Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no.42 July 11, 1991 1) Various (Mikhl Herzog) 2) An exchange (Mikhl Herzog and NM) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 12:51 EDT From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: Various 1) To: VISWANATH@DRACO.BITNET Melekh (viswanat@draco.rutgers.edu), you're right, of course; it was a typo; thanks! On the other hand, "slogn", with slightly palatalized "s", (but, NOT "slugn"), would be a fair representation of so-called Litvish. You never did reply to my query about the origin of your name. 2) To: auwera@ccu.UIA.AC.BE Sorry to have burdened you with so many questions. Can you stand a few more? Do you happen to know the name of the visiting graduate student from New York who was studying Dutch-Yiddish contacts? Did he work in The Netherlands, too? Was he interested in Dutch Yiddish, too? To: BERK@ZODIAC.BITNET Bob, I'm replying via Mendele, because the material may be of general interest. I'm grateful to your friend in Israel for supplying Chapter and Verse: (Judges 5: 28) "bead hekhalon nishkefa....". Let me know what he says about "derekh hekhalon". As for the Bialik pun about the "tarnegol", i.e. about the "khosn" under the "khupe": "mise" (as in "mise meshune", by the way) is from Aramaic and means 'death'. It's spelled with "sof", pronounced as Ashkenazic [s], traditionally transliter- ated "th", but prounced [t] in Ivrit. So, the "tarnegol" with which one shlogs (!) "kapores" is going to his death. Yiddish "mIte" (with initial stress), spelled with "tes", is from Hebrew "mitA" 'bed' (with final stress). In Yiddish it means 'stretcher (generally for carrying a corpse)'. In this case, the (about-to- be-married) "tarnegol" is (about to be) going to bed (in Ivrit) or to the 'death-carrier" (in Ashkenazic). Bialik's Hebrew poetry relies on an Ashkenazic stress pattern for much of its beauty. I think that's true of much of his punning as well. In any event, both options yield reasonable puns. Finally, it was the SPELLING of hebrew words that was taken into Yiddish faithfully, not their pronunciation (which was adapted to the sound patterns of the borrow- ing language). The words underwent all subsequent sound changes without reference to their origin). Even the traditional gender of Hebrew-origin words was often changed. Originally, all/most? were treated as neu- ters!!--dos seyfer, dos ponim, dos mes. Furthermore, tradition was "dissed" (how's that for being up-to- date?) in such anomalous Hebreoid formations in Yiddish as "shabosim" (Heb. shabatot), "taleysim" (Heb. taluyot), etc. So . . . 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thur, 11 Jul 91 From: nmiller@trincc Subject: An exchange From Mikhl Herzog and Noyekh Miller: MH: (of Viennese Jews)..it was an effort of the Jewish community, nebekh, (do you know the expression "meshteyns gezogt" or some variant? What does it mean to you?) NM: Doesn't 'meshteyns gezogt' derive from 'um shteyn gezogt'? To me it's something like 'as it were', an ironic even sarcastic signal that what has gone before is more pathetic than imposing. It might be said of someone who teaches l'moshl sales techniques and is billed as a professor of distributive education. So with the Viennese Jews no doubt. Getrofn? Tsu neyn? MH: 'meshteyns gezogt' seems to derive from a warding off formula "zay es dem shteyn gezogt'; i.e., 'may it (the evil) be upon the stone'(nisht af mir nor afn shteyn gezogt). Something like "nisht mir/dir gedakht". The fact that the etymology is not at all transparent has led to many variants: "imshteyns gezogt", "nishteyns gezogt", etc. Its meaning varies, too: 1) It's an expression of serious concern: er iz krank, mishteyns gezogt; 2) It's an expression of derision: er iz krank, mishteyns gezogt 'you call that sick?' So, lot's of room for interdialectal misunderstanding (and joking). This is your usage. NM: Thanks about the first meaning of meshteyns gezogt. I don't think I ever heard it, although the etymology is a more exact version of what I remember reading, hence 'um shteyn'. As for avoidance-incantations, is it your experience as well that most of them are used exclusively by women? I'm thinking of 'nisht aynt (sic) gedakht, nisht itster gedakht', etc. But corned beed for a nickel? I don't remember that even during the Depression. Oy did you have it good! Meshteyns gezogt. (later) It seems to me, having written that last line, that I _did_ hear meshteyns gezogt in the first sense as well but it was always with a wry tone. So not so much avoidance as rejection or distaste. Something like the American yeah, as in: Avrom (remembering what it was like to be young): Ay, were those the days! Berel (thinking instead of what it was like to be poor): Yeah. Reminds me of Morgenbesser's famous double-positive yeah,yeah. There'll always be a Yiddish. MH: As for "meshteyns gezogt" and other Yiddish "ward- ing-off" expressions, it never occurred to me that there was a sex difference in their usage, although there may well be. It's a good subject for Deborah Tannen. You'd be interested in a book by James Matissof, "Psycho-Ostensives in Yiddish" (ISHI, Phil.) which classifies and discusses the innumerable verbal formulae that characterize Yiddish folk-speech and often yield calques in English as well. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.42