Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.125
October 31, 1993

1) Judgments requested (Ellen Prince)
2) Chair in Jewish Studies (Yitzhak Kertesz)
3) Lullaby lyrics (Andrew Cassel)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Oct 28 16:10:26 1993
From: "Ellen F. Prince" <ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: judgments requested

i'd be very grateful if those mendelniks who are native speakers of
yiddish tell me whether each of the following sentence sounds ok,
terrible, or questionable. by 'ok', i mean that, given the right
context, someone could say it without you thinking they'd made a
slip of the tongue; by 'terrible', i mean that, regardless of the
context, you'd think someone made a slip of the tongue; by
'questionable', i mean that you can't really say whether you think
it's 'ok' or 'terrible'.

also, could you please tell me what your family's dialect of yiddish
is--northeast/lithuanian, central/galitsianer,
southeast/romanian--and where you grew up.

a dank aykh!

1. er hot mir gegebn di tsaytung.
2. di tsaytung iz mir gegebn gevorn.
3. ikh bin gegebn gevorn di tsaytung.
4. er hot mikh gezen in gas.
5. ikh bin gezen gevorn in gas.
6. er hot mir keynmol ni(sh)t geholfn.
7. ikh bin keynmol ni(sh)t geholfn gevorn.
8. ikh hob zi gelozt redn.
9. ikh hob ir gelozt redn.

ellen prince

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Oct 28 23:11:00 1993
From: "Yitzhak Kertesz" <BM.LBH%RLG.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject:   Chair in Jewish Studies

Reb Hoberman, zey mir maukhel,but in your posting about the
pronunciation of the kholem, what do you mean by "relatively recent,
modernizing feature"? Are you saying that that infamous word was
originally m[ow]scheln, and only in more modern times did it become
m[aw]scheln?

Is it only me, or did others too notice a slowdown in Mendele?
During the summer I assumed that people went away, but it's the end
of October already and still a large part of mendele consists of
introductions. Now, this is _not_ to say that I don't welcome
everybody, even when they come with mistaken assumptions, like David
Connor, who considers Yiddish a "minor" language!? ;-) But I am
wondering that perhaps some of the regular contributors are on
Sabbatical leave in connection with the Shemittah year in Israel?

I noticed from the program of the annual conference of AJS that
several mendeleyt plan to read papers. I assume others also plan to
attend and hereby let me extend an invitation to all. I will spend
most of the time in the Ballroom (book exhibition area) at the table
of the Leo Baeck Institute trying to sell our publications. There
will be an empty chair next to mine, and everybody is welcome to
occupy it and discuss Yiddish jokes, Hungarian jokes, serious
matters or anything else. Or just to stop by to say hello. I can
offer an excellent cup of tea courtesy of the exhibitors (it is
served at the gallery area, but yo are welcome to bring it over),
and let's talk.

Yitzhak Kertesz

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri Oct 29 22:52:18 1993
From: ACASSEL@delphi.com
Subject: Lullabye lyrics

In Mendele 3.122, Alice S. Honig writes of the folk-lullabye:

"Shlof, shlof shlof,
der tate fet foren in dorf
Vet er koifen an eppele
'svet zayn a gezunt oifn keppele"

FYI, that lyric appears as song No. 72 in the Ginsberg-Marek
collection, "Yiddishe Folkslider in Rusland" published in 1901 and
reissued in 1991 by Bar-Ilan University Press. A variant appears as
song No. 73:

Schlof, main kind, schlof!
Der Tate vet brengen an Of;
Di Mame vet brengen an Eppele,
Vet zain gezunt de keppele ...
etc.

According to Ginsberg and Marek, this second version was collected
for them from Kovne gubernye (actually, it was the Keidan region) by
B.C. Cassel and A.L. Pick. The former was mayn zeyde. I would love
to know the tune, so I can sing it to my own kids, who are of
lullabye age. If anyone can email the music, or snail-mail me a
cassette (better -- I learn by ear), I'd be most grateful.

Andrew Cassel
8310 Tulpehocken Ave.
Elkins Park, Pa. 19117

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.125