Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 3.324
April 21, 1994

1) Transliterated dictionaries; gzhibe (Dovid Braun)
2) Zhibe (Michael Steinlauf)
3) Re: a kuk gebn/ton (Khayem Bochner)
4) Introduction (Patty Becker)
5) Miami in fiction (Ayelet Kuper Margalioth)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date:: Wed Apr 20 13:29:25 1994
From: dovid@MIT.EDU
Subject: transliterated dictionaries; gzhibe

To Bob King:  there's _The Yiddish Dictionary Source Book_ by Herman
Galvin and Stan (?) Tamarkin.  A funny name -- sounds more like a book
inventorizing Yiddish lexicographic works rather than a dictionary
itself.  If I remember correctly, entries are in English, glosses are in
Yiddish letters and transliteration.  The entries are basically taken
from (and condensed from) U. Weinreich's dictionary.

There's a similar book, although with more original effort by the author,
by Samuel Rosenbaum -- _A Yiddish Dictionary for English-speaking
People_, or something like that.

*****

To Howie Aronson:

The word is _gzhibe_, also pronounced _gzhive_, _grive_, or in the
diminutive _grivke_, _gzhivke_, meaning 'bangs'.  _grive_ is a horse's
mane.

Dovid Braun

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Apr 20 16:19:04 1994
From: M_STEINLAUF@ACAD.FANDM.EDU
Subject: zhibe

In response to Howie Aronson's query about "zhibe," it's doubtless
related to the Polish word "grzywa" [gzhiva] which means mane (as in
horse's), but was also used, especially before the war, to denote a big,
full head of hair, often combed upward, and often a sign of "artistic"
temperament. The dictionary also gives the diminuitive "grzywka," meaning
forelock or bang. So that one might ask whether a "zhibe" and a
"ramalamadingdong" have any relation?  This, of course, would necessitate
a monograph on the semiology of East European Jewish hairstyles.  Any
grad students out there need a dissertation topic?

Al dos guts.

Michael Steinlauf

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Apr 20 17:15:21 1994
From: bochner@das.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: a kuk gebn/ton

Yude Rozof quotes Max Weinreich, and writes:

> Thought this might shed some light on the Slavic-derived "ton."  I look
> forward to reading more about the older "ton" which seems to express aspect.

Thanks for quoting Weinreich (the elder); I only have the Yiddish
edition, with no index, so finding things is a bit overwhelming.

But you seem to think that I was disagreeing with Weinreich, so some
clarification seems to be in order. (Nonlinguists, please bear with us
;-)

I'm pretty sure what Weinreich is saying is that the _tendency_ to stress
aspectual distinctions in Yiddish is related to the importance of such
distinctions in Slavic. The form of this particular construction, roughly
auxiliary verb plus indefinite article plus verb stem, doesn't look
Slavic at all, however. I only dabble in Slavic, but I've never seen
anything like it in any of the Slavic languages I've studied.
Constructions like this _are_ found, although unsystematically, in other
Germanic languages; cf. English "take a look", "give a shout". So what
seems to have happened in Yiddish is that a construction of Germanic
origin has been generalized as a way of expressing an "aspectoid"
distinction of the sort Slavic is so fond of. This, I think, is what
Weinreich means by "... Yiddish constructed the aspectoid forms in the
manner of Slavic from German-component material."

So I think that calling this construction 'Slavic-derived "ton"' is
misleading. Not only is the word "ton" Germanic, but I've never seen a
Slavic language use a verb meaning "do" (or "give") in this way.

I'll try to find time to read the rest of what Weinreich says about this,
now that you've given me the section reference ...

-- Khayem Bochner

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Apr 20 18:06:27 1994
From: Patty_Becker@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu
Subject: Introduction

I have a love for the Yiddish language and Yiddishkeit, but am not very
fluent in the language.  I grew up in the Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle)
and had 7 years of shule education, so I can read the words and have a
vocabulary of several hundred words and many idiomatic expressions.  I'm
not sure how relevant this list will be for me, or to you for me to par-
ticpate, but we'll give it a whirl.  I *am* a committed secular
humanistic Jew and a member of the Birmingham Temple in the Detroit area,
the founding congregation of the Society for Humanistic Judaism.
Professionally, I am a demographer in private practice and have done a
lot of Jewish communal research.

Patty Becker

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Apr 20 19:31:21 1994
From: akmargal@husc.harvard.edu
Subject: Miami in Fiction

To Henry Breitrose:

The novella by Cynthia Osick which Dvosye Bilik referred to is called
Rosa. It is available bound in a single volume called 'The Shawl' along
with the short story of that name, published by Alfred A. Knopf in New
York in 1989. It is probably still in print.

Ayelet Kuper Margalioth

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 3.324

A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly
updates.

Anonymous ftp archives available on:
          ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu
          in the directory pub/mendele/files

Archives available via gopher on:
        gopher.cic.net

Mendele has 2 rules:

	1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line.
	2. Sign your article.

To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to:

                   LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU

Send submissions/responses to:
        mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu

Other business:
        nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu