Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 128 December 24, 1992 1) Chagall-IlagaCh (Shleyme Axelrod) 2) Shikses/white bread (Norman Zide) 3) Seygl (Yitzhak Kertesz) 4) Query (Payrets Mett) 5) Query (Mark David) 6) Query (Lisa Epstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Dec 1992 12:20:42 -0500 (EST) From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: Chagall-llagaCh The SoHo annex of the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan currently has an exhibit on Marc Chagall's work for the Jewish theater in post-revolutionary Russia. In one of his large pieces, "Introduction to the Jewish Theater", he shows himself being carried (this is Chagall amusing himself and us) in the arms of someone named Avrom Efros. Over the figure of Efros is his name in Yiddish: ayin-fey-reysh-alef-samekh, written appropriately from right to left. Over Chagall is the label shin-<>-gimel-alef-lamed. 1. The <> indicates a small cartoon, standing in the place of the alef, of an artist at an easel. More amusement. 2. Still more: This label is written from left to right, so that a Yiddish or Hebrew reader would read LAG<>Sh. Oh, that Marc! Shleyme Axelrod 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 13:24:33 CST From: grgg@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: shikses/white bread On shikse: the usage I am familiar with is that of my parents' generation; the younger generation 'would not have been caught dead' using the word.The Brooklyn neighborhood we lived in had Jews and Italians - i.e. people of Jewish and Italian descent - and very very few others. Italian women COULD be referred to - i.e. 'were' - 'shikses', but the term (as far as I can recollect) was never used for description or 'neutral' reference. It was used primarily - exclusively ? - in marriage-related discourses, i.e. in talking about (inter)marriage, or activities (dating, sex) that were thought in those days to lead to marriage. I never heard the term used in a complimentary way (e.g. in referring to the appearance - blonde hair ) for a Jewish girl. (There must have been a few fair-haired Jewish girls around, but none in our family or purview.) The Italians - South Italians - were similarly dark, and there many incidents of Jews being taken for Italians by Italians, - and vice versa.My father, in retailing the horror story of a mixed marriage of the brother of a friend, used the word 'shikse' for the wife ('goy' would not have been appropriate, 'talyene(r)' would be used in Yiddish, but not in English). His usage of the word always seemed to imply invidious comparison - of the 'shikse' involved, and a non-specific Jewish girl, with the 'shikse' being unfavorably compared.If that implication was not wanted the term 'shikse' would not have been used. A more recent example (thirty years more recent): my aunt (mid-eighties), my father's sister, on meeting my son's tall, fair, non-Jewish girlfriend described her as 'a typical shikse'. The term was intended as descriptive, - and non-pejorative; she went on to say favorable things about the girl.But the use of the word - in addition to its descriptive component implied a comparison with a Jewish girl: my aunt would have preferred (and was explicit about it elsewhere) that his girlfriend(s) be Jewish. The 'descriptive component' - the stereotype (fairly applicable in this case) was tall, fair,non-zoftik (thin, with smallish breasts).If no invidious comparison was intended the physical description would have to be made - non-stereotypically - explicitly, and less laconically. Intermarriage presupposes social accessibility. If you ask 'Is Queen Elizabeth a 'shikse' ?'.I would answer: 'sure, what else could she be ?' Again the interesting question is when one would use the term (in regard to ER). I can think of two occasions: l) this one, - in defining the term 2)in humorous skits, etc that play with - tamper radically with - her social (and this includes sexual) accessibility. I can imagine Mel Brooks doing this sort of thing (maybe he already has). White bread: A partial successor and replacement term for 'shikse': my wife describing my other son's tall, thin, blonde (now ex-)girlfriend - said and this was clearly disapproving - white bread. (The opposite of 'white bread' ?(Not pumpernickel. Or khale.) other terms on the same scale(s) ?) Does 'white bread' - a term I don't use - share the property with 'shikse' of, by definition, not being applicable to Jews ? And other 'ethnics' ?The term was used in this case as a judgment of character, and, secondarily, background - not of being Jewish , but I have the impression that for most people who grew up with 'shikse' (i.e. heard the word used regularly from people close to them) the term lingers on as a not quite dead option: that (so to speak)the first decision - in some hypothetical 'tree' of hierarchy of choices - is NOT to use 'shikse', and then one selects the word wanted. Norman Zide 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 19:58:09 PST From: Yitzhak Kertesz Subject: seygl (?) to: Mikhl Herzog; P?rets Mett To make it clear for everybody, under Eastern Hungarians I am referring to those who lived in Eastern Slovakia, the Carpathian Mountains, or in Northern Transylvania. Historically most of them had Galitsiayner origins, although, as our "lurker" Elliot Zak will testify, there were exceptions. And yes, they pronounced the tsayray properly. Those whom I met in the synagogues of Budapest were correcting themselves, because they knew that the "ey/ay" is not acceptable in "civilized" circles. I don't remember paying attention to khesed, but I guess, that would be "khe'sed" too, just as the cake at the Rebbe's "tish" was le'k*kh (with an undefinable vowel instead of the pa:sakh). P. Mett's question about Pesakh made me realize that even Western Hungarian Jews would pron. it with a tsere. I would bet that there was no Ashkenazi Jew anywhere (!?!?) who pronounced it as Pe:sakh. Of course, we should remember that in German tsere is the norm, as in Regen, Segen, etc., and that may have an influence, as well. To sum up: what I was reporting, seems to be a secondary (late) development, and as such similar to what happened to the beygel/baygel: By the time it falls onto the Sunday Times (you know which side is the cream-cheese on), it is called bagel. The shift of the stress in emet surprised and disappointed me at the same time. I thought it was the special privilege of Hungarian immigrants, especially in Israel, to be ridiculed for stressing the first syllable and now I learn that this was done elsewhere, too? And not out of lack of faith, but out of curiosity: would you say that this happened to longer words, such as emuneh/emineh, too? It did in Hungary!!! Yitzhak Kertesz bm.lbh@rlg.bitnet 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 11:25:16 +0000 From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk Subject: Query [Mikhl Herzog writes:] >>THE article on the subject was written by Dovid Katz "The >>Wavering Yiddish Segolate" in the International Journal of >>the Sociology of Language 24: 5-27. Any idea how I could hold of a copy of the article? A lechtigen chanuka tsu ale mitglide. Payrets Mett ferde chanuka lecht (23rd Dec) 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 11:43:12 EST From: mhd@gensym.COM Subject: List for Yiddish/Hebrew Computing Is there a list somewhere that deals with developments in Yiddish or Hebrew computing (word processing, fonts, printing, internationization/localization issues, etc.)? Mark David 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Dec 1992 21:33:55 -0400 (EDT) From: LIEPSTEIN@vaxsar.vassar.edu Subject: Pozshornes/porondkes Could someone please help me translate the following two words: "pozshornes" and"porondkes." Though I could not find anything similar in a Ukrainian dictionary, they may come from Ukrainian. Lisa Epstein, Yale University liepstein@vassar ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.128