Weinreich (and probably Zaretski & Mark as well) knew about those distinctions (in German). So I think there's an argument 'ex silentio' that those distinctions don't exist in Yiddish; still, it would be nice to find some explicit discussion. As I understand it, in Yiddish the choice of auxiliary is simply a lexical property of a verb; the generalizations about semantics are of diachronic rather than synchronic significance. Zaretski puts it well: "Shafn spetsiele klolim vegn dem, velkhe verbn bildn di fargangenhayt mit 'bin' ('verbn, vos bataytn bevegung', un dos glaykhe), iz tsulib dray tsendlik verbn nisht keday. Eynfakher iz poshet oyslernen zey." ("It isn't worthwhile to create special rules concerning which verbs form the past with 'bin' ('verbs that signify motion', etc) for the sake of thirty some verbs. It's simpler just to learn them.") Of course, there's no telling what might show up in the dialects. But on a subtle matter like this, I'd be inclined to be suspicious of the intuitions of anyone who's studied German ;-) Khayem Bochner 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Oct 95 12:03:40 -0500 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: Dialects and standards Two quick notes: Eliyahu Juni apparently interpreted my ending a previous note with "genug shoyn" as an attempt to close the discussion. My apologies to him, and to anyone else who understood it that way. I meant that _I_ was running on too long ;-) Secondly, we now have several reports of dialect intolerance from 'yiddishists', I can't argue. Alas, I should have known. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. More later, if I find the time. Khayem Bochner 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Oct 95 15:45:00 EST From: rturkel@cas.org Subject: Neshome keyn rozhinke Daniel Soyer asked (5.158) about the above expression. My late wife's uncle uses this expression (in the form, "Un mayn neshome iz dokh a rozhinke?") in mock response to a perceived insult, in much the same way as one might say in English, "What am I, chopped liver?" In other words, "Don't I count, too?" Rick Turkel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Nov 95 From: nmiller@shakti.trincoll.edu Subject: Khushim ben Dan There's a scene in Dovid Pinski's play _Der Oytser_ in which the old man is playing doggo with various khevrelayt who, thinking that he's rich, have come for a handout (as well as drinks on the house). Getting no reply the biker-khoylimnik calls out: "nu, vos ligt ir azoy, alter khushim ben dan...?" (Khushim is spelled khes-vov-shin-yod-mem.) I'd never heard that expression. Harkavy (1928) and Weinreich give idiot, imbecile, fool. But surely a shnorer wouldn't call his mark an idiot until he was sure that it was no go? Besides, the "ben Dan" suggests a reference to an actual person. And such a person (khes-vov-shin-yod-mem) is indeed listed in Tanakh, in Divrey 1 8.8. The only problem is that this Khushim is a woman. Another Khushim (khes-shin-yod-mem; note the spelling) who is the son of Dan does appear in Bereshis 46.23. But since nothing whatsoever is given other than the name, the question is why his name is invoked in Pinski. Rashi has nothing relevant to say (a novene) but in the Talmud we at last hit pay dirt. Tractate Sota tells us (13 a) that Khushim (spelled _with_ a vov as in Pinski) was hard of hearing! Was that what the khevreman meant? Although Harkavy and Weinreich are silent, Nahum Stutchkoff (may his memory be blessed) is there with the goods. According to him khushim means someone who's deaf. End of the quest? Yogt nisht! Heybt zikh ersht on di mayse. One question is how Khushim got to be deaf in the first place. Since I'm already in over my head, I may as well go one step further and suggest a connection with the Hebrew "hushim", as in the five senses. (Stutchkoff by the way also lists "toyber khush".) Since we're not primarily concerned with talmudic language that's of course neither here nor there. Except that "hushim" has the same root as the Hebrew "husham" which means dolt and simpleton. Which leads to my _very_ hesitant conclusion that poor Khushim ben Dan has in the first place had his name manhandled and misspelled by the sages (no offense to their memories intended) and later had his name conflated with a word meaning fool. My second question asks: how many in Pinski's audience _understood_ the reference? I assume more then than now, a safe guess. But how many? No theater-going _Yiddish theater_ audience in Poland and especially the United States (where the play was written in 1906) was likely to be packed with people who had ever studied Talmud at all, let alone who knew its (very) minor characters. The word is listed in Harkavy (1898) only as the plural of "khush", sense, which suggests that the word was not exactly a well-known synonym for deafness. Is this then a case of Pinski flattering the pit, much as Shakespeare did, with allusions to things about which they knew nothing -- but understood the thrust just the same? My question goes to what I consider to be a nostalgic (and probably false) construction of shtetl reality wherein everybody was steeped in learning. I don't believe it, especially not of _theater_ audiences. So the "flow" of language becomes an interesting subject. Now it's up to the people who know something to comment. Noyekh Miller ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.159