Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.314 April 11, 1994 1) Jewish Programming on WRNO (Hope Ehn) 2) Kol Israel Yiddish, Ladino, & English Broadcasts (Hope Ehn) 3) The integrity of Yiddish (Arn Abramson) 4) Caucasian Jews at the Haifa Museum (Miriam Halkin) 5) Yidishe-frantsoyzishe shenanigans (Moyshe-Shaye Steinlauf) 6) Me tut fregn (Yude Rozof) 7) Daytchmerisms, the "principle of specificity" (Steve Jacobson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Apr 10 14:18:15 1994 From: ehn@world.std.com Subject: Jewish Programming on WRNO This notice was posted to a shortwave radio group. Please note that there are local stations as well as shortwave stations carrying this programming. Also, I believe that the shortwave frequency is wrong. It's given as 7.935 MHz, which is highly unlikely. I believe that the correct frequency is 7.395. *** The Judaic Broadcasting Radio Network in Cleveland, Ohio is pleased to announce the debut of it's new shortwave program: Shalom America Worldwide The program is broadcast Sunday nights at 11pm Eastern Time on WRNO 7.935 MHz, LIVE from Cleveland Ohio. The program is hosted in English by longtime broadcsater Phil Fink, and features Jewish and Israeli music in English Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino, as well as recorded comedy, news from Israel, interviews with newsmakers and entertainers, and call-in trivia contests via a toll-free number. Judaic Broadcasting also offers a domestic version of Shalom America, aired at 7am EST on Sundays on the following stations WRDZ 1260 AM Stereo (c-quam) Cleveland, Ohio WWCS 540 AM Stereo (c-quam) Pittsburgh, PA WNZK 680/690 AM Detroit, MI WLIR 1300 AM Monsey, NY For More Information on Judaic Broadcasting and its programs, call toll free in North America: (800) 583-2420 or outside of North America (216) 382-2802 Hope Ehn 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Apr 10 16:32:00 1994 From: ehn@world.std.com Subject: Kol Israel Yiddish, Ladino, & English Broadcasts These are all shortwave broadcasts. "UTC" is the same as "GMT," which is British winter time. "EDT" is, of course, Eastern Daylight Time. *YIDDISH* 16:00-16:25 UTC 12:00-12:25 PM EDT to Western Europe & eastern North America 9435 to Eastern Europe & western North America 15640, 11675, 11603, 9485 17:00-17:30 UTC 1:00-1:30 PM EDT to Western Europe & eastern North America 15640, 9435 to Eastern Europe & western North America 11603, 9845 *LADINO* 16:45-17:00 UTC 12:45-1:00 PM EDT to Eastern Europe & western North America 11675 *ENGLISH* 10:00-10:30 UTC 6:00-6:30 AM EDT to Western Europe & eastern North America 17575, 15640 to Asia & Australia 15650 13:00-13:25 UTC 9:00-9:25 AM EDT Never on Friday, Saturday, Jewish or Israeli holidays, or the day before such holidays (therefore, almost always on Sunday!) to Western Europe & eastern North America 15640 to Asia & Australia 15650 19:00-19:30 UTC 3:00-3:30 PM EDT to Western Europe & eastern North America 15640, 11603, 9435 to Eastern Europe & western North America 11675 to Africa 17575 21:30-22:00 UTC 5:30-6:00 PM EDT to Western Europe & eastern North America 11603, 7465 to Latin America (audible in east N. Am.) 17575, 9435 to Eastern Europe & western North America 11675 04:00-04:15 UTC 12:00-12:15 AM EDT to Western Europe & eastern North America 11605, 9435 to Asia & Australia 17545 Shortwave reception depends on a lot of uncontrollable elements, including solar activity and ionospheric disturbances. If one frequency isn't audible, try others. If you can't hear anything at one time, try at another time, and try another day when conditions might be better. Problems aren't always the fault of your radio, your antenna, or the broadcaster! Hope Ehn 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Apr 10 23:10:58 1994 From: ABRAMSON%UCONNVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: The integrity of Yiddish My admiring vote of appreciation goes to Yude Rozof for his stirring sentiments and well-expressed thoughts on the nature of Yiddish. Perhaps some of us linguists, with our emphasis on rigorous formalism and, perhaps, overly prmissive attitude toward usage, forget that there are other eqally interesting and persuasive ways of looking at language as a vehicle of cultural transmission. Arn Abramson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 11 02:09:18 1994 From: MHALKIN@LIB.HAIFA.AC.IL Subject: Caucasian Jews at the Haifa Museum The Haifa Museum did indeed have an exhibit on Caucasian Jews, and there is a catalog available, which includes an article on the literature of the Jews of this area (although not specifically on the language). For information, contact Ora Ilani, Haifa Museum of Music and Ethnology, P.O.B. 45134, Haifa 31451. She can also be reached by fax at 972-4-552714. (Postal services in Israel, incidentally, are vastly improved in recent years, and are totally trustworthy these days.) Miriam Halkin 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 11 13:43:46 1994 From: M_STEINLAUF@ACAD.FANDM.EDU Subject: Yidishe-frantsoyzishe shenanigans Apropos of earlier postings, I'm forwarding some items from my friend Steve Tobias, who has some experience in French-Yiddish border regions: All I have to offer in this vein and possibly worth relaying back to Mendele is my late father-in-law's quote from the lady in the apartment building where he lived in Paris in 1935. Down the staircase she yelled: Marcel! Mach attention! Du vest eruntertomben fun die escalier! And then there was Mickey Robinson's mother, in Geneva, who told me that at the casino at Evian she once eavesdropped on two women who were planning a canasta party. "Abat-jour chez moi," said one of them, concluding the plan (Mickey's mom inferred that she meant ibermorgen when she said abat-jour). Moyshe-Shaye Steinlauf 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 11 16:18:59 1994 From: jrosof@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Me tut fregn Az me bletert adurkh di yidishe literatur fun fartsaytnts gefint men keseyder dos vort "ton". Yidn hobn geton shlogn kapore. Tut men mispalel zayn in kloyz, un dos glaykhn. Fregt zikh a frage, vos tut zikh mitn "ton"? Iz ton a reshtl funem mayrev yidish fun amol, oder se'lebt er nokh in der folkshprakh, oder efsher bin ikh gor der eyntsiker vos veyst nisht vegn keyn ton forme. Deriber ot mayn bakoshe: Zol ton dertseyln a yidisher bal-loshn vegn dem ton un zol er ton im derklern, vel ikh moyde zayn. Yude Rozof 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 11 17:29:42 1994 From: FFSAJ@acad3.alaska.edu Subject: Daytchmerisms, the "principle of specificity" In the ongoing discussion about the principle of specificity, daytchmerisms, and the whole business of lexical planning, no one mentions (maybe since everyone knows about it already?), that the second half of Dovid Katz's book Tikney Takones, on Yiddish "stylistics" deals with precisely these questions, and is quite critical of the blanket rejection of daytchmerisms, and the planning of Yiddish lexicon so as to distance the language from German. I recently found an article arguing along the same lines by M. Shapiro, the compiler of the Russian-Yiddish dictionary published several years ago, in Moscow. The article, which gives an overview of Yiddish lexicography in general and discusses the virtues and flaws of Weinreich's dictionary, is to be found in issue #4, 1994 of "Yungvald", the supplement to Sovetish Heimland -- not easy to get a hold of, but well worth the effort. Steve Jacobson ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.314 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu