Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.346 May 11, 1994 1) Sign language (Harry Katz) 2) Duits/deutsch (Rick Gildemeister) 3) Help with Culinary terms (Mikhl Herzog) 4) The Yiddish Atlas--An opportunity (Mikhl Herzog) 5) Heirat and harey at, again! Again? (Mikhl Herzog) 6) Yiddish word for marry (Marnen Laibow-Koser) 7) Yiddish word for marry (Anno Siegel) 8) Oyver butl/eyver botl (Rick Gildemeister) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 10 15:51:00 1994 From: harry@csc.cxo.dec.com Subject: Sign in a Health Food Store For some reason this struck me as funny (more odd then humorous) enough to share: I saw a sign in a health food store that carried the message, "No Smoking," in many different languages. Naturally, the Hebrew lettering on the sign jumped out at me, so I took a closer look. The message was identified as Hebrew, but it read, "Biteh Nit Tzu Raykherin." Not only did they get the language wrong, they started with a daytchmerism -- biteh (bet yod tet ayin). Harry Katz 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 10 16:27:05 1994 From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Duits/deutsch To: Marion Aptroot One problem I have with Mendele (MY problem) is that I remember fragments to base my anecdotes, and I often wonder whether I'm remembering clearly. Your posting on High/Low German was so wonderful for me because you were able to flesh out the half-remembered fragments that proved *accurate*. I've been studying languages for years but darn if I can remember where I saw something. On a personal level, my family is VERY Platt. I have relatives named Sellschopp, LaMotte, all very typical from Bremen. Even Martini is not necessarily Italian, it's very German, too. My father "snakt Plat" pretty well, and I love the dialect speech in T. Mann's Buddenbrooks, which my father considers mandatory reading for anyone in our large extended clan that migrated to Peru 150 years ago. "These are your roots" he always said. When I read Die Reste des Juedischdeutschen I was quite surprised to see the word schoufel, which I knew as a Dutch word sjofel (yes, I did have to study Dutch to understand it. Our family gave up Platt about 3 gene- rations ago). In Berlin, whose dialect has many Platt features,my father heard a lot of Yiddish, which I judged inaccurate, but since reading the above-mentioned book, I recognize as Mayrev. Coming back to old perceptions about Low/High Duits, Heinrich Heine once made a remark about the corrupt state of German among Polish Jews. Here again historical perceptions at that time were different than they are now. To what extent the Eastern Jews thought of *themselves* as "German" outside of Germany would be a fascinating thing to know. Heine and others seemed to feel that Yiddish was a peculiar form of German. Even *in* Germany, people would say "he talks like a Jew" rather than saying, "He speaks Yiddish". Rick Gildemeister 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 10 23:00:29 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Help with Culinary terms Can anyone help with the following? I'm concerned with a number of culinary terms, of varying regional distributions in Yiddish, with correspondents in German. Some appear to be near-synonyms, at least partially overlapping in meaning and, in the style of many dictionaries, often impossibly defined in terms of one another. I don't need any more dictionary definitions. Can anyone who knows more than one of these words in Yiddish or in German tell me what they mean in their own "idiolect"? Are they the same or different in their own (active ao passive) culinary repertoire? What distinguishes them? Do they apply to the preparation of meat only, or to other foods, as well? In each case, "How do you do it?" i) German "daempfen", Western Yiddish "geduempft (fla:sh)", Eastern Yiddish "gedemft/gedempt"; ii) G. "schmoren", WY "geshmort (fla:sh)", "geshmouert" in western Poland and "geshmort" at a few locations in Latvia; otherwise, unknown in the East; iii) G."duensten", WY "geduenstet (fla:sh)", EY in southern Poland and the Carpathians "gedintst"; otherwise unknown in the East; iv) Yiddish in Northeastern Poland and 4 or 5 locations in WY: "geshmerglt (flaysh/fla:sh); in Lithuania and Latvia, something derogatory. Unknown elsewhere in Yiddish. I find no obvious German correspondent. Do any of the words overlap with G. "braten", Y. "brotn/bru:tn" 'to roast'. The English glosses that appear to be implicated in this are primarily: 'stewed' and 'braised'. My thanks in advance. Mikhl Herzog 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 10 23:00:29 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: The Yiddish Atlas--An opportunity The Yiddish Dialect Atlas (Yidisher shprakh- un kultur-atlas) is being published by the Max Niemeyer Verlag in Tuebingen, Germany. It is being copublished by YIVO, New York. Volume II will appear in the Fall. As you may know, YIVO is in the throes of preparing to move to new quarters. The building at 5th Ave and 86th St. has been sold. By August-September YIVO will have moved into temporary quarters. All it holdings will have to be moved twice, first to temporary quarters or storage facilities, and after about 18 months to new permanent quarters. In order to minimize the trauma of the double move, YIVO is prepared to sell its remaining copies of Volume I of the Atlas, to YIVO members, at a deep discount. If you are a member of YIVO and would like to acquire a copy, reply to me directly, and I will provide you with additional details. My address: zogur@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Mikhl Herzog 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 11 02:01:14 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Heirat and harey at, again! Again? We've danced to this one before. There is NO discernible relationship although the negative is hard to demonstrate. German Heirat is, if I recall correctly, also related to English "hired" as in "hired man". There should be a rather comprehensive statement on the subject that Arn Abramson posted a 2 or three years go. Is it retrievable through the index Mikhl Herzog 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 10 16:52:41 1994 From: laibow@brick.purchase.edu Subject: Yiddish word for marry German "heiraten" = "to marry." I don't know the origin of the word, but it's quite common in German, and it's the only German word I can think of with that meaning. Marnen Laibow-Koser 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 11 02:43:57 1994 From: anno4000@w172zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE Subject: Yiddish word for marry Well, the modern German word for "marry" is indeed "heiraten" and a glance in an etymological dictionary shows that it has been around in Middle High German as well. So chances are that it is the origin of the Yiddish word and the similarity to the wedding formula is just coincidental. Anno Siegel 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed May 11 14:30:03 1994 From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Oyver butl/eyver botl Not having grown up in a Jewish home, I can't say that I know the contexts of this expression. I remember in the movie Hester Street, during the main characters' divorce, that the rabbi, played by Tsvi Scooler, says that their marriage is "botl", which I took to mean "empty" or "void". Oyver/eyver means "limb" as far as I know, and the expression Oyver botl can carry the meaning of "useless thing" "worthless thing/person". I remember a record album of Dr. Murray Banks, who did Yiddish comedy routines, talked at length about expressions of discomfort. Es tsit mir in hintn; es zhavet mir in linken *eyver*. Could it be that the meaning is something like a limb, which is designed to be a functioning part becomes a "drag" when it's "botl"? Useless appendage might be a translation; albatross around one's neck. Someone please correct me; this is only what I've inferred from my experience with the expression. Rick Gildemeister ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.346 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