Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.034 June 21, 1994 1) Introduction (Leybl Botvinik) 2) Introduction; shlimazl (John Baskind) 3) Schlemiel, Schlamassel (Mark Devlin) 4) Shlimazl (Howard Gershen) 5) Family name ARLOOK (Yale J. Reisner) 6) Harshav on Chagall and Yiddish (Harold M. Orbach) 7) Untershid, khilekh, vos iz di nafke-mine? (Khayem Bochner) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Jun 20 23:56:22 1994 From: leybl@telecomm.tadiran.co.il Subject: Introduction Sholem Aleykhem, Ikh bin Leybl Botvinik ... Born in 1959, Montreal Canada. My father, David born and brought up in Polish pre-war Vilno was (and still is) my major influence in my love for Yiddish. He is a musician, and Yiddish and Hebrew music were my first introduction to my Jewishness; Classical music, to my secularity. I might say, Music is my first language. Italian is my second language (my mother is from ROME) and Yiddish my third language (the food is great ...). I graduated the Jewish day school system in Montreal, learning English and French, Yiddish and Hebrew daily, from Kindergarden through grade 11. My father had always taught us kids (My older sister Rivl, and my two younger brothers Sender and Yankl) that it is not enough to speak Yiddish with/to the older generation, but more importantly amongst ourselves. This is an important lesson. Now we speak Yiddish freely with anyone younger or older, naturally, without being embarassed ... Thus, I naturally speak Yiddish to my three little Sabra-kids. I learned Yiddish at home, and in the "YIDDISHE PERETZ SHUL" which joined with the "YIDDISHE FOLKS SHUL" to form the "BIALIK MITL SHUL" (all day-schools). I started writing in Yiddish in my elementary school days, and continue to this day. I write primarily Science fiction, but also poetry and satire and about the Holocaust (my parents are survivors, making me and my children survivors too). I have published a Yiddish magazine for young and old: "DER NAYER DOR" (issue#1 1978, #2 1979, #3 1980, #4 1982); a science-fiction/mystery novel "DI GEHEIME SHLIHES" (1980) and various short stories and poems articles, essays etc. in many newspapers and journals around the world. I have produced a short 1.5 min. animated Yiddish film based on Leib Naidus's "A ZUN MIT A REGN". I produced and hosted several 15 min. TV programs on Cable TV in Montreal. I have acted with Dora Wasserman's Yiddish Theatre. After my elementary and high school education I went on to graduate Vanier College (Sciences) and Concordia University (Bach. Computer Sci) in Montreal. I am a computer software engineer specializing in CASE, Graphics, Knowledge Engineering, and dabble somewhat in Multimedia and Edu-tainment. I am presently living and married (plus three) and working in Israel since 1989. I am active in the DOR HAHEMSHEKH OHAVEI YIDDISH, and organize many activities in Netanya where I reside. The next program coming up is the annual Open-air Summer Festival of Yiddish songs on the 31st of July, 1994, in Netanya. I'm also trying to find financial sponsors and business investors for a Yiddish Pedagogical & Resource Centre. The main idea, is to gather and concentrate existing material, as well as to create new material for education & for cultural entertainment (music cassettes, videos, computer edu-tainment software, etc...) --- More in a seperate letter. I will be the Hemshekh Dor's Internet correspondent. Anyone with questions to the Hemshekh Dor Ohavei Yiddish can contact me. I will also be updating mendele subscribers about our activities. Zayt Gezunt un shtark. (--- We've got to do something about getting a Hebrew alphabet on Mendele ... does anyone know anything ?) Leybl Botwinik 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Jun 20 19:03:16 1994 From: jbaskind@panix.com Subject: Introduction; shlimazl Introduction first. I've been lurking for about a month, too shamed by the level of erudition here to reveal myself. But I finally have something to contribute, so here goes. I joined the list hoping to reestablish a dim connection to the language, and start learning more. I have, thank you all very much, and hope to continue doing so. My mother's first language was Yiddish, and I had the additional advantage of growing up, Yiddishly speaking, in South Africa, long ago enough that many of the "alters" were still around. The South African language, Afrikaans, is quite similar to Litvish Yiddish, grammatically, in vocabulary, and in pronunciation, and as I grew up speaking Afrikaans, this worked out well for me. On the Schlimazl discussion: My Hebrew's a lot better than my Yiddish, but surely this is purely Hebrew -> Yiddish, with no German at all. "Sh' lo mazel" means, Hebrew->English grammatical convolutions aside, "that one has no luck". Meyshe-Yankl Sweet talks about Yiddish in Dutch. I've heard, in Amsterdam street slang "Ek geeft jou een *klep in ponim*", and other more scatological expressions. I found this one especially interesting because it keeps the Yiddish grammar intact. John Baskind 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Jun 20 14:43:59 1994 From: mdevlin@acs.bu.edu Subject: Schlemiel, Schlamassel Well, here I am on vacation, having left my _Joy of Yiddish_ on the shelf at home under the mistaken impression I wouldn't need it.... And now Yitzhak asks me to show that G got the two words in question from Y and not vice-versa. I must admit, Yitzhak, you've stumped me. I haven't got any suitable reference materials with me. I seem to remember, however, reading in a German book, published by dtv and called something like "dtv Atlas der deutschen Sprache" (a historical and geographic survey of German and other western germanic languages), both "Schlemiel" and "Schlamassel" cited as examples of Y>G. That's not to say, of course, that both words aren't of germanic (as opposed to semitic, slavic, romance etc) origin; merely that, according to the dtv Sprachatlas, modern German borrowed them from Yiddish. -- Mark Devlin 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Jun 20 16:56:02 1994 From: howard@boxhill.com Subject: Shlimazl I'm not a linguist, but my limited knowledge of German (High School and College) leads me to wonder if "Shlimazl" (or "Schlemazel") might be a contraction. "Schlecht" is a common enough German word, while it's been pointed out often in this thread that "mazel" is definitely of Hebrew origin. So, "schlemazel" would literally be "Bad luck." Does German have contractions? I've forgotten. Also, is the word order (adjective-noun) correct for either Hebrew or German? If this theory has any validity, can "schlemiel" be parsed in a similar way? Howard Gershen 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 21 05:25:34 1994 From: REISNER%PLEARN.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Family name ARLOOK I don't recall who asked about the family name Arlook, suggesting a rather crude Germanic source etymology. FYI, Alexander Beider's Dictionary of Jewish Surnames From the Russian Empire (pp. 108-109) suggests that the name is a derivative of Aaron: Aron>Arele>Arlyuk with a Slavic diminutive suffix like that in, le-havdil, Demjanjuk. He notes that it was particularly common in the gubernias of Vilna, Slonim, Grodno, and Oshmyany. Thus, if your Arlooks are of Slavic territorial origins, you needn't live with the unpleasant German etymological possibilities.... Yale J. Reisner 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 21 09:35:05 1994 From: HLORBACH@KSUVM Subject: Harshav on Chagall and Yiddish Mendelniks may be interested in Benjamin Harshav's "The Role of Language in Modern Art: On Texts and Subtexts in Chagall's Paintings," in the new journal MODERNISM/modernity, v.1, no.2 (1994), pp.51-87. With 19 illustrations, Harshav discusses the origin of many of Chagall's most distinctive images in Yiddish idioms (e.g., er geyt iber di hayzer, a ku is gefloygn ibern dakh) as well as his use of Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian texts and letters in Hebrew and Cyrillic in his paintings. Harold L. Orbach 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jun 21 12:06:48 1994 From: bochner@das.harvard.edu Subject: untershid, khilekh, vos iz di nafke-mine? Arre Komar shraybt: > Ober tayere khaver Mikhl Herzog, vos far a Yiddishe vort iz khilek? Ven > men meynt untershied farvos zogt men nisht untershied? :-) Mikhl hot shoyn geentfert, nor ikh vil tsugebn: Untershid (oder untersheyd) iz a gut yidish vort. Khilek iz oykh a gut yidish vort. Beyde hob ikh gehert in der heym. Un az me fregt: "Vos toyg undz tsvey verter?", iz der terets "Far vos nor tsvey? Far vos nisht keyn dray, fir, oder mer?" Mir hobn i shtul, i benkl. Mir hobn i dil, i podlege. I stelye i sufit. Un dos iz nokh gornisht. Vos vet ir zogn tsu oreman, un kaptsn, un evyen? Un nokh beser: i nar, i tam, i tipesh, i shoyte, i yold, i lekish. Un nokh, un nokh. A raykhe shprakh, keyn ayin hore. Un keyn beyz oyg oykh nisht ;-) Ober tsurikgeshmuest: a tam iz nisht punkt dos vos a nar. Un efsher iz a "khilek" nisht punkt dos vos an "untershid"? Vos vet zogn der oylem? Khayem ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.034 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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