Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.031 June 9, 1993 1) More idioms (Eli Katz) 2) Farsheydns (Khaim Bochner) 3) Introductions (Rachel and Michael Abramson) 4) Salmon = laks? (David Sherman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 8 18:52:33 1993 From: katz@Sonoma.EDU Subject: more idioms I had no opportunity to read my e-mail for three or four days and found that my delay saved me a lot of effort; a lot of the comments I would have felt impelled to make were very satisfactorily supplied by others. So for now, only some additions to the idiom collection: 1. "kum ikh nit haynt, kum ikh morgn", applied to some- one who is excessively casual about punctuality, carrying out of responsibilities, etc. 2. "fort un filt nit", said when someone belatedly "catches on" to a situation (often his own) which others have long since been aware of, or about someone who is generally "spacey". 3. "es hot mir gekost a shtik gezunt", applied to an experience which required great and unpleasant effort, or anguished decision; something the subject found very difficult. 4. "gezunt zolstu zayn", anticipatory mitigation of a mild criticism, as in "Khashke, gezunt zolste zayn, vu hoste shoyn vider ahingeton di tsaytung?" Eli Katz 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 8 22:57:03 1993 To: MENDELE@YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: farsheydns 1) Wrt translation: I've got several prospects to pass on to the customer. Hurray for networking! And thanks for the assurances that I haven't been overcharging :-) 2) Wrt "frozen datives": Khaver Pinson is mistaken about "toytn" being frozen. I suspect he was confusing the adjective toyt with the noun toyt. By "frozen" I assume he means (as I would) a fixed, more or less idiomatic, expression that doesn't necessarily follow the contemporary grammatical rules. For a real "frozen dative", consider "in der luftn". "Luftn" looks like a plural, but the sense isn't plural, and besides, if it were plural, it should be "di", not "der". The reason for the "n" is that, in an earlier stage of the language, (some) common nouns used to take case endings, just as "tate" still does (cf. "mitn tatn"). This fixed expression just hasn't kept up with the changes in the grammar. My favorite example is "in der emesn". Not only does "emes" no longer take case endings, but in modern Yiddish it has become masculine, instead of feminine. So modern grammar calls for "in dem emes" (or "inem emes" ...). But we can still say "in der emesn". 3) Wrt "nekhtiker tog", Arnold Kuzmack suggests that the literal meaning is "a day that's like night" r.t. "yesterday's day". I share the suspicion that this may have been the original sense. But he's wrong is saying that "it is grammatically preferable". First, -ik very often fails to trigger "umlaut": lustik, hantik, farayorik. Besides, the set of vowel changes known as "umlaut" does not normally affect "e". I can't think of an example with -ik right now, but consider diminutives like "betl", "ekl". "rekht/rikhtik", if they really form a pair, are just irregular. So we wouldn't actually expect the adjective from "nekhtn" to be "nikhtik". (Although "nekhtndik" seems like a possibility ...) Personally, I think of "nekhtiker tog" as similar to "farayoriker shney": things that are impossible simply because they can never come again. In any case, the reason people give "yesterday's day" as the literal meaning is presumably that, outside this expression, "nekhtik" really does mean "pertaining to yesterday". "Ikh bin nisht keyn nekhtiker" - 'I wasn't born yesterday' Khaim Bochner 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 9 00:51:46 1993 From: MAC191H@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Subject: Introductions Tayere Mendelniks: Mein vayb hot mir geboten tzu shraybn etlekhe verter: My name is Rachel(Rookhele). I am a tutor in Psychology at the Victorian University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. I asked Michael to join Mendele because he has e-mail access. My love for Yiddish dates back to when I was knee high to a grass hopper. My Dad always spoke it in the home. As an adult, I decided to learn it formally so that not only would I be able to understand, but also able to read and write as well. My first teacher told me I spoke with a Warsaw accent. I thought this was interesting considering I was born and bred in Melbourne! I'm still learning Yiddish, but have now progressed to reading literary works like those of Sholem Asch. My oldest son goes to the Sholem Aleichem kinder- garten. All I can say is it sounds so sweet to hear Yiddish being spoken out of the mouth of a 4 year old child. My younger son who is 10 months old, babbles in Yiddish as well as English. A future Yiddishist in the making! Ikh vill oych epes zogn: I am Senior Lecturer in Social & Preventive Medicine at Monash University. Although my zayde and buba came from Russia, I didn't learn Yiddish as a child. I learnt German at school, which has given me an accent which Rachel's family find disagreeable. I read Weinreich's College Yiddish before we went to Israel a few years ago. After a few weeks staying with Rachel's aunt and uncle, I had acquired a passable conversational Yiddish. But I don't aspire to her literary heights. I enjoy reading your bulletin board, even if the frequent messages tend to drown those related to my own work. Zayt gezunt, Michael Abramson. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 9 12:09:27 1993 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: salmon = laks? Arn's discussion in another context reminds me of a question I've had for a while: > E.g., Ikh es laks "I eat smoked salmon." The only word in Weinreich and Harduf for "salmon" is "laks". We eat canned salmon fairly often (mix it with mayonnaise and put it into a sandwich, typically). What should I tell the kids to take out of the cupboard? "Laks" carries connotations of smokedness. Is there a different term for unsmoked salmon? David (Daniel Moishe) Sherman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.031 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu If your node is Bitnet-only and is not connected to the Internet, please send your message to: mendele@yalevm If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.