Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.146 November 26, 1993 1) Golda et al. (Joyce Rappaport) 2) Sch vs. sh (Arre Komar) 3) Sch vs. sh (Leigh Lisker) 4) The modne nomen (Zev Kesselman) 5) Frayland, grammar and argot (Michael Shimshoni) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Nov 24 16:47:06 1993 From: "Joyce Rappaport" Subject: Golda et al. Just a query so that we may get away from grammar questions for awhile. What does Arre Komar mean when he refers to Golda Mayerson et al. as having still been Jewish? Joyce Rappaport 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Nov 24 17:29:33 1993 From: "Dr. Arthur Komar" Subject: "sch" vs. "sh" Those khokhim who claim that "sch" is always understood as "sk" in English unfortunately are confusing English with American. As any Englishman can tell you, the proper pronunciation of "schedule" is "shedule". Of course they also say "skeem" and "skool" and some how the language of Shakespere has managed to survive quite well this inconsistency. Shen genug! Arre Komar 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Nov 24 21:06:11 1993 From: llisker@babel.ling.upenn.edu (Leigh Lisker) Subject: sch and sh As someone said, sch introduces a "superfluous" letter where sh is presumably unambiguous (given the absence of aspirated s, except across word boundary, this side of Korea). Of course, sch could induce some reader to render it as skh. And in fact there is the story, with perhaps a basis in fact, that during the war and just after Germans trying to pass as Dutch were tripped up by their pronunciation of Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague,which for them was sh... Leigh Lisker 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Nov 25 04:25:36 1993 From: Subject: The modne nomen >Mennonite lady named Mrs. Elizabeth Schmuck. Don't laugh. I'm sure >there is a perfectly reasonable etymological explanation. If you On a recent visit I made to a major bank's central data processing facility, we saw a high speed page printer (I don't remember exactly how many pages per second, but the thing spits out pages so fast, it needs to be fed by a gigantic roll of paper, with conveyor belts to keep it moving). Anyway, this thing was imported from Germany, and had a warning to keep hands, "schmuck", and other things out of the moving parts. A colleague (native German) who accompanied me informed me that, in German, Schmuck = jewellry. Sure had me fooled. Zev Kesselman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Nov 25 08:31:52 1993 From: Michael Shimshoni Subject: Frayland, grammar and argot I do not share Arre Komar's views on our history, but have no wish to enter any discussion with him on that. He had written also: >Yiddish by the same token never attained language status since there >never existed a state sponsor for an official version. In 1946 an >attempt was made to create a Yiddish speaking state for the people >liberated from the camps. The Dutch government was prepared to offer >the Jews Surinam for that purpose. However the Zionists feared that >the presure would be off the world commuity to crate a Hebrew state >in Palistine should that happen. Golda Mayerson, Moshe Shertok and >Dovid Grunbaum (yes they used to be Jewish in those days) used their >connections in the Socialist International to lobby heavily against >it. Life in Israel is not always easy, but I tremble to think what would have happened if Surinam would have become a reality. Besides this, what was meant by "yes they used to be Jewish in those days". What became of them later? And who is/was Dovid Grunbaum?. Our first Minister of the interior was Yitzhaq Grinbaum (... boim?). If Ben Gurion was meant, his former name was David (Dovid) Grin, but he changed it to Ben Gurion long before 1946. If I am not mistaken the change was made prior to WWI. Michael Shimshoni ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.146 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files