Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 82 October 21, 1992 1) Pesye (Joseph Galron) 2) Pesye (Yitzhak Kertesz) 3) Germans in Yiddish literature (Dvosye Bilik) 4) Germans in Yiddish literature (Leonard Prager) 5) Scatological (Leonard Prager) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 18:41:56 EDT From: Joseph Galron Subject: Pesye - Pesach? Mikhl Herzog asks about the origin of the name Pesye: I don't know, but my intuition is that the origin is Pesah (Pesach). Y. Galron-Goldschlaeger 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 07:18:41 PDT From: Yitzhak Kertesz Subject: For M. Herzog: pessl/bessl The new book of Heinrich Guggenheimer on Jewish names (Ktav: 1992) hasn't arrived yet, so the only information I have: Among German Jews the "bessl" name is quite frequent. Some believe that it comes from Hebrew "bas" ==> "basl" little daughter. You decide whether this is relevant. The unscholarly "Jewish names and their History" by B. Kaganoff (Schocken books) on p. 184. mentions the pesl/bessl connection. Yitzhak Kertesz bm.lbh@rlg.bitnet 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 00:14 EDT From: Dorothy_BILIK@umail.umd.edu Subject: RE: Germans Dear NMiller, Many thanks for the citations. The first chapter of Di Brider Ashkenazi also has that well known wonderful description of the German & Jewish weavers entering Lodz.Your help is greatly appreciated. Dvosye Bilik 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 19:50:32 IST From: leonard prager Subject: germans in y. lit. for dvosye (2. 79): there are a lot of Germans in Y.Y. Zinger's _Di brider ashkenazi_ Of he German balagule on p. {74 of the 3rd ed. (1951), the merrymaking khsidim who are overcrowding his coac and hurting his horse, say "Veyser vos a goy a beheyme redt...." The author doesn't flatter the khsidim, as you recall. The novel begins with the Saxon weavers moving East towards the village that becomes Lodz. I presume you want to know about real Germans and not about "Germans" -- Jews who wear short coats,no beards, etc. Leonard Prager (Haifa) 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 11:42:14 IST From: Leonard Prager Subject: scatological "Ich bin von drueben." When asked "Woher sind Sie, Herr X.?" ('Where are you from, Mr. X.?'), a Galician Jew, X., in the pre-World War years might have playfully replied: 'Ah, ich bin von hollandischen Adel" ('I'm from the Dutch nobility'). "Wieso denn?" ('How is that?'). "Ich bin von drueben." This "joke" was told to me in September 1992 by Ernst Redlich, now of Haifa, Israel, formerly of Berlin, whose father was from Krakow and whose mother was from Przemysl. E.R. doesn't know Yiddish very well and until recently was somewhat hostile towards the language. I had just returned from Galicia, which is what sparked his recollection of what he thought a witty bit. He thought the humor came from the sound resemblance of the German words _von_ and _drueben_ to a hypothetical Dutch name like Van Dribben. The German is pleonastic, e.g. 'I'm from on the other side' -- one normally wouldn't use von + drueben. What E.R. wasn't aware of and what has now occurred to me is that G. _drueben_ puns fairly well with Yiddish _dripen_, 'to shit', whether or not the bilabial in _drueben_ is devoiced or not. The contrast between blue blood and defecation couldn't be starker (or shtarker!). This joke seems to laugh at Jewish attempts to pass as non-Jewish or to put on airs. Thousands of Galician Jews moved westward, to Vienna especially. Ost-Juden collided with native German-speakers. A vast number of jokes was born of this contact. But the linguistic play may be partly lost to us. Will somebody who knows the above comic turn, or any like it, comment. Can the linguistic atlas tell us something about the distribution of _dripen_? Is there necessarily a scatological connection here? Dictionaries consulted: Harkavi: dripen = drisken = 'to shit' , p. 179. MEYYED : dripen 'drip, ooze' Oytser : dripen* = kakn* p. 406, # 417 oysshaydung Leonard Prager (Haifa) ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.82 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu or mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu If your node is Bitnet-only and is not connected to the Internet, please send your message to: mendele@trincc or mendele@yalevm If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu or nmiller@trincc Please sign your articles.