Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.167 December 27, 1996 1) Rozhinkes mit mandlen (Ellen Prince) 2) Black English and Yiddish (Ellen Prince) 3) Prokofiev's "Overture on Hebrew Themes" (Chana and Yosl Mlotek) 4) Prokofiev's "Overture on Hebrew Themes" (Arre Komar) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 16:41:27 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Rozhinkes mit mandlen sophia adler (6.163) mentions that her grandfather was a traveling merchant who dealt in dried fruits, nuts, tea, and spices. she or some other mendelist must know the answer to something i've wondered about for years -- where all those delicacies that our parents etc were eating in eastern europe came from?!? until i met my husband (who's from egypt), i actually thought that halvah and 'turkish delight' and pistachios and dried dates and figs etc were eastern european foods, like borscht or blintzes or pickled herring! imagine my surprise when i learned that they were middle eastern. :) where did sophia's grandfather get his wares from? turkey? how did the procuring and distribution of these goodies work? did each locale make its own 'runs' -- or were there very large importers, say in romania, that the others bought their stuff from? one other related question: the women in my mother's family (originally from poland) used paprika and white pepper, never black pepper; the women in my father's family (carpato-rus) used paprika only, so far as i know. was this simply their idiosyncrasy, or was black pepper not available? thanks again. (i've made myself hungry with these questions and will now go hit that box of superb dried fruits from zabar's that a very kind romanian (gentile) friend recently sent us. oink, oink... ;) ) ellen prince 2)--------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 11:35:04 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Black English and Yiddish aren portnoy asks [6.166] if black english is analogous to yiddish. my opinion is yes and no. yes: i think the situation is analogous primarily in that in both cases we have a geographically discontiguous speech community -- the people who made up the eastern yiddish speech community were spread out all over eastern europe, separated by linguistic communities that outnumbered them but still forming a linguistic whole and clearly communicating more with one another than with geographically closer out-group members, and the people who make up the black english speech community are likewise spread out across the country, separated by...etc etc. they are also similar in terms of stigmatization, both from within their own speech community and from outside. (that is, just as many yiddish speakers and non-yiddish speakers thought/think that yiddish is 'bad german', many black english speakers and non-black english speakers think that black english is 'bad english'. and it goes without saying that in each case this evaluation is indefensible on linguistic grounds and derives entirely from non-linguistic issues re the social prestige of the speakers within the larger community.) no: what i believe is different is that, at this point in time, yiddish is clearly a separate language from its closest relative (modern german) while, in my opinion, black english is still simply a dialect of american english. this is also the opinion of someone who knows much more about it than i do, an eminent linguist, creolist, and africanist, salikoko mufwene at the univ of chicago, who considers that the only black variety of american english to have attained 'separate language' status is gullah, a creole language spoken by a black community on an island off the coast of north (?) carolina. however, i would bet that ANY linguist would predict that, if current socioeconomic trends continue, black english will evolve into a separate language -- perhaps what we have now is the analog of medieval judeo-german, en route to evolving into the analog of yiddish if ghettoization/segregation continues. (of course, the distinction between 'language' and 'dialect' is a difficult one and max weinreich said it best: 'a language is a dialect with an army and navy.' i am using the terms language/dialect in the linguist's sense of whether or not they are mutually intelligible, more or less...) fwiw, my understanding of the oakland decision is not that it will bring in money so that they can teach *black english* -- it's that it will bring in money earmarked for students whose first language is not english, to provide extra instruction and resources for _other_ things. i would also hope it would provide instruction to the *teachers* of those students, so that they may have a more enlightened view of what it is that their pupils speak. if that is correct, then i for one am all for it, in spite of my not believing that black english is technically a separate language (yet). ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 19:30:35 -0500 From: chaniyos@aol.com Subject: Prokofiev's "Overture on Hebrew Themes" Dan Leeson of Los Altos, CA writes (Vol 6.l66) that the melodies in the Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes, Opus 34, are composed. Concerning one of the melodies, I believe he is in error. The theme is from the folksong "Zayt Gezunterheyt," in which a bride bids farewell to her parents. The text was published by S. Ginsburg and P. Marek in l90l, words and music in l909 by Joel Engel and in l9ll by Z. Kisselgof. The song is in our anthology "Pearls of Yiddish Song" on page l02, where we added that Abraham M. Bernstein, who included this melody in his "Muzikalisher pinkes" (l927) wrote that "klezmorim played this melody at the end of the wedding when the in-laws would bid farewell and the mood was melancholy. Later, the melody changed to a happy one." We can't say for certain whether the wedding melody came before the song, or vice versa. This is one of the melodies that Bellison gave to Prokofiev during the latter's visit to this country in l9l9. Chana and Yosl Mlotek 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 22:11:42 -0500 (EST) From: komar@suhep.phy.syr.edu Subject: Prokofiev's Yiddish Music Dan Leeson is of the belief that the melodies used by Prokofiev in his Overture on Hebrew Themes are composed rather than folk. This is not the case, at least for some of them... and probably for all of them. I was informed that the composer was living in NYC, rooming with Boris Thomashevsky at the time he wrote that piece and that he learned the Yiddish songs from that great Yiddish Thespian. In fact the principal and most moving theme of the Prokofiev work is easily recognized to be the song "Zay zhe dir gesint mayne tayer eltern". Perhaps other Mendelniks can identify some of the other songs which he employs. Arre Komar ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.167