Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.241 February 5, 1996 1) Some questions about Western Yiddish (Alexis Manaster Ramer) 2) "The last Yiddish..." (Dovid Braun) 3) Life or death? - Nu shoyn! (Dorian Goldstein) 4) Pronunciation of suffixes (Dovid Braun) 5) Alte verter far naye tsaytn (Zellig Bach) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 16:30:35 -0500 From: amr@cs.wayne.edu Subject: Some questions about Western Yiddish Would anybody know whether WY dialects have (or had) either of the following: -c (ts) in the 2nd person pl. of verbs and the absence of umlaut in the 2nd and 3rd person pl. of the persent tense of strong verbs (forst, fort rather than, like German, fa"hrst, fa"hrt)? Please respond to me directly. Alexis Manaster Ramer 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 20:46:52 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: "The last Yiddish..." Journalist A. Litvin wrote a 5 volume journalistic-ethnographic series _Yidishe neshomes_, depicting East European Jewish life as he saw it during his travels throughout various regions populated by Yiddish-speaking Jews: Lite, Galitsye, etc. etc. In a piece written, if memeory serves me correctly, in 1911 [!], he describes his meeting with "the last [!] Yiddish folksinger." Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 Feb 96 19:28:48 EST From: 73051.2257@compuserve.com Subject: Life or death? - Nu shoyn! This discussion has been going on for an eternity here on Mendele. Isn't it time to stop? We all are interested in yiddish as it is and has been. Why not move forward and do what's necessary to encourage further growth and stop wasting our effort on discussions that are fruitless and cause for dissension. Lozt shoyn op! Dorian Goldstein 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 21:10:36 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Pronunciation of suffixes The yud in the yud-nun feminine suffix is not pronounced in any dialect. The standardizers of Yiddish spelling possibly thought they were doing the Yiddish-reader a favor by upholding a graphic distinction between the /n/-suffix which marks the plural and the /n/-suffix which is a feminine marker on certain agentive nouns. Given the "daytshmerisher oysleyg" -- the spelling system they were standardizing away from, they seem to have kept this orthographic daytshmerizm (cf. M. Schaechter's article of the 1960s "The HIdden Standard," which discusses numerous cases of New High German influences that, even if not common (or at all existent) in the spoken language, were okayed by the okaying powers -- the standardizers). The "sovetisher oysleyg," on the other hand, did away with the yud. That system undid numerous other spellingisms that were inherited from Modern German (e.g. "oyf" which is never pronounced that way in Yiddish). The allowance of the yud-nun spelling has had the effect of "creating" speakers for whom the suffix in fact has the vowel [i] in it. (Likewise, there are now speakers who say [oyf].) As for the lack of a pasekh under the tsvey yudn in the suffix _kayt_, this reflects the curious fact that in "Voliner" Yiddish (Southeastern Yiddish -- the dialects of Ukraine, Bessarabia, Podolia, etc.), speakers actually pronounce the suffix [keyt] and not [kayt]. This is unexpected, given the usual correspondence between the three main dialects where "Lite" and "Volin" have [ey] and "Poyln/Ungern" has [ay]. Instead, Lite and Poyln agree on this one. As for -hayt, it is not a productive suffix in Yiddish. Aside from _frayhayt_ which, I've noticed, is used only (or usually) in the context of national freedom, political autonomy, etc. (i.e. in the domain of political discourse), there's also _fraykeyt/fraykayt_ 'fluency; "freeness"; state of being unoccupied or gratis; etc.' or _frayshaft_, i.e. an analytic form. _frayhayt_ probably came into Yiddish through Modern German (the language from which Yiddish absorbed many words of political discourse); old words with what was priginally the suffix -hayt have preserved it as -et, e.g. [vuret] 'truth' in "poylish" Yiddish, from /vor/+/hayt/. Probably also the name [frimet] > /frum/ + /hayt/ Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 23:23:06 -0500 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Alte verter far naye tsaytn Di vayterdike tsvey bagrifn [concepts] bashteyen take fun alte verter, ober zey zaynen tsugepast to di hayntike, tekhnologishe tsaytn. 1. "Entferke" [answering machine], fun 'entfern' (to answer). Ikh hob gezen dos vort in Sutskevers zhurnal _di goldene keyt_ vos geyt aroys in Tel-Aviv. Di entferke vet oyfnemen ale ayere onzogn [messages], moydoes [announcements], un nayes [news] in ale shprakhn, aynshlisik, farshteyt zikh, Aramish (targem-loshn), Hebreyish, un Yidish, un afile "loshn-hore" [speaking ill of someone] un rekhiles [slander]. Oyb kh'meg aykh gebn a nit-gebetene eytse [unsolicited advice], hit zikh op fun the letste tsvey "leshoynes" [languages], vayl biklal [in general] iz es nit nor nit etish [ethical], nor s'vet blaybn af der entferke a tashme [tape], un ver veys, hayntike tsayn ken dos amol kholile genutst vern in a sikhsekh [conflict] kegn aykh... 2. "Gevald Linye Nayn-Elf" [911 tel. No.] far di problemen fun der itstiker, tumldiker velt. "Gevald" meynt af English "emergency," un "gevald geshrien" (or geshrign) meynt af English "a scream for help." Kh'hof az mit ot-dem telefonishn numer vet ir zikh keynmol nit darfn banutsn. Zellig Bach ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.241 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. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu ****Getting back issues**** 1. Anonymous ftp archives are available. ftp ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files A table of contents is also available, along with weekly updates. 2. 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