______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.271 March 9, 1994 1) Introduction (Henry Sapoznik) 2) Cross-linguistic jokes (Bob Poe) 3) No counting (Michael Shimshoni) 4) Shmoolyaris (Bret Werb) 5) Legislating Neologisms (David Neal Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 10:12:31 1994 From: sapoznik@aol.com Subject: Introduction I am a Yiddish music historian with a specialty in klezmer music and Yiddish-American popular and folk culture. In 1979 I founded the "Kapelye" klezmer ensemble (still VERY active!) and then designed and directed (until quite recently) the Max and Freida Weinstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the YIVO Institute. In 1985 I founded and continue to direct the Yiddish FolkArts Program ("KlezKamp") now under its new aegis of"Living Traditions". Currently, I am co-researching a National Public Radio documentary and book on the history of Yiddish radio in America (1925-1955) and am host and producer of the all-Yiddish radio show on New York's WEVD, The Forward Hour. Henry Sapoznik 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 11:21:57 1994 From: poe@keps.com (Bob Poe) Subject: cross-linguistic jokes From Polish Jews living in Paris, I heard the following story: Two women, one French, the other a Polish Jew, are in a public restroom. They both happen to approach the sink at the same time, to wash their hands. The Jewish woman yields to the French woman, saying, "Vash!" The French woman, insulted, replies "Qui?" They both leave in a huff, each thinking she has been called a cow by the other. Bob Poe 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 12:09:06 1994 From: Michael Shimshoni Subject: No Counting Delphine Bechtel asks about the tradition not to count people. The Talmud states that matters counted have no blessing on them (en habrakha shruya al davar hamanui, as far as I remember the text). It may be based on the story in Samuel II 24 about the "sin" of David that he ordered a counting of the Israelites and the resulting plague. There are all kind of explanations why counting keeps away God's blessings, but anyhow it is an old tradition, actually more than a minhag. Michael Shimshoni 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 12:16:26 1994 From: "Werb, Bret C." Subject: re: shmoolyaris Anyone catch the automotive-interest radio show "Car Talk" this past weekend? The hosts made passing reference to "simolians," mentioning that the term comes from the Italian "semolino" (English "semolina" - our best natural source of macaroni). According to their authority (I didn't catch who it was or what, though the hosts also remarked that Damon Runyon did much to popularize "simolians" as slang for dollars), semolina was a common barter item in Sicily and other parts of Italy, and use of the term to denote money found its way, with the great wave of Italian immigrants, to the lower east side of NY at the end of the last century. No need to go over what a hothouse of interethnic mingling that place was at that time. So, to Mikhl Herzog (et al): What process(es) known to linguists could transmute the Italianate "simolians" into the slang Yiddish "shmoolyaris"? Is this link even possible? A sidenote: According to Klein's etymological dictionary (1971), the Latin source for semolina ("simila") is a loan word from the Semitic. Meaning, we should welcome the derivation "simolians/shmoolyaris" as a wandering kinsman, back, so to speak, to the billfold. Myself, I'm pulling for this derivation, even if it isn't correct.. Dan Leeson and Moyshe-Yankl, respectively: Philologos has dealt with both "Moyshe-Kopoye" and "Shimelekh" in his English Forward columns. Does anyone know if Ph intends to publish a collection of his fine essays in book form? Bret Werb 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 12:43:48 1994 From: David Neal Miller Subject: Legislating Neologisms A colleague posted a note some time ago in which he described the sinking, "here-we-go-again" feeling he gets when reading the oh-so-earnest and apparently inevitable periodic postings on _shmok/Schmuck_. I admit to similar feelings whenever MENDELE is used to contemplate neologisms. Neologisms survive by natural selection. Some--the wonderfully apt, child-coined _shneykishn_, for example--enter the folksmoyl (!) by acclamation; others--recent suggestions for e-mail, for example--have yet to sort themselves out (my candidate: Neil Jacobs' elegant _elpost_); most will simply fall, unmourned, by the wayside. There are, nonetheless, a very few classes of neologism which I would fain see legislated: fakhverter, perhaps, and words which carry ideological weight. The eventual Yiddish word for gay rightly--and exclusively--belongs, I would assert, to the yiddophone community to whom it refers: I am content to speak as they bid me. _Homoseksualist_ will, I suppose, have to steal off into the night, tarnished by its English near-homophone. Before it takes its leave, however, I'd point out that _homoseksualist_ is most definitely not the ideological equivalent of the English _homosexual_. A homoseksualist is an advocate of homoseksualizm, much as, say, a tsienist is an advocate of tsienism, a bundist an advocate of bundizm, etc. This makes of gender identity an ideological commitment, rather than an ontological state. Whether this is the aspect of gay identity the language should chose to valorize over other aspects is not for me to say, but _homoseksualist_ is anything but downputting: perhaps Yiddish could retain it in the sense of "gay activist." All this is by way of preamble to my next post, on a remarkable poem which would appear to canonize _lezbianke_ for "lesbian." David Neal Miller ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.271 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU 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 Mendele: Yiddish literature and language