Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.185 January 5, 1997 1) Yiddish dictionaries (Arn Abramson) 2) Yiddish dictionaries (Gilad J. Gevaryahu) 3) Yiddish dictionaries (Joachim Neugroschel) 4) Yiddish dictionaries (A. Joseph Ross) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 21:37:51 -0400 From: abramson@uconnvm.uconn.edu Subject: Uriel Weinreich Mikhl Herzog (vol 6.183) wonders whether he was alone in his shocked reaction to the posting of Gilad Gevaryahu (vol. 6.182) about the Weinreich dictionary. Let me assure Mikhl and you others that I was upset by those remarks too. Uriel Weinreich, olevasholem, my teacher in graduate school and later my friend, was a man of recognized scholarship in the field of linguistics as well as the narrower topic of Yiddish linguistics. I also remember him as a kind person who always felt concern for his family, friends, and students. Whatever the shortcomings of his dictionary, he hoped to handle them in a new edition. Alas, his early death, which dismayed us all even though it was expected, ended his work on that and other projects. I find, with others, that the Weinreich dictionary is lexicographcally superior to the other Yiddish-English dictionaries; however, I sometimes have to go elsewhere, usually Harkavy, to look up this or that word. When I do, I miss Weinreich's more sophisticated treatment of gender and other grammatical details. I would like to believe that Gilad was just too hasty in dashing off his remarks. Of course, I hardly need say that he has every right to discuss somone's work on its own merits. Arn Abramson 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 00:15:06 -0500 From: gevaryahu@aol.com Subject: More on the dictionary Mr. Herzog missed the pun when I said "What a shvantz" since this word doesn't exist in the dictionary. No offense was intended. Whatever happened to the sense of humor of native English speakers? I still think that it is a shande that the dictionary does not include many body parts, body functions and other "offensive" words. A language is dead if you cannot go to the bathroom with it, nor is it alive if you cannot cuss in it. It was certainly a big mistake to censor the language. Jews suffered enough from censors throughout history and we should not do it to ourselves. However, I am not sure if it was Mr. Weinreich himself who did it, as the dictionary came out posthumously. Der Otzar fun der Yiddish Schprach by Nahum Stutchkoff included many of the censored words with an asterisk (*). Some of the banned words (in English and in Yiddish) are: tuches, shvantz, shmuck. drek u.s.v. Even if Mr. Weinreich wanted to censor "improper" words, a word like "shvantz" which has both kosher and vulgar meanings, it should have been included with at least the kosher meaning of "tail". Gilad J. Gevaryahu 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 01:08:20 -0500 (EST) From: achim1@cris.com Subject: Yiddish dictionaries Mikhl Herzog is quite right in attacking the gross verbal assault on Uriel Weinreich. The person who complained that th dictionary doesn't list the word "shvants" ought to compile his own yiddish anatomical dicktionary--or do something equally useful. I wont hold my breath. I chose to respond by ignoring it and simply explaining how useful Weinreich's textbook and dictonary have been to me and by hinting, in my discussion of "anthology", that the only useful critique is one that adds something instead of simply gripes. compiling a dictionary is a back-breaking corvee and a thankless one--perhaps more so in Yiddish than in other languages, whose speakers are more open to standardization and who have more respect for their native tongues. over the years my first copy of the Weinreich became so dilapidated that I recently bought a new one--same for my Harkavy. I believe that speaks volumes. and whatever quality my translations have, I could not have done them without both dictionaries--and a host of others as well. I sometimes read around in the Weinreich just to imbibe words that i've forgotten or haven't come across or that I didn't realize have a different meaning than their cognates in other languages (e.g. German "Belletristik" means "belles lettres"--i.e. "prose and poetry"; Yiddish "beletristik" means "fiction" only). No one is required to believe everything they read in a lexicon--but if people who claim they care about Yiddish would stop sniping at the movers and shakers and do something productive, then I could take them far more seriously. For instance: it would be wonderful if th Groyser Verterbukh could be completed. Considering the low quality of the Yiddish in some (many?) mendele postings, a thorough reading of Weinrich's College Yiddish would do those subscribers a world of good. I constantly consult the paradigms in that textbook whenever I write anything in Yiddish--if only to shove anyway the German paradigms that keep forcing themselves on me. If you'd like to see a really mediocre dictionary, try the American Heritage Dictionary, and if you'd like to see a really sloppy book of grammar try the famous standard Duden (Deutsche Grammatik). If your Yiddish is so excellent that you don't need Weinreich's dictionary when reading a modern Yiddish novel, then I'm highly envious of you. But I have a sneaking suspicion that certain subscribers don't need the Weinrich dictionary because they seldom read Yiddish. which is too bad, because there are some truly wonderful things in Yiddish literature--not that they'd ever find out. Joachim Neugroschel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 01:12:43 -0500 (EST) From: lawyer@world.std.com Subject: Yiddish dictionaries Andrew Cassel asked [6.183] about the production quality of Harkavy's 1928 dictionary. Well, I don't know about his, but I have no problem with blurry print in my copy. I don't have the recent reprinting, I have my grandfather's original 1928 edition Incidentally, my mother got quite nostalgic when I told her about Al Grand's question about "Patch zikh in tokhes un shray 'bravo'!" She certainly remembers her mother saying it. She didn't quite remember saying it herself. I thought we both said it to my 9-year-old niece a month or so ago, but she didn't remember that either. A. Joseph Ross ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.185