Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.029
June 7, 1993

1) Frozen datives (Martin Davis)
2) For Bob Werman (Ellen Prince)
3) Nekhtiger tog (Reuven Rachlin)
4) Adon olam (Sigrid Peterson)
5) Translation costs (Hershl Berman)
6) Translator is worthy of his/her hire (Mark Pinson)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jun  6 11:36:03 1993
From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu (Martin Davis)
Subject: frozen datives

OK. My curiousity has got the better of me. Could one of the
linguists kindly explain to the lay folk when a dative counts as
"frozen."

I've certainly never studied Yiddish grammar, but I did notice the
feminine dative even during my pre-Mendele existence in the title of
Joseph Green's wonderful film: A brivele DER mamN

Martin Davis

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jun  6 12:31:20 1993
From: "Ellen F. Prince" <ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: For Bob Werman

re: Kathryn Hellerstein.

thanks, bob. her account is not listed in the on-line or the hard-
copy directories here, but i did find a listing for david (on a
machine that i thought was no longer in use). i've sent him a msg
asking if she has an account. she should definitely be a mendelnik!
a dank.

ellen

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jun  6 13:00:35 1993
From: "Robert D. Rachlin" <rachlin@Panix.Com>
Subject: Nekhtiger tog

	Arnold Kuzmack's suggestion that nekhtiger tog may mean "a
day like night" comports with the usage I've heard.  Usually it
follows some outrageously unlikely proposition, e.g.: "Shulamit in a
sheytl?  A nekhtiger tag!"

Reuven Rachlin

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jun  6 13:09:28 1993
From: petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Sigrid Peterson)
Subject: Adon olam

You'll probably get this mild reminder from Bob Werman, as well: The
words to _Adon Olam_, that protean song sung to a variety of tunes,
including Jeopardy [a quiz show in US/North America, with
distinctive theme music] are in Aramaic, rather than Hebrew.

Sigrid Peterson

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jun  6 13:34:58 1993
From: BERMAN E-MAIL <berman@mars.senecac.on.ca>
Subject: Translation costs.

	My mother has been translating Yiddish to English for some
time now, and she usually works for a translating company. They pay
HER $30 per 8.5 by 11 page, written. The consumer probably pays
more. I know it sounds like a lot but my mother can often spend 2
hours on less than a full page, and when you work it out on a per
hour basis, it doesn't appear that expensive.

Hershl Berman

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jun  6 16:56:43 1993
From: PINSON%HUSC3.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Subject: Translator is worthy of his/her hire


Reb Khaim: you have raised a difficult question and I pass my
solution along to others who may find it useful:

        The unit, 1 page, is essentially meaningless - is is small
type, large type, double column, very technical requiring a lot of
dictionary looking up, if handwritten - is it hard to read etc. What
I do is ask the holder of the text to send me xeroxes of 2 - 3
non-consecutive, but full pages. Then I see how long it takes me to
do a page. Outfits like FBIS in DC. have very complex format rules
for the translation, which of course adds to the time you have to
spend on a page. Once I have figured out how much time it takes to
produce final copy of a page - perhaps 1.5 hours - then I can
multiply that by his no.of pages and then multiply that by what I
would want for an hour of my time. Only at that point can I give a
figure on the job. I tell them exactly what I have done so that if a
page, from start to finish takes 1.5 hours, $15/pg. works out to
peanuts. I would be interested in hearing from others how they deal
with this problem.

mark pinson

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.029