Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.188 December 26, 1993 1) Pishe-Peyshe (Adam Albright) 2) English language discussions of daytshmerizms (Cal Pryluck) 3) Vayter ibber alte Yiddish (Arre Komar) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Dec 24 18:08:01 1993 From: aca1@cornell.edu (Adam Albright) Subject: Pishe-Peyshe Well, while we're on the subject of pishe-peyshe, I thought i'd through in my two cents -- one is about the meaning of "pishe-peyshe," and the other is about counting rhymes. First of all, i agree that we certainly never associated the name "pishe-peyshe" with anything slang or vulgar -- in fact, i always thought it meant "back-and-forth," because my family has always used it to mean that, both in yiddish _and_ in english. you can run pishe-peyshe, argue pishe-peyshe, or even talk pishe-peyshe. it never occurred to me that we were using the name of the card game as a word and not the other way round! has anyone else ever encountered this use of the phrase, or is it unique to my family? Second, there was a starting rhyme that went with the game (as with most other games), used to count off the time when each person would flip over a card to see who went first; it went _something_ like: pishe-peyshe, pishe-peyshe, pishe-peyshe, boo! gib die ershte kertl zu! i don't think i've ever seen an adult play the game, and i can't even remember who taught it to us -- probably older cousins or someone... i figured it was just too mindless or boring for adults -- but over thanksgiving break i did get to play it with my younger cousins (college-age is still young enough to be considered a "kid" i guess :) ). they don't speak yiddish, but my uncle must have taught them the english equivalent of the rhyme: pishe-peyshe, pishe-peyshe, pishe-peyshe, boo! put a card in, starting with you! Similar rhymes existed, of course, for other games, even non-card games. our favorite, with a virtually identical rhyme, was 'haga baga' (haga baga, haga baga, haga baga bir! heybt di mayseh on mit dir!, or haga baga, haga baga, haga baga, boo! tell a story, starting with you!) We even had yiddish, english, or mixed rhymes for starting out such american favorites as 'go fish': beyrelech, heyrelech, bim bam bim mish 'em up, fishele shvim shvam shvim! But the existence of rhymes even for games i frequently played with my friends leads me to think that they probably are less traditional, and more made up by my family... anyone else have similar rhymes? nu, genug -adam 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Dec 24 20:34:18 1993 From: Cal Subject: English language discussions of daytshmerizms Although Yiddish was my first language, sixty-five years later I have scant fluency. I do have a rooting interest and a semi-professinal knowledge of linguistic principles. Bringing these two things together I've been fascinated by the discussions of daytshmerizm (what I could understand of it). To the point: Can anyone suggest English language discussions of the issue? I can handle something more advanced than introductory but it's been a long time since I dealt with technical linguistic theory. Something in-between would be about right. Cal Pryluck 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Dec 24 22:31:01 1993 From: "Dr. Arthur Komar" Subject: Vayter ibber alte Yiddish I want to thank Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky for her thoughtful and informative critique of my earlier comments on Century Old Yiddish. I can better appreciate and sympathize with her position. Basicly it is very much like that of the French Acadamy which seeks to stabilize and preserve the French language. A fragile language like Yiddish needs something like that even more so if it is to survive. However to conserve is not the same as to revert. For example the French Acadamy does not seek to return to the language of Francois Villon, as beautiful and powerful as his poetry may be. Yiddish had a short period of flowering before its brutal distruction and linguists are properly concerned with the nature and evolution of its development. But it seems to me that if academicians wish to stabilize the language it would be more appropriate to do so at the point of its most recent development rather than cavil about which form is the oldest. My point in refering to Harkavy's dictionary was merely to indicate that he thought the his audience (i.e. his customers) would better understand the meaning of the English word "read" if he told them that it meant "lezn". Remember that he was trying to explain English to native Yiddish speakers, not the converse. What that tells me is that at least in his opinion, "lezn" was the most commonly used or understood word for "read" in that community of speakers. Of course I agree that he also should have included "leyenen" but he apparantly found it unnecessary. The issue is not whether "leyenen" is incorrect, but rather whether "lezn" is also fully acceptible as "proper" Yiddish, and I think that this makes it evident that it is, regardless of ancient history. More to the point, if one accepts the need to standardize and codify Yiddish as a means of preserving it, it would seem to me more appropriate to look to the practice of the few surviving communities for whom Yiddish reamains a living native language, the khasidim of Brooklyn and Mea Shearim. I am not familiar with their dialects and or idiosyncratic usages and would be most interested in learning of them. If the issue is the survival of Yiddish, in the end that can only happen in such communities which require the language for their quotidien life. It would therefore make sense to attempt the standardization of the language about THEIR current practice rather than about some hypothetical academic and, it seems to me, quite unnatural ideal. It is unfortunately too late in the day to continue to fight the battles of pre-holocost academia. And so,dear khavere Reyzl, I truly welcome your comments and value your opinion, tin ear and all. Arre Komar ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.188 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