Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.176 December 31, 1996 1) Yiddish in the liturgy (Mechl Asheri) 2) Grine verem (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) 3) Yehoash bible translation (Al Grand) 4) The Weinreich dictionary (Gershon Winer) 5) Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax (Hugh Denman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 19:45:25 +0200 From: donnom@netvision.net.il Subject: Yiddish in the liturgy First, I found Arn Abramson's observations most interesting. If he says he's heard "viln" rather than "veln" in France and the UK, I believe him. Perhaps the Jews I've always hung around around with are the exception rather than the rule. Second, Moyshe Taub's paper from the 6th International Congress on Historical Linguistics was unknown to me (obviously, or I wouldn't have written what I did) and I am most anxious to get my hands on it. Since Dr.Taub lives in Israel, I will take the liberty of e-mailing him directly in the hope that he can tell me where to find it. Finally, I cannot agree with Les Train that the tkhines in Yiddish -- and this includes "G-t fun Avrom", a prayer, are part of the liturgy by any definition. The only English dictionary I have at hand (Webster's Collegiate, zayt moykhl) defines liturgy as, "A rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship". Every one of the examples cited by Mr.Train is a private prayer, not recited by a baal t'file, not prayed aloud as part of any service and not found in siddurim containing only the basic prayers. In the latter the only instance of Yiddish found is the one I mentioned. Please excuse me for discussion of an English term: Mendele, as I understand it, is for the discussion of Yiddish and Mr.Train certainly did that, whether I agree with him or not. Mechl Asheri 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 20:01:15 -0500 (EST) From: wolfim@chelsea.ios.com Subject: Grine verem Moyshe Taube (6.125) reminds us that parallel to 'mit grine verem', there is also ' mit grine gal'. Stutshkoff (p. 443, rt. col.) has a number of additional parallels, among them: mit grin un gal mit terkishe verem mit grine verem un kuperne pisklekh Meyer-Leyb Wolf 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 21:18:23 -0500 From: savoyid@aol.com Subject: Yehoash bible translation My 1982 edition of Yehoash's Yiddish translation of the Tanakh does indeed have thirteen pagers of Hebrew commentary in very small print at the back of the book. I'm grateful to Arn Abramson for having reminded me to look for it [6.175]. Of course this won't be too useful to Lisa Tomlinson who was looking for facing pages of Yiddish and English. It might be worthwhile for her to call the National Yiddish Book Center's Book Annex at (800) 783-9272. They may have a Yiddish/English edition. Al Grand 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 09:57:31 +0200 From: winer@euronet.co.il Subject: The Weinreich dictionary A recent announcement on Mendele reported that the Weinreich dictionary is to be reissued by YIVO. Students of Yiddish should be cautioned against three serious defects in Weinreich, despite its many qualities. 1. Numerous well established Yiddish words with a long history of usage in Yiddish literature, press and parlance are deligitimated by Weinreich. Dovid Katz's authoritative volume, _Amended Amendments_ -- Issues in Yiddish Stylistics -- Oxford, 1993, lists nearly 400 terms declared as not kosher by Weinreich. 2. Weinreich arbitrarily introduces new terms to replace the above -- none of them to be found in standard Yiddish texts, as the eight volume Leksikon Fun Der Nayer Yiddisher Literatur, the multi-volume History of Jewish Literature by Zinberg, Dubnow, Die Yidishe Entziklopedie and the approximately two dozen Yiddish periodicals in the the world today (except for one with the smallest circulation) not to speak of the major Yiddish poets, novelists, dramatists and essayists. Scholars and students resorting to these unaccepted artificial aaneologisms face the risk of not being understood or taken seriously by Yiddish readers. Weinreich deviates from the universal norms of lexicography of assembling, reporting and explaining words in print and daily use and instead, sets out to change the language in accordance with personal preferences of a few off-the-beaten-track of linguists. 3. It is also not a reliable source for translating numerous terms grounded in our religious tradition. I collected a few dozen of them in the course of perusing the dictionary. The best and most authoritative dictionary is still the Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary by Alexander Harkavy, but only the 1925 edition, which I have recommended to my students on both sides of the ocean. YIVO itself recognized this by implication, in issuing a new (unrevised) edition of Harkavy a few years ago with an introduction by Dovid Katz of Oxford. By the way, the same applies to the issue of spelling in all books and authors referred to above, to which should be added the four volume Great Dictinary of the Yiddish Language which rejects the YIVO changes in orthography (see editor's introduction in volume one). Gershon Winer Jerusalem 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 10:20:08 +0100 (MET) From: h_denman@maier.vol.at Subject: Slavic influence on Yiddish syntax In response to Ellen Prince's most recent contribution on this topic [6,172. 2] and some of her earlier comments, I would just like to remark that: 1. Her contention that German is a sov language (modified in the main clause only by a finite-verb-in-second-place proviso) has considerable elegance as a succinct synchronic description of the more Mandarin forms of NHG. However, from a diachronic point of view it doesn't stand up to scutiny, since OHG has very fluid word-order, much of which remains in MHG. Early NHG (in Luther's Bible, say) has a word-order quite similar to Yiddish and it is only in comparatively recent literary NHG that the notorious rules have jelled. 2. Consecutio temporum, though not quite as rigidly applied as in Latin or the Romance languages, is nevertheless normal at all stages of German, with the exception of contemporary colloquial usage such as the example aptly cited by Joachim Neugroschel: "Er sagte mir, dass er krank ist". The usual state of affairs is well illustrated by Ellen's interesting "Im Westen nichts Neues" comparison. 3. Unlike Yiddish "zikh", the Polish reflexive prounoun is declined and has long and short forms. The accusative "siebie" is normally shortened to "sie,", but in the dative the long "sobie" is the only (written) form. As for the wider issue, I incline to the view that the Slav impact on Yiddish syntax (if often only in a reinforcing role) is more far-reaching than Ellen believes, but clearly considerable caution is required, since early and non-standard forms of German often provide striking parallels with Slav usage. Hugh Denman London ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.176 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.cis.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.cis.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. Mendele archives can also be reached as follows: via WWW: http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mewais.html via gopher: gopher://sunsite.unc.edu/11/../.pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele via ftp: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele