Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.239 February 24, 1997 1) _In Poylishe Velder_ (Hugh Denman) 2) Regional variations (Morrie Feller) 3) Place names and rebbe's names (Mechl Asheri) 4) Yiddishisms in American English (Mark Melnick) 5) Ende oysiyes (Michael Shimshoni) 6) Ende oysiyes (Mechl Asheri) 7) Ende oysiyes (Les Train) 8) Ende oysiyes (A. Joseph Ross) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 19:42:17 +0100 (MET) From: h_denman@maier.vol.at Subject: _In Poylishe Velder_ Certainly Yoysef Opatoshu's novel, _In Poylishe Velder_ (1921) satirises the Kotsker rebe and Kotsker hasidim in general. It was filmed in 1928 by Jonas Turkow and had its premiere in January 1929. I have never seen the film and it was not included in the recent, extremely comprehensive Yiddish Film Festival at London's Barbican Arts Centre, but according to Hoberman's "Bridge of Light" (undoubtedly the best book on Yiddish film) the cuts that were cravenly made at the behest of the Agudes Yisroel ruined the film and accounted for its commercial failure. It would be good to know if there is an uncut version still in existence anywhere. The person who would know is Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director of the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis. Hugh Denman London 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 12:45:55 -1000 From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Present tense, singular, third person of "veysn" My friend Sholem Jafe in 6.233 states that "er veyst" "klingt im azoy modne". He asks if this form is a matter of dialect or a daytshmersim. In "201 Yiddish Verbs" by Anna Rockowitz, p.77, the verb "visn" in the present tense, singular, third person is shown as "veys" but with a "tes" after it in parentheses. I take this to mean that "veyst" is an alternate acceptable form, but not preferred. Morrie Feller Phoenix 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 22:38:36 +0200 From: donnom@netvision.net.il Subject: Place names and rebbe's names Everything so far received on the subject of place names fails to mention the names that were not just phonologically adapted by Yiddish-speakers but actually translated and invariably used in their translated form. Three examples come to mind: Stary Sambor in Poland which was almost always called Altshtut, Bielaya Tzerkov in the Ukraine, always called Sde Lovon (when it wasn't called Shvartze T'uma) and Deutschkreuz in Burgenland, called Tzelem. I knew Altshtuter Rav z"l, a great tsadik, and once saw the Tzelemer Rebbe. That said, I greatly enjoyed David Herskovic's amusing observations on why one place name is preferred over others. As he says, who ever heard of an Uzhgoroder Yid? But the Kloizenburger Rebbe is another story: it's not only places that change their names but Rebbes too. Kloizenburg is called Kluj and Koloshvar too as far as that goes, but R. Yekusiel Halbertshtam who when I first met him was called the Kloizenburger Rebbe, is now called the Tzantzer Rebbe. The late Pittsburgher Rebbe, z"l, when I first knew him after the war, was called the Czernowitzer Rebbe. Other examples abound. Mechl Asheri 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 21:16:49 -0500 From: melnick@compuserve.com Subject: Yiddishisms in American English Of possible interest to Mendelniks is an article in the New York Times today (2/23/97), by Richard Shepard, about the extent to which Yiddish words and expressions have been incorporated into American English. The article appears on page 2 of the Week In Review section. On the Web version of the Times, the article appears at http://search.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/yiddish-review.html. Mark Melnick 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 97 12:43:21 +0200 From: mash@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il Subject: Ende oysiyes In. 6.238 David Herskovic expressed his surprise at seeing some works by Bergelson in Yiddish with all end letters replaced by "normal" ones. I thought that this was standard Soviet practice. During WWII I used to read their Eynigkeyt (sp?) published by the antifashistishe yiddishe farband (or something like it), and there also no end letters were used. Another difference from other Yiddish texts I know was the spelling of words originating in Hebrew, as shabbes etc. They were all spelled phonetically rather in the way they were written in Hebrew. I took it to be the Soviet attempt to severe relations between Hebrew and Yiddish. Another reason could be that in the S.U. by then many Jews who spoke and read Yiddish were ignorant of Hebrew and thus would have trouble to know what "shin beis sof" etc. meant. Michael Shimshoni 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 22:23:51 +0200 From: donnom@netvision.net.il Subject: Ende oysiyes In answer to David Herskovic's question, "Was there ever a movement to remove the end letters from Yiddish orthography?" I seem to recall that Communist Russia imposed two innovations on Yiddish writers: all Hebrew words had to be written in a phonetic transliteration and word-final letters were forbidden. If my memory serves (and if it doesn't, I certainly should be used to it) that must have been where the book he found was published. But here's the weenie: Yiddish, which adopted ten percent of its mostly Germanic vocabulary from Hebrew, adopted Germanic terms for word-final letters in Hebrew. There are five of them and they are called, in every Yiddish-speaking talmud-toire, lange khaf, lange nun, lange pe, lange tsadik and shloss mem. "Ende tsadik"? Never heard of it! Mechl Asheri 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 19:32:55 -0500 (EST) From: ltrain@chass.utoronto.ca Subject: Ende oysiyes In Soviet orthography, lange nun,tsade etc. were all dropped, as were all hebrew spellings - words were written phonetically. As well, by (by) was spelled as pronounced in USSR - ba; hence, "baym" becomes "bam". It wasn't until the early 90's I believe, when they finally fell into step with the rest of the world. The reason for the differentiation was probably political. Erase as much of the old, conservative semitic writing system, and the gulf between the religious traditionalists and the modern secularists widens. Les Train 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 23:44:58 -0500 (EST) From: lawyer@world.std.com Subject: Ende oysiyes David Herskovic asks about a movement to remove the end letters from Yiddish orthography. I once read that in the Soviet Union, the authorities required two modifications of Yiddish orthography. The first was that Hebrew words had to be given Yiddish spellings. This was because, while, ideologically, Yiddish was recognized as the language of one of the many ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, Hebrew was considered the language of religion and of Zionism, buth of which were anathema to Soviet ideology. The second was that the end letters could not be used. Apparently, this was looked upon as bourgeois elitism because only a selected few had end forms. I have no idea whether these orthographic ideosyncracies still exist in Russian Yiddish today. A. Joseph Ross Boston ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.239