Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.079 August 15, 1993 1) A letter to the Forward (Florence Stankiewicz) 2) Introduction (Sander Gilman) 3) Introduction (Melinda Saveleva) 4) Answers (Zev Bar-Lev) 5) Etymologica (Bob Rothstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 12 17:55:06 1993 From: VBERS@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Florence Stankiewicz's letter to the English Forward Florence Stankiewicz has asked me to share with the Mendelniks a letter she is sending the Editor of the Forward: Dear SIr: I write out of disappointment and perplexity over your failure to publish a significant and thoughtfully considered letter written in response to the pieces by your Philologos on the notions of Paul Wexler about Yiddish. This was written by my husband, Edward Stankiewicz, whose linguistic specialties include Slavic languages and Yiddish. He felt it important to counter what he regards as utter nonsense and irresponsible scholarship, since your writer was giving it his support. His remarks were certainly not "lukewarm," as Philologos claims to have understand them. Indeed, Professor Stankiewicz has regretted the excessively polite, overly delicate (though totally negative) review he wrote in 1992 for Fishman's social-linguistic journal on Wexler's preposterous theories. But if Philologos thinks they warrant public comment, a more frank and sober evaluation seemed necessary. It was a long letter, granted. It was certainly intended for eyes beyond those in your office. Was it the length that inhibited you from printing it? Would you print a shorter version? One in Yiddish? Please state your requirements. You certainly do not take direction from Philologos--or Wexler. You did not acknowledge receipt of the letter. I look forward to your response. My husband has been annoyed, but I do not think the matter should sink silently away, so I have undertaken to write to you. Florence Stankiewicz 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 13 08:07:49 1993 From: slg3@cornell.edu (sander l. gilman) Subject: Introduction My name is Sander Gilman. I'm the Goldwin Smith Professor of Humane Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. I'm former director of the Jewish Studies Program here and have taught Yiddish literature and culture here in the past. I'm the author or editor of over thirty books, many of them dealing with topics of interest to students of Jewish and Yiddish subjects. I'm available via e-mail as slg3@cornell.edu. sander l. gilman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 13 09:42:57 1993 From: msavelev@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Melinda Saveleva) Subject: Introduction My name is Melinda Saveleva (last name to be Krushen in 2 weeks!). I am the foreign languages cataloger at Purdue University, and have been working on a large collection of Yiddish books that we recently received. I have never studied Yiddish, but have heard it spoken and read some from having studied German and Hebrew. I play keyboard in the group the "Lafayette Klezmorim", to my knowledge the only klezmer group in Indiana. Looking forward to participating on the list! Mindy 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 12 13:13:45 1993 From: zbarlev@zeus.sdsu.edu To: Norman Miller Subject: Answers 1. on grubyan: grubi is a slavic root, meaning "rude", grubyan the person formation (masculine). it occurs, interestingly, in evtushenko's babi yar, as i recall, grubi"y pamyatnik "the rude memorial". 2. "naked" and "whole" may be connected in a weirder way thasn in the suggestion, e.g. that a person is whole when by himself, compare the orgiin of hebrew beged 'garment' from the root 'betray'. although not quite as interesting, note that "bare" is used in scandinavian for "only" (like english "barely" which, however, had a meaning switch almost like "hardly", originally the adverb from "hard"). (i stop before my parentheses grow parentheses.) Zev bar-Lev 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 13 14:17:39 1993 From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: Etymologica [ogul] Gurion Hyman asked about connections between the IE root that underlies Yiddish _ogul_ 'wholesale' and an allegedly identical root that leads to meanings like 'bare' in modern Slavic [as in Yiddish _holedranets_, discussed last January]. Max Vasmer, the compiler of the standard Russian etymological dictionary, denies any connection between the two roots (s.v. _ogul_). Although modern Polish _ogo'l_ (pronounced [oguw]) is spelled with an acute-accented _o_, which usually reflects an original _o_, in this case Old Polish had the letter _u_. [Grobian] Dagmar Lorenz asks about German _Grobian_ (cf. Yiddish _grubyan_, Polish _grubian_/_grubianin_, Russian _grubiian_). Vasmer characterizes the German word as "a jocular neologism of the period of humanism: _grobianus_ from _grob_ " and cites S. Brandt's _Narrenschiff_ (1494) as its first attested use. Roman Jakobson calls the Russian word a borrowing from Czech, "due to the popular book of the 16th century, _Prava doktora Grobiana_, translated from the German-Latin _Grobianus_" (_Word_ 8 [1952], 390). Bob Rothstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.079