Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.363 March 10, 1995 1) Khosn-kale (Shleyme Axelrod) 2) Gel and fuftsn (Rick Gildemeister) 3) Orem iz nit gut (Shoshana Balaban-Wolkowicz) 4) Looking for articles by W. Roell, F.J. Beranek (Dovid Braun) 5) Yiddish names (Dovid Braun) 6) Yiddish names (Ellen Prince) 7) Yiddish on the Mac (Gershon Margolis) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Mar 1995 16:02:30 -0500 (EST) From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: Khosn-kale Dvorah Biasca (4.356) notes that in many languages, male-female pairs are usually given in that order: male and female, husband and wife, king and queen; exceptions (ladies and gentlemen, bride and groom) are rare. Yiddish seems to go with the flow: _khosn-kale_, _tate-mame_, _zeyde-bobe_, _man un vayb_, and even, for 'hook and eye', _mendl un vaybl_ [Weinreich, 1968]. Dvorah's impression that _khosn_ and _kale_ are what the couple are called from the engagement until after the ceremony is corroborated by Weinreich who translates _khosn_ 'bridegroom(-to-be), fiance' and _kale_ 'bride(-to-be), fiancee'. Likewise, _vern a khosn_ (or _kale_) are translated 'become engaged'. And _khosn-bokher_ and _kale-moyd_ refer not even to betrothal, but just to being of marriageable age, i.e., to betrothability. Shleyme Axelrod 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Mar 95 16:24:00 EST From: eeglc%cunyvm.bitnet@yalevm.cis.yale.edu Subject: Gel and fuftsn Dovid Braun: I think I can help here. In modern High German the word for yellow is gelb. In some German dialects, especially as you get close to Platt territory people begin to say bleiwen instead of bleiben. So there is a cognate with "gelwe", which then drops the "w" and you get "gel". In Dutch the word is "geel". I've probably oversimplified the process, ober dos iz alts vos ikh kon aroyskhapn fun zikorn. Efsher iz farkert, un dos vort "gelb" kumt fun an algemeynem "gelw" vos iz dan vayter gevorn "gelb", vi men redt in di hekhere lender fun der daytsher shprakh, mit di lipn tsugemakht. Fuftsn I don't know too much about, but I do know this, that fuftsn is identical to my stepmother's Schwyzerduetsch word for 15, not fuenfzehn. Rick Gildemeister 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Mar 95 16:42:01 PST From: shoti@eworld.com Subject: Orem iz nit gut Z. Schneir iz der mekhaver fun lid "Orem iz nit Gut", er hot oikh geshribn di lider: Volt ikh zain a feigele; Lekhaim; Vos biztu azoi troierik; Tantz a bizele mit mir; A khasene in shtetl. oib ikh makh nit kain taut -- Margaritkes. Di ale dermonte lider zene araingenumen in spectacl " A Khasene in Shtetl" (A Shtetl Wedding) -- Eli Rubenstein hot geshribn musik un gemakht aranshirungen, oikh ongefirt mit der orkester. Dora Wasserman hot reshisirt di piese velkhe me hot oifgefirt in Montreal, Canade. Di teater grupe trogt dem nomen: The Yiddish Drama Group of the Jewish Peoples Schools. Tzum ershtn mol hot oifgefirt dem spectakl untern nomen A Freilekhs S.M.Michoels, music B.Pulver, mit der Yiddisher Moscker Teatr (Trupe) . Me ken nokh bakumen (gleib ikh) a plate-disc fun spectakl. Hob fargenign un zol dain take vaiter zingen. Shoshana Balaban-Wolkowicz 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Mar 1995 20:29:59 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Looking for articles by W. Roell, F.J. Beranek Does anybody out there have either or both of the following two articles? Please write me a personal note, if so. Thanks in advance! Walter Roell, "Di Pluralbildung im Jiddischen und im Deutschen", Akten des Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses V: 211-20, 1976 Franz J. Beranek, "Die Verkleinerungsformen im Jiddischen", Mitteilungen des Arbeitskreises Fuer Jiddisch 2: 5-9, 1960 Dovid Braun 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 00:51:31 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Yiddish names Eliyahu Juni: Agreed, again, that [yeho'yshue] sounds awful. But in fact, [yehoyshu'e] sounds awful as well). It was a try, for whatever it was worth. Wrt [yosef] in Yiddish usage vs. [yoysef] in Whole Hebrew (formal, liturgical etc. contexts) this is reminiscent of the melekh/maylekh distinction made by the interviewee in the film "Image Before My Eyes": while uttering the prayer, the woman says [melekh], and when giving the phrase-by-phrase taytsh, she says [maylekh] -- Mikhl Herzog shared this with us a number of months (years?) ago. As for all the other facts, impressions, anecdotes, analyses vekedoyme: some of the phenomena can be explained based on what we already know, some will mertshem be explained by what we someday will know. Shkoyekh to you for your attention to the matters; I'm still recovering from the lengthy posting. We'll talk more, if/when I regain my strength. Dovid (_never_ Duvid! [just kidding]) Braun 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 03:38:15 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: yiddish names i'm still digesting eliyahu juni's virtuoso post on yiddish names but i have some anecdotal comments: >Elye, however, is a litvishe moniker which I don't particularly care for... i happen to be named for a full-fledged down-home galitsianer named _elye_, my polish-born great-grandfather (mother's side). never heard any other name for him and i guarantee you there's not a litvak in the whole clan! in fact, my mother was shayndl and her father was laybl--so no way elye was a litvak! :) re heshe, i've got a cousin heshe, 'heshy' or (officially) harold in english (carpato-rus, father's side). will check on what _he_ thinks his name evolved from, but it's interesting that, on the same side of the family, i had an uncle yeshue who was always shiye (or shiyele--he was the youngest of 8), never heshe. re stress, what about this: my father was yekhiyl, stressed on the final syllable, presumably originally yekhiyel, with three syllables, stressed in yiddish on the penultimate. if i'm right in thinking that the vowel of the final syllable was lost, is it strange that the stress never moved to the first syllable? btw, he was usually called khiyl and i never heard any real diminutive form. is there one? (actually, his name was yitskhok yekhiyl, but he was never called yitskhok or any variant thereof.) ellen ( < elye) prince ( < firenze --but that's another--sephardic-- story) 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 00:13:25 -0800 From: garrym@netcom.com Subject: Yiddish on the Mac Yekhiel-Yosef Reisner asks about Yiddish language word processing software for the Macintosh. In my experience, Nisus Writer (now in Version 4.0) is the most useful software for non-Roman alphabets. It can simultaneously utilize Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic, Greek and Roman characters in the same document, each with proper orientation. It also offers the special Roman alphabet characters used in Eastern European languages. Nisus Software may be contacted at: 107 Cedros Ave. Solano Beach, CA 92075 USA Phone: 1-800-224-4444 (USA), 1-619-481-1477 (International) Fax: 1-619-481-6154 I am a satisfied user of Nisus Writer and have no other connection with them. Gershon Margolis ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.363 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 Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu