Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 167 February 5, 1992 1) Finf grayzn (Raphael Finkel) 2) Finf grayzn (Mikhl Herzog) 3) 'Shoah' and harey at (Bob Goldberg) 4) How to spell Schaechter (Meylekh Viswanath) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1992 12:15:34 EST From: Raphael Finkel Subject: finf grayzn, shkotsl Noyekh mit finf grayzn: Af poylesh zogt men (Pol: dwa byki w jednym rowie), dos heyst, tsvey grayzn in eyn grub, vayl dos vort grub (Pol: ro'w) hert zikh vi (Pol: *ruf), un siz gring makhn tsvey toyesn in oysleg. shkotsl kumt: Dos vort of poylesh far 'katz' is (Pol: kot). ken take zayn az shokotsl iz "dos kot-l" Raphael Finkel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Feb 92 13:04 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: Finf grayzn Rafael Finkel: Actually, skotsl kumt has nothing to do with cats. It's an old greeting meaning 'welcome', probably derived from a medieval form like "bis(t) bay got vilkomen". In Western Yiddish, it's often said only by women instead of "sholem aleykhem" and it's pronounced more like "g/kotl kum". You're right about the meaning of "noyekh mit finf/zibn krayzn". The issue has concerned its origin which, if I'm right, depends on grayzn, in this instance, having been substituted for an original krayzn. Mikhl Herzog. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Feb 92 13:34:02 PST From: xidak!poseidon!bob@uunet.UU.NET Subject: SHOAH; HAREY AT Re: SHOAH, I saw most of it, and I recall noticing that the Jewish witnesses who spoke Hebrew were, as a whole, very matter-of-fact in their descriptions with few adjectives and little emphasis, while those who chose to speak Yiddish in the interview used lots of complex adverbial and adjectival phrases (e.g., "it was SO COLD that ..."). Not being a language expert, I may not have described this in correct technical terms, but the difference struck me. There were also lots of speakers of Germanic languages, as I recall, but I thought I could easily tell the difference between the German and the Yiddish speakers. Mikhl Herzog: I will risk one more revisit to our initial interchange, because it appears that it is still troubling you. 1) I did not know your impressive background at the time of our initial interchange. I hear that you want to be respected, and I do. 2) I would like to believe your assertion, but I still don't like being told my conjecture is wrong without contrary evidence, or a pointer to same (see below). 3) I don't bristle just because you made an assertion about Yiddish (indeed, you've made many assertions since). I think you're on to something about the nature of evidence that I'd find convincing enough to justify your assertion: "The origin of 'heirat' has nothing to do with 'haray at'". First of all, it would take a lot to prove (to me) a negative assertion like that, e.g., a "clincher" or several strong (but not quite clinching) facts. It would take less to prove a more modest assertion, such as "The origin of 'heirat' is unlikely to be 'haray at'". Examples of clinching evidence are: a) Evidence of the origin of my faulty "heirat"/"haray at" conjecture. For example, I've seen and heard it cited that W. C. Fields' epitaph reads "I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia". In fact, Fields and other celebrities of his time were asked to write their own epitaphs, as a joke, and the one Fields submitted for publication was "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadephia". Seeing the magazine article convinces me that he wrote it as a joke. b) Evidence about the origin of "heirat", e.g., if it dates from the 8th century, prior to the rise of Yiddish, then it couldn't have entered via Yiddish. Such a fundamental word surely would have been used in some written form, if it existed. c) Published counter-theories, e.g., Joe Shmoe's Germanic word origins cites the origin of "heirat" as ..., or even a standard German dictionary (though I must admit that I'd suspect that non-Jewish German experts might suppress or ignore evidence of Yiddish word-origins). d) Personal counter-theories. These need to be backed up by lots of evidence, and I'd have to take an authority's word on this, I suppose. d) Evidence about pronounciation of "haray at". I think that this WAS pronounced like "heirat" is, but I'm not sure about that. This could admittedly be a coincidence, but knowledge about Hebrew pronunciation by various Yiddish-speaking Europeans might shed some light here. One reason that the theory sounds so plausible to me is that there's little or no change in the pronunciation. I understand that it could still be a coincidence. And finally, let's not forget the other word-origin: German "lashe" (for the tongue of a shoe), which my friend claimed was from Yid/Heb "loshn". Bob Goldberg 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1992 17:37 EDT From: VISWANATH@DRACO.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.163 I am certainly no authority on Yiddish, but I am an authority (a second- hand one) on the spelling of Mordkhe's name, because my wife who is Mordkhe's daughter uses his last name as part of her last name. She spells his last name as Schaechter. Meylekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.167