Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.219 February 8, 1994 1) Schindler's List (Arre Komar) 2) Language and maids (Ben Alpers) 3) Korn translation/Turniansky anthology (Shleyme Axelrod) 4) Pre-Ashkenazic Jewry in Eastern Europe (Mendl Louden) 1)----------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Feb 7 17:18:23 1994 From: "Dr. Arthur Komar" Subject: Schindler's List I want to thank Hal Berman for raising exactly the very same points that I found a bit disturbing in the film. With those few really minor changes an excellent film could have been made superb. Perhaps the error reflects the dirth of Yiddishkayt in Hollywood in general and among well meaning Jews like Spielberg in particular. Some one ought to send him a subscription to Menedle. Arre Komar. 2)----------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Feb 7 17:41:48 1994 From: "Benjamin L. Alpers" Subject: Language and maids Just a quick response to a minor point in ellen prince's long and interesting post on the migrations of European Jewry . . . She dismisses out of hand the suggestion (by Weinreich? . . . I don't have the post in front of me) that contact with maids provided slavic elements to Yiddish. Although that account seems pretty implausible to me, it is not the only example of historical linguistics claiming that maids caused significant linguistic changes. If I remember correctly from my days studying Russian, the standard dialect of Russian most resembles older dialects spoken NOT in the major cities, but rather in a region somewhat removed from Moscow from which the pre-Petrine court got its wet-nurses. It seems that the region (I forget its name or location) was famous for its dairy production and, somewhat superstitiously, Tsars and Boyars hired women from this region to nurse, and raise, their children. Such characteristics of Russian as "reduced" vowel sounds in unstressed syllables were apparently original found only in this dialect. I don't know if this account is accurate, but it at least plausibly suggests that maids, or at least wet-nurses, can effect linguistic development. -- Ben Alpers 3)----------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Feb 7 18:09:25 1994 From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: Korn translation/Turniansky anthology 1. Some issues ago, Richard Menkis noted that Mark Flumerfelt, who'd posted a translation of Rokhl Korn's *A nay kleyd* ("A New Dress"), had not identified the translator. The translation, by Ruth Whitman, appears in her bilingual "An anthology of modern Yiddish poetry", New York, October House, 1966. 2. Would someone please provide some information on Chava Turniansky's college anthology of Yid. lit., mentioned by a couple of subscribers? Is it all Yiddish, all translations, or bilingual? How extensive is it? Published by ...? Thank you. --Shleyme Axelrod 4)----------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Feb 7 18:41:21 1994 From: louden@bongo.cc.utexas.edu (mark l. louden) Subject: Pre-Ashkenazic Jewry in Eastern Europe Regarding the interesting (and important) question about the origins of European Jewry, I'd like to add some historical data I have come across in my work on the origins of specifically Yiddish. Basically, every reference work on Yiddish which addresses the questions of origins and early development points out the fact that German Jews migrating eastward beginning as early as the 12th century met up (and eventually merged) with autochthonous Jews whom Max Weinreich (and others) collectively referred to as Knaanic Jews (