Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 6.160
December 24, 1996

1) Introduction (Ron Robboy)
2) Introduction (Vera Szabo)
3) Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax (Meylekh Viswanath)
4) Sui generis (Khane-Faygl Turtletaub)
5) Jet-lag af yidish (David Robboy)
6) Gender and the New Testament (Mikhl Herzog)
7) Mark Twain on the folly of grammatical gender (Walter Golman)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 16:25:31 -0800
From: rrobboy@cts.com
Subject: Introduction

My name is Ron Robboy, and I live in San Diego, California.  Though I
don't feel competent to introduce myself in Yiddish, I read passably and
have written (in English) on Yiddish literature -- mostly for
contemporary arts-related publications --  under the name R.A Robboy.

I am a professional cellist, though I lost my job this year when the San
Diego Symphony declared bankruptcy in an effort to break our union
local. This information at first seemed somewhat far afield for a
Mendele introduction, until I realized that one of my chief motivations
for learning Yiddish in the 1970s was to read the work of Ayzik Raboy,
to whom I am probably related at some distant remove, and who may be
regarded as a paradigmatic case of the Yiddish worker-writer.  His
entire career concerned itself to one degree or another with the
relationship of literature to labor's struggle.

The other topic that precipitated my study of Yiddish was the fixation
on the violin within Ashkenazic life and legend, at least since the dawn
of the modern era, and I was interested in the extent to which my own
professional life had been shaped by Yiddish mythico-literary
predisposition.  I am, further, of the generation that began
experimenting with klezmer music in the 1970s.  I continued that
experimentation through the 80s with a series of bands, but always from
the perspective of integrating that music and my involvement in the
fields of contemporary art and music.

I should apologize to Mendelistn for not having written this sooner,
since I began submitting the occasional post over a year ago.  Mendele
has been a source of great enjoyment for me and a remarkably endless
resource for learning.  Just one year ago in her Introduction [5.206],
Barbara Epstein wrote, "...I am enormously impressed by the level of the
discussion, not only the erudition and wit, but also the warmth and
generosity - in fact, comradeliness - of exchanges."  That seems worth
repeating, and I certainly could not have said it better myself.

Ron Robboy

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 08:58:22 +0000
From: verele@osiris.elte.hu
Subject: Introduction

Azoy vi s'iz shoyn a bisl tsayt zint ikh hob geshribn af mendele,
un yemolt fun an andern ek velt un fun an andern el-post adres,
shtel ikh zikh vider for. Vera Szabo, geboyrn un oyfgevaksn bin ikh
in shtetl Budapest, Ingern. Mayn mame-loshn, nebakh, iz ingerish,
ober ikh hob zikh oysgelernt a bisl yidish shpeter in Oxford, un
1993-1995 in New York, in YIVO un in der yidish program fun
Columbia universitet. Itster voyn ikh vider in goles-ingern. Ikh
lern yidish af der universitet fun Budapest. Ikh hob nor vos
farendikt di iberzetsung fun a bukh vegn yidishn budapest (fun
ingerish af english). Bald vel ikh onheybn tsu redaktirn un
iberzetsn an oyskleyb fun di verk fun Y.L. Perets af ingerish.

Vera Szabo

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 17:07:39 -0500
From: viswanat@pacevm.dac.pace.edu
Subject: Slavic influences on Yiddish syntax

Ellen shraybt [6.159] vegn slavishe hashpoes afn yidishn sintaks.  Ikh
hob altsding farshtanen, akhits vos zi zogt vegn " an 'infl' node."  Vos
iz take an 'infl' node?

Vegn dem ershtn bayshpil meyer leybs, shraybt zi, derekh agev, az daytsh
iz a 'sov' shprakh.'  A frage: ken men nisht zogn farkert az daytsh iz a
'sov' shprakh bloyz in 'subordinate clauses,' iz faran a klal az der
konyugirtn verb komt afn sof fun der zats.  Ikh freg nor vayl azoy hob
ikh zikh gelernt daytsh.  Ikh farshtey az vos me lernt in a shprakh-kurs
iz lav davke vos iz der lingvistisher 'emes.'

Meylekh Viswanath

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 16:12:27 +0100
From: doctorkf@gte.net
Subject: Sui generis

Tsi meynt nisht "yoytsi min haklal" sui generis?

Khane-Faygl Turtletaub

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 96 14:20:12 PST
From: robboy@co.intel.com
Subject: Jet-lag af yidish

Dzhet-farshlept.

David Robboy

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 96 20:48 EST
From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu
Subject: Gender and the New Testament

As anomalous as it may seem, the Yiddish is

DER Bris-khadOshe

Mikhl Herzog

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 18:06:33 -0500 (EST)
From: velvele@wam.umd.edu
Subject: Mark Twain on the folly of grammatical gender

In his famous appendix D, "The Awful German Language," to _A Tramp
Abroad_ Mark Twain takes out after the matter of grammatical gender and
the consequences:

     A German speaks of an Englishman as the _Englander_ (umlaut over
     the "a"); to change the sex, he adds _inn_, and that stands for
     Englishwoman -- _Englanderinn_. That seems descriptive enough, but
     still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word
     with that article which indicates the creature to follow is
     feminine, and writes it down thus: "_die Englanderinn_ -- which
     means 'the she-Englishwoman.'  I consider that that person is
     over-described.

As often happens, old Mark is right. So, why didn't (and doesn't)
Yiddish follow the far simpler and leaner example of English?

Walter Golman
Silver Spring, Maryland

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 6.160