Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no. 167
March 23, 1993
 
1) Oysgemisht Yidish (Elyet Hersh Gertel)
2) Dutsn/irtsn (Zev Bar-Lev)
3) Ye/ya/yo (K.N.Leibovic)
4) A Purimshpil question (Devorah Sperling)
5) Di fir kashes (Raphael Finkel)
6) Introduction (Tom Eshelman)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon Mar 22 15:13:54 1993
From: EGERTEL@FULLERTON.EDU
Subject: Oysgemisht Yidish

In Mendele 2:165 bashraybt Daniel Moishe Sherman english
bay oystralyer.  Iz vos kh'vil dokh visn iz, (tsulib dem
ketishn moyekh maynem!) iz Pe'rets Mett fun oystralye?  Vos
kh'hob gevolt bay zikh bashlisn iz, az Pe'rets Mett SHRAYBT
dem vokal EY iz dos dokh far IM der klal-yidisher vokal AY
un farkert: az er shraybt AY iz dos far im der
klal-yidisher vokal EY?  Efsher muz ikh im hern redn?

In 2:166 dersteylt Pe'erets Mett az ikh shrayb "eyn
mentshn" un az er hot ale mol gemeynt az nor bay litvakes
zogt men "eyn mentshn."  Mir dakht zikh es az do hot er in
zinen dem dativ vi a shteyger in 2:164 kh'hob geshribn "az
me redt tsu eyn mentshn..." (Agev, ikh zog tsuN eyn
mentsh(n.)  Kh'meyn az er is take gerekht az bay uns in
shtub zogn tate-mame "tsun eyn mentsh" nor in der emesn bin
ikh aleyn nisht 100% zikher vegn dem.  Vi kh'hob friert
ungevizn iz mayn yidish gor an oysgemishte: tsvey (oder
mer/men) dialektn fun der meshpokhe plus nyu-york plus
Yivo...

Elyet Hersh Gertl

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon Mar 22 15:33:44 1993
From: zbarlev@sciences.sdsu.edu
Subject: Dutsn/irtsn

i'd be interested in hearing about the ranges of /du/ vs.
/ir/, if anyone is interested in "talking" about it.

i don't think i've ever heard /ir/ used to a single person,
even a stranger. (after all, the classic line, e.g.
preceding the punch-line of several jokes, is /bist a
yid?/.)  i first saw it in the Dover phrasebook, by
Weinreich.

i am using it in (the MS of) my yiddish "Mini-Course"
designed to develop elementary speaking confidence Q just
as i use polite forms only in e.g. italian, russian, even
spanish (where they are quite out of the ordinary for much
of Latin America).

as in spanish, italian, etc., /ir/ has the advantage of not
requiring a different conjugational ending Q but i wonder
(as i do with spanish) whether it is actually "safer"
pragmatically:  does /du/ risk offending a stranger Q or is
there a greater risk that /ir/ will not be really
comprehended Q i.e. strike a native speaker as so alien
that it won't get a reaction?

zev bar-lev, sdsu

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon Mar 22 22:16:39 1993
From: BPHKNL@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU
Subject: ye/ya/yo

als a litvak welcher hot geret idish als zain mameloshn hob
ich alemol gezogt "ya",nit "yo" un nit "ye" un nit "yoy" un
nit "yu".amol hot men gezogt "ye" oder "yo" azey wi men
zogt "yeah" af einglish oder az men hot zech oysgedrikt mit
farwunderung.wos es wundert mir do iz az kein mendelnik hot
nit banuzt di form "ya".

     k.n.leibovic

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Mar 23 09:15:43 1993
From dsperlin@warren.med.harvard.edu
Subject: A Purimshpil question

I am making the following inquiry on behalf of a friend who
does not currently have an e-mail address.  Shari Troy is a
graduate student in theater at CUNY Grad Center.  She is
currently doing research on the purimshpiel.  Her query:
Does anyone know if anything has been written (in Yiddish,
German, Russian or English, or ???) of a performance called
"The Commedy of Artaxerxes" which dealt with the Biblical
story of Esther and was performed in the Court of Tsar
Alexius Mikhailovich 1672.

A dank-

Devorah Sperling

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Mar 23 09:26:07 1993
From: raphael@MS.UKY.EDU
Subject: di fir kashes

Ikh hob geleygt 'di fir kashes' af NokhShrayb (RG)
[PostScript (TM)] in mayne yidishe bukhshtabes.  Ale vos
viln kenen zey nemen mit anonym-ft"p azoy:

        ftp ftp.ms.uky.edu
        cd outgoing
        get 4kashes.ps

Oyb ir hot a tikun-toes, zayt azoy gut un shikt mir.  Dem
tekst hob ikh a bisl farendert fun dem vos men hot gedrukt
durkh MENDELE mit etlekhe teg tsurik.

Raphael Finkel

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Mar 23 09:27:47 1993
From teshelma@esu.edu
Subject: Introduction

In real life teshelma is Tom Eshelman, teacher of
philosophy at East Stroudsburg University in East
Stroudsburg, PA. Raised in a predominantly Catholic
neighborhood I knew little about Judaism and nothing about
Yiddish until after World War II when, through a teacher
who had survived the Holocaust and a young Reform Rabbi, I
became acquainted with the culture and the language. My two
most joyful discoveries were a) the work done by Uriel
Weinrich on behalf of Yiddish and b) the poetry of Itzik
Manger.

Tom Eshelman

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End of Mendele Vol 2.167