Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 212 April 13, 1992 1) The YIVO system (Zev Bar-Lev) 2) Yudel Rosenberg (Arnold J. Band) 3) Oysnveynik (Brett Kessler) 4) Incest taunts (Hershel Bershady) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 09:03:51 -0700 From: zbarlev@sciences.sdsu.edu Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.210 on transcription, and Ellen Prince's note ("why not simply adopt the yivo system?"): by saying "mostly" YIVO-like, i was just hedging, not having the relevant books to check in the office. i think my suggestion of _hh_ is unique, altho, as admitted, _kh_ is also good. but mostly i was just responding to a couple of earlier comments/questions, which seemed to come from further away (geographically and linguistically), e.g. on _sh_ vs. _sch_. i'm sure YIVO recommends _z_ as in _zeyde_; i think they also use _ts_ (rather than _tz_) -- if so, i agree again, since the alternative _tz_ is more easily confused or mispronounced as _z_. like YIVO system and all other phonetic systems (as against Berlitz-type), i think it is vital not to use the idiosyncratic spellings of German (as for German letters S, Z, etc.) or of English (especially vowels). the YIVO spellings are good, although a "new tradition" for America, which has "traditionally" used a bizarre mish-mash of English and German spellings, e.g. maven, zayde; Chanukah, BUT cholent; zaddik/tzaddik, BUT zayde, BUT words/sentences transcribed German-style, e.g. sehn, zehn. i despair of getting ordinary American Jews to use phonetic/YIVO style, since they're already all too confused about vowels. (for them, i use a sneakier compromise between phonetic and Berlitz, but one that uses lots of diacritics, so it's not usable on e-mail.) Zev Bar-Lev 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 00:52 PDT From: "Arnold J. Band" Subject: Rosenberg For Ira Robinson: Are you aware of Eli Yasif's Hebrew study of Yudel Rosenberg's Golem stories with a detailed introduction and bibliography? (Yasif is Prof.f Folklore at Ben Gurion University. Arnold J.Band, UCLA 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 08:50:34 -0700 From: Brett Kessler Subject: oysnveynik Zev Hochberg asks: > Does anyone know the etymology of "oysen veynik" (?) > meaning "by heart"? Weinreich doesn't have it ... A good kashe. First of all, it's a word, not a phrase; the initial stress tells us that. It would certainly be a puzzle why "out of the few" should mean "by heart"! The original (and still extant) meaning of the word is "external" or "outside" (Weinreich). This apparently goes back to the Old High German "uzzenewendiun" (with yoghs). Grimm (under "auswendig") gives the OHG phrase "uzzenewendiun theru grasceffi" as meaning "extra parietes comitatus", and Der groyser verterbukh gives this as an archaic meaning. The "-wend-" would seem therefore to be an unmlauted form of "wand" (our "vant"), "wall". I don't know why Yiddish lost the "d", but once it did, that left the vowel in an open syllable, subject to lengthening and diphthongization. So why does "outside" mean "by heart" or "thoroughly"? After all, that does seem to be the opposite of the metaphor we would expect -- wouldn't you think a thorough knowledge would extend deep into the interior of a subject, and not just lie on its exterior surface (= superficial)? Well, both Duden and Kluge state that the reference is to a book: if you know something by heart, you don't have to open the book. You only have to look at the outside of the book, not its inside. This in fact dovetails with the definition in the Groyser verterbukh. I neglected to copy it down, but the lead definition was something like "to know something without having to look in a book, seyfer, etc." This account seems convincing to me, in the absence of a good Yiddish etymological dictionary (does such a beast exist?) At least I hope this submission acts as a lightning rod for somebody with a better account. Brett Kessler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Apr 92 14:09:54 EST From: "Dr. Harold Bershady" Subject: CURSES: UKRAINIAN/YIDDISH When my frum uncle, Dovid, became particularly incensed over someone he would mutter (as best as I can render this): "ti-yop ti-ya mat." When I was a kid I only knew from context that this was a curse. When I started going to high school with a large black population I began to put 2 and 2 together. When I asked uncle Dovid whether there was a black strain in the family, and explained what I meant, I got an embarassed laugh -- but no denial. Later I hypothesized that in every society where there's an incest taboo that involves mothers and sons, there will likely be such an insulting curse. Jews certainly have a powerful incest taboo, but I never heard any Jew insult another by calling him a mother-fucker. Is there such an expression in Yiddish? In Hebrew? Or does the insult imply a violation of such magnitude that it is not permitted to express this in, as at were, one's mother tongue-- so that one uses a "heathen" language -- Ukrainian, I assume, in my uncle's case -- to refer to a barbarous person or act? Any clarification (and of course examples!) would be apprecia- ted. Hershel Bershady, Pennsas@Upenn.edu ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.212 Submissions: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu Business: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.