Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.114
October 3, 1993

1) Ya[r]mulke (Zachary Baker)
2) Maurice Samuel (Dovid Braun)
3) Pinkes (Pe'rets Mett)
4) Pinchas (Weichsel)
5) Pinkes (Alan Lankin)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Sep 29 12:14:59 1993
From:  Zachary Baker (bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu)
Subject:  Ya[r]mulke

For those who wish to consult etymological dictionaries on the
derivation of "yarmulke," may I suggest the following:

(1) Bru"ckner, Aleksander.  Sl/ownik etymologiczny je,zyka polskiego
(Warszawa:  Wiedza Powszechna, 1957).  On page 200, under
"jarmul/ka, 'biret, czapeczka' [beret, skullcap]," there is a cross
reference to "jamul/ka," where there is a fuller definition plus
etymologies (page 198) and citations (a la OED).  He traces the word
back from Old Russian ("jemurl/uk") to Bulgarian ("ja(g)murluk") to
Turkish ("ja(g)murluk, 'plaszcz na deszcz z kapuza,'" [rain mantle
with cap tied together with strings]). An earlier Polish form
("jermol/ka" = "kapuza" [cap tied together with strings]) is given,
along with Belorussian ("jarmol/ka"), Russian ("jel/omok") and
Ukrainian ("jol/omka" = "czapka" [cap]).

(2) Preobrazhensky, A. G.  Etymological dictionary of the Russian
language (New York:  Columbia University Press, 1951).  See page
217, "[y]ermolka" (stress on 2nd syllable).  The Ukrainian forms
"yarmulka, yarmolka" and the Polish form "jarmul/ka" are also given.
It is defined (under the Ukrainian forms) as "Jewish cap"
("[y]evreiskaya shapochka").  As for etymology:  "Unclear."

As an utter amateur and a non-Slavist to boot (which my stilted
translation of the Polish phrase "plaszcz na deszcz z kapuza,"
clearly indicates), I nevertheless have the impression from the
foregoing that some form of the word was current in co-territorial
Slavic languages and that it was borrowed by Yiddish speakers for
their own purposes.

Zachary Baker

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Sep 29 16:03:43 1993
From: dovid@MIT.EDU
Subject: Maurice Samuel

Maurice Samuel's information is incorrect.  All such periphrastic
verbs take _hobn_ for the past tense:

	er hot goyzer/megazem/mashpie/maskem/mehane/oyker-min-
hashoyresh/mekane... geven;  ikh hob zikh (in im) miskane geven, ...

Note:  In "litvish" (Northeastern) Yiddish, only the auxiliary
_hobn_ is used to form the past tense, as opposed to the other
dialects in which _zayn_ is also used with certain main verbs.  I
know of one are (between Grodno and Bialystok) where it seems the
litvish and non-litvish forms met up and some speakers will produce
_zayn_ + participle hypercorrectly:

	er iz gearbet
	es iz mir fardrosn

[Actually, I'm not sure whether this is an effect of spoken dialects
in contactor a hypercorrection towards "Standard Yiddish" ("di
literarishe shprakh"). Also, although I've heard it before, I'm not
sure that the generalization that litvish Yiddish does not use
_zayn_ is a correct gen'lization.  If my memory serves me correctly,
M Weinreich mentions in his _History_ that this is a trait of the
Grodno area.  I think I've heard it from "kovner lite" as well.  Do
the basilectal forms of Vilna Yiddish, for instance, lack _zayn_ +
participle?  Maybe M. Herzog can answer.]

Also wrt Maurice Samuel, and wrt Dan Slobin question, Samuel
published an article in _Yidishe shprakh_ called "Dobrodzhyer
yidish" ('The Yiddish of Dobroja [, Rumania]') where he was born.
Yiddish speakers had much contact with Rumanian and Turkish in those
parts, and Samuel describes the results of this contact.  (Sorry, I
don't have a reference at hand, but it's findable in the index to
_Yidishe shprakh_.)

Dovid Braun

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Sep 29 09:33:00 1993
From: P.Mett@open.ac.uk (Percy Mett)
Subject: pinkes

A =pinkes= is a ledger (Hebrew). The documentation of kehile
activity would be recorded in a pinkes.

pe'rets

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Sep 29 17:15:57 1993
From: Paul Weichsel <weichsel@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Pinchas

"Pinchas" is a not uncommon biblical name - he was rather handy with
a sword. The word "pinkas" is undoubtably the word that your friend
found in the title of the memory book.  It is a Hebrew word which
means "notebook", more or less.

Pinyeh (an endearing version of "Pinchas") Weichsel

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Sep 30 09:10:32 1993
From: Alan Lankin <73302.2024@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: pinkes

'Pinkes' means record book (from Hebrew meaning ledger or notebook )
-- such as you were looking at.  Many towns kept a pinkes, which was
used to record significant events in the town.

Alan Lankin

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.114