Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 142 January 21, 1992 1) Introduction (Margaret E. Winters) 2) Vitzen (Moishe-Nussen Eytan) 3) Der tsvayter tog yuntef (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 92 15:17:58 CST From: GA3704@SIUCVMB.BITNET Subject: Introduction Dear Noyekh, I found your note adding me to the Mendele list this afternoon. The address is correct. Full name is Margaret E. Winters - my Hebrew name is Malkah, but I don't have any occasion to use it, so let's leave it at Margaret. I am on the faculty at Southern Illinois University - chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures where I teach French. My specialty is historical linguistics - I work in French and Latin. I spoke Yiddish at home as a young child and then attended a Shalom Aleichem (I am *not* good at transliteration) Folkshul for several years. Since I live in a hidden corner of the Midwest, I rarely speak Yiddish, but am interested in what other people are doing - some day I'll want to combine it with my training as a linguist. I hope this does as an introduction. I look forward to re- ceiving the list and (efsher) participating. Margaret 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Jan 92 17:10:06 GMT From: me@SUZUKA.U-STRASBG.FR Subject: vitsen A yiddine gait in die gass und furtst ba yedem shritt. Nokh jedem forts sugt zi "oi, a `horben". Plitsem drait zi zekh arim, in zet a yinger man folgt zi. "Yinger man, zogt zi, zait wenn folgt-ir mikh?" "Wus haist, entfert er, zait dem ershten 'horben". ********* Der Rebbe lernt mit di kinderlekh im 'haider, a vokh far Paisekh. Plitsem dermant er zekh az er hot epes `humetsdiks ofen boidem fargest. "Moishele, zugt er, ikh miz offen boidem gain -- di 'hazer mit di kinder, in oib di host a frage, shrai of ofen boidem". "Git, rebbe, zugt Moishele" -- in di kinder haiben un tsi `hazern. Ven zi kimen tsim vort "lem`alu" vaist kainer vus dus vort haist. "Rebbe, shrait Moishele, vus haist lem`alu?" "Hekher, zugt der Rebbe". "Rebbe, shrait hekher Moishele, vus haist lem`alu?". "Hekher, shrait tsirik der Rebbe". "REBBE, shrait nokh hekher Moishele, VUS HAIST LEM`ALU?" "Der shlak zol dekh batrefen, entfert der Rebbe". Ven der Rebbe kimt arup, farhert er di kinder. Ven zi kimmen tsim vort "lem`alu" vaist nisht der kind vemen der Rebbe farhert vus sehaist. "Ver vaist, fregt der Rebbe?" "Ikh, ikh -- melt zekh Moishele". "Nu, zugt der Rebbe, zug vus sehaist". "Der shlak zol dekh batrefen, zugt Moishele". Nu, bakimt er shoin fim Rebben makes Mitsraim. Ven der `haider endikt zekh, gait er henkendik ahaim mit `Haimeln, wer zugtem ofen veg: Moishele, dem Rebben zugt men nisht 'der shlak zol dikh batreffen', nor 'der shlak zol _aikh_ batreffen'. ********** Ir vaist far vus Udem hurishen hot azoi lang gelebt? -- Val er hot nisht gehat a shviger! 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 92 From: nmiller@trincc Subject: A raysenish mit faygel (tsum tsveytn mol) Long stretches of road between swamps and marshes are conducive to thinking Yiddish thoughts. Such as: how the hell do I describe what I'm doing right now to my elderly ladies at the Hebrew Home? (I say elderly and I mean elderly. When I reached 70 I thought that maybe at last they would treat me as one of them. A nekhtiker tog. By them I'm still a boytchik in mid-career.) Hershel Bershady advises a frontal assault: bird-watching is feygl-kukn. But much as I want to accomodate my old friend, I just can't do it. Here's why. First, feygl-kukn ain't got no class; it has, as they say auf Deutsch, no schmiss, no verve. Second, it's an Americanism that would probably be misunderstood wherever American ways are not well known (this just might include sections of Brooklyn). What would a Yiddish- speaker in Buenos Aires or Antwerp make of a feygl-kuker? That such a person is some sort of mashgiach. But who ever heard of a woman mashgiach? Un vos gor mboydek zayn geshlokhtene oyfes mit binoklen? So we're not there yet. What's needed are terms that are ekht-Yiddish and which if possible set off reverberations, give us pleasure. And where do we find these words? In Hebrew or Aramaic naturally. And it turns out that we already have a long list of models, viz. the 'bal/bar' constructions (bal dikduk, bal tshuve, bal khoyv, bar mazel, etc.). So my nominees are: bal oyfes and bar shemoys. An added interesting thing about both terms is that they involve allusions to a quite different sort of character, i.e. a bal moyfes or bal shem. But in fact there may be much that the bird watcher and the miracle worker have in common. Most of the ones I know aren't really watchers at all, they're bird _namers_. Anybody who has ever spent any time with emesse farbrente birdists knows what I'm talking about: they're compulsive collectors of something called a life list and they have next to zero interest in anything outside of that list. (Here are two ounces of feathers born north of the Arctic Circle and bound for as far as Antarctica before making the return trip. Interesting? Fascinating? Not to a life- lister unless he never saw it before.) The bal shem knows names and incantations that presumably keep us out of trouble. The typical bird watcher believes somewhere in his pinhead brain that if she can only get to see every species there is to see he'll live forever. Therefore another expression to describe what a bal oyfes does. Take the remarkable passage in Tanakh that tells of the creation of the birds: ..vayovey el-ha'adam lir'ot ma-yikro-lo v'chol asher yikro-lo ha'adam nefesh chayo hu shmo. Adam did the naming! (He too must have felt overwhelmed and maybe scared by all that exotic stuff in the garden. To name is to control.) So my suggestion is: khazeres maase bereshis. Or, if the cabalists among us object, how about khazeres maase Odom? That way, when my ladies ask me again: 'vu geyt ir'? I can answer: 'ikh fur af khazeres maase bereshis'. That's got a kling to it, Hershel khaver. I don't imagine for a minute that these suggestions will please most of you. Maybe Hershel Basser can come up with some Talmudic or Mishnaic terms that will work better. My more serious motive in all of this is, as seditiously as necessary, to start a counter-movement to the prevailing method by which Yiddish terms are coined. I'm thinking for instance of what some have suggested for "word processor", a term which even in English ought to have earned its inventor 3 life sentences followed by the garrote and being boiled in oil. Ikh hof az ir vet zikh alle meyashev zayn un oystrakhtn khotch a por gute verter. Anisht vel ikh aykh dergeyn di yorn. Noyekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.142