Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 204 May 14, 1993 1) French Yiddish (Bob Werman) 2) Summer camp (David Sherman) 3) Shtumer alef (Ellen Prince) 4) Mixed bag (Yitzhak Kertesz) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri May 14 03:45:38 1993 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: French Yiddish Since French - Yiddish has been mentioned and we are in the midst of a birthday party, let me add: ferbrochen di jambes macht tzi di fenetre [1961] __Bob Werman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 13 22:22:44 1993 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: Yiddish camp Any other Mendel-niks going to the National Yiddish Book Center's summer Yiddish camp, July 4-11? (We just succeeded in making day-care arrangements on-site for our little two, so we'll be there.) David Sherman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri May 14 10:06:19 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Shtumer alef [Arnie Kuzmack writes:] >First, if you want to say that the Hebrew initial alef >and ayin were consonants, you could with as much >justification say that an initial vav is a consonant >even when pronounced [u]. i don't know the story with initial vav, but one doesn't have to merely *say* that initial aleph/ayin were consonants, one can observe that they ARE--in arabic and in the hebrew of oriental jews (i.e. jews whose ancestors have never left semitic-speaking lands)--i believe they are glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, respectively. (right, phonologists?) (i think kurdish jews have also retained these distinctions in their hebrew--at least i have heard they've retained the whole series of pharyngeals, not just ayin.) interestingly, it's not only the original yiddish speakers that couldn't hear these consonants--when greek adapted/ adopted the semitic syllabary, they also couldn't hear the consonantal constriction and took aleph as the vowel /a/, called 'alpha' (which became the letter _a_ in the latin alphabet), and ayin as the vowel /o/, called 'omicron' (which became the letter _o_ in the latin alphabet). they likewise couldn't hear the /h/ sound in he and took it as the vowel /e/, called 'epsilon' (which became the letter _e_ in the latin alphabet). ellen prince 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri May 14 11:53:23 1993 From: "Yitzhak Kertesz" Subject: Mixed bag To: A.J. Hyman re: Jewstudies (196#4) Good luck to you, but let me ask, do we really need a new list for Jewish Studies since the Association for Jewish Studies has a very active list already (Judaica@uminn1)? ------- to: Elisheva Schwartz re: convention (201#5) This sounds very interesting, please tell me more about it! Is one allowed to sell Hungarian books at this convention? ------- to: all re: Narr/naronim Didn't the expression "hazonim - naronim" help the spread of this irregular plural? Or even originate it? and what about the meaning of the word? namely, isn't a word with the meaning "narr" allowed to show a little "narrishkeyt"? ------- to: Arnie Kuzmack re: Yid/id (203#3) You conclude by claiming that yid is written with a shtumer aleph because it was pronounced by many as "id". But couldn't the writing precede and influence the pronunciation? Namely, written with an aleph for some mysterious reason, and that would cause people to start pronouncing it as "id"? ------- to: Noyekh shames, re: Happy B'day, mendele did your call for foolishness (narrishkeyt) imply that only once a year are we allowed to submit such material? [Entfert der shames: Purim meg men oykh.] In any case here is one from Dov Sadan's collection (quoted from memory - not verbatim) related to the recent discussion about "dutzen - ihrtzen": How do we know that King Salomon's bride spoke to him in the more formal way? Because it is written (Cant 4,9) "libbavtini akhoti kallah" - "Du host mir geertset" Yitzhak Kertesz ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.204