Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.045 July 1, 1994 1) Klezmer for the pure joy of it (Jay Brodbar) 2) Majn erschter briw in jiddisch (Peter Kluehs) 3) E. Stankiewicz's comments on Philologos (Dan Leeson) 4) Translation (Jascha Kessler) 5) Yiddish and German (S. Shapiro) 6) Americanization (Hirsh Schipper) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 30 16:23:20 1994 From: brodbar@epas.utoronto.ca Subject: klezmer for the pure joy of it I recently was contacted by a reporter from Canadian Press who is doing a story on klezmer music. She is interested in knowing about persons/groups that get together and make music for the pure joy of it (vs professional performers). She is particularly interested in hearing about this in Canada. Her name is Diane Menzies and she can be contacted at (416) 364 0321 ext 378 or 36 King St East Toronto Ontario M5C 2L9. Jay Brodbar 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 30 16:46:40 1994 From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de Subject: majn erschter briw in jiddisch Tajere mendelniks, ch'hob a bissl mojre schrajbn dosigen briw in jiddisch, ober ich dacht sich, schpring arajn in kaltem wasser arajn un wet sich bawejsn zi ss'is zu tif. As ir set, ich schrajb asoj modne as ich hob gelernt in di ssforim fun Salcia Landmann "JIDDISCH Das Abenteuer einer Sprache" un Abraham Sutzkever "Griner Akwarium". Ot a majssele fun S.L.: Zwej jidn bagegenen sich in mark. Sogt ejner: "Konsst mir opgebn masl-tow. 'ch hob farknasst di tochter." "Sol sajn in a guter scho! Wer is der ejdem dajner?" "A dichter." "Woss hejsst epess - a dichter?" "Nu - a mentsch, woss schrajbt lider, gramen..." "Woss hejsst doss: gramen?" "Ot, lemoschel er schrajbt: Ess schtejt a ferd Un macht oif dr'erd..." "Un fun dem lebt er?!" Derf ich aich onmutn asa ortografie oder hobt ir liber as ich lern schrajbn as ir schrajbt in der YIVO ortografie? mit simche derwart ich woss ir wert mir entfern Peter Kluehs 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 14:38:08 -0700 From: leeson@cedar.fhda.edu Subject: E. Stankiewicz's comments on Philologos Permit me to add my comments to those of Edward Stankiewicz concerning Philologos. Stankiewicz offers concern about Philologos "growing lack of responsibility towards his readers and about his subjects." In this case the matter deals with Philologos' presentation of a theory about the origin of the word "kurve." I add to Sankiewicz's concerns my own and my comments have to do with journalistic responsibility also. More than a year ago, The Forward printed an article on the front page with a large heading that contained the word "JEWESS." That is to say, The Forward was using the word as if it were an accepted part of the English language, forgetting completely how pejorative it is and ignoring the fact that it was a medieval anti-semitic word that has no place in contemporary usage. It reminds one of Ivanhoe when the text spoke of "Rebecca the Jewess." It makes one shudder to hear it. I tried to think of a way to respond politely to this slap in the face, and then it dawned on me that I had the perfect way to do it. I would write to Philologos and ask him to comment on the use of that ugly word, and in the Forward no less. And that is what I did. Mind you, Philologos was not the party that used the word. I simply wanted to use him to publish on the inappropriateness of its use in the very paper that used it! I suggested that he contrast the use of the word Jewess with that of Catholicess, or Protestentess, or even Baptistess. It might even be able to be handled with style making light of an ugly situation. He could comment that Christian or Moslem women do not, in English, have a special form for women. So why should Jewish women have such a special form. I looked earnestly at Philologos' column each week for issue after issue. He appeared to ignore the entire matter. I could not figure out how it was possible for him to ignore a linguistic issue that was, simultaneously, an anti semitic slur. But he seemed to do so. Under the possibility that he might not have seen my first letter, I wrote him a second imploring him to address the issue. As far as I know he never did, and I looked for months. I can only conclude that he did not wish to offend his employer by being critical of their ignorance in the use of that word. But in doing so, I stopped reading the column. If he was unwilling to take on that issue head first, of what value were his clever ripostes to matters such as the origin of the word "kurve"? Apparently he did not see the matter as one of "Physician, heal thyself." I, like Stankiewicz, considered his action one of journalistic irresponsibility. Dan Leeson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 94 15:39 PDT From: IME9JFK@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU Subject: Translation Re Translation and Adaptation. Robert Werman is very cogent, but I think he has introduced yet another little problem, for all his clear remarks. I have been responsible for a good number of books of poetry and fiction translation, all collaborative work, from the Hungarian, the Persian, the Bulgarian, the Serbo-Croatian, and several have been national prizewinning volumes, with good cash, too. Mendele has my biography, so I dont offer titles. I have also given many papers on the subject and published them. Anyone who has ever been a member of ALTA, American Literary Translators Assoc.,and attended their congresses, will know how many hundreds of papers have been devoted to arguments ont he subject, which always come down the vexations Werman cites. (I will also observe that I seldom translate from languages I have studied, French or German, or Italian , but always from exotic tongues, meaning languages I have not got.) HIgh risk on the highwire, indeed. But...I do not make adaptations. I make translations out of paraphrase, and then transform these into metaphrase, or translation. People look for the original adjectives and adverbs in comparing texts. That is nonsense. The problems of bad translation versus good ones almost always arise from the lack of professional practice as poet, or fictionwriter or even essayist in the language one is making into a translation of a foreign text. One has to be, I always say, a practitioner in one's own language. I hate to say it but I dont mind offending: most professors and scholars are incompetent writers of their own language, and most have no experience in making poetry or fiction, and even less in clear exposition. Even less talent for reading and construing texts or ideas. I speak as an academician of sorts, PhUD and all that for 44 years, 2/3rd a lifetime. I once heard a Rumanian writer/professor give a simply impatient talk about translation, in Belgrade. He made a good remark, which I am reminded of because he may have found it in Benjamin. He said, Translation is impossible. But, it can be done, because what's translated are "logemes." Not phonemes, not idiom, not metaphor, not image. A logeme is a unit of thought, as it were, contained in each word, of course. How is it said in one's own language. Flavors do not travel. I pointed out in one of my many tedious discourses on the subject that a rabbit is a word denoting a certain rodent. But the rabbit in W. African folktale is not the rabbit, not the jackrabbit in the Americas. Nightingales do not travel at all, as they are nonexistent in this hemisphere. A rose in Persia is not a rose in Scotland and not a rose in Virginia, nor in Dante, nor in Rosicrucianism, nor in Marioltry, etc. The thing itself is not the thing itself elsewhere. A rattlesnake is not a cobra. A snake is a snake is a snake? Only in the blank worldview of a dull writer like Gertrude Stein, and I think she is very boring indeed, mostly, 95% so. That is off the issue,however. But, adaptations are usually very bad versions. Robert Lowell wrote terrible things he called imitations, out of respect for his originals. Pound wrote adaptations perhaps, such as his Sextus Propertius poems, and called them translations. Adaptation is usually a way of avoiding responsibility for accuracy or faithfulness to the logeme. But, everything is said differently elsewhere, and nothing is the same. I have often been very bored by the translations Singer permitted in English in his name. His collaborators had tin ears. I always winced at the New Yorker stories. But, gelt is gelt. He shrugged: he had written it already once, and that was it. No, to repeat, pace Werman, A translation is more or less a good thing in its new language; it is not excused, if bad, by being called adaptation. that is Rats alley, where the dead men lost their poems, to paraphrase (is it?) Eliot. Jascha Kessler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 08:22:19 +0100 (MET) From: toukie@zui.unizh.ch Subject: Yiddish and German It would appear that the UNIX/VAX counterpart to Malakh ha-Moyves has done in my original submission to Mendele, hence this reposting. After reading a couple of opinions on the linguistic interactions be- tween Yiddish and German speakers, I have decided to interject my two Rappen's worth (SFr. .02). I have a passing familiarity with spoken Yiddish, acquired during my childhood; my Swiss wife, both of whose parents are Swiss Jews and whose native language is schwyzertuetsch, claims not to be able to understand a word of Yiddish. We usually attend one of the Lubavitcher shuls in Zuerich, where the rabbi (from Brooklyn) delivers his droscha in a mixture of English and Yiddish. My wife (and her parents, on the few occasions they frequent a Lubavitcher shul) say that they are TOTALLY unable to decipher the Yiddish content. In fact, even when I show my wife Yiddish transliterated into Latin characters (as in some Mendele postings), she looks at it for a few seconds and tosses it back at me with a comment that it is indecipherable, even when the resemblance between it and Schriftdeutsch is unmistakable. This leads me to suspect that there may be a strong psychological component vis-a'-vis native German speakers who claim a total inability to understand Yiddish, even when the latter is spoken clearly and slowly. Restricting my comments now to Jews, I suggest that many (this being, nowadays, a relative term) German-speaking "Westernised" Jews regard themselves as culturally superior to Yiddish-speaking "Ostjuden" and, embarassed by the "unenlightened ways" and historic fate of the latter, (unconsciously?) turn a deaf ear to Yiddish, whilst rationalising this behaviour with the excuse that Yiddish is simply a foreign language with which they are ipso facto unfamiliar. I would be interested in any thoughts that fellow Mendelniks may have regarding this speculation. S. Shapiro 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 94 22:13:03 EDT From: BHKK@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA Subject: Re: Americanization The incident of Americanization of immigrant family names that I like and is true, occurred to my wife's great-grand uncle. His family name was something like Kunniminskaya, The immigration officer had some difficulty in writing it, and told him that Cohen would be more functional. He adopted and gave that name to his children who did the same unto now great grand-children. When the male descendents visit other synagogues, they are regularly offered the first aliyah, or to dichen. They respond with a thank-you, and an explication. Hirsh Schipper [Unless there is some specific Yiddish slant in the matter of family names, no further posts along these lines will be used. nm] ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.045 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. 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