Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.308 April 25, 1996 1) Daytchmerish (Avrom Yitzkhok Blair) 2) The Internet as a _gas_ for Yiddish (Ruvn Millman) 3) The Internet as a _gas_ for Yiddish (Hershl Hartman) 4) Archive corrected text of Prager's _Kenig Pik_ (Harold L. Orbach) 5) Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ in Yiddish (Leonard Prager) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 14:17:39 -0400 (EDT) From: ablair@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: Daytchmerish My mother's family came here from Riga almost 100 years ago. Of course, they spoke Courlander Yiddish and Courlander Deutsch. We used the forms: "yetzt" instead of "Itzt" and "Lezn" instead of "leyenen" (which was reserved for reading the holy tomes: Siddur, Torah, Talmud, and all that good stuff. In fact, I never heard of the term "daytchmerish" until Reyzl Kalifowicz- Walletsky heard me speak in one of her classes, and coorected me. I am sure that I used (I think I've gotten rid of the daytchmerisms in my speech) more daytchmerish than the above, but I can't think of them now. Courlander Yiddish is full of them. Allan (Avrom Yitzkhok) Blair 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 15:02:44 -0400 From: ruvn@aol.com Subject: The Internet as a _gas_ for Yiddish In Mendele 5.307 hot Morrie Feller dermont vegn a shmues vos er hot gefirt mit Abe Luskien fun Charlotte Institut vu khaver Luskien zogt, " A loshn muz hobn a gas." Ersht, vil ikh dermonen az faran aza "gas," d"h, an ort un a svive vu dos loshn redt zikh un dos iz af der _Yugntruf Yidish-Vokh_. Di Yidish-Vokh kumt vor eyn mol a yor (hayor fun der 28stn oygust bizn 3tn september) un dortn redt men _bloyz_ Yidish. Tsveytns, vil ikh lozn visn az me pruvt tsunoyfshteln aza Vebsblat "gas" af Mame-Loshn '96. Hayor, vet Mame-loshn '96 zayn a tsunoyfkum fun arum 400 nefoshes in an ort vu men vet redn (oyb nisht bloyz) a sakh Yidish. Af Mame-Loshn '96 vet men pruvn haltn an elektronishe konferents af Yidish durkhn Veb. Oyb faran Mendeleyners vos kenen a gut ort dos tsu ton, zayt azoy gut un lozt mikh visn. Ruvn Millman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 13:36:17 -1000 From: hershl@aol.com Subject: The Internet as a _gas_ for Yiddish Don't want to seem like a wet blanket, but a gathering of Yiddishists, whatever the medium, does not constitute a _gas_. The Yiddish street drew its vigor from its diversity. Alrightniks rubbed elbows with anarchist, socialist and bolshevik organizers. Frime yidn discussed daily matters--who'd lost a job, who'd found one, who was well, who sick, vkidoyme--with veltlekhe yidn during lunch hour. Rarely, if ever, : > ), did "the pluperfect" enter into the conversation. On the other hand, the good news is that I, for one, don't think that Yiddish needs a _gas_ any more than Hebrew did for 2,000 years while it was loshn koydesh, kept in the orn all week, taken out for limited use by limited numbers af shabes. If we consider academia to be our modern orn koydish, then the _loshn ha'kidoyshim_ will survive, if not for two millenia, then for a longer time than either of us can contemplate. Nit gedayget. Hershl Hartman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 15:03 CDT From: hlorbach@ksuvm Subject: Archive corrected text of Prager's _Kenig Pik_ Leonard Prager's essay on Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_ which appeared in Mendele Vol 5: 261, 263, 270, 273, 276, 279 and 281 has been collated into a single text with corrections for omissions and many mispellings found in the original version (the result of scanning errors). The corrections and emendations were done by the author with some help from myself. It is available from the Mendele archive for those who wish to obtain a corrected copy of the entire text. Harold L. Orbach Manhattan, Kansas [The file has been named kenig_pik.txt and is available via anonymous ftp in the usual way. nm] 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 20:18:09 IST From: rhle302@uvm.haifa.ac.il Subject: Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ in Yiddish Iosif Vaisman is of course correct that there are only two published Yiddish translations of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ (there are others in manuscript). _Mendele_'s energetic bibliographer has provided an opportunity to address a small mystery. Anyone seeking information on Y. Goldberg in volume 2, cols. 50-51, of the _Nayer leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur_ (New York, 1958) will come away "nishtvisndik". The anonymous author of that biographical entry writes frankly: "Biografishe protim feln" ('Bigraphical details are lacking'). Only one source is listed, which I confess I have not seen: Kh. Dunits, _Oktyaber_, no. 110, Misnk, 1934. Y. Goldberg is not exactly a nobody, having translated more of Shakespeare's plays into Yiddish (_Julius Caesar_, _Othello_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Hamlet_, _Henry 4_, Pts. 1 and 2, _Richard III_, _The Tempest_, _Macbeth_) than anyone else -- nine of the fourteen that have been published. The above cited _NL_ entry only mentions six of the translations, excluding _Hamlet_. The entry tells us the translator was also a folklorist and comes from Belarus. His work in the important journal _Tsaytshrift_ (Minsk, 1926-8) is mentioned and that's it. I guessed and gave I. as the initial of his first name in my _Shakespeare Quarterly_ essay, but his name may have been Yankev or Yehoyshue, and therefore "J.". I remember writing myself a note to find out more about Y. Goldberg, but I must have lost it! In any case Iosif Vaisman (who spells his name aftselokhes with an I, whereas if I only saw it in Yiddish I would have assumed he was either J. for Joseph" or Y. for Yoysef) has now told us that I. Goldberg is "Itshe" Goldberg. People who think bibliography is a merely mechanical chore just haven't wrestled with its numberless tiny ticklish complexities. We all know about _another_ Itshe Goldberg -- were there two? I am grateful to Iosif for his Itshe whether he is right or wrong, simply to press the matter further. Isn't it disgraceful that we aren't even sure about this industrious Yiddish litterateur's first name or know the least bit about his life aside from his publications? I would also like to know if Iosif Vaisman is sure about the date of Vaisman's Hamlet translation. He writes 1934, as does Ada Fogel (see below) and I wonder whether the date I always give (Minsk 1935) is a misprint or if I saw another edition. The edition I recorded is edited by R. Kurliand (about whom we also know nothing). It has 197 pages and on pages 185-197 it has an essay on _Hamlet_ by Y. Nusinov. Y. Nusinov an active figure on the Soviet Yiddish scene and we know a good deal about him, but biographies of Soviet Yiddish writers often have their own special problems and need careful checking. The _NL_ (1965) entry on Yiskhok Nusinov gives his death date as 1951 and concludes: "Loyt Sheyne-Miryem Broderzon iz er, vi a sakh andere shraybers, arestirt gevorn in detsember 1948 un iz geshtorbn in a moskver turme in 1951." ('According to Sheyne-Miriam Broderson, he was, like a lot of other writers, arrested in December 1948 and died in a Moscow prison in 1951.') But if we look at Berl Kagan's _Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers_ (New York, 1986), we are given the death date 30 November 1950 -- presumably a date based on firmer sources than oral testimony of a single person. For the Y. Goldberg who worked mightily in the field of Yiddish translation we know neither birth nor death dates. Curiously, the only close study of a Yiddish Shakespeare translation that we have (to the best of my knowledge) is Ada Fogel's "Y. Goldbergs yidshe iberzetsung fun hamlet" (_Yidishe shprakh_ vol. 12, no. 1 , 1-11). We learn nothing about the translator's life from her essay. Leonard Prager ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.308