Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.164 November 9, 1995 1) Dialects, standards, and khsidim (Eliyahu Juni) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 20:34:11 -0500 From: ao107@freenet.carleton.ca Subject: Dialects, standards, and khsidim--bove basre (toysefte) Recently, a humorous piece, devised as an interview with Colin Powell, was published in Mendele. In the buildup, the author refused a Thursday appointment, because it fell on Yom Kippur, and rescheduled for the following Monday. How many Mendelyaner noticed that Monday was yontev, the first day of Sukes? I surmise that the author threw in the Yom Kippur angle to add a bit of Yidishe ta'am (that's Jewish flavour, cf. "Yiddishkayt"). But for anyone who has a giste or a g'fil for Yidishe ta'am, it can't work if you don't get the details straight. You can't divorce Yiddish from Yiddishkayt, and it's almost impossible to know Yiddishkayt well without living in it. There are many other examples. (I've been collecting a selection, so I guess I'll dump them all on you at once.) In vol. 5.057, Reb Noyekh wrote "as Tevye would say, 'kulonu khakhomim'." How many Mendelyaner noticed that the phrase comes from the hagode? Or the irony in asserting something which, in avodim hoyinu, is a utopian goal? And how many notice the double entendre in the name "Tevye der milkhiger", for that matter? There was a Yiddish festival in Toronto this summer, called Ashkenaz. At the parts I was able to go to (most of it was on Shabbes), I felt strangely out of place. And, besides the Shabbes angle, there were a couple of things that convinced me that I was, indeed, not in the same world of Yiddish. At one of the musical events, there was one musician whose Yiddish was unusually well-articulated for a non-native speaker--he practically didn't have an accent. But when he sang some words in loshnkoydesh which were part of a traditional khsidishe song, he mangled them so horribly, s'hot g'risn oyf di oyeren. I had never before heard someone with a good Yiddish whose Hebrew pronunciation was so atrocious--bad Ivre, for me, is the domain of the Jewishly uneducated and those beginning their Jewish education, while good Yiddish, like good Hebrew, is in the domain of the Jewishly well-educated, usually from an early age. When this musician sang a Yiddish wedding song which I didn't know, about going to greet the bride and groom, almost everyone in the room sang along, and seemed to know the song very well. Not even a minute later, another participant sang "Ki b'simkho seytseyu," using the traditional melody that (I had thought) every Jew knows in their bones, and which many haymishe yidn sing after havdole. The crowd seemed to be very moved by the song (it really is beautiful), but not at all familiar with it. I really enjoyed the concert, but as I walked out it occurred to me that maybe I hadn't heard the same thing as the people around me. Last year, my uncle participated in a mock "shtetl wedding" organized (in part?) by students and faculty of Yiddish at Columbia. I was stuck in the cold white north, but he recently showed me a video of the event. Most of the participants and crowd seemed to be irreligious, and the organizers spent a lot of time explaining rules, customs, symbols, and attitudes. Things which for me were poshet were treated as khidushim-- and the explanations weren't always accurate. And it struck me, as I watched it, that with all the effort that they put into making it authentic--and they did a very good job--it still felt like it wasn't quite right, that they didn't really get what that world was like, and didn't even know it. The small-town homeliness was there, but the Yiddishkayt didn't shtim. Not having lived in that world, I'm being rather pretentious, but I got the feeling that even with their all-out effort to capture the atmosphere of a shtetl, they hadn't quite been able to capture the taste of a religious setting, let alone the particularly sheltered, unrefined, ingenuous flavour of Yiddishkayt found in the shtetl. One of the sharpest contrasts between the two Yiddishes on Mendele has been in the area of names: Mendelyaner have often been puzzled by names, and particular name combinations, which are common in the religious community, sometimes for obvious historical or religious reasons. And even among those who are relatively well-versed in the names department, there is plenty of confusion; does anyone remember the protracted discussion on Heshl, Hershl, Yoynosn, Nosn, Nisn and Nism? (Those are all different names, and I still maintain that any kheyderyingl could tell you so.) OK, enough already. But before you decide I'm seeing things, please go through this list of Yiddish words. How many are you familiar with, what do they mean, and how/when are they used (in Yiddish)? And what are their origins? (I tried to stick to YIVO transcription; most them are pretty common, and the average Williamsburgh semi-native speaker should know almost all of them.) moremoreynu asheryotsar a yor un a mitvokh magid es-tog ayertsvibl klapn alkhet beys'kise purimtoyre terkishe talis b'naybay yoysheyv razh'volke shrayim esn kest b'somimbiksl khazerbokher shal'shudestoyre asheryotsarpapir shev'brokhes kupke a gut kvitl forshpil shatnez mashke ts'risene bekishe balt'keye anash nad'n meyle zikhroynelivrokhe tilimyid moley mayimakhroynimvaser aderabe saginor v'kheyn l'mar vayitsaki m'lavemalke madokh If you aren't bewildered, I'm betting either you were raised frim (and probably still are), or you found out from one of us frimaks on Mendele, or you are highly unusually well-versed in frime culture for someone who isn't frim. So now that I've said my piece, what will I do? There's no way I'll give up dialects and my altenative-universe Yiddish. (Maybe the lot of you should come aboard--the long-term prospects are a bit better on this side of the fence ;-). We may be talking apples and oranges, but I don't plan to give up on Mendele--it's the best place around to khap a shmuz. Eliyahu Juni ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.164