Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 4.210
December 2, 1994

1) Language 'mevinim' (Ellen Prince)
2) Sheygets (Yude Rozof)
3) Western Yiddish folkmusic (Arre Komar)
4) Ts(h)ipyo(ek), aynfor(hoyz) and rogelekh (Mikhl Herzog)
5) Ts(h)ipyo(ek) and aynfor(hoyz) (Dovid Braun)
6) Nitogedakht (Mikhl Herzog)
7) On-line dictionary (Khayem Bochner)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 16:37:58 EST
From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu
Subject: language 'mevinim'

to: zellig bach

>As far as Yiddish is concernd, the situation seems to be just the
>opposite. Some Jews,  davke because they are native speakers, consider
>themselves experts, self-appointed mevinim, mishteyns -:) gezogt, by
>virtue of their own "certification."

ok, i'll bite. who _should_ be the experts, if not the native speakers?

ellen prince

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 17:42:35 -0500 (EST)
From: jrosof@sas.upenn.edu (Jeremy S Rosof)
Subject: Re: sheygets

It is interesting to note that the Yiddish sheygets and shikse derive
from the Hebrew sheqes. meaning detestable thing or unclean animal.
SheyGATS is a fascinating truly Yiddish concoction including a Semitic
base, a Germanic pronunciation, and a Slavic contemptuous ending to top
it all off as in yunGATSH.  In defense of the creators of this slur I
would note that Jews were mainly on the receiving end and they needed to
let a little steam off themselves.  Most Jews probably were and certainly
in America today are totally unaware of the perjorative and derisive
derivation of the word--in that sense it has lost its power, just as
shmok today has come to mean jerk rather than d-ck.

Yude Rozof

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 22:05:44 -0500 (EST)
From: komar@yu1.yu.edu
Subject: Western Yiddish folkmusic

I wish to thank Dovid Broun for the several western Yiddish folk songs
which he submitted. The ideas that I expressed concerning the absence of
evidence for such music was not mine, but was cribbed mostly from the
prologue of Ruth Rubins "Voices of a People." I would like to ask Dovid
if any of the music which accompanies the texts is extant. If so it would
be interesting to to see the extent to which it is related to either the
cantorial chant or the more familiar east European Yiddish folk song.

As to whether Hebrew is becoming more intrusive into Yiddish in recent
times, I must admit that my impression is largely anacdotal, but it does
agree with that of many others to whom I've spoken. Also I find that many
words of Hebrew root now being employed on Mendele are not found as
prefered usage in Harkavy's 100 year old dictionary. However I would be
very interested in hearing from others who may have made a more
professional study of this question.

Arre Komar

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 94  22:58 EST
From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu
Subject: ts(h)ipyo(ek), aynfor(hoyz) and rogelekh

Judith Binder and J. Rosof:

1. ts(h)ipyor(ek): the green leaves of onions (scallions?)

2. ajnforhoyz: 'inn': a perfectly good, non-daytshmerish Yiddish
word.

Beatrice Santorini:

Rogelekh: probably derived from the word "rog" 'corner'. At New York
bakeries, rogelekh seem to come in various strange shapes and sizes. I
rely on the ones my mother made as "authentic": a small roll of dough,
filled with nuts, cinammon, ?, and bent(?) to form 2 sides of a triangle
(a right angle, that is; a corner?), often assuming a crescent shape.
They were good!

Mikhl Herzog

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 22:59:03 EST
From: dovid@mit.edu
Subject: ts(h)ipyo(ek), aynfor(hoyz)

Perhaps I can help you: tshipyor, shtshipyor, or shtshipyer are scallions
or chives.  I'm not near a dictionary of Yiddish (or Polish) at the
moment, or near Stutchkoff's Thesaurus of the Yiddish Language, to look
this up, and I confuse the two in English and in Yiddish anyway.  The -ek
is a Slavic suffix, sometimes a diminutivizing suffix (sometimes it's a
diminutivizing suffix in Yiddish too).  If the Perets text you're working
on is from an old printing, say early 1900s when there was turmoil in
Yiddish spelling, the sequence tsadik-yud that you encountered might've
been Perets' rendition of what we write today as tes-shin and what we
Romanize as _tsh_ -- the sound in [patsh].

_aynforhoyz_ is an inn -- you should find this in Yiddish dictionaries
with no difficulties.  Does it make sense for the context of the Perets
story?  _lange aynforhoyz_ might sound funny if translated into English
literally, namely 'long inn' -- buildings aren't usually described as
long in English.  _lang_ in Yiddish, however, can apply to buildings or
people, meaning 'tall and lanky'.

Let us know if any of this is on the mark.

Dovid Braun

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94  09:14 EST
From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu
Subject: Nitogedakht

Dovid Braun has pointed out to me the error in my recent posting about
mishteyns gezogt. By writing the form "nito(p)gedakht", I suggested that
the usual rendition "nitogedakht" actually derived from a form with "op".
More likely that it's actually from "do" 'here'. I will still check the
Atlas responses to see whether any "real" informants actually said "op".
Thanks, Dovid.

Mikhl.

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 94 10:06:02 -0500
From: bochner@das.harvard.edu
Subject: clarification: on-line dictionary

In my recent note on 'oyssheygetsn' I refered to an on-line dictionary.
At least one mendelnik interpreted this as a reference to a _Yiddish_
on-line dictionary. Halevay! What I meant was that since I didn't
understand Harkavy's definition of 'oyssheygetsn' as "to give a good
rating", I looked up "rate" in an _English_ on-line dictionary, and found
the obsolete usage that Harkavy apparently had in mind.

Sorry for any confusion.

Khayem Bochner

______________________________________________________
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