Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.174 November 22, 1995 1) Sholem Aleichem College seeks principal (Bobbi and Michael Zylberman) 2) Got fun Avrom (Chana Mlotek) 3) Clandestine Soviet songs (Chana Mlotek) 4) Pronunciation of abbreviations (Berel Leiser) 5) Two, three, many Yiddishes (Zachary Baker) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 21:07:05 1000 From: mzylberm@ozemail.com.au Subject: Sholem Aleichem College seeks principal The Sholem Aleichem College in Melbourne Australia has advertised seeking to appoint a new Principal of the College. The College is a secular Yiddish day school covering from kindergarten to grade 6. Naturally knowledge of Yiddish is a requirement of the position. More information can be obtained by emailing ourselves or directly to the College at sholem@world.net. Bobbi and Michael Zylberman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 20:13:26 -0500 From: zishe@aol.com Subject: Got fun Avrom There are 23 versions of the "Got fun Avrom" text in Noyekh Prilutsky's "Yidishe folkslider" vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1911). Some are quite long. Here's a pretty short one, the 19th version written in _partial_ dialect (song no. 27): "Got fin Avrom, fin Yitskhok in Yankev, Der liber shabes-koydesh geyt avek - zol kimen di libe vokh tsi gezint, Tsi mazl, tsi brokhe, tsi oysher, in koved, tsim giten gevint (gevin, analagous to aleynt for aleyn) Nem dem bekher in der rekhter hant, Makh a brokhe ibern gantsen land, Nokh azoy hoykh, nokh azoy shayn, Kol-yisrol zolen zogen omeyn. Omeyn, omeyn! s'ol veren vor: Der hayliker Meshiakh ben Dovid zol kimen dos yor. A gute vokh!..." Chana Mlotek 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 20:13:26 -0500 From: zishe@aol.com Subject: Clandestine Soviet songs Yosl and I would like to find out whether anyone knows the author of the two songs that were sung clandestinely in the former Soviet Union: "Shuldike umshuldike" and "Antshuldikt" which David Eshet sings on his record "Farbotene lider." Ditto - we would like to know who wrote the song "Es iz nokh faran aza blum." Our thanks to everyone who welcomed us aboard Chana Mlotek 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 05:55:28 EST From: leiser@pacevm.dac.pace.edu Subject: Pronunciation of abbreviations Steve Jacobson, in 5.171, asks about the pronunciation of abbreviations. In general, they are pronounced, though there are exceptions. The one he mentions, zayin tzadek (tzadi) lamed (zekher tzaddik liv'rokho), is often pronounced "zat zal." A frequent abbreviation in rabbinic literature, nun lamed (nireh li, it seems to me), is often pronounced in abbreviated form, "nal." And of course, we are all familiar with the acronyms of proper names, such as Rambam, Ramban, Rashbam, Radak, etc. Even longer abbreviations are formed into "words," such as hey alef dalet mem vov resh: ho-odon moreynu v'rabbeynu, often used when referring to a chasidic rebbe, contracted into "ho-admur." Berel Leiser 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 11:44:40 PST From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu Subject: Two, three, many Yiddishes "Yak reydele to reydele, abi dobre meynele": Discussion concerning this expression should be juxtaposed with recent exchanges on Mendele which dealt with the extent to which Yiddish speakers of a secular orientation retain knowledge of common words or expressions relating to (religious) yidishkayt. Presumably "any" Yiddish-speaking resident of the Pale of Settlement would have instantly comprehended "Yak reydele..." even had they never used the expression before. The coterritorial languages were (for the most part) either Polish, Belorussian or Ukrainian, and they were widely (if not necessarily grammatically) spoken by the Jews of the gubernii comprising the former Russian Pale. "Yak reydele..." would probably not have been as widely understood, however, by Yiddish-speakers in Transylvania or the Romanian Old Kingdom. That does not necessarily mean that their command of the language was inferior to their "Russian" counterparts -- just different in some respects (relating primarily to geography). A grasp of a large portion of the Slavic vocabulary in Yiddish is one of the things that today's North American Yiddish speakers -- religious or secular -- is likely to lack. And yet, Yiddish is permeated with Slavic influences, as a reading of Max Weinreich's Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh (to mention only one source) makes clear. Weinreich also devoted much space in his four volumes to the language of the "derekh-hashas" -- Yiddish as a linguistic repository for traditional Jewish religious expression. Indeed, without that fundamental essence the language would not be worthy of its name. Let us not lose sight, however (and I am not the first person to point this out of late), that languages have many registers. The vocabulary of the yeshiva-bokher is not identical to that of the balegole or to that of the mark-yidene -- the woman who operates a stall in the marketplace. The same is true of English: Social class, gender, race, and region all influence the way one speaks. I am not a native Yiddish speaker, but I have interacted with enough of them to know that there is not one Yiddish, there are many "Yiddishes." One of the things that I've done on occasion is translate letters written by people in Eastern Europe to their relatives living in America. We call ourselves 'Am ha-sefer, but the level of literacy of amkho was not necessarily of the highest order. (Indeed, it is not often remembered that not all Yiddish- speaking Jews, 75-100 years ago, were literate in their native language, and the letters that I've read attest to that.) The point being, simply to reiterate, that Yiddish is not one thing; it is -- and always has been -- many, and it has evolved (like any other language) over time and space. Zachary Baker ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.174