Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.190
December 29, 1993

1) UT and Singer (Ellen Prince)
2) Fartaytsht un farbesert (Pinyeh Weichsel)
3) Fartaytsht un farbesert (Tsipe Khana Shavelson)
4) German and Polish influences on Yiddish (Eliyahu Ahilea)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Dec 29 00:09:50 1993
From: "Ellen F. Prince" <ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: UT and Singer

to bob king: mazel tov! that's fantastic!

ellen prince

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Dec 29 10:57:01 1993
From: Paul Weichsel <weichsel@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Fartaytsht un farbesert

I have seen the phrase that you referred to ". . . un farbesert.. ."
on the title page of an edition of King Lear published in Poland in
the early part of this century.  I found it in the Yiddish
collection of the University of Illinois library in
Urbana-Champaign.

Pinyeh Weichsel

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Dec 29 16:43:06 1993
From: SHAVELSON@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU
Subject: Fartaytsht un farbesert

This is in response to SHleyme Axelrod's query about
a program for a Yiddish Shakespeare production. I don't
know about the specific one he's referring to, but I
learned that "fartaytsht un farbesert" was a translator's
way of indicating that a text had been abridged--and
"improved"--along the way.

Tsipe Khana Shavelson

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Dec 29 12:24:09 1993
From: BRAHA@LIB.HAIFA.AC.IL
Subject: German and Polish influences on Yiddish

     Since "daytshmerism" is a "hot" subject now, let me add my two
cents' worth to it.

     I remember my mother, aleha hashalom, using the word "frage" in
Yiddish, specifically in the question "Vus far a frage?" not "frog",
nor "shayle", nor "kashe" (although I don't remember her using an
equivalent of the expression "klotz-kashes"). She came from
Brest-Litovsk, and I doubt whether the German language had any
considerable influence on Yiddish there. (The border of the
Austro-Hungarian empire came close to Brest-Litovsk for a few years
around 1800, and German troops occupied it for a while during WW1;
my mother made aliyah in 1921.) My mother knew several languages
very well - Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, German, English and a couple
of others. No doubt she knew what words belonged to which language.
So it seems to me that "frage" and a few other Yiddish words of
German origin are not necessarily recent "daytshmerizmen" but date
further back in time.

     My wife advises me that her father, alav hashalom, used to say
"Vus far a frage". He came from near Kiev, farther away from
territories occupied by Prussia or Austria.

     Coming back to Polish influences, Khaim Bochner is most likely
right about n - sounds or nasal sounds existing in Polish and not
"mysteriously appearing by themselves", but this does not rule out
an introduction of such sounds into Yiddish. An example I had in
mind was the Hebrew speech of the late Pinchas Sapir, born
Kozlowski, who was the Israeli trade-and-industry and finance
minister in the 1960s. He used to "incorporate slashes" in many of
his l's (or rather lameds), Polish style, making them sound like w's
("Wo tihye infwatzia" instead of "Lo tihye inflatzia" - there will
be no inflation). Something similar could have happened to Yiddish
with other Polish characteristics. (Again, this is only a guess.)

Eliyahu Ahilea, c/o Braha Ahilea, University of Haifa

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.190

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