Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.095 November 12, 1996 1) Nahum Stutchkoff (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) 2) Nahum Stutchkoff (Abraham Brumberg) 3) Vi zogt men Yidish in Velsh? (Alan R. King) 4) `First Name' af Yiddish (Bernard S. Greenberg) 5) Mikve/shvitz (Mendy Fliegler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 21:41:09 -0500 From: wolfim@chelsea.ios.com Subject: Nahum Stutchkoff As part of the introductory material to Stutchkoff's 'Thesaurus of the Hebrew Language', there is an appreciation by Dov Sadan "Ba'al-haOtsrot", including an account of his productive life and a brief bibliography. A brief note in English is also included, from which I quote: Born in Poland in 1893, he began his career as an actor in the Polish Yiddish Theater. In 1923 he made his American debut with Maurice Schwartz's noted Art Theater. In the years that followed he became a vital force in theatrical and intellectual Yiddish circles as playwright, lyricist, director and producer. His radio program on station WEVD made him indisputably the most popular figure among Yiddish listeners in the New York City of the forties. Meyer-Leyb Wolf 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Nov 96 09:23:28 EST From: 102142.2545@compuserve.com Subject: Nahum Stutchkoff re henekh sapozhnik's query: stuchkoff did his oytser, at least the first part o0f it, under max weinreich's hazhgokhe. so I would expect the yivo to have the necessary biographic mateial. suggest dina or marek. abraham brumberg 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 06:47:23 -0500 From: alanking@bigfoot.com Subject: Vi zogt men Yidish in Velsh? On behalf of a friend I want to ask for your help with a terminological problem. Elin Haf Gruffudd Jones, of the Mercator Project in Aberystwyth, Wales, has put this question to me and I could use your assistance to give her the best answer possible. Mercator is a European Minority Languages information project (I refer you to its website for more information: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~merc/). As some of you may know, Yiddish, together with some other languages like Judaeo-Spanish and the language of the Gypsies, have only recently been belatedly recognised as European minority languages to be considered alongside more fully territorially-based languages such as Welsh, Catalan, Basque, etc. etc. Still, better late than never! These languages now _are_ listed by the European Bureau for Less Used Languages, and my colleague is now in the process of translating that list into Welsh. The question she asks me is: what should Yiddish be called in Welsh? The most authoritative Welsh dictionary at present proposes two possibilities, both of which both Elin and I have found problematical. One is _iddeweg_ which literally means "Jewish language", consisting of _iddew_ "Jew" and the suffix -eg which is added to names of languages generally. This is formally parallel to the name _Yidish_ in Yiddish, but... The other option given, though not recommended, in the Welsh dictionary is _iddew-almaeneg_, literally "Judeo-German". Elin Jones asked me whether this is not more accurate than _iddeweg_, since there are other Jewish languages besides Yiddish. I have answered that while agreeing with the objection to _iddeweg_, I find the second alternative undesirable for other reasons... In English, I pointed out, Yiddish is called "Yiddish", which name is borrowed from the Yiddish name _yidish_; the language is not called "Jewish". Thus an analogous formation in Welsh might be "Yid-eg". One problem with this suggestion, though, is that there is no consonant "y" in Welsh. To solve this, it seems to me that the Welsh name could be _ideg_ without the "y". This, I think, is fully justified from the Yiddish point of view given that in Yiddish the language's name is spelled either _yidish_ or _idish_; while on the Welsh side, the result is compatible with the language's phonology? If any of you would like to offer Ms. Jones some advice better than mine, I will gladly forward relevant messages to her from the list. You may also write to her direct at esj@aber.ac.uk if you prefer. A sheynem dank alemen! Alan R. King 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 19:52:30 -0500 From: bsg@basistech.com Subject: `First Name' af Yiddish In his fascinating litany of Yiddish 'rufnemen' in Mendele 6.092, Zellig Bach has passed over the name my own father, Abraham, went by for much of his life, "Boomie" ("oo" of "good"), from "(A)vroomie", from "Avrohom". Born in 1922 on "the" Lower East Side, he has often told me how other Abrahams wound up with the same nickname via the same route. Although his brothers, and sometimes my mother, still call him that, as the East Side and its _Kulturkreis_ receded into the century, he more and more began to call himself, be called, and think of himself as 'Abe', oddly enough the most "American" form of all. Bernard S. Greenberg 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 21:21:05 -0500 (EST) From: efliegle@capaccess.org Subject: Mikve/shvitz Khevre, ikh gedenk nokh, shoyn draysik yur tzurik, ven mayn shver hot mikh genemen kayn Filadelfye dortn vi es iz geven a shvitz... Ikh gedenk nokh di dike pare ven ikh hob oyfgemakht di tir dortn. Un mayn shver hot gekent a pur mentshn un mikh forgeshtelt. Eyner fun di khevre hot mir gegebn a "pleytse" un genitzt groyse bletter.... Efsher ken eymitzer fun unzere Mendlyaner mir zugn vusere bletter dus zaynen geven?? Oy iz dus geven a mekhaye!!! Mendy Fliegler ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.095