Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 222 April 22, 1992 1) Peysekhdike maykholim (Khaim Bochner) 2) Greetings (Mikhl Herzog) 3) Yiddish doggerel(Gerald M. Phillips) 4) A small quibble (Knud Lambrecht) 5) Yiddish causes (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Apr 92 18:22:37 -0400 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: Peysekhdike maykholim 1) Emetser hot gefregt vegn "bubelekh": mir hobn aza maykhl in mayn mishpokhe, ober ikh hob es gegesn nor a por mol. Oyb emetser hot a retsept, ikh volt es gevolt hobn. A dank! 2) Undzer shames Noyekh shraybt "gefrishte matzo fried in shmaltz". Dos iz efsher a matse-bray? Mir hobn a maykhl vos heyst "oyfgefrishte matse", vos ikh hob keyn mol nisht gezen, akhuts in der heym. Me shprintst on a stikl matse mit vaser, shmirt es on mit puter oder margarine, baviklt es in 'aluminum foil', un leygt es arayn in a varemen oyvn oyf a por minut. Ven me nemt es aroys, iz es nas mit puter, un tam gan-eydn. Hot emetser epes an enlekhn maykhl? -- Khaim Bochner 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 10:08 EDT From: ZOGUR%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.221 Eli Katz, borekhAbe. Vos makht a yid? Zikh shoyn lang nit gezen. Robert Hoberman, you still haven't sent me your mailing address. I promised you a Yiddish Reader. It's yours for the asking! Regards. Mikhl. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 11:03 EDT From: GMP@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.221 In answer to David Braun's query...I do not understand much Yiddish. I copies from the paper exactly as it was scribbled. Gerald M. Phillips 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 11:44:24 -0500 From: lambrec@emx.utexas.edu Subject: minor quibble David Braun writes: " _bis_ is the unit being bitten into, swallowed, digested, " etc., or the nominalization of the action. _bays_ is the " nominalization (noun-form) of the action (from the verbal " stem; _baysn_ is the infinitive): " " ikh vil a bis shokolad " but: " der hunt hot mir gegebn a bays/bis Judging from the first example, I would not say that _bis_ is "the unit bitten into" etc. but a certain quantity of that unit, first a quantity bitten off, then, by extension, a small quantity whose size is such that it might have been bitten off (when I say "first" I mean, without knowing if it's true, that this was historically the first use). So "nominalization of the action" is perhaps not the best way of putting it (especially since _bays_ is also described as "nominalization (noun-form) of the action". My hunch is that there was one noun meaning `bite', as in the hunt example (notice that both _bays_ and _bis_ are used in that meaning) and that _bis_ in the quantity meaning was a specialization of that (metonymy or what not). French has two words for the two meanings: _morceau_ (`bite-size quantity', see Engl. `morsel') and _morsure_ (`bite'). A question of interest (at least to someone willing to assume that category boundaries may be fuzzy) would be to ask at what point the quantity noun _bis_, which is followed by a mass noun of the category `noun phrase' and forms with it a complex noun phrase, parsed as [a bis [shokolad]] or [un morceau [de chocolat]] becomes, or starts to be perceived as, a non-nominal quantifier expression, especially in its diminutive form (bis-l, mors-el) parsed as [a bis(l) shokolad] where there is only one noun phrase left. Notice that Fr. _morceau_ could have gone that way but didn't (hasn't?). _zwey bisl shokolad_ sounds odd (I assume), but _deux morceaux de chocolat_ is fine. Knud Lambrecht 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 92 From: nmiller@trincc Subject: Yiddish as a cause Am I correct in assuming that we are all supporters of YIVO and the National Yiddish Book Center? Pro- bably. But if one of you has by chance lost the addresses and wants to write them (or better yet send money), here they are: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 1048 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10028 National Yiddish Book Center P.O. Box 969 Old East Street School Amherst, MA 01004 The NYBC is being evicted from the Victorian school building that they've occupied for the last ten years, so they need financial help for the move over and above their usual requirements. While on the subject of helping the cause of Yiddish, I should mention the League for Yiddish (200 W. 72 St., New York, NY 10023) which publishes a quarterly, _Afn Shvel_, edited by Mordkhe Spektor. The most recent issue is particularly worth a look, this being the magazine's 50th anniversary. The cover page includes a repro of Vol. I No. 1 (it was called _Oifn Shvel_ then and put out 12 copies for a buck). The subtitle reads: Tzaytshrift far dem Territorialistishn Gedank. Does everybody remember those days? Membership these days is $15. I don't have handy any current information about another organization worth supporting, the Workmens Circle. Members who know are encouraged to write. Did I miss some group? Shemt zikh nisht: shraybt vos gikher. ********************* It also occurs to me that Mendele can easily serve as a medium for news and notices about things Yiddish: books, meetings, summer schools, etc. And while we're at it, why not at least an occasional review or even review article? Yiddish scholarship is amazingly alive for all those death announcements and Mendele's readers are a perfect audience. Why not give it a try? Would someone be willing to do a review, for instance, of Benjamin Harshav's recent _The Yiddish Language_? Noyekh P.S. Kh'hob shir nisht fargessen: avade, Berl un Dovid un Khaim, _gefrishte_ matse vert oykh ongerufn 'matzo-brei'. Ober s'iz faran an untershid: mir hobn nisht genutst putter oder honik oder azelkhs. Vi den? Gepregelt in shmalts un dernokh mit a sakh feffer. Dos hot bay _unz_ geheysn tam ganeden! ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.222 Submissions: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu Business: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.