Yiddish Mailing List, Issue #51 February 27, 1992 185 lines =============================== Travel to Birobidjan and beyond (Yankl Falk) Sefarad davenen (Moishe-Nussen Eytan) Request for stories (Raphael Finkel) Origin of "khoyzek makhn" (Adam Reed) Word processing and transcription (Moishe-Nussen Eytan) Word processing (Sheldon Benjamin) Purpose of mail.yiddish (Sheldon Benjamin, Nicholas Eshelman) ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/1 Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 19:16:07 PST From: jfalk@cs.MENTORG.COM (Jack Falk) Subject: E-mail from a prolix galitsyaner I went to Birobidjan and half a dozen other then-Soviet cities last October, courtesy of an invitation to perform at their International Festival of Jewish Music. This year, the festival really was international; there were two groups from Israel, the excellent clarinetist Joel Rubin from Berlin, and another group from Oregon.) Our appearance was mentioned in a front-page article in the LA Times, although we weren't exactly mentioned by name. (The article DID mention "a portly American singer." I thought about suing, but hey, it's free publicity of a sort. I ain't svelte, so I put it in the band's press packet.) Birobidjan merits lots more discussion than I can give it tonight. In addition to Birobidjan, I celebrated Simchas Torah at the Great Choral Synagogue in Moscow; visited two weeks with Siberian cousins that our family only recently rediscovered; and spent a week in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Galicia, culminating in a visit to my grandfather's Ukranian shtetl that was so emotionally overpowering that I'm still struggling to understand what I saw there. Zayt gezint, Yankl ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/2 Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 15:36:54 GMT From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr (Michel Eytan LILoL) Subject: back issues & comment on digest 48/2 In Digest-message: 48/2 Bob gives a few indications about Galitsianer pronounciation that I fully concur with, as a non-native speaker of Galitsianer. The why's and wherefore's of this is a matter for phonological studies. Let me add just one point, concerning the "sephardishe" davenen. Among the leaders of the `Hassidic movement in the 17 century (that caught on in particular among the miserable people of Galicia) there was a return to the great Kabbalists of the past, specially to the Ari (Luria, if I remember correctly -- cf the Talmud Eser Hasephiroth, edited in Israel a few years ago), in particular in matters of davenen (liturgy). These people lived in Tsfat (Safed) and were real Sepharads. I believe that the sephardishe davenen can be attributed to this source -- whence the name "Nussa`h Sefarad". It is striking to compare, for instance, the Wilner Goen's siddur and a real sefarad one: they are much closer to each other than any of them to the ashkenaz siddur (say the Roedelheim one). There is a further point that I do not understand well: the name Galicia is precisely that of a Spanish province; although the Galitsianer, as all jews from the East, are of German (ie Rheinland) origin, it is fascinating to observe that. ==Moishe Nussen ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/3 From: Raphael Finkel Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1992 08:49:39 EST Lomikh betn di leyeners fun der yidisher post-rshime zey zoln puvn shraybn kleyninke (an erekh 100 verter) mayselekh ikh zol kenen drukn far mayn tokhters vegn. Zi iz alt 5 yor un heybt on leyenen yidish. ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/4 Date: Wed, 12 Feb 92 13:21 EST From: att!mtfmi!avr@lsuc.on.ca (Adam Reed) In Digest-Message: 50/3, Najman Kahana writes: > Can anyone explain to me the connection between the Hebrew word > "chazak" ("strong"), and the Yiddish phrase "choyzek machen" > ("to make fun of")? My guess is that it is a translation of the Polish verb _hartowac'_, literally "to make hard (or strong)", which is used in reference to both tempering (as of steel) and hazing (as of recruits in a military school) - hazing was supposed to stregthen self-confidence, making the recruit impervious to abuse and ridicule. Hence "khoyzek makhen" for verbal hazing. Adam_V_Reed@ATT.com ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/5 Date: Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:37:56 GMT From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr (Michel Eytan LILoL) Subject: Re: mail.yiddish issue #50, message 50/1 Oi vay iz mir! Deboireh, di redst Yiddish vi a shikse, loy ulayni. What's this "program vus macht de typing en hebresh de Yiddish"? I only know about 'yidtype.c -- A program which generates ASCII based Yiddish text.' due to Reful Finkel cf message 45/2, which I find awful! Of course there looms large the problem of romanization of yiddish. At the risk of being ridiculed, let me cite myself (mendele, issue 1.134): transcription of Yiddish makes no sense for me, sehot kain tam, since one must use Latin alphabet in its poorest form (not even accents we have in all european languages except English). I am too old to learn YIVO or Litvak or 'standard' (but who sets up the standard?) transcription, so I use the veriest phonetic one, except for ONE letter: I render the "`hes"(8th letter of the hebrew alphabet) by "`h", since for me (who know many Sepharads over here) it is definitely not the same letter as "khuf" (11th letter of the alef-bais); when I don't forget about it, in words of Hebrew origin, I also use the ` for the "`ayin". I shall also be sparse with quotes, simple or double. Of course the vowels are the most typical part of Galitsianer,they have been explained somewhere on Mendele or on mail.yiddish [Reb Noie`h, please give the exact reference] If someone is interested on Hebrew typing on Macs I can give some references (including personal experience with MacInHebrew). ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/6 From: sbenj@Athena.MIT.EDU (Sheldon Benjamin) Subject: Re: mail.yiddish issue #50 Date: Wed, 12 Feb 92 21:00:49 EST Personally, I like the idea of a more light hearted Yiddish list. When the hard core academic linguists get going on Mendele, I sometimes get vertigo! As to the question of Yiddish wordprocessors for the MAC.....I think that the best way to proceed would be with a Hebrew wordprocessor but with a Yiddish font installed. I believe Harry Bochner from Harvard, who is known to make appearances on Mendele, has crafted a Yiddish Mac font. For the actual processor, there are 3-4 options. The most economical option is MacInHebrew, available for a contribution to the MIT HILLEL House ($25 or $50 I think---I can get you the info if needed). For somewhere in the $100 range you can get Linguist Software's Hebrew system which converts the entire Mac (6.0.3) into Hebrew, menus, DA's the works, and has laser Hebrew fonts available for it. In the $3-500 range is Davka software's program. It used to be called Rav Ktav but I can't remember the latest name for it. There is no question that the Davka entry is the smoothest, but you can make do with MacInHebrew as long as you don't attempt to use WORD. Unless you are writing for publication I would guess the MacInHebrew program would suffice. It's a DA that works along with your regular processor and converts the Mac to right to left mode, allows English and Hebrew on the same line, etc. Good luck. Sholem Ruveyn ------------------------ Digest-Message: 51/7 Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1992 08:14:28 -0500 From: Nicholas Eshelman Subject: Purpose of mail.yiddish I think that defining mail.yiddish as a forum for jokes, stories, and other unscholarly matters sounds right. Mail.yiddish is also a good refuge from the hyper-fastidious and often nearly elitist approach to language and literature sometimes found on Mendele. ------------------------ SOF FUN NUMER 51 ------------------------ David (Daniel Moishe) Sherman, Toronto Moderator, mail.yiddish dave@lsuc.on.ca (416) 889-7658