Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.151 December 2, 1993 1) Sch and sh (Rick Turkel) 2) Yiddish on TV & in Academe (Regina Igel) 3) Yiddish word order (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Dec 1 13:40:15 1993 From: rmt51@cas.org Subject: sch and sh Meylekh Viswanath writes in 3.149: >I know of one place this side of Korea, where 'sh' is not pronounced >as in YIVO transcription. In Czech, e.g., 'na shledanou' means >something like 'goodbye.' The 'shl' combination in the beginning is >pronounced as an 's' sound followed by an 'h' sound followed by an >'l.' A similar situation exists in Serbocroatian. The initial consonant cluster in the word "shvatiti" (to grasp; to understand) is pronounced as three separate sounds, with the "h" pronounced like a Yemenite khes (although in rapid speech it is essentially elided). Several other Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet (i.e., Slovak, Slovenian and probably Polish, too) have similar clusters. In the absence of the appropriate diacritical marks in ASCII, we seem to be stuck with 'sh' - nowadays, unfortunately, there aren't too many people interested in Yiddish remaining in Eastern Europe who will be confused by our YIVO usage. Like many of our other correspondents, I find 'sch' too taytshmerish for my taste. Rick Turkel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Dec 1 14:01:20 1993 From: Regina_IGEL@umail.umd.edu (ri1) Subject: Yiddish words on TV & Academe I should like to share with you two instances where a Yiddish word was used, which surprised/pleased me. I should also say that I am Jewish from Latin AMerica (Brazil), where Yiddish is rarely heard outside Jewish circles. (There are exceptions, like "bad names" that one usually learns from friends, and mostly, among men -- but this is another subject.) I heard the word Mentsch (pardon for the spelling all of you YIVO followers) in a TV program (Katie Lee and Rick, or it is the opposite order), spoken by the very nice, handsome and talented Latin AMerican actor, Raul Julia. He was explaining how he found peace/spiritual strenght with an Indian guru. In his anxiety to properly describe the man, he exploded:" A guru who was a real mensch!" He repeated the qualification more than twice. The other occasion was during a very solemn convocation ceremony held every year in my campus (University of Maryland). The keynote speaker was Prof. Tobin, from the English Department, who is also the President of the Senate. He is Jewish. He started his speech (more or less) like this: "In my predecessors' culture there is a word that describes the atmosphere that we all share today: the word is 'naches' (I do not attempt to reproduce his words here; they are packed in my memory. What is very salient is the word "naches"). He proceeded by explaining what means "naches" in Yiddish. After the ceremony (that lasted one hour, with other speeches and delivery of medals, awards, a musical interlude and so on), we had a reception, when I approached Dr. Tobin and told him how happy I was to have heard that word within a non-Jewish public. He appreciated my observation. I hope that I did not bore you with my enthusiasm. For me these things are kind of new. I wished that I could come to Brazil and use some Yiddish words... in my conversation with my non-Jews friends and colleagues. This culture allows it to be done. This is enviable. Thanks for your eyes. Regina Igel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Dec 1 14:12:28 1993 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: yiddish word order to jason berman: the subject of yiddish word order is extremely interesting. to my mind, the question is not why is the discussion is lasting so long but why it is making so little progress. i will repeat my plea: look at actual yiddish discourse as produced naturally by native speakers and see whether the neat little 'rules' you believe exist actually do. (either oral or written will do; just make sure you are using speakers who learned their yiddish in the normal way native speakers do, not from weinreich's textbook.) or you might want to consult the growing body of literature in theoretical linguistics on the subject, some of it produced by mendelniks in fact (e.g. ken miner, moyshe taube, work in progress by dovid braun, related work by beatrice santorini, molly diesing, and i'm sure i've omitted some). Ellen Prince ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.151 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. 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