Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.146 February 11, 1998 1) Mel Poretz's memories (Ruth Rischall) 2) Mel Poretz's memories (Mindy Gross) 3) Mel Poretz's memories (Gitl Dubrovsky) 4) Mel Poretz's memories (Lyber Katz) 5) Mel Poretz's memories (Irv Justman) 6) Mel Poretz's memories (Leon Rosenberg) 7) p'tscheh (Carol (Khaye-Sure) Zemel) 8) P'tsha or P'tsa (Russ Goldberg) 9) Rafoyel Mahler and Yuri Suhl (Diana Wilner) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:16:32 EST From: Rrischall@aol.com Subject: Mel Poretz's memories Mel Poretz asks about some expressions he heard in his youth. I know a few of them. 1. Morditchka. Morda in Russian means snout or face. In Yiddish it means chin. Morditchka would be a little chin. So Mel had a cute little chin as a boy. 2. Lachen mit yashcherkes. In Russian yashcherke is a lizard. The Yiddish expression is a form of gallow's humor. If you laugh with lizards it means, I'm laughing but it is not funny. It is actually very sad. Those are the expressions I know. Ruth Rischall 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 08:57:51 EST From: Marv144@aol.com Subject: Mel Poretz's memories Mel Poretz asked about the meanings of several expressions: 1) men ken nit zayn mit eyn toches oyf tzen yariden - one can also say the following: Men ken nit tantzn oyf tzvey chazones mit eyn mol. 2) ikl'l visn fun tzuris should be: ikh zol nit visn un kayn tzuris. 3) morditchka - diminutive of mordeh which means chin. and 4) lochn mit yastcherkes means that you are really laughing on the outside, but crying on the inside. It means that your laughter is really not true. Ich hof as ikh hob a bissl aroysgeholfn. Hot a gutn tog! Mindy Gross 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:00:47 EST From: GDubrovsky@aol.com Subject: Mel Poretz's memories 2) There is a Purim song that begins:' Vikhna Dvusha fort in shtut./ Halt zikh in eyn pakn/ Tsayt af Purim koyfn mel/ Humin tashn bakn.' Vikhna may be a variant of Yenta. 6) "Ayn tukhus awf tzvay yaridn." Bay undz hot men gezugt: "Mit eyn tukhus ken men nisht tantzen af tzvey khasines." 10) "Lokh mit yakhtchikes." We took this to mean that the laughter was marred by some underlying feelings other than 'funny.' Azoy is geven bay undz in der haym. Mir hobn shtendig gelakht mit yakhtchikes. Good luck. Thank you for your memories. Gitl Dubrovsky 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 15:54:22 -0500 (EST) From: Lyber Katz Subject: Mel Poretz's memories Mel Poretz, requested (Mendele 7.143) clarification of some expressions he remembers from his childhood. The region from which his parents came was sometimes Polish, sometimes Russian and was certainly within what is now, Lithuania, so that the Yiddish was influenced by all their languages. Assuming that Russian predominated, and that Mel is indeed off orthographically, I can offer the following: Item 2. "Dvusha" is a nickname for Dvoyre, i. e. a girls name. Item 3. "Chishik" - Russian "Chizh"= "finch". "Chizhik" is diminutive. The word for "squirrel" is "byelka." Item 4. "khurum" could be "khurbn", Yiddish for "catastrophe", although there is a Russian idiom, "khorom idyot"="moves in a chorus", i.e things are happening fast. The nearest to "avalitsya" in Russian is "metelitsa"="a blizzard" or "valitsa"="is falling" Item 5. "Kondrasha" is a diminutive of a man's name, "Kondratii" who could have been a local bully. Item 7. The expression we used was "er (ikh) zol azoy visn fun tzores"="he should only know of such troubles." Item 8. "Morda" is Russian for "snout" or, derogotary, for "face", i. e. "mug." "Mordochka" is the diminutive and becomes a term of endearment. Item 9. This is obviously a non-sense verse, so the combination of words is picked for sound. "Surrokeh" is probably "Soroka", Russian for "magpie", "varoneh" is "vorona"="crow" and "kotchkeh" is "koshka"="cat" (it could also be "katchke", Yiddish for "duck" --- take your choice!). "varilla, etu" should have no comma since "varila"="was cooking" and "etu"="this". "Medallah", I guess, is the Yiddish "meydele"="little girl", although why a magpie, a crow and a cat(duck) "were cooking a little girl" is beyond comprehension. But, since "malenka" is the feminine diminutive of "little one," the poor girl must really have been done in! The rest of that ditty I'l leave to the linguists, since none, even remotely, resembles Russian words I can think of. Item 10. "lokh mit yakhtchikes" should be "lakhn mit yashcherkes"="laughing with lizards", i.e. "laughing through tears." Lyber Katz [Moderator's note: "Soroka-vorona" was discussed in Mendele at length, see e.g. Mathis Chazanov's text and translation in Vol4.390:2] 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:29:29 EST From: IRVMIL@aol.com Subject: Mel Poretz's memories lokhn mit yakhchikes: Literally, to laugh with lizards. Figuratively, to laugh through tears. The reference is to having a cold sore or scab (the yakhchikeh) on or adjacent to one's lip, which cracks apart when stretched by a smile or a laugh. Irv Justman 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 07 Feb 1998 17:50:00 -0800 From: leon t rosenberg Subject: Mel Poretz's memories The phrase, 'tsu lachn mit yaschikes' was not uncommonly used, implying laughter without joy or humor. I had not found the word 'yaschikes' in my limited search, but an unnamed source, a friend of my older sister who is said to be quite knowledgeable and reliable said the word means lizard. The phrase then becomes an analogue of 'crocodile tears' in english, and may even imply some cross-cultural recognition of a 'crocodile smile.' Sure enough, looking up lizard in Abelson was rewarded;there was yaschike, more or less, although not given for either alligator or crocodile. I had certainly never heard the word other than in the idiomatic context, and this despite many visits to the Bronx Zoo in the company of my father, who was the yiddishist. Leon Rosenberg 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 09:36:02 -0500 From: Carol Zemel Subject: p'tscheh My family is from Yzaslavl (Ukraine; Rovne gebernye), and our version of this dish, pronounced p'tscheh, was a hot garlicky-egg soup made with chicken pipiks and chicken feet (discarded before eating). It was certainly more appealing than the traditional cold version of calf's foot in aspic. As kids we loved it, and fondly referred to it as "yellow gravy"--though as I write this, that doesn't sound much more palatable. I make p'tscheh today when I think my arteries can handle the strain. (Recipe upon request.) Carol (Khaye-Sure) Zemel Buffalo NY 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 12:10:19 -0800 From: Russell Goldberg Subject: P'tsha or P'tsa. I haven't had anything to contribute to this list before, since I am not fluent in Yiddish. I subscribed to the list in hopes that it would help me learn. It has provided me with a great deal of information and many smiles. I grew up in a small town in west Texas (yes, there are Jews in Texas). The only time I heard Yiddish was when my folks didn't want me to understand what they were talking about, when my grandparents or other older relatives visited, and when we listened to Mickey Katz albums. My mother felt that, even in though we lived in Texas, my Jewish culinary heritage should not be neglected. The nearest delicatessen was 400 miles away, but my mother was a master at creating ethnic food in this cultural wilderness. For instance, she pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, sour kraut, tongue, and corned beef, since the nearest delicatessen was over 400 miles away. Mom used to make a mock p'tsa (that's how she pronounced it) using left over turkey. She made a gelatinous sauce that contained eggs, flour, vinegar, a lot of garlic, and white pepper. According to the story she told, my grandfather (who came from Lithuania) loved the P'tsa, but nobody else in the family would come near it. So, my grandmother (whose family came from Hungary) created the mock dish which had a similar consistency and flavor, but was made from more acceptable ingredients. Anyway, it was delicious! We used to say that p'tsa prevented disease. If you ate it, the garlic smell kept everyone away from you for at least a week! Thanks for triggering this wonderful memory. Now that I live in California, there is much more available to me, but the flavors of my memories are the best. Russ Goldberg 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Feb 98 10:22:34 PST From: "deeee4" Subject: Rafoyel Mahler and Yuri Suhl In the 50's,I think, I attended a mitel shule class in New York City, in Yiddish. I had no previous schooling in the language but grew up in a home with immigrant parents and was familiar with the "tog teglikher sprakh. My lehrer was Dr. Rafoyel Mahler. I remember him as a wonderful man and great teacher. Can you tell me anything about him. I know he was not in the Arbitering Circle. I think he was politically left. I would also like to know about a Yiddish poet of that era, Yuri Suhl. I know he wrote a book of verse called "Di Partisaner" These two people were my guides to Yiddish. I read Mendele with much "farginigun" and lead a Yiddish Vinkl in my community. A shaynem dank Diana Wilner ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.146 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html