Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 237 May 3, 1992 1) Query (Gerald M. Phillips) 2) Farshidene grussn (Eli Katz) 3) Harshav (Dovid Braun) 4) Camp Kindervelt (Elyet Hersh Gertel) 5) Vaudeville query (Cal Pryluck) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 May 92 10:14 EDT From: GMP@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.236 Please help! My grandmother used to refer to me as "a bis verrickt" and my grandfather told me I was "meshugge." There were other words they used on me like "vertummelt" and "verblundget" which were clearly not compli- mentary. Does anyone have a declension of the Yiddish words referring to various "confused states of mind," a Yiddish DSM/III, if you will. Thank you for any assistance you can give. Gerald M. Phillips Pennsylvania State University 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 May 92 11:05:30 PDT From: katz@Sonoma.EDU Subject: this and that 1) To Vicki Fromkin: I'm glad to be in touch again too! As for "Hold the Fort" in Yiddish, I'm chagrined to realize that I only know the refrain. Here it is: Halt zikh fest, mir kumen on, Yunyenlayt in krig. Zayt bay zayt, un hoykh di fon, Kumen vet der zig! 2) To Mikhl Herzog: Hooray for volume I of the Atlas! I am getting ready to make a shekheyonu. 3) To Vicki and Mikhl: Without in the least questioning the authenticity of the Chagall story, I'll point out that it's an exemplar of a folklore type (not necessarily catalogued). The version that I heard (at least 35 years ago) tells that Gorky and Chaliapin grew up together in Nizhni Novgorod. They both auditioned for the cathedral choir. Gorki was accepted; Chaliapin was not. 4) On formulaic greeting/responses: I have no idea of the earliest attestation of the sholem aleykhem/aleykhem sholem formula, but I can offer two further examples of extended responses: sholem aleykhem/aleykhem vealbneykhem (i.e." to you and to your children") and leshonetoyve tikoseyvu /tikoseyvu vesikhoseymu ("may a good year be inscribed/inscribed and sealed"). Eli Katz 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 01 May 92 14:20:03 -0400 From: David Braun Subject: correction Again to Arnold Band: My message about Hrushovski's book was garbled because of a computer problem. What I originally wrote in my second paragraph was that it is perhaps inaccurate to call Hrushovski/Harshav a Yiddish writer because he has published little in Yiddish and not for many years because he assumes the readership to be dead. Dovid Braun 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 May 1992 12:40 PDT From: EGERTEL@FULLERTON.EDU Subject: RE: "Introduction Revisited (Cal Pryluck)" Unless there were 2 Camp Kindervelts along with 2 Unser Camps, your recollectionas to who sponsored the camps doesn't gel with the facts. As a Kindervelt alum who also made numerous visits to Unser Camp with my parents, I remember quite clearly that Kindervelt & Unser Camp were sponsored NOT by Arbeter-Ring but by Farband, Labor Zionist Organization. The camps were located near the town of Highland Mills, (Orange County), New York. Ironically, I currently reside in Orange County, California. I'd be very interested in finding out how many others out there reading these lines went to Kindervelt &/or Unser Camp at one time or another. Di tate-mames vi vayt ikh gedenk hobn ale geredt mame-loshn beshas ven mir kinderlekh hobn norgenitst english tsvishn zikh. In 1989 bin ikh tsurik a gikhn kuk tsu tun af vosiz dort ibergeblibn. Vist, pust, shtil. Alts farshlosn. Zet oys nor khurves. Elyet Hersh Gertl (Elliot Hersch Gertel) 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 01 May 92 23:52:32 EDT From: Cal Subject: Yiddish vaudeville query Now that Bob Rothstein has offered the final and definitive Yiddish version of the Internationale, perhaps someone can help me with a song from Yiddish vaudeville that has floated around my mind for fifty years. Schvartze castelach rissed maen un greeneh loest maen shtein Sheine meidelach nembt maen un meise lost maen gein chorus: Oi veyus tsu mea, veyus to meine yur a leibe mebiche feur [the last two words are only approximate] freilich dri fertel shuer Vos teug mir dos polka mazurka az tancen tance ich mir nicht Vot teug mir dos meidele fun Mirka [appoximate place name] az leiben leibt ze mir nicht. chorus: My memory and the form of the song suggest that there were many more verses; I would also like to be clearer about the middle line of the chorus. Cal Pryluck ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.237 Submissions: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu Business: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.