Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.104 September 11, 1994 1) Maven (Ellen Prince) 2) Zelig Bakh's comments (Dvosye Bilik) 3) Correct Yiddish Spelling (Bert Steinberg) 4) Klal Yidish (Kay Goodman) 5) Kitchen Yiddish (Jesse C. Rabinowitz) 6) Proper spelling (Rick Gildemeister) 7) Patshn bravo far Zelig (Louis Fridhandler) 8) Zellig Bach's comments (Martin Davis) 9) Correct Yiddish spelling (Evelyn Feins) 10) Zellig Bach's Teachings (Laurie Hollander) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 1994 12:44:48 EDT From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Maven to: zellig bach one specific (and trivial) point in response to your critique. _maven_ is an english word. and that's how it's spelled, tho the ahd also lists _mavin_. more generally, i for one would be more sympathetic with your position if you substituted the word _conventional_ for _correct_ with regard to orthography. but then of course one could argue 'whose convention?', since there are in fact several... by the way, i thought the yivo orthography in the hebrew alphabet and its offical romanization were pretty young, as spelling conventions go. and here's a question i have about yivo romanization. what is the official position on upper case (assuming one is using upper case at all!)? should a sentence begin with an upper case letter? what about proper names? that is, which is the officially accepted version, 1, 2, or 3 (or something else): 1. farvos vil moyshe redn mit got? 2. Farvos vil Moyshe redn mit got? 3. Farvos vil Moyshe redn mit Got? a dank. ellen prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 94 13:50 EDT From: Dorothy_BILIK@umail.umd.edu (db28) Subject: Zelig Bakh's comments Mayn tayerer zelig, A gezunt aykh in kop. Kurts un klor vi Rashi. A gut yor un a laykhtn tones, Dvosye Bilik 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 94 15:42:34 EDT From: Mate1920@aol.com Subject: Correct Yiddish Spelling Takeh vas iz Mendele? Und farvas zeinen a zoy fiel menschen afen linyeh? Oyb men vil habn Yiddish mehr genutzt, men ken nisht unfangen zu nitpicken -- un ich denk as Zellig's post, veil zehr literarish, ken avek triben dee vas villen nohr nutzen der sprach zey habn gelernt alz kinder un habn nit gehat the gemeglichkeit zy nutzen ven zeyer bobbas und zeides zeinen gestarbn. Ich hab gelernt mein Yiddish in die ordn shules in NYC--gegangen zu mitl shul -- ober var yaren nit gekent redn di mama loschen. Mein fater is geven a Yiddishist, geshribn meises, --gedenkst ikuf? -- Yetzt in California, sechsich yar speter, habmn mir gefunen a groupe vun tzen menschen und alle mit der zelbe teine -- yetzt viln zey unfangen redn a bisl Yiddish. Is das nisht epus zu zein gefriden uber? Az mir veln unfangen mit grammatish, un dee anderer hecher zachen, veln zey avec loifen von groupe. Die zelbe zach ken oichet pasiren da...... Ich nem das nit perzenlach -- ober ich gloib nisht as Yiddish darft es, un az unzer libe far Yiddish meint as men muz ez ton. Zelig's credentials notwithstanding. Bert Steinberg 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 13:56:51 -0700 From: ac939@lafn.org Subject: Klal yidish Ikh bin a naye mitglider af mendele. Biz itst bin ikh geven a shtume lyale vi mayn mame fleg zogn. Ober ikh muz shras shraybn a dank Zelig Bach. Zayne verter shtendig brengn a shtik gezunt tsu mayn hartsn. Antshuldikt mayn dikdek ober s'iz emes khushev nokhtsugen dos klal yidish. Ikh bin a lerern fun lerern fun eynglish un spanish un ikh loz nit farbay eyn grayz b'frat ven di shiler zenen onheybers. Ikh kuk shtendig aroys af Zelgs briv. Dos meynt nit az ikh hob nit hanoye fun andere mendelnikes. Khas v'kholile! Farkert, ikh efn mayn makharayke gants fri in der morgn a kuk tsuton oyb es iz ongekumen epes fun mendele. Ikh vinch aykh alemen a gut yor, a zis yor mit gezunt un hatslokhe. Ayer fraynt Kayle. Kay Goodman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Sep 94 14:25:26 PDT From: panisse@mendel.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Kitchen Yiddish: Where did sons pick up their Yiddish?. RE: 4.081.3 If you were a needleworker's child in New York City in the 30's, it would be very unlikely that you had a room of your own. In a normal household where parents had aspirations for their children, it would have been likely that you went to bed before the adults in the house. This would most likely have been in a folding-bed rolled out and made up in the living room. If there were guests, you would probably be put to bed temporarily in your parents' bed in the one bedroom of the apartment. The nature of the construction of these apartment did not provide much of a barrier to eavesdropping on the conversation of the adults in another room. The opportunity of hearing so much that was normally withheld from you provided the effective incentive for you to learn to understand spoken Yiddish. Jesse C. Rabinowitz 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 94 17:21:47 EDT From: EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Proper spelling I resonate with Zellig Bach's prescriptions. I, too, feel that there is such a thing, or time when a language is taken seriously and is worked on to make it normative, a medium for cultural expression. I think many of us are uncomfortable with liberal notions of pluralism, that prescriptive grammar is elitist, and that culture should be inclusive of all practices of "the people". As I've said before here, at first, a standard is necessarily a medium of expression that is no one's native dialect, no one's "mother" tongue. The standard does oust dialects in many cases. For example, in Germany no educated person uses Plattdeutsch and most middle to upper-class people are no longer able to speak it. In Switzerland, a conscious decision was made NOT to oust Schwyzerduetsch, for political reasons; however, one always writes in Hochdeutsch. We're talking here about a compromise known as diglossia, where one masters both the standard and one's native dialect. This is my feeling, for whatever its worth, about how to handle this problem in Yiddish. I worked on a cataloging project in which we cataloged newspapers and periodicals written in Yiddish. We encountered a number of problems with daytshmerizms in titles. How should they be romanized? Very often there was a parallel title in "German" i.e. Yiddish but romanized by the publishers according to German orthographic standards. I decided that I would romanize the title exactly as I found it but make an added title entry under current spelling conventions, even though the vernacular form I based this entry on did not appear on the item itself. We did, however, have special problems. Many titles were total daytshmerizms and had no equivalent, e.g. Die Wahrheit, which had a vernacular title lacking the komets or the pasakh to indicate how this should be transcribed. In those cases I made entries under vahrhayt, vorheyt, etc. I'm sure fellow librarian Zachary Baker knows what I'm talking about. Forgive me Zellig on one point, after which I'm going to sign off; isn't to wish, in Yiddish vintshn, not vinshn? I accept your good wishes with a friendly wink of an eye! A gjt yuer aakh alemyn, fjl mit mazl jn parnuusy! Rick Gildemeister 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Sep 94 23:36:17 EDT From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: Patshn bravo far Zelig Re: Zellig Bach's posting in 4.102. A sheynem dank, tayerer Zelig. Ikh pleske bravo. Nor eyn zakh. Anshot "kh'vinsh aykh..." baym sof fun ayer brivl zol shteyn "kh'vintsh aykh..." Azoy meyn ikh, khotsh ikh bin nisht aza groyser meyvn af oyslege oder gramatike. Now I must switch to English for my next thought. Among the worst offenses re: inconsistency in transliteration of Yiddish is the following. Sometimes we read mensch (or mensh) when the original sounded mentsh. Mentsh is Yiddish with all its attendant richness of meaning and implied nobility. Mensch is German, different in sound, and carries only part of the meaning in mentsh, one of the finest creations that the Yiddish language hammered out during its long, arduous evolution. Louis Fridhandler 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 11:21:41 -0400 From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu Subject: Zellig Bach's comments on spelling & Romanization I have three comments: 1. I personally, as one guilty of slovenly spelling of Yiddish (double d OK in English!), am grateful for the care taken and will TRY to take the advice given. This is just the kind of constructive criticism that is helpful. 2. I can't help remarking that in earlier days English spelling was not at all standardized and that no disrespect to the language was implied by the habit of Elizabethans to use whatever spelling occurred to them. 3. I repeat an earlier plea that those of us who know and love Yiddish from our having learned it aurally not be made to feel that our contributions are not wanted in Mendele because of our unsystematic spelling and grammatical errors. Martin Davis 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 23:02:00 UTC From: e.feins@genie.geis.com Subject: Correct Yiddish spelling To: Zellig Bach re: Vol. 4.102 Thank you for your excellent letter. Being a strictly Kitchen Yiddish learner (Russian Yiddish, yet), I found your information to be very informative, and interestingly presented as well. I am printing it out to refer to, and would appreciate seeing more on this topic from you, in the future. With most of the posts I have read on Mendele, I find I am quite often somewhat out of my depth, and if I might, I would like to ask, what is meant by "macaronism"? And, most of the spellings given are based on German, Polish or Lithuanian interpretations. Would the variations I've learned from my parents (Russian Jews), be an incorrect dialect, or are they another correct version of Yiddish? One more little footnote. I just made an interesting discovery. I remember hearing my father saying, disdainfully about someone, that he was a "puste bucher." Now, after all these years, I realize he meant the man was a shallow person. (Am I right?) Evelyn Feins (new address: M.FEINS@GENIE.GEIS.COM) 10)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 19:20:16 -0400 From: laurie@ramirez.Princeton.EDU Subject: Zellig Bach's Teachings I thought Zellig Bach's posting about correct tranliteration of Yiddish into the English alphabet was excellent. I keep trying to spell according to the accepted conventions, but when I read the Mendele postings, I sometimes become dazed and confused. Z's notes were not exhaustive, but were a good summary of the most common types of mistakes. Also, I appreciated the tone of Z's posting. It did not seem overly elitist, or highbrow, or snobbish, or critical to me, even though Z obviously has the credentials to be as judgemental as he likes. As a beginner in Yiddish myself, I can testify that having enough respect for the language and the culture to try to learn it correctly does not automatically cause the kind of self-consciousness/psychological blocks associated with intimidation. Mendele is not intimidating. Thank you. Laurie Hollander ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.104 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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 Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu