Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no. 144
January 21, 1993
 
1) Pedant (David Braun)
2) Pedant (Itzhak Finger)
3) Yehoash on tape (Mark David)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 20:10:13 EST
From: David Braun <braund@linc.cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: pedant (continuation)

Noyekh, that your Uncle Shoyel and Tante Bessie didn't have
Ph.D.'s, or M.A.'s, or B.A.'s, or maybe even high school
diplomas and weren't exposed to the Yiddish word _pedant_
'pedant' is irrelevant to the word's being a part of the
language. For those who know it and need it, it's there and
they're the ones (few though they may be), who use it.
_pedant_ and its ilk didn't appear in Yiddish with the 1968
publication of U. Weinreich's dictionary.  Ay, these words
were not in common usage in the Lower East Side, South
Philly or where-have-you, iz meyle. Go talk about pedantry
_in English_ in your local "Seven-Eleven" and let's see how
far you get.

It never ceases to amaze me how the stereotypes about
Yiddish effect all of us so severely, from the polner
amorets to the most learned in khokhmes-yidish and
yidishkayt.  These range, keyedue, from "Yiddish isn't a
language" to "Yiddish probably doesn't have a word for x,
-- after all, this concept is socio-culturally irrelevant
to the Yiddish-speaking Jew of such-and-such an era".  An
example from my personal experience:  while tape-recording
a conversation with a native Yiddish speaker (born in 1906,
survived the WWII in Poland/White Russia, was a displaced
person in Cremona, Italy, imhis Polish, in fact, is quite
obviously the Polish of a Yiddish-speaker.  Bekitser, I was
happily surprised and at the same time sorry that I hadn't
known better. America in the early '50's), my informant
mentioned that in the late 40's, he worked at a school and
production plant of ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation
through Training) in Cremona.  Among other things, he was a
driving instructor for the survivors who were stationed
there en route to rebuilding their lives. I asked, just out
of curiosity, "In what language did you teach driving" for
after all, it's "ridiculous" that such a thing can be done
in mame-loshn -- after all, whose mame (in my case:  bobe)
could drive a car?  "Af yidish, voden?!", he answered.
This was purely natural to him.  In fact, he owned a
business in a shtetl of 3,000 people (2,000 of them Jews):
he transported goods along the Polish highways in two
trucks he owned.  His svive was totally Yiddish, his
primary language of family and of business was, and is,
Yiddis,

David Braun

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 08:46:15 PST
From: jfinger@mv.us.adobe.COM
Subject: Word Thou Never Wert

Regarding Yiddish for "pedant", there is a well-known
saying from Pirke Avos (pardon my non-ashkenazi Hebrew):

 "... ve'lo ha'bayshan lamed ve'lo ha'kapdan melamed",

that is, ".. a shy person does not learn, and a pedant does
not teach". At the very least, frumme yidn would understand
the term "kapdan".

-- Itzhak "Jeff" Finger --

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 22:38:00 -0500
From: mhd@world.std.COM
Subject: Yehoash on tape...

> From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu Wed Dec 16 23:04:44 1992
> ... I was excited to learn that there is a Yiddish
> translation of the Old Testament available by Yehoash.  I'm
> sure you knew this, but do all Mendelnikim know this?

If you are legally blind, you may join the Jewish Braile
Institute in New York City.  They will then send you, upon
request, the entire old testament in Yiddish (by Yehoash)
to keep.  And you can borrow many Yiddish books on tape
from them.

Meyer

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End of Mendele Vol 2.144