Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 28 June 19, 1991 1) Introduction (Harry Katz) 2) Various (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 18 Jun 91 18:12:43 EDT From: harry@nonvax.alf.dec.COM Subject: Introduction My name is Harry Katz. I am a member of the National Yiddish Book Center and an amateur translator of Yid- dish literature. I learned to speak Yiddish from my parents and grandparents, but have not had to use it much since leaving home. As I never had any formal training in Yiddish, and had to teach myself how to read Yiddish, my knowledge of Yiddish is more or less elementary. I find that I do not know any adult vocabu- lary, but only the simple words that children use. However I am trying to correct that. I have been to a Yiddish Translation Workshop in Amherst, sponsored, of course, by the NYBC, and I have translated several Yiddish short stories by Afraim Koganovski and Zusman Segalovich. These are Polish writers, whose work I found in an anthology called, "Yiddish Shrayben in Poyln Tsivishn Di Velte Milkhomes." I would like to circulate some of these translations, but I am not sure what copyright restric- tions apply. I need to contact the original publisher, CYCO, to try to obtain permission to publish these translations. If anyone has had any experience getting such permissions, I would be glad to hear from them. I am also trying to locate a book of short stories by Zusman Segalovich called, "Goldene Pahves." The anthol- ogy I cited above names this book as the source for the Segalovich stories that I have translated. My only source of Yiddish books currently is the NYBC, and they have not run across a copy. I am also trying to set up a newsletter for exchanging information among Yiddish translators. This is a hard copy print venture, not an electronic mail venture, because I suspect many of us do not have access to a computer or the e-mail network. Harry 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 18 Jun 91 21:30 EDT From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: Various To: Beatrice Santorini Received the copy of your dissertation, for which many thanks. I'm reading, albeit slowly. (MENDELE is threat- ening to become a full-time job.) I may encounter the answer as I read on but, I wonder if you deal with the verb-second, "dummy" IZ sentences, discussed by Zaretski ("Praktishe yidishe gramatik", Moscow, 1926) and by Zelda Kahan Newman (University of Michigan dissertation, 1982, "An Annotation of Zaretski's 'Praktishe yidishe gramatik'). E.g., "bay di kinder ober IZ di natur nit zi shtarbt, nit zi shteyt tkhies-hameysim uf"; "in frankraykh IZ, di heldn matrosn, velkhe . . . ., matern zikh nokh alts in tfise". Would you send examples (in "real" language) of the types of sentences you're now researching. To: Melekh (Yiddish Meylekh) Viswanath 1. I'm a bit hung up on names. Please enlighten me about yours. 2. Thanks for the comparative evidence from the lan- guages of India. It's quite to the point. 3. In Western Yiddish, the distinction between leyenen and le(y)zn is probably as you say. In the East, leyenen serves for both reading the Torah and reading a newspaper; le(y)zn, when it's used, is "daytshmerish". To: Agi Segal. A big "HELLO". To: Noyekh Miller Your earlier query about Hebrew and Aramaic words in Yiddish merits a response. Soon! Best wishes. M. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.28