Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.159 December 23, 1996 1) "Ven ikh volt geven a shnayder" (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 2) Yiddish in Sunday Times acrostic (Chana and Yosl Mlotek) 3) Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax (Ellen Prince) 4) Jet-lag af yidish (Zellig Bach) 5) Sui generis-fun latayn oyf yidish (Esther Goffstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Dec 1996 22:36:41 -0500 From: shirshan@aol.com Subject: "Ven ikh volt geven a shnayder" Ikh kum fun a khazonisher kontsert vu der khazn hot prakhtful gezungen "Ven ikh volt geven a shnayder" un hot es ongerufn an eyn un eyntsik viglid vos iz geshribn far a foter tzu zingen zayn kind. Ikh gedenk Belarsky fleg es zingen, azoy hartzik, un s'iz take geven a shure, 'volt ikh dikh mayn kind bazingen'. Ober dos lid hob ikh gemeynt (gefilt?) iz a libeslid. Ver ken zogn? (Does this explain the Oedipal entanglements of Jewish maidens? Oy....) Zenen do faran viglider spetziel far tates tzu zingen?. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Dec 1996 16:38:00 -0500 From: chaniyos@aol.com Subject: Yiddish in Sunday Times acrostic Dear Mendelyaner, Again we want to note two Yiddish definitions in the Sunday Times acrostic. One asks for "snacks, from the Yiddish" which turns out to be "noshables". Dpes anyone know this word? The second item does not mention the Yiddish connection; it simply asks for - note this - a"Polish-born American novelist and dramatist (l880-l957)." which is Sholem Asch. Yiddish literature, it seems, cannot claim its own great authors. Don't they still slight Sholem Aleichem too as being an Ukrainian writer without mentioning his Yiddishkeyt? Chana and Yosl Mlotek 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 02:53:15 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax thanks to meyer-leyb wolf for suggesting that yiddish multiple wh-questions may be possible only in embedded clauses. molly diesing made a similar point in email. interesting! the plot thickens! can't wait for the syntacticians to figure this one out. in any event, that's a nice bit of evidence that the yiddish form, whatever it is, isn't simply lifted from slavic. re english 'go tell aunt rhodie' as a double imperative, it's a puzzlement. the problem, as i see it, is that english doesn't distinguish formally between the infinitive and the imperative, so how can we tell if 'go tell' is 'gey(t) dertseyln' or 'gey(t) dertseyl(t)'? but you are absolutely right that 'don't go tell' is weird. (actually, 'don't go tell him that i said that' sounds not too bad to me -- but 'don't go dance' is totally impossible.) of course, if 'tell' is an infinitive, we should expect 'go tell' in non-imperative modalities -- but we don't find anything like 'i went tell aunt rhodie', 'i'm going tell aunt rhodie' -- tho we do get it when BOTH 'go' AND 'tell' are infinitive -- 'i must go tell aunt rhodie.' in any event, i agree with you entirely, whatever it is, it's murky in english as well as in yiddish and is therefore very likely to be germanic. a dank! ellen prince 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 11:59:24 -0500 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Jet-lag af Yidish Khayem Bochner (6.156,1) likes a great deal the phrase _khulshe d'porkhe_ that David Herscovic suggested for Jet-lag af Yidish. But then he writes: "Farshteyt zikh az s'iz shver ayntsure(y)dn dem oylem ontsunemen a wort ven men muz es derklern jedes mol [Of course it is difficult to persuade speakers to accept a word that (its meaning) has to be explained each time]. Therein lies the problem: Such required explanations of the term, or its new meaning, would certainly lead to conversational "detours" and to futile, heated disputes, sometimes especially with people who normally have very, very little to do with the creative aspects of the language . Bochner also adds: "Ikh volt oykh nit gevust mit vos me est es" [I myself would not know which eating utensils to use)]. I dare say that the overwhelming secular majority of Yiddish speakers would not only not know "mit vos me est es," but would also experience an obvious difficulty with "digesting" it, with grasping it at once without a lengthy explanation. . Both of Bochner's statements are an exceptionally poor recommendation for the use of "khulshe d'porkhe" in Yiddish for jet lag. A nay geshafn wort [a newly coined neologism], or the use of an already existing word or expression with a totally new meaning, should ideally be self-evident, readily understood and recognized at first hearing and reading, to a degree -- but only to a _minute_ degree -- hamtsO'esdik (innovative), in a construction familiar and proper to the language into which it is proposed. For all of the above criteria I opt (personal bias) for my own proposed _fli-mid_ , Yiddish for "jet lag" (6.147), vs. the Hebrew-Aramaic lomdish [learned] "khulshe d'porkhe." The use of "fli-mid" is self-understood and sounds so natural in Yiddish that it will not incite any sharp "liguistical" disputes, nor cause any deconstructive conversational detours. Dan Leeson (6.150,2) argues against my proposed _fli-mid_ because it fails to cover the actual causes of jet lag -- the changes of time zones and the body's disturbed biological clock. It is my sense that a neologism does not necessarily have to cover each and all of the causes involved in the resultant phenomenon. _Fli-mid_ meets the several conditions cited above for the introduction of a new term, and uses for its construction simple and familiar Yiddish words. _Fli-mid_ conveys clearly and explicitly the general sense of fatigue and weariness that one feels in the bones and muscles after a lengthy flight, and that is the essence in our search for a Yiddish equivalent of the English term. Zellig Bach Lakehurst, NJ 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 12:35:08 -0500 From: esterel@aol.com Subject: Sui generis-fun latayn oyf yidish Keyle Goodman fregt vi azoy tsu zogn sui generis oyf yidish [6.144]. Ikh hob gefunen dem oysdruk in eyn yidishn verterbukh-[English-Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary-Paul Abelson Ph. D. editor, 1924]. sui generis--in eygener art, eygnartik. Weinreich zetst iber eygnartik vi- -peculiar to. In Englishe verterbikher gefint men: in a class by oneself, one of a kind, unique. In yidish ken men zogn: eyntsik, eyn-un eyntsik, yokhid bemine, eyne in der velt Esther Goffstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.159