Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no. 119
December 9, 1992
 
1) Sneezes and TSh/TS (Mark David)
2) Pejorative stereotypes (Vicki A. Fromkin)
3) Two items (Mikhl Herzog)
4) Shikse/shaygets (Hershel Bershady)
5) Terms for Jews and non-so (Shobbse Dubin)
6) Berdichev (Payrets Mett)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 92 15:14:53 EST
From: mhd@israel.Gensym.COM
Subject: Sneezes and TSh/TS

My wife believes she, her mother, and her grandmother, who
is the original native speaker from Dvinsk, say "TSU
GEZUNT" and then "TShU LEBN", which she says sounds like
[TShELE'BM].

Mark David

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 92 19:34 PST
From: Vicki Fromkin <IYO1VAF%UCLAMVS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: Pejorative stereotypes

May I suggest to Gerald M. Phillips that in the future he
not refer to Vietnamese as "little saffron colored
slant-eyed humans" nor make fun of their pronunciation by
using the 'r/l' allophohic 'joke i.e. referring to 'look '
as 'rook'.  This is truely pejorative even if the
stereoptype is of Vietnamese Jews and even if it is aimed
at revealing Jewish stereotyping.

VAF

3)---------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 92  22:34 EST
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.Columbia.edu
Subject: Two items

Alexandra Klein: Are you among the students I met at my
lecture in Trier a few weeks ago? Do you know the students
studying with Professor Timm. Are you studying with her? If
yes, please convey my warm regards to one and all.

Mikhl Herzog
 
Moshe Taube: I can't think of another example offhand but
I'm quite sure that there are several (in my own speech,
too, perhaps) in which a word is subjected to two changes
of the sort that might yield first psore/psure from Hebrew
besara and then psire from psure. The o/u from Heb a is
clear, as is the u/i alternation. That would eliminate the
anomalous "raising" before "r".

No?

Mikhl.

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 0:42:58 EST
From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu
Subject: shiksa, shaygets, etc.

"Shaygets" and "shiksa" refer not only to such attributes
as blond hair, blue eyes, and clothes styles, but also to
gestures.  One of my teachers once identified "the Jewish
walk."  I know what he meant, but can't describe this
without falling into cliches.  Is someone among the
Mendelnikim an "ethnogesturalist"?  Have studies been done
of the gestural/cum speech patterns of Italians, Poles,
Germans, Russians, and not least, Jews?  Everyone has
anecdotes of such differences.  Is there some systematic
knowledge of them?

Hershel Bershady

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 92 07:17:44 EST
From: Shobbse Dubin <DUBINSE%DUVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: Terms for Jews and non-so

As a youth, I do not recall hearing the various terms
mentioned for non-Jews and/or dark-skinned people.  My
family was about 85% pharmacist; indeed, anyone who had a
front door to their home was considered a social climber.
As a result the world was divided into two groups of
people; namely, pharmacists and their kin whom we called by
their names and "customers." There were some black people
in the neighborhood who had special names.  There was
"Uncle Bill," who did maintenance work for my father and
other slumlords. On Saturday and Sunday we were careful to
call him "Mr. Winston."

A major exception were those (not few) black people who
spoke some Yiddish. There was one insurance salesman who
came into the store every day for coffee and greeted my
father with, "Ah gutten tag, mein tiere viesse chaleria !"
My father would then reply, "A gutten voch, mein ziesse
schvartze chaleria!"

Stephen Dubin      dubinse@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1992 14:38:50 +0000
From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk
Subject: Bardichev

[Debra Halperin Biasca (Mendele 2.108) says:]

 >>I don't believe she was from Volhynia, but her
 >>origins are a mystery.  My uncle says she's from Bardichev,


Ober Berdichev iz nisht vayt fun Vohlyn.

Payrets Mett

[A tchikove zakh.  Bay unz vert Berdichev gerekhnt vi dos ort
vu der heyliker Levi-Yitzkhok iz amol geveyn i rov, i rebbe.
Ober s'iz oykh di shot vu der groyser Honore de Balzac hot
khasene gehat (un dakht zikh mir iz dort geshtorbn nisht lang
shpeter) un akhutz dem is Berdichev di geburtshot fun eynem
a shrayber vos di velt ruft im "Joseph Conrad". nm]

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End of Mendele Vol 2.119