Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 3.239
February 18, 1994

1) WBRS Yiddish Hour (Liba Yenta Winograd)
2) Subject: Aramaic fem. of Roshe (Moshe Taube)
3) Subject: Yiddish/Hebrew speech synthesizers (Michael B. Braten)
4) A Yiddish CD (Ted L. Steinberg)
5) Roshe (Mikhl Herzog)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Feb 15 12:19:13 1994
From: Dia Winograd <72674.3235@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: WBRS YIDDISH HOUR

Mark David:

Can one purchase the tapes of the Yiddish Hour broadcasts?

Liba Yenta Winograd


2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Feb 15 12:45:59 1994
From: Taube Moshe <taube@HUM.HUJI.AC.IL>
Subject: Aramaic fem. of Roshe

For Mikhl:

Jastrow's Dictionary, p. 1500. gives three variants:
1. pasekh reysh, khirek shin, yud, komets ayin, alef;
2. pasekh reysh, khirek shin, yud, khatef-pasekh ayin, komets tov,
alef;
3. shvo reysh, khirek shin, yud, khatef-pasekh ayin, komets tov,
alef.

Best, Moyshe

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Feb 15 12:45:59 1994
From: BRATENM@cpmail-nz.cis.columbia.edu
Subject: Yiddish/Hebrew speech synthesizers

I was introduced to a hasidic rabbi who has ALS aka Lou Gehrig's
disease. His illness has made him a mute.  He has been made aware of
the technical possibilty of using a synthesizer attached to a PC in
order to communicate. I have done a little detective work and have
found that there is a DEC product called DECTALK that will read text
phonetically.  DECTALK will follow rules of English pronunciation.

My question is whether there are any products out there that can be
used to synthesize Yiddish or Hebrew .

Many thanks and Shalom.

MICHAEL B. BRATEN
PROGRAMMER/ANALYST     AP1310
COLUMBIA-PRESBYTERIAN MEDICAL CENTER
TELEPHONE   (212) 305-3752
INTERNET    BRATENM@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU
                        OR
            BRATENM@CPMAIL-NZ.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Feb 16 08:37:41 1994
From: "Ted L. Steinberg" <STEINBER%FREDONIA.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: yiddish cd

I certainly don't want to argue with Zalmen Itzik Clare, but I must
say that I have been enjoying recent issues of Mendele--certainly
much more than when writers were arguing about their own pet
theories.

But that's not why I'm writing.  I'm writing to tell people about a
compact disk that I recently found quite by accident but that I
think is wonderful. It's called "Voices of the Ghetto--Le 19 avril
1943", put out by WMD 7 Productions.  It has 19 or 20 songs from the
Warsaw Ghetto performed in ways that I found to be very moving. It's
worth looking up.

Ted Steinberg

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Feb 15 16:48:03 1994
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: Roshe

Michael Shimshoni:

     Thanks. I should really have formulated my question
differently. Let me try again. First, the problem:

I'm working with two words, the feminine of "mekhUtn" and the
feminine of "rOshe". (I use a capital letter to indicate stress.)
The masculine forms, as cited, abstracted from regional phonological
variants, are virtually universal in Yiddish. The feminines are
quite variable.

1. "mekhUtn". In all of Eastern Yiddish, the feminine is
"mekhutEneste". This is clearly a pleonastic form: the Aramaic
feminine suffix -ta (Yiddish -te) has been affixed to the Ashkenazic
Hebrew feminine "mekhutEnes".

Western Yiddish also has the feminine form "mekhUtnte", on the face
of it, this is simply the Hebrew masculine plus the Aramaic feminine
suffix -te. Is tis an innovation in Yiddish, or is there a
distinctive Aramaic feminine form on which Yiddish "mekhUtnte" is
based.

2. "roshe". In all of Eastern Yiddish we find "marshA(a)s", clearly
derived from Ashkenazic Hebrew "mirshAas". Also widespread in
Eastern Yiddish, "rOshete/rUshete", with word- initial stress. Is
this an innovation in Yiddish: "rOshe + -te"?

In Western Poland and Western Yiddish, the predominant forms are
reshAte" and with the nasalization of "ayin", reshA(:)nte/reshAJnte",
with penultimate stress. Is this Hebrew feminine "rish-A" plus
pleonastic Aramaic -te, again, innovations in Yiddish? Or,is there
an Aramaic feminine from which they can be as easily derived?

The dangers of reconstruction: In the absence of someone who knew
better, I would have posited an Aramaic *reshAta: "r(shwa),
sh(komets), ayin(khataf-patakh), tav(komets). I take it I would have
been mistaken.

Mikhl Herzog

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 3.239

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