Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.077 August 12, 1993 1) Boro Park and Old French (Malkah Winters) 2) Re: Standardized transcription (Khaim Bochner) 3) Emergency (Avi Hyman) 4) Grobian (Dagmar Lorenz) 5) Sukkah lights (Avi Frydman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Aug 11 16:51:07 1993 From: Margaret E.Winters GA3704@SIUCVMB Subject: Boro Park and Old French The subject line is to be taken disjunctively: 1. It is not the least surprising to me that G&Sons in Boro Park should have Christmas decorations as well as everything else. When I was growing up about 4 blocks from the store, the neighborhood was about half and half, Jewish and Italian. It is heavily Chasidic now, as many of you know, but the Italian population is still around. It would be a bit of a surprise, therefore, to find Sukkahs decorated with Christmas decorations right there, since there are many blocks where the Christmas decorations are very visible at Christmas time. As for costumes for Purim, I certainly would try G&S, both at Halloween and before Purim - it is an ecumenical store, even if it is closed Saturdays and open on Sundays. 2. Old French, to change the subject, was written by scribes who had been trained in Latin. The amount of spelling variation, even for the same word in two consecutive lines, is quite large, wherever a spelling had to be found for a sound which did not exist in Latin; the palatal /n~/ for example (as in the Spanish `sen~or') comes out as `nn', `ign', `gne', etc. This state of affairs lasted for several centuries, with some variation which showed dialect dif- ference and some which seemed to be a question of personal taste. The transcription of Yiddish is somewhat similar, although it involves two alphabets - it seems to be at least in part a question of how to transcribe sounds not captured by the Latin alphabet as used in English. Even as a linguist who has been trained to use a transcription system for pronunciation, I would hesitate to insist on a standardized transcription for Yiddish - even phonetic transcription, despite what is taught in baby linguistics, has its national variants! - An opinion! Malkah Winters 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Aug 11 18:11:55 1993 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: Re: Standardized transcription Bob Hoberman writes: > with a sense of behaving responsibly to the language as it presents > itself to us on its own without the interference of English habits nor > as a jargon that can be written any way you like I agree complete with this (essentially political) reason for standardization. But for me, practicality comes first: ven s'iz nishto keyn sistem, dreyt zikh mir der kop. Yo, me darf zikh a bisl metriekh zayn, zikh oystsulernen a sistem, ober ven me nutst nisht keyn sistem, darfn ale leyeners brekhn dem kop, tsu trefn vos me vil zogn ... > in this it is analogous (but not identical) to the impetus to > standardize Yiddish spelling, vocabulary, etc. (I'm NOT in favor of > efforts to standardize Yiddish spelling.) No? Why not? I can understand having objections to the YIVO standard, but I can't imagine being against standards in general. Please explain. -- Khaim 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 12 09:01:45 1993 From: Avi_J._Hyman@magic-bbs.corp.apple.com Subject: Emergency - Jewish lists down! Unfortunately I have some bad news for those of you who subscribe to some of the Jewish lists @Israel.nysernet.ORG (mail-Jewish, JewStudies-Judaica, Kol-Isha, scj, cj-l, ...) The server has crashed and none of these lists are available. Hopefully this situation is temporary, but they're not sure. Please let people know about this. [Mendele] is largest working Jewish interest list working now. Avi 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 12 10:45:24 1993 From: Dagmar C G Lorenz Subject: Grobian In German there is a term "Grobian" which refers to a rough, impolite, unsophisticated male. It seems to me that the suffix -ian can be used to form nouns from adjectives such as "grob," meaning rough and tough. -ian would correspond with the Yiddish -nik. I wonder if the syllable -ian in German might not also be related to the name "Jan". Dagmar Lorenz 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 12 16:28:27 1993 From: Avi Frydman (410)764-3627 Subject: Sukkah Lights I first saw "Sukkah Lights" in the sukkah of the Bostoner Rebbe 20 years ago. They were the large sized, colored version that I saw on Christmas trees in my gaygent when I was growing up in Milwaukee. It seemed very strange to see these "Christian" lights in such a Jewish place. When I asked the Rebbe about this he said that his family's tradition was to make the sukkah a beautiful and wondrous place. He had oriental carpets hanging from the walls and numerous sparkling ornaments hanging everywhere. It was truly an experience to be in that sukkah. When I married and began making my own sukkah, my family naturally put lights throughout it. In fact, all of the Rebbe's community in Brookline, MA sparkled with the blinking "sukkah" lights. When we moved to Baltimore 3 years ago, we ,of course, continued to string our lights. Our neighbors all made comments that first year. We just said that it was a "Bostoner tradition". During our second sukkos, neighbors brought friends by to see the "sukkah" lights...and their children were fascinated. Last year our street began to twinkle. I wonder what it will look like this year? BTW...I've heard it said that a child who has experienced a beautiful sukkah could never be jealous of an Christmas tree. Zayt Gezunt, Avrum ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.077