Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.249 February 11, 1996 1) Bris-itse (Rick Turkel) 2) Finding intensive Yiddish instruction for children in NYC (Howard Sage) 3) Englishisms in Yiddish (Zellig Bach) 4) Argentine Yiddish tangos (David Robboy) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Feb 96 14:04:35 EST From: rturkel@cas.org Subject: Bris-itse Bernard S. Greenberg wrote in mendele 5.246: "-itsa is a Rumaninan feminine diminutive ending, for what it's worth..." About as much as the fact that it isn't a native form, but rather borrowed from the surrounding Slavic languages. It can't be found in any other Romance language but exists in all of the Slavic languages, where it has the same meaning and is very productive. Rick Turkel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 22:06:47 -0500 (EST) From: sage@is.nyu.edu Subject: Finding intensive Yiddish instruction for children in NYC This is only indirectly a language inquiry. Please excuse. I would like to offer my son have some Yiddish instruction, more than the once-a-week kind I seem to find available around New York City in the programs I've checked. I'm sure I don't know the full range of possibilities for this instruction. I myself went to a Sholem Aleichem (sp.) Folk Shule five afternoons a week, after public school let out. I suppose I cannot replicate that, and my son probably wouldn't want me to, but I would like to get close. Do you have any suggestions and/or comments on that hope? My Yiddish has mostly faded (it was not spoken frequently in my home), but when I was 11 I could read and write Yiddish. I gave my entire Bar Mitzvah speak in Yiddish at my parents' request, the only one in the entire town to do so. Please reply to sage@is.nyu.edu to avoid unnecessary traffic on the list. Howard Sage 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 00:36:08 -0500 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Englishisms in Yiddish Miki Safadi wrote: "In Amerike un Kanada nitst men 'glaykhn' anshtot 'gefeln' ven men meynt "to like." Nitst men 'glaykhn' oykh in England un Australye?" (5.242,5). I do not know to answer to this question, but it brings up the general problem of Englishisms in American Yiddish. Harkavy included indiscriminately in his Yiddish/English and later Yiddish/English/Hebrew dictionaries (1888, 1925, 1928) most, if not all, Englishisms in the _spoken_ Yiddish of the immigrants (all glossed as "Am." for Americanisms), among them, for instance, such words as baybi, biznes, blof, glaykhn, member, peyde, pedlen, pedler, troble, and a great total of many, many others. For years there was an urgent need to weed out daytshmerisms from cultured Yiddish, so must we now, before it is too late, put up clear and firm barriers against the flood of Englishisms that threaten to water down and corrupt correct Yiddish. A wife worrying about paying rent that is overdue, may be quoted in a _dialogue_ as saying to her husband after he came home from work, "Hostu haynt bakumen peyde?" [Were you paid today?], but 'peyde' is not a legitimate word in written Yiddish. Its use in a dialogue is justified strictly for the sake of color and realism. While all of the Englishisms were initially loanwords from English, some of then --but not all! -- of the cited words, and some others, may be considered by now as having been "naturalized" citizens in Yiddish. The criterion for the acceptance or rejection of Englishisms into Yiddish is a _general_ one: If there is a good, old Yiddish word covering the self-same meaning as the Englishism, it should not gain naturalization in Yiddish regardless of the years it has unlawfully been used. We have _skhires_ for "peyde," _mitglid_ for "member," or _shokhnte_ for "nekstdorike" (the woman who lives next door). These Englishisms do not add anything to their Yiddish equivalents and are therefore of no use to Yiddish. On the other hand, accepted Englishisms in Yiddish bring with them new, additional nuances: "glaykhn" can sometimes be more and sometimes less than "gefeln." For instance: "Zi glaykht im un dokh gefelt er ir nit" [she likes him, but still he doesn't appeal to her]. Similarly, with the Englishism "biznes." This does not necessarily mean just store, manufacture, or occupation, but even something remote from these spheres. If a relative, for instance, vociferously opposes his cousin's intending to marry a certain young man, he may be told in Yiddish "dos iz nit dayn biznes" [this is not your business]. The "naturalized" Englishisms are therefore not to be considered totally synonymous with the Yiddish words they came into use supposedly as legitimate replacements. They have new, added connotations. Zellig Bach 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Feb 96 14:23:41 PST From: robboy@ssd.intel.com Subject: Inquiry on Argentine Yiddish tangos My group sang a medley of five Yiddish tangos from New York, and I was talking with a South American Jew who said there was a large Ashkenazic community in Argentina in the '30s, they had Yiddish theatres and wrote Yiddish tangos. Anybody know where I can find Yiddish tangos from Argentina? Sheet music, records, anything? David Robboy ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.249