______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.281 March 11, 1994 1) Yidishistn untern oranzshn firhang (Elyet Hersh Gertl) 2) Word comments (Jules F. Levin) 3) Wexler and Jewish genetics (Arre Komar) 4) Muz/darf nebish/nebakh (Arre Komar) 5) Alilas Dam (Judith Nysenholc) 6) Feygelakh un andere (Meyshe-Yankl Sweet) 7) Mail.Yiddish Archive (Elia Novick) 8) Turkish words in Yiddish / Figs (Mikhl Herzog) 9) Addendum re Turkish words (Mikhl Herzog) 10) Anski exhibit (Bob Werman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Mar 10 20:15:23 1994 From: EGERTEL@CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU Subject: Yidishistn untern oranzshn firhang Kh'hob fort geleynt Profesor Fridlanders forshteln zikh bay MENDELE mit gor a tifn interes. A dank MENDELE vos fort arum iber gor der velt, kenen yidishistn vos zey zenen in shkheynes eyner mitn tsveytn gefinen zikh! Tsum badoyrn, iz Profesor Fridlander a toyznt protsent gerekht az er zogt az yidish shlogt zikh do nisht azoy gikh vortsln. Efsher vet men dos itser khotsh a kleyn bisele kenen baytn...? Azoy geyt 'sleben in orandzsh kaunti, dorem-kalifornia. Elyet Hersh Gertl 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Mar 10 21:29:42 1994 From: Subject: word comments re shmoolyares: I've never heard this word, but after thinking about the various theories other Mendeleans have supplied, I wonder why the American slang term of unknown origin "moolah" hasn't been tossed into the picture. moolah ~ shmoolah, in the well-known formula, would get us almost there, and the rest could be influenced by "dollars..." re nebbish. Although "toosh" is used for "tokhes", they may not be connected at all. My friend and colleague Peter Maher once did a brilliant treatment of "toosh", pointing out 1st, that the consonant alternation is NOT yiddish, 2nd, tokhes of course is good hebrew, and is not widespread among non-Jews, whereas 3) "tush" has a good independent etymon and IS well-known among non- Jews: it is the German (borrowed from French) "Tousch" (not sure of German spelling), meaning "flourish", and refering to the saucy gesture of raising the skirts while ppointing the fanny. This gesture in turn conceals an older and widespread European ppeasant custom (and not only European!) in which women displayed contempt (usually for a man) by actually displaying the part in question (they didn't wear anything under their long skirts, so it wasn't so hard). Note how we use the rather affectionate "tush" for the child's bare fanny. And this is not only Jewish usage! The association of this word with Yiddish tokhas < Heb tokhat may be a secondary false etymologization. There are English words that are felt to be Yiddish, like "tumult", and Yiddish american words that look English but aren't, like "derma" for "kishke". Jules F. Levin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Mar 10 22:02:33 1994 From: "Dr. Arthur Komar" Subject: Wexler and Jewish genetics Some time ago Mendleniks got into a wandering discussion on Jewish genetics. Our shames felt (and I believe rightly so) that it was taking us too far afield from the purpose of this Yiddish group. However we recently heard a report of a new book by Wexler claiming that Yiddish really comes from a Slavic substratum rather than via the immegration route from the Mediterranian up through France into Germany and hence to eastern Europe. At the expense of reopening the genetic discussion I would like to point out that modern genetic analysis of Jewish poulations in Europe, North Africa and the middle east makes Wexler's scenario highly unlikely. I have managed to track down the references to the DNA analysis of the Jewish population of central Europe, the middle east and North Africa. The original reference is: Samuel Karlin,Ron Kebet and Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, "Analysis of Biochemical Genetic Data of Jewish Populations" American Journal of Human Genetics 31 (1979) pp.341-365. In that paper Karlin,et.al. (Stanford Univ.) presented data describing the gene frequency distribution for 14 different genetic markers among 9 Jewish and 6 non-Jewish populations. The conclusion reached was that Ashkenazic and Sephardic populations (from Germany, Poland, Russia, Libya, Moracco,Iran Iraq,Yemen and Egypt) were similar to each other in genetic profile and distant from the non-Jewish populations with whom they were compared (i.e. Germans, Poles,Russians, Iranians, Arabs, Armenians). To quote Karlin: the data is consistent with the thesis that "the present day Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews were the remnants of several small Jewish populations of the 14th and 15th centuries.... Since the Christian reconquest at the end of the Middle Ages, the contribution of non-Jews to the Jewish gene pool has been extremely small." I'm not sure where this leaves any linguistic considerations, but what seems clear is that langauge seems to mix a lot more easily than genes. It is also clear that the Slavic input into the Jewish gene pool is as miniscule as that of the Arabs. In fact the genetic markers demonstrate that the North African Sephardim are much closer genetically to the central European Ashkenazim than either group is to their immediate European or Middle eastern neighbors. It is also quite consistent with the scenario of the Ashkenazim stemming from those comunities who fled north to the Rhineland while the Sephardim fled south and east to the Ottomans. Of course there were already Jewish communities existing in France and the Rhineland at the time of the Christian reconquest, as well as Jewish communities existing in Palistine, Georgia and the former Khazaria. It is a puzzlement as to how those few and widely seperated communities retained their distictive common genetic identity without positing considerable interaction between them. For those who might want further references (as well as a discussion of the Falasha Question which may lead us too far afield) I refer you to: Karen Bacon, "A Biochemical Response to an Halakhic Challenge: The Case of the Ethiopian Jews" The Torah U-Madda Journal,3 (1991-1992) pp.1-7. Arre Komar 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Mar 10 22:14:05 1994 From: "Dr. Arthur Komar" Subject: muz/darf nebish/nebakh Searching the inner resouces which guide my usage I find that "muz" is an unequivocal "must" while "darf" is closer to "have to" with a slight tinge of "ought". Of course a full blown "ought" is "zol". e.g. Ikh muz gehn. I must go. Ikh darf gehn. I have to go. Ikh zol gehn. I ought to go. The problem of course is that the demarcation of the boarders among the three modals is not sharp. Nebish - nebakh iz a gants andere zakh. Kuk mol: Zayn zun iz nebakh a nebish. Vos mer darf men zogn? Vos mer zol men zogn? Vos mer muz men zogn? Arre Komar 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Mar 10 22:45:56 1994 From: jnysenho@students.wisc.edu Subject: poem "Aliles dam" A friend tells me that she used to read a poem entitled "Aliles dam" (about blood libel) around Pesach time when the Sholem Aleichem shul still existed in Madison. She asks me if I know who wrote it and where I could locate it. Does anyone know? Judith Nysenholc 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Mar 10 23:58:05 1994 From: msweet@facstaff.wisc.edu Subject: Feygelakh un andere A dank alemen for wonderful facts and speculations re "feygele." Don't understand though how it could be related to "feig", another word entirely, despite its coital reference. D. HarPaz came up with two important pieces of evidence--her bobe's attestation of use in Poland (admittedly anecdotal, but maybe others will come forward), and perhaps more significantly, her cite of the Hebrew slang term "parpar." It occurs to me that this may translate Yiddish zumerfeygele for butterfly, with feygele a shortening or a misunderstanding by the majority (?) of Yiddish speakers not familiar with this regional term. Butterfly of course from metaphorical associations with sterotypical gay traits, as in Spanish "mariposa" for gay male. Vos denkt ir fun dos? In Stutchkov's "Oytser", #105, in between words for impotent and eunuch, he has yishen al (ayin lamed) bayso (bay yod sof vov)--not in standard dictionaries--anyone know what this means? Is Ellen Prince's "Lekish Ber" a relative of "Leka Speya (zie fliet ahin on ahea)" also a nonsense answer to who's there? What was Bashevis Singer's story about two young men, yeshiva bokherim, who fall in love and move off to a large Polish city, where one of them dresses as a woman in order for them to remain together, until he dies and the khevre kadisha discovers his true gender. Appeared in the New Yorker maybe 8-10 years ago, have never seen it in any collections of his stories, let alone in Yiddish. I'd be take a freylikher yid to get this reference from some good Mendelnik[este]. Meyshe-Yankl Sweet 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 00:17:05 1994 From: Bob Novick Subject: Mail.Yiddish Archive Thank you David Sherman for creating the wonderful archive of mail.Yiddish materials. I successfully and easily was able to download several of the issues and am already sad that there were so few. And to think, "nisht a hin, nisht a hare" was in the first issue in 1988! Elia Novick 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 01:09:26 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: 1) Turkish words in Yiddish; 2) Figs Bob Hoberman: Add to your list: patlezhan(es) a/baklezhanes etc. and,if you will pardon the expression, pots. Kathleen Noe: Nope! fayg won't work. Wrong vowel. It's fayg/fa:g but feygl/faygl. Sorry. Mikhl Herzog 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 01:15:13 1994 From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Addendum re Turkish words Bob Hoberman, Concerning my last suggestion that "pots" is a word of Turkish origin, I will readily concede that it may be Greek instead. It's generally well known in the Aegean area. Without going into the long spiel once again, I'd like to try to put to rest the oft-repeated myths about Yiddish "pots" and German "Putz and between "shmok" and German "Smuck". There is no credible connection in either case. Mikhl 10)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 05:23:15 1994 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Anski exhibit Lewis Leavitt asks about an Anski exhibit in Europe. The exhibit is currently at the National Museum in Jerusalem and is clearly of interest to all who want to know what life was like in pre-World War I Galicia and the Ukraine. It is difficult for the viewer to factor out elements of prejudice and argumentation on the part of those who arranged the exhibit and on Anski's part, himself. The impression gained is that the Jews of the small towns of this area at that time lived a life heavily suffused with primitive superstition, fear, dirt and ignorance. And of course all this is a subjective judgement made 75 years after the material was collected. __Bob Werman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.281 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. 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 Mendele: Yiddish literature and language