______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.278 March 10, 1994 1) Takeh (Rick Turkel) 2) Take (David Sherman) 3) Tako (Anatole Beck) 4) Takeh and maynseh (Zev bar-Lev) 5) Lecture on Chaim Grade's Poetry in Boston (Meyer David) 6) Muzn/darfn (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 9 17:06:04 1994 From: rmt51@cas.org Subject: takeh Anatole Beck asks (3.272) about the etymology of Yid. "takeh," meaning "indeed." It is, in fact, from the Polish "takie," an adverb meaning "thus, in this/that fashion, etc." It is, however, NOT cognate with Russian "da," meaning "yes," but rather with Russian "tak," which has the same meaning as in Polish, and with Czech "tak" and Serbocroatian "tako." As for the nasalization (e.g., Yankev for Hebrew Yaakov) coming from Polish, I don't buy it because there's no specific phonological environment to condition their appearance in Hebrew-derived Yiddish words. Polish nasals didn't appear out of nowhere, but rather developed from the earlier Common Slavic nasals which were lost as independent phonemes in the other modern Slavic languages. I seem to recall reading somewhere a long time ago about a Proto-Indo- European pharyngeal manifesting itself as an "n" in one or another family of daughter languages. I don't recall the details, but it parallels what we see in Yiddish. Zayt mir ale gezunt. Rick Turkel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 9 17:27:10 1994 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: Re: Take I know no Slavic languages, but I've always understood that the Slavic (Polish/Russian?) "tak" means "thus", which isn't too far from the Yiddish meaning. I heard it used once by chessplayers, speaking Polish, who were playing over a tournament game and demonstrating to each other ("tak" = "if you move here/thus"). David Sherman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 9 17:40:09 1994 From: Anatole Beck Subject: tako (fwd) I have a rather scholarly message from my Polish colleague at the London School of Economics, regarding takeh. It seems that it has a use in the meaning of "thus", which could be the source of its use in Yiddish as "indeed": Sender: A.J.OSTASZEWSKI@lse.ac.uk I looked up "tak" and discovered that in the 1500's the word was "tako" and got abbreviated. Its opposite is still "jako" (as) . THis is as in the pair talis qualis in Latin. Actually, the "t" is the indo-european demonststartive, and exists in other slav languages as plain "t" and in the duplicated "tet". It is clearly the same word as "the" and "dass", but they have specialised their usage in the other languages. As regards indeed, the owrd is very much used as in "Thus spake Zaratrustra" (Tak rzecze Zaratrustra; hey, I may have heard somewhere Tako rzecze Zaratrustra", no doubt an archaisation as in spake). Adam. Anatole Beck 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 9 19:54:07 1994 From: zbarlev@zeus.sdsu.edu Subject: on takeh and maynseh anatole beck's suggestions for takeh seem to need some fine-tuning. tak is polish for yes, but its root meaning in slavic in "so, thus, in this way". (i'd have to check to see if russian /da/ "yes" is supposed to be related -- i doubt it, since there is a particle /da/ in various slavic languages.) russian in fact has /taki/ whose meaning (difficult to translate) seems closer to yiddish /takeh/. polish nasalization as in "Walesa" is not a spontaneous insertion; on the contrary, it generally or always comes from an earlier /n/, thus polish "pie,c'" (i'm trying to fake the polish spelling), pron. approx. /pyench/, comes ultimately from the same source as greek /pente/ "5". i haven't followed the discussion, and i'm sure it's been mentioned, but just in case: one assumption i heard long ago is that the nasal /maynse, yankev/ came (via sefardic pronunciation?) as an attempt to represent the 'ayin. Zev bar-Lev 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 9 21:35:09 1994 From: mhd@world.std.com (Mark H David) Subject: Lecture on Chaim Grade's Poetry in Boston Zalmen Srebro, chairmen of the Boston Yiddish Culture Club, has sent this announcement for a lecture in Yiddish: Chaim Grade and His Poetry by Steven Simon, Principal of Temple Mishkan Tefila Hebrew School Sunday, March 13, 1994 2:30 p.m. Arbeter Ring Center 1762 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts USA Cosponsors: Arbeter Ring and the Leventhal-Sidman JCC All are welcome. Contribution: $1.00. Meyer David 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Mar 9 17:25:52 1994 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: muzn/darfn i too was awaiting some scholarly replies, but, in the absence of anything better, i'll put in my 2 cents. i don't think either is artificial in yiddish--both seem very very common in everyday speech. they're sort of synonyms, with some exceptions: both can be modals, taking an infinitival complement (ikh muz/darf hobn gelt) but darfn can also be a simple transitive verb 'need' (ikh darf gelt) while muzn cannot (*ikh muz gelt is impossible). darfn, with an infinitive complement, can mean 'be due', as in (from weinreich's dictionary) 'er darf do zayn montik' = he is due here on monday; in contrast, i believe 'er muz do zayn montik' would mean only 'he must/is required to be here on monday'. question: is it true that a negative with both darfn and muzn always has 'wide scope'? that is, is it true that 1 and 2 can mean only 3 and never the same as 4? (my sneaking suspicion is that 1 can possibly mean 4 but 2 can never mean 4. is that right?) 1. men muz nit redn. 2. men darf nit redn. 3. one doesn't have to speak. (it's not the case that one must speak.) 4. men tor nit redn. (the negative always has narrow scope with torn, right? that is, 4 can ONLY mean 'one is obliged to not speak' and never 'one is not obliged to speak'.) also, can both muzn and darfn have an epistemic as well as a root sense? that is, can both 5 and 6 mean 8 as well as 7? (my hunch is that 5 can possibly mean 8 but 6 cannot mean 8--is that right?) 5. er muz zayn do. 6. er darf zayn do. 7. he needs/is obliged to be there (perhaps in the future). 8. it must be the case that he's there (now). a dank. ellen prince ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.278 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. 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