Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 4.065
July 20, 1994

1) Prayer at havdala (David Kazdan)
2) Skver (Perets Mett)
3) Family name, roots, etc. (Perets Mett)
4) Yiddish on radio (Susan Hauser)
5) Tape recorder (David Sherman)
6) Rekordirn (Meyshe Alpert)
7) Authoritative Yiddish (Harold L. Orbach)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 09:26:14 -0400
From: dxk10@po.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Prayer at havdala

To: Arn Abramson

The Artscroll siddur gives a Yiddish version of the first passages of the
Amida as "Gott fun Avraham" in the havdala section.  I gather that this
is or was common in some communities.  Perhaps this is what your friend
remembers?

David Kazdan

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 17:35:20 +0000
From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk
Subject: Skver

Dave Sherman wrote [mendele Vol 4.052]

> Der Midos Velt and similar books and tapes (this one is both) are
> not Lubavitch, but other Chassidic (possibly Satmar, but I can't be
> sure). I have the book here, and it's copyright by the author, Z.
> Schmelczer, of New Square / Spring Valley NY. (New Square,
> incidentally, is actually a corruption of "New Skvir". I'm not sure
> where Skvir was in Europe, though. Anyone know?)

1. I don't know whow Satmar comes into it. As he says, the author lives in
New Square and is almost certainly a Skverer Chosid. Quite a lot of
material in Yiddish has been published there, primarily for use in their
khadorim, including alinear translation (sorry, taytsh) of the khumesh.

2. Someone has already given a location of Skvira in the Ukraine

3. Definitely not a "corruption". Skvira is called (and spelt) Skver in
Yiddish. According to the story I read in Time  when New Square was
founded, the English spelling was a transcription error! Apparently it was
dictated  as "New Skver". But the typist assumed this to be a
mispronunciation of New Square.

perets mett

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 17:44:52 +0000
From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk
Subject: Family name, roots, etc.

To Evelyn Feins:

I don't think we've heard from Reb Mikhl yet on this; no doubt he can
pinpoint the shtetl. But the given pronunciation and 'pavolye' sound like
Eastern  Ukraine, don't they?

And a thought: using the World-Wide Web and sound files, senders could
get across their pronunciation effects!

perets mett

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 1994 14:34:21 -0400
From: Susan_Hauser@QuickMail.Yale.edu
Subject: Yiddish Radio Programs

Does anyone know whether there still are any Yiddish radio programs in the
NYC area?  Thanks.

Susan Hauser

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 94 17:27:19 EDT
From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca
Subject: tape recorder

We use a tape recorded solely for playing (i.e., as a tape player). We
call it a tashme-shpiler.

David Sherman

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 94 00:26:40 EDT
From: Meyshke@aol.com
Subject: Rekordirn

Reb Kalmen:

Re "to record", "tape":

Dertsu hert men amol "ufnemen", un - bay idn fun amolikn Ratn-farband -
"shraybn" oder "farshraybn" < Rus. "zapisat'".

Meyshe Alpert

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 94 12:47 CDT
From: HLORBACH@KSUVM
Subject: Authoritative Yiddish

On and off the last year there have been discussions about authorities
for Yiddish, whether for "really" Yiddish words, correct orthography in
English, etc.  Mikhl Herzog ["Pique" in Mendele 4.031] re-emphasized the
beauty of a language that has no authorities but rests on the usages of
its community of speakers as a living and creative body.

I am reminded of this for two reasons:  the carping about a contributor
using 'alla' [satirized as 'Allah'] instead of 'alemen'.  But from my
childhood I hear the invitation "Kinder, Loz mir alle zingin ..." -- alas
I cannot place it now.  Can someone help?

Second, various comparisons with French and the famous French Academy
have referred to Louis XIV as the institutor of French as the official
State language through the Academy, presumably.  This is in error on two
counts: (1) It was in 1539 that Francois through the Ordonnance de
Villers-Cotterets caused, as the commemorative stamp of 1989 puts it,
that "Le francais devient la langue ecrite officielle."  No Jewish state,
no King, no official written language.  Clearly it was writers such as
Mendele, Scholem Aleichem, Peretz and newspapers such as the Forward (and
the press in Europe) that provided models and created "authorities" --
the dictionaries and the linguists follow after.

(2) It was Cardinal Richelieu who founded the Academie Francais in 1635
-- almost 100 years of "anarchy" of the written language led to the need
for someone with a good sense of the need for authority to come up with
the answer.  But it was not until 1694 that the first edition of the
Academy's dictionary appeared.  [The French Embassy's bi-monthy news
bulletin, News from France, recounted this early this spring while
announcing the official reception of the newest Academy member -- Albert
Cardinal Decourtray of Lyon, who is the 19th Cardinal to be a member of
this august body.  Authority indeed!  But literacy was miniscule back
then and there were no schools, so it didn't mean much to the masses. The
true instigator of French as the national language was Napoleon -- he
created the national school system, made the dialect of L'Ile de France
the standard and trained teachers to speak it so that everyone would
eventually.  He also created the famous "bachot" examination. Why?  You
couldn't run a mass national army of illiterates who couldn't understand
each other, or a powerful state of citizens who had their own separate
languages, or so the rationalist/authoritarian French believed.

Meanwhile, the Queen's/King's English and American English have survived
without an academy to decree which words and spellings or pronunciations
are kosher and traif, and Yiddish has done the same.  One hopes that all
attempts to oppose an orthodoxy, as opposed to authorities who present
their work and labors for public reception, will continue to fail.

Harold L. Orbach

______________________________________________________
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