Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 3.337
April 29, 1994

1) Feygele/bilingual puns/German Yiddish (Harold L. Orbach)
2) The Light Ahead (Ben Alpers)
3) Kortn Terminen (Odem Vaytman)
4) Western Yiddish (Yude Rozof)
5) Shilem Asch (Kalmen Weiser)
6) Introduction (Joseph Ramek)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Apr 28 17:59:42 1994
From: HLORBACH@KSUVM
Subject:  1) Feygele in Lodz (?)  2) Yiddish/French language puns
               3) "Kik a mal" -- German(?) Yiddish (?)

1) Feygele in Lodz (?)

Talking with a cousin in Toronto (born in Poland, came to Canada at age
of 2-3 and grew up speaking Yiddish at home and at Arbeter Ring schools)
I asked if he knew the Jewish word for "gay" and he immediately said
'feygele' -- when I asked where he knew it from he said from his mother,
my mother's younger sister.  He believed she knew it from Lodz, "unless
she read it in the Forwerts."  I find the latter not very likely in the
late 1930's [but defer to those with intimate knowledge of the Forwerts]
and take this as anecdotal (admittedly weak) support for its use in
Poland in the 1920's, at least in Lodz where my mother's family lived.

[Note "we" have assumed "American" coinage/useage in an imperialistic
manner ignoring our Canadian Jewish communities, which though linked by
common origins and organizational ties have had their own history too.]

My aunt came to Canada in the late 1920's and for many years was a
counselor at Camp Kinderring of the Arbeter Ring at Pickering east of
Toronto (and at least once in the mid-1940's at the U.S. Kinderring).
That is certainly a milieu in which the word might be used.  I never
heard it from my mother, but then the topic never arose in our
conversation.

2) Yiddish/French language puns

The various discussion of Yiddish/French puns has reminded me of a
mid-1940's comic routine that was part of a Broadway movie theatre
program in the old days -- first run movie, band, comic ...  I don't
recall the movie and it was either the Paramount or the Capitol with
Artie Shaw's band.  The comic proposed to give French lessons, which he
suggested was an easy language [I and some of my pals were then taking
French in High School]:

First Lesson: "Gey avec" -- "Go away"
              "Gey viter avec" -- "Go further away"
              "Gey viter un viter avec" -- Go further and further away"

I don't remember the remainder of the routine ... or the comic but I do
recall an appreciative audience and an unappreciative French teacher.

3) "Kik a mal"

Years ago my wife (born in Berlin and not a Yiddish speaker) told me of
what she said was a Berlin [children's ?] slang expression: "Ikka Dikka,
kik a mal".  Some Germans I have known, including one Berliner, have no
knowledge of it and suggest it was Berlin Yiddish.  Anyone know this??

Harold L. Orbach

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Apr 28 18:35:57 1994
From: BLALPERS%PUCC.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Subject: The Light Ahead, history, and ideology

I was a bit troubled by Michael Steinlauf's comments on the ideological
background of The Light Ahead (Mendele 3.335).  I can easily see how the
film was a product of the "Morgn Frayhayt" left; I think, however, that
little is gained by calling these people "ideologically crazed" as
Michael does.  When looking at any historical document, including a
Yiddish film from the 1930s, we must be careful to treat history's
"losers" (assuming that they are not engaged in morally evil activity,
e.g. Nazis) with respect.

The ironies of The Light Ahead are clear:  the next six years would bring
the virtual destruction of European Jewry and of Yiddish culture in
Europe.  But, while the writing on the wall may have been more clear to
others than the "Morgn Frayhayt" crowd, we must remember that even at so
late a date as 1939, the Holocaust was not inevitable (I'm thinking of
two things here:  1) the actual plans for the so-called final solution
had not yet been made by the Nazis and 2) the US and other countries
could have done much more to save at least some of the six million).

Indeed, I found Michael's post itself ironic for two reasons.  He has fun
with the idea that the same crowd that was responsible for The Light
Ahead was still rallying for Birobidzhan in '39. It so happened that, in
the same Mendele post in which Michael's note appeared, David Krumm wrote
from Birobidzhan requesting help in keeping Yiddish alive there.  The
dreams that many once held for Birobidzhan are indeed dead today (indeed
it does seem silly with hindsight that anyone ever had them).  But the
echoes of that dream live on in Birobidzhan.  Secondly, when I tell
people I study Yiddish, I often get a similarly condescending reaction:
why study that dead language, etc.  Yiddishists, of all people, should
respect the many aspects of the Jewish past, both apparent "winners" and
apparent "losers."

-- Ben Alpers

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Apr 28 19:56:27 1994
From: 74031.775@CompuServe.COM
Subject: Kortn Terminen

Ikh hob ongeheybn tsu lernen shpiln kortn mit mayn zeks-yeriker tokhter -
kasino un romi.  Di nemen far di fir mastn kenen mir - lekekh, shpog, pik
un harts - ober es felt unz vi me ruft gevise kortn.  Lemoshl, vi volt
men gezogt "ace of spades"?  Stutchkoff tsitirt "tuyz pik"  unter
azartshpil.  Volt men gekent zogn "pik melekh", oder zogt men "melekh
pik"?  Af di kortn fun numern, lemoshl "two of diamonds", volt men gezogt
"lekekh tsveytl" oder "lekekh tsvey", oder beyder?

A dank faruys tsu di kortnshpilers tsvish unz.

Odem Vaytman

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Apr 28 21:21:19 1994
From: jrosof@sas.upenn.edu
Subject: Western Yiddish

As a descendent of Jews from Southwestern Germany and Southwestern
Hungary, I am fascinated by Western Yiddish.  With the exception of a few
scattered words, I have no sense of the language, or of the general
impression which it conveys to the ear.  I know it is virtually 100%
extinct, but is it altogether gone?  Are there surviving fluent speakers?
How does the vowel scheme of Western Yiddish compare with eastern
Yiddish?  To what extent is Western Yiddish homogeneous within its own
area?  To what extent is the language colored by local German influences?
What is the extent of Eastern Yiddish (Slavic) lexical borrowings?  Does
Alsation Yiddish have more in common with Bassarabian Yiddish than with
Alsatian German dialect?

 Does a perfect exist: ass (ate) verses hat gegessen (has eaten)?

Is western Yiddish an ideological creation as a designation?  Ie. Eastern
Yiddish has attained independent status as a language.  Since the
language of the Ashkenazim may be viewed as an east-west continuum, it
would make sense to include Western Yiddish in the Yiddish family.  To
fail to do so would be deny a cardinal belief of Yiddishism, namely that
Yiddish existed in the west as a separate language prior to emigration
eastward.  But is this position linguistically tenable?  Would Western
Yiddish ever have been identified as a separate language in
contradistinction to coterritorial German had not Eastern Yiddish
achieved linguists' recognition as a language of a literary culture?

Having no true experience with spoken Western Yiddish to speak of, I will
refrain from guessing at the answers to my own questions.  It seems to me
though, that Western Yiddish is an excellent case in point in
establishing the subjectivity of language boundaries.  I look forward to
hearing from the western Yiddish experts and I remain very curious as to
the actual sound of the language.  Where is it possible to hear it?

Mole shayles ober zukhndik tshuves,

Yude Rozof

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri Apr 29 00:09:20 1994
From: weiserki@minerva.cis.yale.edu
Subject: The Literature of Sholem Asch

I am an undergrad assisting in the cataloguing of Yale's Sholem Asch
manuscript collection and have a few minor questions with  which I'm sure
Mendele subscribers could help me.

Firstly, how would one transliterate the Yiddish title of the "The
Nazarene": der man fun Notseres, Netseres, Natseres, or otherwise? (I've
seen all of these transliterations).

Secondly, does anyone know of an Asch tale called something like "a sheyn
gedekter tish?"  This is how the story was transliterated in the
collection more than 40 years ago, but it looks to me more like the
manuscript reads "a shoen gekredentstn tish."

Hopefully, I will be able to get hold of a Yiddish bibliography of Asch's
work but I would appreciate any aid, nonetheless.

A shaynem dank,

Kalmen Weiser

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Apr 26 21:44:36 1994
From: bosno@aol.com
Subject: Introduction

Yiddish was my first language.  I learned English together with my
immigrant parents, who were liberated from Auschwitz eight years before I
was born.  I forgot Yiddish sufficiently so that by the time I went to
Stanford, I could take an introductory course that emphasized that" Yidn
voinen oyf alle continentin."  I have recently forgotten Yiddish again
and have had the distinction of being told by the head YIVO librarian
that my Yiddish grammar is "shreklech."

Joseph Ramek

______________________________________________________
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