Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.166 November 13, 1995 1) Khushim (Dovid Braun) 2) Academic Yiddish (Dovid Braun) 3) Three million Yiddishes (Dovid Braun) 4) Name pairings (Perets Mett) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 Nov 1995 14:38:17 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Khushim In non-litvish Yiddish (I know of it from speakers from the Bucovina region) _khushim_ [khishem] is used as a predicate adjective meaning 'out of it, momentarily not clear-minded', e.g. "ekh bin khishem". In litvish Yiddish (and perhaps all the other Eastern Yiddish dialects as well), _tsekhusht_ is an attributive adjective with the same meaning: "nokhn aropgeyn fun eroplan hobn di tsekhushte pasazhirn opgekhapt dem otem -- zey zaynen gefloygn sakhakl tsvelef sho on ufher." Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 Nov 1995 14:38:17 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: "Academic" Yiddish Currently, the number of university courses taught in Yiddish throughout the world (non-language-instruction classes, I mean) is probably no greater than 5 per year, if even that. (Note that this number is probably greater than that taught before WWII, since courses in Yiddish Studies barely existed at the university level at that time.) The number of Yiddish publications produced by academies or on an academic level is probably the same. The number of Yiddish academics, i.e. professionals or students in the field which has come to be known as "Yiddish Studies" who speak to their (respective) students/ professors in Yiddish is probably the same. It is, then, unclear to me what those who talk of present-day academic Yiddish usage are referring to. More precisely, they're probably referring not to a "what" but to a "who": they know some people or have read the works of some authors who use such-and-such a word, phrase, or pronunciation. (And perhaps the works consulted are from 20-30-40+ years ago.) These speakers/writers become representative, in their minds, of the "world" of Yiddish academics. _World_ is in quotes because a group of 5 (let's be generous and say 10) people who conduct their scholarly work in Yiddish is not a "world" in the usual sense. It's 5 or 10 people. (These comments only refers to "academic Yiddish"; there are a few tens of writers and journalists out there, of khareydi and non-khareydi belonging, who write -- unsurprisingly -- in the style of their trade -- belletristic Yiddish, journalistic Yiddish, etc. So too actors and other Yiddish professionals.) Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 Nov 1995 14:38:17 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Three million Yiddishes If there are (or were in 1980 -- if I remember the statistics correctly) three million mother tongue claimants of Yiddish, there are 3 million Yiddishes, not just two (frum vs. fray or academic vs. khareydi or whatever other binary divisions have been proposed). Within the khareydi world there are the different dialects, depending on the provenance of the community; then there are the various registers and sociolects of each group (language of kheyder-yinglekh; language of women; language of shokhtim vs. that of businessmen). And finally the idiolects -- each individual with his language peculiarities. And what meanings a word or idiom has for one person as opposed to another depend on everything about the person in question. Someone heard uttering the phrase "ekh bin khishem" *may* have the association of this word to the character Khushim, or s/he may not. This may correlate with his/her steepedness in traditional Jewish study, but a voyl-kenevdik (learne`d) person who *is* familiar with the character *and* the adjective simultaneously may not have made this connection (if indeed the connection to the character is what gave rise to the adjectives discussed above). It may simply never have have occurred to that person. We don't hear from a large number of Mendelyaner, so we don't know the background and life stories and thoughts of each one of them. But if there are 700+ Mendelyaner who know Yiddish in some form or other, there will be that same number of Yiddishes, given the varying backgrounds and varying associations and varying thoughts of each one of them. (I'm assuming that no two Mendelyaner -- and no two people, for that matter -- are exactly alike.) To talk about the world of Mendele or the world of Mendelyaner or the Yiddish of Mendelyaner or the worldview of Mendelyaner isn't very meaningful, in my opinion. Some generalizations, as long as they are taken as generalizations, are helpful; those of a gross character are, however, meaningless. (Imagine someone from a different country saying: "Americans are Democrats". S/he has proof, after all: Americans elected a Democratic president!) Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 17:43:08 +0000 From: P.Mett%open.ac.uk%ukacrl.bitnet@YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu Subject: Name pairings In Mendele Vol 4.298, reb mikhl herzog wrote: Traditional pairings for which I don't know the rationale: _Itshe (=Yitskhok)-Mayer_, _Yekhiel-Mikhl_ , _Yaynkef-Yitskhok_ (pairing of the "fathers", perhaps). Itshe-mayer comes ( as alluded to by another post) from the Chidushei Horim who effectively established the khasides of Ger. Consequently numerous gerer khsidm (as well as many other poylishe) named their children Itshe_Mayer. Likewise Reb Yechiel-Mekhl of Zlotshev was one of the early khsidishe rebbes. The name Yankf-Yitskhek is after -two- of the founders of khsides in kongres poylen, namely the khoyze of lublin and the yid hakoodesh from pshiskhe, who both carried this name. In fact, the latter was originally one of the senior khsidim of the former; because other khsidim could not call him by name (being the name of their rebbe) they gave him the name yid hakoodesh. perets mett ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.166 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. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. 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