Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 203 May 14, 1993 1) Introduction (Sean Martin) 2) Idiomatic expressions (David Sherman) 3) Shtumer alef (Arnie Kuzmack) 4) Opatoshu (Rosa Lehmann) 5) Nar/naronim (Isaac Aronson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 13 22:04:05 1993 From: Sean A Martin Subject: Introduction I just subscribed to Mendele and, at Noyekh Miller's request, am providing an introductory statement. I'm a second-year graduate student in Yiddish and history at Ohio State; I'm working with Professors David Neal Miller and Neil Jacobs. I look forward to reading the list. Sean 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 13 22:20:36 1993 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: idiomatic expressions One that we use fairly often at home is: "Vos shteystu vi a leymine goylem?" (Standing around like a (clay?) Golem [presumably when it had not been awakened by the Maharal.) Rather like "Don't just stand there!". David Sherman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 13 23:47:52 1993 From: lkuzmack@sytex.com Subject: Shtumer alef Mikhl Herzog writes in Mendele 2.200: > I view the use of alef in Yiddish against this >background of Hebrew-origin constraints. Except for >[e], every word-initial vowel in Yiddish is either >represented by alef [a, o], or preceeded by alef [i, u, >ey, ay, oy]. My explanation is that Hebrew words (with >an exception that I can't explain ##), unlike words in >Yiddish never begin with a vowel sound. They do begin >with alef and ayin but these are, historically, >consonants. In Yiddish, both alef and ayin lost their >consonantal value and were thus freed, in the case of >the word-initial, so-called shtumer-alef, to serve a >strictly orthographic (dummy consonantal) function and, >in the case of ayin, to represent [e]. Why [e]? Perhaps >there is some phonetic explanation. (In Western >Yiddish, ayin often represents [e, e:] in Hebrew-origin >words, too: sho 'hour(s)' is [she:], moes "money" is >[me:s]. > >## udvar adonay/unsane toykef Despite his much greater knowledge of early Yiddish spelling than mine (non-existent), I find this argument unconvincing. First, if you want to say that the Hebrew initial alef and ayin were consonants, you could with as much justification say that an initial vav is a consonant even when pronounced [u]. There is a clear grammatical rule determining when an initial vav is [ve] and when it's [u]. Why say that [adaber] begins with a consonant and [udvar] with a vowel? Second, even in the Biblical period, the consonental value of alef, ayin, vav, and yud were beginning to weaken and they were beginning to be used (inconsistently) as vowel signs, for example, in the '-im' plural ending. By the Middle Ages, with very unsophisticated knowledge of Hebrew grammar, I doubt people had much sense of any of this. Third, in Hebrew, ayin often takes patach where alef takes tsere, for example, yoydea ('he knows') vs. qoyre ('he reads'). This would tend to associate alef with [e] and ayin with [a]. I suspect the reason for the shtumer alef was much simpler. In Hebrew, grammar tells you when an initial vav or yud is a vowel or a consonant. (Actually, initial yud can't be a vowel.) In a Germanic language, this did not work -- an initial vav could be [u] or [v] (or perhaps [f]); an initial yud could be [y] or [i]. The shtumer alef distinguished between them. It was also used in the middle of words to resolve ambiguities, even where Yivo found it unnecessary centuries later. I have no idea why alef was chosen, rather than ayin. Perhaps further discussion could shed some light on this. In any case, it appears that the answer to my original question: why write alef-yud-daled for [yid], is that it was in fact pronounced by many as [id]. Arnie Kuzmack 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 13 22:54:05 1993 From: DAVIDN@SARA.NL Subject: Re: Opatoshu I am really sorry. I didn't mean to offend anyone by suggesting that no reaction is equal to showing no interest in, or worse, ignorance of Opatoshu. I know that the stories by Joseph Opatoshu are worth reading and writing about (and I see most of you do). That is why I asked for your help in the first place. It really suprised me that no one answered my first query. Maybe it wasn't wise, but I tried the provocative method. And, it worked. I am sorry that some of you felt offended. Thanks a lot for the suggestions (incl. Margaret's private mail)! Rosa Lehmann 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri May 14 00:50:08 1993 From: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Nar/Naronim I wonder if the plural of nar, which is, after all, a fairly expressive noun, might not be influenced more directly by expressive forms of Hebrew origin which have the derivational suffixal -n, e.g.,kabtsn/ kabtsonim, batlen/batlonim, perhaps shdkhn/shadkhonim, etc. It further seems that perhaps with the exception of dokter/doktoyrim, the use of the -im plural with non-Hebrew-Aramaic stems is expressive: tayvl/tayvolim, poyer/poyerim. Whether fakter/faktoyrim 'agent' is expressive or not, I have no idea. Isaac Aronson ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.203