Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.195 December 16, 1995 1) Opshtam funem nomen "Nishe" (Mikhoyel Basherives) 2) Help with a poem (Herbert Megel) 3) Hebrew fonts (Zavi Beer) 4) Kukvinkl ambiguity (Louis Fridhandler) 5) L.A. Yiddish Choruses (Hershl Hartman) 6) The US census and data about mother tongues (David Goldberg) 7) Maven/meyvn and its plural (Zellig Bach) 8) Stanford U. Yiddish lectures (Cecile Kuznitz) 9) Handlen Mit a Yid (Morrie Feller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 18:33:30 -0800 From: mikhoyel@nbn.com Subject: Opshtam funem nomen "Nishe" Sholem-aleykhem! Tsi ken emetser dem opshtam funem mantsbilshn nomen "Nishe"? Mayn elter-bobes bruders nomen iz geven "Yisroel-Nishe". Zey zaynen geven opshtamike fun shtetl Pobelov in Minsker gubernye, Vaysrusland. Kh'vil zikh zeyer dervisn vegn ot-dem nomen. Aykh alemen a dank, Mikhoyel Basherives 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 03:05:02 -0500 From: hmegel@tso.cin.ix.net Subject: Help with a poem As a child I was reared by my grandparents who spoke only Yiddish. I have not spoken the language since. However, I remember a line of poetry which began, "S'iz geven a kalter, finstere nakht in Bronsville un...." I wonder if someone out there remembers the remainder of the poem and who authored it. Thank you very much. Herbert Megel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 7:51:21 +0000 From: szbeer@mailbox.syr.edu Subject: Hebrew fonts Just in the last couple of days I downloaded a couple of special hebrew type fonts (Ariela and Mosaic.fixed) that enable the transmission of hebrew on the World Wide Web. Somehow the characters, when typed in are coded in a particular way that show up as hebrew at the receiver's end! Are there any computer mavens out there that know how this can be implemented for Mendele? It would certainly solve many problems that are of continual contention here. Sylvan (Zavi) Beer 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 13:43:15 -0500 From: lfridhan@aol.com Subject: Kukvinkl ambiguity Anno Siegel: I appreciate your etymological analysis of German words that seem related to the Yiddish _kukvinkl_. I wish I knew more about linguistics than I do. However, I do know something about historical and ongoing Jewish experience. When considering the evolution of a word's meaning(s) my best guess is that, in this case, I should give more weight to folk experience than to etymology. My speculation about possible ambiguity of _kukvinkl_ is all speculation. If one thinks about German and Yiddish, one may think about the language of those who cornered, and of those who were cornered, and the different thought associations and the emotional tones they may evoke. Then it is clear that Jewish experience (at least among the Yiddish speakers) could lend an entirely different tone to the idea of a corner as a word-component. Is it a comfortable place from which to look out? Or is it a restricted place into which one was backed?. Again, thanks for your analysis. Mendele is an education. Mendele iz an arumnemiker toyre. A mekhaye. Louis Fridhandler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:13:51 -0500 From: hershl@aol.com Subject: L.A. Yiddish Choruses I'm delighted to advise my good friend, Eric Gordon, that the Arbeter Ring Yiddish Chorus is not an eyn-eyntsiger (a solitary phenomenon) in Los Angeles. The Sholem Yiddish Singers--the chorus sponsored by the Sholem Community Organization--will perform this Sunday morning at the Community's _khanike_ celebration at the Crossraods School, 21st St. and Olympic, Santa Monica. For further information: (310) 277-0849. Hershl Hartman 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 95 16:05:21 EST From: david.goldberg@smtpgwy.mla.org Subject: The US census and data about mother tongues Paul Ritterband mentioned a few postings back that the "mother tongue question" was asked *routinely* by the US Census since 1910. This is not precisely so. Although the "mother tongue question" was introduced in 1910, the Census assumed that only immigrants and their children would speak other languages, and so they did not ask the question "What language was spoken in this person's home when he or she was a child" of the entire white population until 1940. I'm not sure in what year the census first took stock of the nonwhite population. In 1980, the question was changed to "Does this person speak a language other than English at home," a question which the Census found received 15.4 million positive responses in 1979,in comparison to 32.4 million positive responses to the "mother tongue" question asked of the same group, experimentally, at the same time. My point is that the census data may be the best quantitative information we have about mother tongues in the US, but it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The best source I know for this kind of information is Dorothy Waggoner, who wrote on the 1970 Census in Ferguson and Heath's _Language in the USA_ (Cambridge UP) and on the 1980 Census in McKay and Wong's _Language Diversity: Problem or Resource_ (Newbury House). David Goldberg 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 19:23:16 -0500 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Maven/meyvn and its plural A. The humorist Jeff MacGregor, who writes for and about television, published in the Arts & Leisure section of the _New York Times_ (December 10, 1995, p. 37) a rhymed satirical piece about pundits on television channels who are always at the ready to "pontificate, educate, elaborate... illuminate, corroborate, and ruminate..." The title of the lengthy satire was "The Maven," and the subtitle read "(With Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)." Usually, when I see a yiddishism in an English newspaper, my first reaction is: "I wish they had spelled it in accordance with the standard YIVO romanization, in this case "meyvn," thus reflecting more accurately the pronunciation and derivation of the term (although English dictionaries still do not do so). But the mention of Poe in the subheading, and the refraining last line of each verse ending with "more," "nor," and "furthermore," alerted me naturally to the literary allusion of "The Raven." My eyes and mind therefore gladly accepted the spelling m-a-v-e-n, realizing that in this special case it must -- letterly -- parallel the spelling r-a-v-e-n. B. In the _New York Times Magazine_ of the same date William Safire wrote in his language column (p., 38) "As one of this paper's resident language _mavenim_..." As the mother of a sailor who came home on leave said: "By them he may be a captain, but not by me..." By the _Times_ he is, of course, a maven on English, but not when it comes to Yiddishisms. The plural of maven/meyvn is mevInim, not mavenim, with a shift of the accent from the first to the second syllable, and the non-syllabic /e/ in the singular changes in the plural to an accented /i/. Zellig Bach 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 16:34:33 -0800 (PST) From: tsirl@leland.stanford.edu Subject: Stanford U. Yiddish lectures The Stanford University Program in Jewish Studies Presents The Second Annual Lectures in Yiddish Studies Featuring Professor Dov Noy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem "Time and Space in Jewish Folklore" (**In English**) January 10, 1996, 8 p.m. "When Does Yiddish Poetry Become Folklore ?" (**In Yiddish**) January 11, 1996, 4 p.m. Both lectures will be held in Tressider Union, Oak West Lounge, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. For more information, please call (415) 723-7589. Professor Noy is a leading expert in the field of Jewish folklore. Cecile Kuznitz 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 10:50:28 -0700 (MST) From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Handlen Mit a Yid A shaynem dank dem shames far di mayseh. Ikh in man vahb hobn zayer fil gelakht fin dem. The strengths and weaknesses of transliteration are beautifully illustrated by this piece. The ability to reproduce special accents is excellent. However, when it comes to looking up any words or idioms in a dictionary, the lack of a correct Yiddish spelling makes this an almost impossible task. I am going to distribute this piece to my leyenkrayz, and we will work it out together. Then maybe I can persuade one of the members to perform this piece as a monologue. Morrie Feller Phoenix [The shames was only a meshores; but while he's up takes this opportunity to wish all Mendelyaner a freylikhen khanuke. nm] ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.195