Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.134 November 18, 1993 1) Yekkification (David Connor) 2) Leyenen un leyzen (Meylekh Viswanath) 3) Forms of address (Howard I. Aronson) 4) Various (Ellen Prince) 5) Ufruf, nokhamol (Jeremy Stern) 6) The Anniversary Waltz (Bob Rothstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Nov 15 19:35:47 1993 From: "Connor, David" Subject: Yekkification Could someone please explain to me what Yekkified means? David Connor 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Nov 16 13:12:19 1993 From: meylekh (viswanath@draco.rutgers.edu) Subject: leyenen un leyzen reb bochner shraybt: >Dritns: ir zent ober gerekht, az es zenen do dialektn in velkhe s'iz >take do an untersheyd in taytsh tsvishn di tsvey verter. Oyf mayn >(galitsiyaner) heym-dialekt nutst men take leyenen nor oyf sforim, >vi ir zogt. "Baa ints laynt men a sayfer, ober a biikhl leyzt men." >(Dos heyst oyf klal-yidish: "Bay undz leyent men a seyfer, ober a >bikhl lezt men.") Biz itst hob ikh gehert dem untersheyd nor in >mayn mishpokhe. Vu hot ir es gehert? ikh hob dos geleynt in maurice samuel's bikh yegn yiddish. Meylekh 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Nov 16 23:14:33 1993 From: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Forms of address In traditional Yiddish society, one addressed a man politely using 'reb' plus first name. Is anyone aware of an equivalent polite way of addressing a woman? Thanks. Howard I. Aronson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Nov 17 17:45:30 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: various re vicki's query: to quote hirsh glik: mir zenen do! (sorry, couldn't resist...) ---------- to all who've answered my 666 query, publicly and privately: a dank aykh! ---------- to all native yiddish speakers: are the following ok? do some sound better than others? 1. ven/az es geyt a shney, fort er in arbet. 2. geyt es a shney, fort er in arbet. (to mean the same as 1) 3. afile ven/az es geyt a shney, fort er in arbet. 4. afile geyt es a shney, fort er in arbet. (to mean same as 3) 5. nor ven/az es geyt a shney, fort er in arbet. 6. nor geyt es a shney, fort er in arbet. (to mean same as 5) (i don't care whether it's ven or az; take your pick.) vi alemol, a sheynem dank. ellen prince 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Nov 17 20:54:14 1993 From: Jeremy Stern Subject: Ufruf, nokhamol Mark David writes: > (1) what do you mean by "Orthodox Jews". Is this supposed to be a > group that does not include Litvaks? Vos heyst?! I should clarify. I mean among modern Orthodox Jews. True, that doesn't exclude Litvaks. Nevertheless, modern Orthodox do not generally pronounce Yiddish words as they were uttered in the old country. (I cannot substantiate this right now, but I'll come back from Thanksgiving break with enough good examples to satisfy the greatest skeptic.) Thus, I would have expected *oyf because it is so common in this country. Interestingly enough, I once asked a native Yiddish speaker, who was originally from Vilna but had married a Poylisher, why she kept on saying *oyf. She responded, "Oh, we did used to say 'uf'. When I met my husband, I started saying 'oyf'". Was *oyf taught in schools in pre-war Poland? Jeremy Stern 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Nov 17 23:27:35 1993 From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: The Anniversary Waltz Sheldon Benjamin asks about the Jan Peerce version of "The Anniversary Waltz." It's included in a two-record set called "The Yiddish Dream" (Vanguard VSD-715/16). I haven't been able to decipher the whole thing, but what it could get is as follows: Kum, tants mit mir undzer vals fun amol. Gehat nor mit dir hob ikh glik on a tsol. Tsum ershtn mol ven ikh hob dikh derzen, geshpilt hot men dan undzer vals azoy sheyn. Tsvey yunge hertsn mir zaynen geven. Libesgefil unshuldig un reyn. Gedrikt hob ikh dikh azoy tsertlikh tsu mir, zikh ayngelibt bald in dir. Kh'hob dikh gevolt [...] aroys. Gefayert dos khasene, glik azoy groys. Gedenkstu di nakht, s'hot geshpilt di muzik, dem zelbn vals fun glik. Leyb [?] nokh di nakht, Yene gliklikhe nakht, freyd on a shir far undz beyde gebrakht. Khotsh zilber di hor un di fis zaynen mid, in harts klingt nokh alts undzer lid, undzer vals. I'm no dialectologist, but Peerce seems to mix dialects and German pronunciations. I've normalized somewhat, which spoils rhymes like sheyn/geveyn. The Yiddish text is by Chaim Tauber. The original music was for an instrumental piece called "Valurile Dunari" ("Waves of the Danube") by the Romanian composer Ion Ivanovici, first published in 1880 in Bucharest. The English text of "The Anniversary Waltz" was written by Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin for "The Jolson Story" in 1943. Bob Rothstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.134 Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files