Yiddish Mailing List, Issue #17 January 14, 1990 140 lines =============================== Der tsvayter tug yontiv/another county heard from (Noyekh Miller) Geografishe un andere inyonim (Noyekh Miller) Hello (Ron Florence) ------------------------ Digest-Message: 17/1 From: NMILLER@trincc.bitnet Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 15:23:00 EST Subject: Der tsvayter tug yontiv/another county heard from My name on this list is Noyekh. Noyekh mit a shlekhte tayve, as my parents sometimes called me, thus introducing me to puns before I could speak. I'm probably a lot older than most members of this list, and this gives me particular pleasure because my generation had totally given up on Yiddish. So when I read young people who have somehow succeeded in acquiring a Yiddish that's in some ways more sophisticated than the Yiddish their grandparents--never mind their parents--spoke, I'm overjoyed. It's a little like the return of the peregrine falcon. I intend to write in Yiddish, but I thought a sort of windy introduc- tion might be in order. We're from Podolia. Podolian Yiddish, as the whole world knows, is the purest, the finest Yiddish there is. Here's why. Picture for yourselves the map of eastern Europe, in particular 3 areas of Yiddish speech: Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Galician. And having done so, juxtapose this map on one of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. If you place Lithu- ania/White Russia somewhere in New England you get, mutatis mutandis, Zhmerinka in Richmond, Va...and Lemberg/Lwow in Dogpatch, Kentucky. Having thus proved to you all the natural superiority of Podolian Yiddish, it remains to be said that--just as there are proportionately fewer Virginians than, say, Bostonians in the American Academy of Arts amd letters--just so are there far more Litvaks than Ukrainians in the groves of academe. Nebekh, aber azoy iz take. Bkitser, having spent more than 40 years laboring among them, I've acquired a weird kind of Yiddish pronunciation which perplexes my surviving relatives and makes me feel like a turncoat. Which brings me to writing transliterated Yiddish. Face it: we are presented with a power play by those pesky Litvaks (by whom I mean Weinreich pere et fils, zikhronam l'brukha, and YIVO in general) who tell us that one's wife is a vayb, not a vob, that fin is fun, git is gut, nit is always nisht, and so on. Vus/vos tit/tut men? To write like that would drive us all off the list. So I intend to write my Yiddish my way, i.e., when in a self-conscious and "literary" frame of mind, I'll probably write Litvish. But when I'm more relaxed and slip into real Yiddish, I'll regress into Ukrainian. Which is also of course, the Yiddish of the stage, Goldfaden having started out just across the river from us. ------------------------ Digest-Message: 17/2 From: NMILLER@trincc.bitnet Date: Fri, 12 Jan 90 10:21:00 EST Subject: Geografishe un andere inyonim Vos is der tsvayter tug yontif? A tsumbayshpil is ven emitser fregt: vi iz Podolie. Amol hot men ungerifen Vilna di Yerushelayim fin Poyln. Oyb azoy, iz zikh Podolie Har Sinai..Vi den is Mezhbesh (Miedzybosz), Berdichev, Shpola, Mezritch (Mezerich)? Vi den is Khsides oysgevaksen? Vi den hot Hershele Ostropolier upgetun zayne shpitz in Reb Burekhel's hoyf oyb nisht in Tulchin? [Far di vus hobn es nokh nisht gefinen, es dakht zikh mir az ikh veis yetst, vi iz Polodie. "Polod'skiy" gefint zikh, loit mein atlas, in der Ukraine, gants lebn dem oibn-dermont Zhmerinka, nisht veit fun Romenia. Berdichev is oikhet nisht veit. Shpola, Mezritch un Miedzybosz gefin ikh nisht. Ikh darf a bessern atlas, farshteyt zikh, efsher eins vus iz fuftsik yor alt. - DS] S'iz nisht faran a besser tatch (teitch) far tsvayter.. vi "another county..". Dus a dank mayn vayb, a nit-ideshe, aber mit a gefil far idish. S'maynt iberig, nisht ingantsn naytig, shoyn a bisl koytik, vokhedig, khol-amoydnik. S'iz epes tchidne (strange): reden idish red ikh mit zikh aleyn tug v'nakht, un ven s'kimt redn mit andere bin ikh shoyn mer nisht indraym. Nu, mayle, efsher bislekhvayz.. Ikh hob nokh nisht ingantsn oysgelent alle numern, aber ikh volt gevolt betn az efsher ken men unfangn a diskusye vegn literatur. ------------------------ Digest-Message: 17/3 From: uunet!mlfarm!ron (Ronald Florence) Date: 13 Jan 90 11:03:28 EST (Sat) Subject: Hello > Can you write something about yourself (English or Yiddish) for > the list? I'm reluctant to try Yiddish, since my only knowledge of the language is verbal and shaky at that. I grew up in California in the 1950s, and spent the 1960s at Berkeley and Harvard. My grandmother, who was born near Bialystok and came to the U.S. around 1904, lived near us and spoke Yiddish with as little English as she could manage. If anyone questioned why after so many years in the U.S. she still spoke Yiddish, she would curse in a combination of Russian, Polish, and English sufficient to dampen any query. As a California proto-yuppie, I was ashamed of the household Yiddish, and did all I could to steer clear. My mother and grandmother spoke on the phone four or five times a day, and when I could overhear my mother speaking Yiddish mixed with English, I would cringe with embarassment. German came to me easily (my Ph.D. is in German and French history) but I was not aware that the Yiddish I had heard in my childhood had stuck with me until I saw the first items you sent from mail.yiddish. I've never even looked at transliterated Yiddish before, but if I read the material out loud, much of it is clear. For a while, I suspect, I'll be a passive reader of the list. I need a little time to find what I almost lost. Ronald Florence ron@mlfarm.uu.net Maple Lawn Farm {hsi,rayssd}!mlfarm!ron Stonington, CT ------------------------ END OF ISSUE #17 ------------------------ David (Daniel Moishe) Sherman, Toronto Moderator, mail.yiddish { uunet!attcan {AT&T Sites}!att pyramid!utai utzoo } !lsuc!dave dave@lsuc.on.ca attcan!lsuc!dave@uunet.uu.net