Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.327 April 22, 1994 1) Transliterated dictionaries (Zachary Baker) 2) Oyslernen/kaken (Kathleen Rose Noe) 3) Kaken (Anno Siegel) 4) Musings on Yiddish movies (Rick Gildemeister) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 21 21:31:26 1994 From: BM.YIB@RLG.Stanford.EDU Subject: Transliterated dictionaries I'm quite partial to the relatively obscure "A Yiddish Dictionary in Transliteration," by Harry Coldoff (Toronto: Proclaim Publications, 1988). I'm not sure about its availability; at the time of its publication the publisher's address was: Box 130, Station Z (pronounced "zed"), Toronto, Ontario M5N 2Z3 Canada. It might be available from the Workmen's Circle Bookstore or the National Yiddish Book Center. Coldoff's dictionary has the following *mayles*: (1) The author was a Canadian. (2) He did his best to observe the principles of YIVO transcription, about whmong those whom the publisher "acknowledges with thanks" is der shrayber fun di shures. Actually, the story behind this dictionary is quite touching. Coldoff was not a professional linguist; rather, he was a commercial artist who, though born in London, England, and raised in Toronto, grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home and attended the Yiddish- language Peretz School in Toronto when his family immigrated to Canada just before World War I. (He was born in 1903 and died in 1983.) The dictionary is bi-directional -- English-Yiddish and Yiddish-English. In addition to those two main sections it also includes special Yiddish lexicons of plants, animals, weather terminology, family relations, time, numbers, proper names, curses, death - cemeteries - God, and the Zodiac. There are separate chapters for idioms and anecdotes. The volume is about 230 pages long. As the jacket copy notes, "...The author normally romanized according to the Northeastern (popularly called 'Lithuanian') Yiddish pronunciation, e.g., meyakh un keyakh instead of the standard moyekh un koyekh. This slight alteration has presumably not perpetrated undue violence to the work." Speaking ex cathedra, and not invoking the doctrine of YIVO bibliotecal infallibilty, use of YIVO romanization is perfectly appropriate for the representation of different Yiddish dialects (we've been around on this one before) -- as long as the author's intention to base this transcription on a particular dialect is clearly stated (as is done in the Coldoff dictionary) and as long as the transcription is applied consistently. Note my use of the word "transcription," and not "transliteration" -- even though the work at hand is entitled "A Yiddish Dictionary in Transliteration." Anyway, Coldoff passed away before he could see his pet project (which he began after retirement) through to publication. His younger sister, Eleanor Koldofsky (sic), herself a small publisher of books and classical music recordings (in that connection, she had once Sam the Record Man" -- a name that will be instantly recognizable to Canadian MENDELnikes), decided to bring out her brother's book, and she worked on it for several years until finally she published it. For both Harry Coldoff and Eleanor Koldofsky it was a true labour of love. Zachary Baker 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 21 22:03:18 1994 From: Kathleen_NOE@umail.umd.edu (kn11) Subject: Oyslernen/kaken ikh darf lakhn wen ikh ze in ayn mendele-briv azoy kontrastn in der tematik - s'iz do b'emes alzding, fun gantz pragmatishen guf-funktiones biz shprakhteorien. this is for yankel ekhoyz, concerning oyslernen/auslernen etc. 'auslernen' is not jargon, but quite standard. you're right it means to finish an apprenticeship, but it is also used idiomatically to mean that we never finish learning from life (man lernt nie ausalso: me lernt keyn mol nit oys? second: kaken my dictionary says it is related to latin cacare, usage in russian kakat. yes exists in german too, but it is childs language, like other words with a duplicated syllable. a sheynem gruz kathleen rose noe p.s. the more you get into yiddish & german, i think you will see how distinct they are. similar or even identical usages often entail semantic divergences. it is sisyphus-arbet to want to constantly parallel them. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Apr 22 04:10:56 1994 From: anno4000@w172zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE Subject: Kaken In Mendele 3.325 Yankel Ekhoyz (eckhause@sas.upenn.edu) wrote: >I did not make a mistake, however, is "kaken". What is the origin of >"kaken" which means... Does German have such a word? Hrrm. It does: "kacken" which is vulgar slang and means.. Anno Siegel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Apr 22 09:02:39 1994 From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Musings on Yiddish movies Last night I watched Mirele Efros and about fifteen minutes of The Dybbuk. Mirele (Berta Gersten) reminded me so much of the balebatishe dowagers in my Hanseatic-Peruvian Protestant family. The type is cross-cultural, I think. The "habit of command" and the sense that "I am Mirele Efros (somebody special that you don't mess with), and my word is good (screw up once and my life will be ruined because it depends on my ability to deliver). Also the theme of yikhes vs money. Mirele is self-made, and the shiddekh she makes for her son is with a decadent, poor family clinging to their yikhes. Each one has a shem, but in a different scale of values. This trade-off is very common in older societies. I noticed that comic characters talk in extreme dialects (e.g. Galitsyaner, central Yiddish), to portray small-mindedness or incompetence, much like Southern accents are used for "cartoon" characters in old English language movies. Menashe Skulnik (not in these two movies) is famous for his extreme Litvak accent, again comic. Very enjoyable and zeyer interesant! Rick Gildemeister ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.327 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. 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