Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no.04
May 28, 1992
 
1) Shlemiel un shlimazel (Hersh Volf Basser)
2) Gut Shabbes/gut yor (Ruvn-Mendl Turkel)
3) Introduction (Yankl Matisoff)
4) Introduction (Nissan Leibovic)
5) A mini-course in Yiddish (Zev Bar-Lev)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 1992 18:01:12 -0400
From: fishbane@epas.utoronto.CA
Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.03

So  the shlemeel spilled his soup on the shlemazzal.-- But
indeed, mazal does mean luck and fortune, even if the fault
lies not in our stars. When we say mazal tov we are hoping
things happen under an auspicious sign and when we say a
goote mazaldicke sho, we are saying the hour should be
governed by lucky constellations. Like in on the waterfront
when brando kept yelling Stellar-- or am I confusing some
things here?? Stargazing using mazal for fortunetelling, is
found in the TANANK, in the Tosefta, in the Talmud, in the
midrashim. everything depends upon it, including the Temple
Torah and my parnassa.

Hersh Volf Basser

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 May 92 11:11:24 EDT
From: rmt51@cas.bitnet
Subject: Gut shabbos-gut yor


For whatever it's worth, I was with a recent immigrant from
the ex-Soviet Union yesterday evening, when we encountered
an acquaintance of his approaching us. The man I was with
said "dobryi vecher" (good evening), to which the other man
responded "dobryi vecher, dobryi den'" (good evening, good
day).  This is apparently a common type of response in
Russian.  I wonder who influenced whom.
 
Rick (Ruvn-Mendl) Turkel
 
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 May 92 21:22:11 -0700
From: matisoff@garnet.berkeley.edu
Subject: Introduction

Hi, this is Yankl Matisoff, from the Berkeley Linguistics
Dept. (Please not to confuse me with my colleague, Yakov
Malkiel, zol er sayn gezunt un shtark.)  My line is really
Southeast Asian linguistics, but Yiddish is close to my
heart too.  Lozt fun zikh hern.

Yankl Matisoff

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 May 1992 15:25 EST
From: BPHKNL@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Brief introductory statement fun mir

R`shames

Ich bin a geborener litvak.  Main mameloshn is idish ober
ich bin nit keinliterat.  Ich bin a scientist un interesir
sich mitn meiach,basunders mit vision.

Ich bin fun lite avek als a teenager un hob geendigt meine
studies in england.  In1960 bin ich gekumen mit main
familie in amerike.

Eibe ir wilt hobn additional information please let me
know.

seid gegrist,

Nissan Leibovic.


5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 92 14:18:42 -0700
From: zbarlev@sciences.sdsu.edu
Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.03

     i can't help adding to whatever answers arrive to the
question on "yiddish primers easier than Weinriech's" that
my 'mini-course' in yiddish is in progress -- with some
help from Mendele.

     as for other languages in my program, the mini-course
is aimed at providing, first, speaking confidence with
"creativity", using a very small vocabulary. the
mini-course presents yiddish in phonetic spelling.  (it
subsequently introduces about half of the alphabet, and
contains a short selection of proverbs, both in phonetic
and yiddish spelling.)

     one of the issues that i am still trying to decide is
how much detail to provide for gender and case.  my current
decision is based on the strategies i use for presenting
the parallel phenomena of german.  but i suspect that most
students of yiddish are not prepared for the rigours of
gender and case in all their glory.  (therefore i like to
refer, in my parenthetical notes, to the fact that one
variety of yiddish has wiped out the neuter entirely -- the
function of such notes is to allow students not only to
relax about their errors, but even to seek their own level
of accuracy, depending on their own needs.  some Mendele
subscribers may complain that the variety of yiddish i'm
talking about is not classy.  but the problem, for
beginners of yiddish who haven't had prior german [or
russian or greek] is a real one.

     (i'd be interested in how beginners in yiddish have
been observed to handle the challenge.  students of german
that i know confess to having to ignore the article when
first they learn to speak.  in my german mini-course i
present it with complete accuracy although [with all
possible details] partly because my mini-courses are
intended also for students who want to pursue regular
academic study, and regular academic study of german is
very academic.)

     in fact, yiddish is a language that i get a lot of
inquiries about, but few or no actual students for, so the
mini-course is lying around in some corner of my computer,
maybe even with a couple of gaps, and certainly in a
slightly dated version.

     but i am always happy to hear some recognition of the
fact that even a book as clear and straightforward as
Weinreich's can be forbidding to real students (this is the
kind of consideration that led me to my multi-language
project), that i couldn't help at least sticking something
in, if only a sort of discussion instead of an answer.

zev bar-lev

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol 2.04

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