Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 4.355
March 7, 1995

1) The YIVO find in Lithuania (Dan Leeson)
2) Yoshe, Heshl et al. (Dovid Braun)
3) Skotsl kumt (Leon Kestenbaum)
4) Skotsl kumt (Bob Rothstein)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 1995 14:50:03 EST
From: leeson@aspen.fhda.edu
Subject: The YIVO find in Lithuania

Last night around midnight, CNN had a lengthy piece on the find in
Lithuania and its transportation to New York YIVO.  This is not new
because there have been several mentions of it on this board.  However,
there was one item spoken of in the CNN report that was, to my ears,
quite new.

It was explicitly stated that only a small portion of the material was
sent to New York and that the remainder would be kept in Lithuania and
parceled out to YIVO in New York only when the parcel then in New York
was returned to Lithuania.  So they describe a 10% New York, 90%
Lithuania holding of the materials with NY's piece going back to
Lithuania each time that NY wanted a new portion.

The impression given was that NY would act as a curator, physically
restoring, cataloging, preserving, etc. the portion then in its hands and
then return it all to Lithuania in order to get the next piece of work.

I'm not making this up, though the CNN broadcast may have done so.  Is
this description even vaguely correct or were the facts misrepresented?

Dan Leeson
Los Altos, California

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 1995 19:30:29 EST
From: dovid@mit.edu
Subject: Yoshe, Heshl et al.

Thanks, Elye Juni, for the remarks.  I was uncomfortable with my
hypothesis as well (that at some point _yehoyshue_ was stressed on the
2nd syllable). It is just that Yiddish diminutive personal names usually
make use of the stressed syllable of the "oiginal" name, if nothing else.
So _shie_ (and  the ensuing _shike, shitsye, shikl_) are no surprises;
_heshl_ and _yoshe_, on the other hand, are.

The same problem is seen in _iser_ (thanks, Meylekh):  from the name
_yisro'el_ it is no surprise that the guy is called _srol, srolke,
srulik, srultshe_, but it *is* a surprise that _(y)isro'el_ went to
_i'ser(l)_. Bekitser, I don't what the answer is but we know what the
question is, at least.

If there was a time when _yeho'(y)shue_ was the form in Yiddish, then
_yoshe_ and _heshl_ are explained:

yeho'shue --> yo'shue --> yoshe

yeho'shue --> ho'shue --> he'shl (by umlauting, as in hOr~hErele,
gOt~gEter)

I put the 2nd "y" in parentheses a few lines up because, perhaps like
_yosef_, this khoylem-vov was (is?) dialectally pronounced [o] and not
[oy]; that is, in "litvish" Yiddish the name is pronounced [yeysef] and
in the other dialects (all? or only "poylish" Yiddish) the name is
pronounced _yosef_ (and not *_yoysef_, as the general pattern would lead
us to expect).  (Note that _yosl_ is therefore no surprise:  it derives
from _yosef_ and not *_yoysef_.)

As for ante(-ante-ante)penultimate stress, there's _kalo'nimus_,
_ro'sheshone_ (in "litvish" Yiddish), _akha'zhvereysh_ (in my "litvish"
Yiddish).  So they are possible, if uncommon.  How were you taught in
kheyder to pronounce Dovidameylekh's friend's name:  [yo'ynesn] or
[yoyno'sn/yenos'n]?  (I think both are available in the dialects.  And do
you concur that nobody in Yiddish speaking communities -- at least the
ones you have access to -- is actually called by this name?  If anything,
it's _nosn_.)

"Be me well and strong"

Dovid Braun

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 21:51:33 -0500
From: Leon.L.M.K.Kestenbaum@Legal.sprinta1.sprint.com
Subject: Skotsl kumt

Perhaps it is time to move on, but I would like to khazer iber nokh a mol
the expression "skutsl kumt."  Skutsl kumt is the greeting Gimpel
recieves from his soon-to-be bride, Elke. Bashevis Singer writes "a ponim
gevust ver ich bin, veil ze tut oif mir a kuk un zugt -- Skutsl kumt,
r'iz du der yuldt." Saul Bellow translates this as "Evidently she knew
who I was. She took a look at me and said 'Look who's here! He's come,
the drip.'"  This would suggest that the expression "skutsl kumt" is: (1)
not limited to greeting women; (2) not a reaction of surprise in response
to a visit; and, (3) not a warm or complimentary greeting.  At least from
the example in Gimpel the Fool, Keyle Goodman would seem to have it about
right.  The expression connotes sarcasm, as in "look what the cat dragged
in."

Leon Kestenbaum
Potomac, MD

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 1995 23:54:40 -0500 (EST)
From: rar@slavic.umass.edu
Subject: Skotsl kumt

The expression _skotsl kumt_ had a fairly extensive discussion in the
(relatively) early days of Mendele.  See 1.48, 1.161 and 1.183-185 (the
last of these with etymological proposals from _Yidishe shprakh_ and
_Filologishe shriftn_).

Bob Rothstein

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