Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.330
April 24, 1994
1) Ets/enk: from a reply to Peretz Mett (Mikhl Herzog)
2) Sholem Aleichem (Louis Fridhandler)
3) Loshn koydesh (Mikhl Herzog)
4) Introduction and Query (Ken Kaminsky)
5) Gzhibe - thinking aloud (Moyshe Taube)
1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 10:58:55 1994
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: ets/enk: from a reply to Peretz Mett
Where they occur as the normal plural forms, "ets/enk/enker"
are also used as the "honorific singular" (in the same sense as
"ir/aykh/ayer" (German "Sie", Italian "lei", French "vous"),
vs. singular "du-di:/dir/da(y)n". They derive from an old dual
along with the accompanying -ts suffix in "ets kimts/gayts". The
ideal systems would be something like
"ets gayts", imperative "gayts", interrogative "gayts ets?"
as against "(ir) geyt/gayt" in the same contexts, and ets/enk
would preclude ir/aykh.
As you would expect, as we move from Western Poland, where we
might find the ideal system, to Lithuania-Belorussia (where we're
not accustomed to finding any of it), various mixed systems
occur.
Thus i) "ets gayts", imperative "gayts", but interrogative
"gayt ets?" and ii)"ir geyt", interrogative "geyt ir"? but
imperative "geyts", in Litvish sounding Northeastern Poland!! I
almost flipped when I first heard it there.
If you have access to people from Szczuczyn, check it out. As I
learned later, the imperative -ts was known in Vilna as late as
the mid 19th century.
The geography of Yiddish "ets/enk" is instructive. In Western
Poland and the Carpathians, it borders on the same feature in
Bavarian German and its distribution in the two languages can
profitably be examined as part of a geolinguistic continuum.
Volume IV of the Yiddish Atlas will do just that.
Mikhl Herzog
2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 13:43:03 1994
From: 74064.1661@CompuServe.COM
Subject: Sholem Aleichem
Khaver Andy Cassel,
I avidly accept your offer to E-mail me contents of the letters in
Yiddishe Kultur. Any other information about the other letters to your
zeyde would be greatly welcome. The years 1906 to 1908 were hard ones
for Sholem Aleichem. He left Russia at the end of 1905 because of the
Kiev pogrom in the fall. Took the whole family with him resulting in loss
of his royalties from Russian publications. He had to make up income.
Traveled, gave public readings. Went to New York in Oct. 1906. Couldn't
get used to life in America. Two plays failed in New York. Returned to
Europe June 1907. He may have started Motl Peysi on board ship. Vol. 1
was finished 1907. (Vol 2 was 1914). Toured in Europe again. Fell ill
with acute pulmonary TB in Baranovitch, Poland on July 28, 1908. Entered
an Italian Riviera sanitarium in the fall. So you see, letters of those
years are of special importance. What is your zeyde's name? Where was
he 1906-08? Did he meet Sholem Aleichem personally?
Sincerely, Louis Fridhandler
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 15:19:51 1994
From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: An addendum to my diatribe about loshn-koydesh
Among the most Yidishlekh (= Jewish?) features of Yiddish is its
affective apparatus, no? It's system of diminution, for example. No
loshn-koydesh features in "mamele, tatinke, bobeshi or of all things,
even in gotenyu". Edward Stankiewicz has a major article on the subject
of the emotive features of Yiddish but I don't have the bibliographic
reference at hand
I would refer you, though, to an article on "authenticity" in Yiddish] in
The Field of Yiddish, Fifth Collection, by Christopher Hutton.
Mikhl Herzog
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 16:22:18 1994
From: kaminsky@augsburg.edu
Subject: Introduction and Query
I have been eavesdropping now for more than two years and I guess it's
time make an introduction.
I'm a statistician working in the mathematics department of Augsburg
College (with a strong Lutheran connection) in Minneapolis. Strangely,
my first formal study of Yiddish was here at Augsburg when I sat in on a
Yiddish reading course taught by a linguist colleague in the Language
Department. Since then I did the Columbia/YIVO summer course in 1989 and
now I'm just coasting. My mother was a native speaker of both Yiddish
and Russian, but, alas, she did not pass either of them on to me. As with
so many other second generation American Jews of my generation (b. 1938),
Yiddish was a secret language spoken by the parents and grandparents. I
was left with only a few phrases stored away for opening decades later
(eyn kleynekeit, nisht gefelech, etc., etc.) and a good accent.
That's enough introduction for now. About my query.
I have a copy of an album of Yiddish songs sung by Theodore Bikel. Does
anyone know if any of his Yiddish albums are available any more? How
about on CD? I have a video he did in Austrailia a few years ago, but
the sound reproduction is not so good. Thanks Mendelnicks.
Ken Kaminsky
5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 16:28:36 1994
From: taube@HUM.HUJI.AC.IL
Subject: gzhibe - thinking aloud
After producing for Polish a non-existent *grzyba (although there is
grzyb `mushroom') out of grzywa `mane', `cock's-comb' and grzebien'
`comb', it occurred to me that this could have happened to yiddishophones
before me, thus yielding the Yiddish gzhibe. But what about German ewig >
Yiddish eybik? The Atlas does have map 74 (p. 123) with b/v alternations,
but these seem to be different. Reb Mekhl, any comments?
Moyshe Taube
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End of Mendele Vol. 3.330
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