Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 1 no.91
October 22, 1991
 
1) Disambiguation (Mikhl Herzog)
2) Ingberlakh (Rich Turkel)
3) An afterword (Aren Abramson)
4) Introduction (Harry Bochner)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91  06:05 EDT
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET
Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.89

The   pair "fisnoge" = 'feet' vs "fisribe" = 'fish' is
definitely a Litvish dev ice for disambiguating the
homonyms that result from the merger of "s" & "sh". The
merger of "oy" and "ey" (i.e., "voynen" 'to live' =
"veynen" 'to cry') also yields a device to disambiguate the
resulting "veynen": Litvish "avu freyt ir zikh?" I.e.
"Where do you rejoice = live"? to avoid "Avu veynt ir?"
Such fun!

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 12:09:57 -0400
From: rmt51@cas.bitnet (Rick Turkel)
Subject: RE: Ingberlach, etc. (1.90)

Regarding Sheldon Benjamin's posting on ingberlach -- a
friend in Baltimore makes them as a Pesach treat, exactly
as he describes them.  They are seasoned with ginger (hence
the name), and require a dry environment to retain their
shape as discrete pieces -- high humidity causes them to
fuse together into an inseparable mass.  Unfortunately, my
dental work no longer allows me to partake -- just LOOKING
at them makes my fillings come loose!
 
My late wife also used to bake challa with a ladder on top,
as did her late mother, but I don't recall any correlation
with any particular holiday or occasion.

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 15:29:20 EST
From: Aren Abramson <ABRAMSON@UCONNVM.BITNET>
Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.90

An afterword on hayratn.When I sent my message on this
little argument, I no longer had the original exchange in
front of me. I don't think Khaver Mikhl Herzog was replying
to any proposal that Germanic and Semitic are related.
Rather, the question was whether harey at in the Jewish
wedding ceremony could underlie the Yiddish word hayratn.
My intent was to furnish a couple of Germanic roots that
the boys and girls who work on Germanic languages and their
forebear, Indo-European, have reconstructed from extensive
comparative studies. I myself am not an authority in these
matters. Anyway, the suggested etymology with harey at is
sprobably no more thatn a folk etymology with no
substantive foundation.        Aren

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 17:27:54 -0400
From: bochner@das.harvard.edu
Subject: Brief Bio

"native listener" of Chrzanow (Krakow area) Central
Yiddish; educated in "Yivo" Yiddish by David Fishman and
Mordechai Shechter.

Ph.D. in theoretical linguistics from Harvard U.; currently
working at Harvard as computer programmer.

-- Harry Bochner
-- bochner@das.harvard.edu
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End of Mendele Vol 1.91