Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.005 May 26, 1998 1) Grine Katshke (Sheva Zucker) 2) Oyto-terminologiye (Shaya Mitelman) Andrey Bredstein's car (moderator's note) 3) Oyto-avto-auto (Shaya Mitelman) 4) Meire (Michoel Ronn) 5) maireh (Yosef Gilboa) 6) chalah and maireh (Percy Mett) 7) Schlemiel (Dan Leeson) 8) Adrabe - Aramaic or Hebrew? (Percy Mett) 9) "feygele" (Joachim Neugroschel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 00:12:44 EDT From: SCZUCKER Subject: Grine Katshke Me redt un me redt un me shushket zikh. Khaveyrim, azoy fil reyd vegn Mandy Patimkins CD, tsi er tseharget di shprakh tsi nit, tsi zayn stil iz mer Yidishlekh tsi mer Brodvey? Vayzt oys az mir Mendelyaner zaynen nit beser vi der durkhshnitlekher Amerikaner in gas. Mir zaynen farkokht mit dem CD dafke vayl er iz fun a "Holyvud star." Ikh hob zikh nokh nit tsugehert tsu Mandy Patimkin's CD, ken Ikh nit zogn kin meyvines, tsi er toyg yo tsi nit, ober Ikh meyn az s'iz shoyn tsayt mir zoln gebn a bisl mer ufmerkzamkeyt a nayem CD vu mer darf nit fregn tsi di zingers kenen rikhtik aroysredn Yidish, vayl zey kenen, un vu me darf nit fregn tsi der stil iz oytentish oder nit. Ikh red do vegn dem nayem un shtark sheynem CD fun kinderlider, Grine Katshke! Di zingers, Perl Teitelboym un Lorin Sklamberg mit klenere uftretungen fun Adrienne Cooper, Henry Sapoznik, un a grupe yunge Yidish-redndike kinder zingen ale rikhtik, fun gut iz opgeredt! Di muzikalishe aranzhirungen zaynen lebedik un farsheydnartik, un azelkhe vos kenen farkhapn kinder. S'rov fun di lider zaynen frier in ergets nit rekordirt gevorn (af vifl Ikh veys). Es zaynen do say alte, gut bakante lider vi "Grine Katshke," "Di Frosh" un "Sorele iz in Vald Avek" vi oykh naye shafungen fun Beyle Shekhter-Gottesman un Josh Valetsky! Ale lider zaynen vegn khayes. Lomir oykh nit fargesn tsu dermonen di zeyer sheyne papirshnitn fun Odem Vaitman vos bagleytn yedes lid in bikhl. Khotch der CD iz getsilt af kinder vet yederer vos hot lib Yidishe muzik hanoye hobn. Me ken im bakumen fun Living Traditions oder fun der Yidish-Lige. A yasher-koyekh ale onteylnemer! They said it couldn't be done! A record of children's songs that didn't include "Afn Pripechik" or "Yome, Yome" but they were wrong! "Grine Katshke" (The Green Duck) is a wonderful new CD of Yiddish songs for children, all on an animal theme. There is no need for discussions about whether these singers--Paula Teitelbaum, Lorin sklamberg, Adrienne Cooper, Henry Sapoznick, and a delightful group of Yiddish-speaking (not just singing) children can pronounce Yiddish correctly! They can! The material is fresh and lively and the style is a wonderful mix of authentic and original. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy the Grine Katshke, you just have to be young at heart! Sheva Zucker 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 01:51:28 -0400 From: Serge Mitelman Subject: Oyto-terminologiye. Here are some more motor vehicle-related words for Shloyme-Khayim Cohen's collection (usually self-explanatory): reaktiver aeroplan (reaktiv-aeroplan), luftlayner, aeroplanen-treger, bombardir-aeroplan (bombardirer), farnikhter (farnikht-aviatsiye, fighter plane), shturem-aeroplan, iberklangiker aeroplan, biplan, planer (deltoplan, hang-glider), propeler, satelit-treger (sputnik- treger), kosmishe shif, lesh-mashin (fire truck), last-oytomobil (last-avtomobil, last-mashin), zelbst-oysloder, pasazhir-oytomobil (pasazhir avtomobil, pasazhir-avtomashin), oytobus (avtobus), troleybus, tramvay, buldozer, shlep-traktor, beton-(far)misher, pantser-transportirer, pantser-oytomobil (pantser-avtomobil, bronevik), minen-trauler, taksi, oytokran (avtokran), heyb-kran (heybkran, kran), tsveyshtokiker (tsveygorndiker) oytobus (avtobus), erd-grobmashin, ambulans (gikhe hilf, karete far gikher hilf), katafalk, lafet, roypn- traktor, reder-traktor, traktor-aker, trambir-mashin, kombayn, moped (motorizirter velosiped), motoroler, mototsikl, zelbstroler, elektro- mobil, asenizatsiye-mashin, aeroshlitn, aerostat (luftbalon, dirizhabl), drezine. Shaya Mitelman. [Moderator's note: those interested in automotive Yiddish should visit our fellow Mendelist Andrey Bredstein's page at http://www.glasnet.ru/~anbredstein/text/avto/avto.htm Also a book translated from Russian might be useful: Mikhail Il'in, Viazoy der avtomobil hot zikh gelernt geyn / Moskve: Tsentraler felker-farlag fun F.S.S.R., 1931 BTW, should it be "gelernt geyn" or "gelernt forn"? i.v.] 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 19:45:11 -0400 From: Serge Mitelman Subject: Oyto-avto-auto. My recent excursus into automotive terminology reminded me of the difference in the standard rendering of the prefix auto- between the Soviet and YIVO styles: oytomobil=avtomobil, oytobus=avtobus, oytor=avtor, oytograf=avtograf, oytomatish=avtomatish (but oyto-da-fe=autodafe, oytentish=autentish). It comes to the point when Boris Sandler exploits the word "oytogen" for the Russian "avtogen" (meaning autogenous cutter, "Erev dem groysn yontev", Forverts, may 8, 1998), which I'm sure he pronounces as in Russian. The issue may be broader, though. Some other words fall in the same ballpark: yanuar=yanvar, oygust=avgust, astronoyt=astronavt (Forverts habitually uses "astronot"), cosmonavt, argonavt, oystralye=avstralye, etc. Here there is even less consensus, for N.Stutchkoff lists "aeronavt", not "aeronoyt". V - tsvey vovn, rather than U - vov, obviously reflects a Slavic influence, but it looks that all the native speakers, who did not study in either secular prewar Poland or Arbeter ring schools, do tend to pronounce V - tsvey vovn. (My father, who went to the Yiddish school in Czernowitz till it was closed in 1948 "po pozhelaniyam trudyashchikhsya" - "by the working people's requests" - was instructed to use V: avtoportret and yanvar.) Moreover, in dialectal speech avto- remains unchanged, despite the usual metamorphosis of Slavic words to make them more palatable for Jewish tongues. Except for the written language, Yiddish speakers do not seem to be uncomfortable with avto (otherwise they would have adjusted it naturally). The thing is also complicated in Russian, - some words (usually older borrowings) use avto-, while other (newer borrowings) - auto-: avtonomiya, avtoklav, avtoritet, avtoportret, avtograf; but autotrening, autogennaya trenirovka, autopsiya, autoimunnyye zabolevaniya; some exist in both forms - avtokhtonnyy=autokhtonnyy. Avto- may sometimes sound archaic, e.g. Leon Pinsker's famous brochure "Avtoemansipatsiya" (in contemporaneous Russian translation) now would be called "Autoemansipatsiya". So, what exactly were the considerations in choosing between the two variants? Shaya Mitelman. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 20:10:05 EDT From: chromelion@juno.com Subject: Meire Chaim Lieberman addresses the origin of the word "meire" in one of his volumes of "Ohel Rokhel." (I believe it is in volume two.) Firstly, "meira" is a word used strictly in the process of baking matses. Each new batch of kneeded dough (made every 18 minutes) is called a "meire." Lieberman mentions a rabbinical source which states that the origin of the word "meire" is from the Hebew "m'heiro," meaning "quickly" - as the matses need to be needed and baked very quickly. Yours truly, Michoel Ronn Brooklyn, NY 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 12:17:27 -0700 From: AJ Gilboa Subject: maireh My guess is that the word "maireh" is derived from the Hebrew "ma'arokh" (mem 'ayn resh vav khaf) meaning rolling-pin or (occasionally) rolling-board and is borrowed in the baking trade to refer to the batch of dough that is rolled out. (A pot of soup refers to the soup, not the pot.) In Yiddish, it would be pronounced "mairekh" and should be spelled as in Hebrew. I suppose that the guttural ending and the Hebrew spelling evaporated at some point. I checked a few Yiddish dictionaries in the sparse collection (=2) at the Weizmann Institute library, but could not find the word 'maireh' in any spelling. I assume from what you wrote in your query that the spelling on the matza box was phonetic (mem yod yod resh 'ayn). Right? Yosef Gilboa (armchair etymologist) 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 16:46:43 +0100 From: Percy Mett Subject: chalah and maireh As far as I know (probably not very much) the word mayre is used only in connection with baking matses, and means a dough. (Traditionally matse is made from small batches of dough, not exceeding about 4/5 lbs of flour, so that they can be handled easily. Nowadays with machinery things are different.) Perets Mett London, England 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 10:35:10 EDT From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@admin.fhda.edu" Subject: Schlemiel Just after the emancipation of the Jews of Germany, a stock character called schlemiel was developed or created by those Jews as a focus for negative attitudes towards them. He became a stock comic character, the butt of a satire, a scapegoat. In the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann" by the Jewish composer Jacques Offenbach, the character "Schlemiel" (with accent over the first "e") appears briefly only to have his shadow stolen. Until recently, I knew of the word's use only in Yiddish; i.e., a dolt, a fool, a nebbisch, an idiot. Is it possible that the adoption of the term by the German Jews of the 1860s might have come about by their choice of a Yiddish word, or does this word have no Yiddish origin at all? I'm doing an article for a magazine on antisemitism in Wagner's operas specifically, but the presence of this term in "Tales of Hoffmann" (which is derived from three stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann) caused me to explore other composers besides Wagner. And I am wondering about the use of Schlemiel and why that name was taken for that specific character. Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 19:24:53 +0100 From: Percy Mett Subject: Adrabe - Aramaic or Hebrew? The word adrabe is clearly not Hebrew. If nothing else, the initial pasakh aleph followed by -de- gives it away. You can find this in numerous places in shas - spelt with a final aleph. pe'rets mett 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 09:38:08 -0400 (EDT) From: ACHIM1 Subject: "feygele" I was very intrigued by Mikhl Herzog's description of the name "feygele" as coming from a flower [08.003]: could he tell us more? thanks Joachim Neugroschel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.005 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