Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.244 December 21, 1994 1) Introduction (Ian W. Wilson) 2) Leo Fuld's language (Marion Aptroot) 3) Bargoens (Jeff Zucker) 4) Daytshmerish (Charles Jones) 5) No mere Coincidence (Michael Shimshoni) 6) Otwock and Bereza (Kathryn Hellerstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 11:29:23 -0500 (EST) From: iww4028@email.unc.edu Subject: Introduction I am a first-year grad. student in the Curriculum of Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The main language that I work in is German, so an interest in all things Yiddish may seem appropriate. I also work in French and American Lit. I suppose that working in German lit., especially that of the early 20th century, has made me wonder about Yiddish; I hope that my lack of knowledge and desire to learn from this group will be welcomed by its members. I hope to find new opportunities through your group. Ian W. Wilson 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 19:39:09 -0500 (EST) From: aptroot@husc.harvard.edu Subject: Leo Fuld's language On Wed, 14 Dec 1994 (Vol. 4.235) Rick Gildemeister wrote: > There is a singer named Leo Fuld who has put out many records over the > years. I can't make out his dialect, because it shifts with every song, > and even within a song. He even uses German in some songs, and though he > sounds foreign-born, he sometimes articulates the "r" in the General > American way. I only heard a Leo Fuld recording once, and I had the impression that the inconsistencies in his dialect were caused by the fact that he took the pronunciation of the songs from different recordings and subsequently changed it. The accent, however, struck me as being pure Rotterdam. This is most obvious in the pronunciation of the _r_, but it is also clear in the quality of the vowels. The devoicing of final vowels (e.g., "vayp") of course fits into the pattern. Marion Aptroot 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Dec 94 09:23 EST From: zucker@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca Subject: Bargoens Here is a small list of Dutch words of Yiddish/Hebrew origin, compiled from personal recollection, with the assistance of a Dutch-English dictionary. I think all would be considered colloquialisms. Perhaps others more expert in this field, such as Marion Aptroot, could add to (or correct) this list, or provide some standard references. [Pronunciation: Dutch 'j' = Eng. 'y'. " 'g' = Yid. 'kh' " 'sj' = Eng. 'sh' " 'oe' = Eng. 'oo' ] bajes (= jail) < Heb. word for house gein (= fun) < Heb. word for grace lef (= courage, nerve) < Heb. word for heart mazzel (= luck) mesjogge (= crazy) smeris (= cop) < Heb. 'shmerus': watch, guard smoesje (= made-up story, fib) < Du. dimin. of 'shmues' tof (= fine [fellow]) < Heb. word for good Mokum (= Amsterdam) < Heb. word for place Medina (= the rest of the Netherlands) < Heb. word for state or province [The idea here, presumably, is that Amsterdam is the place to be, and everywhere else is, well, the provinces.] I have heard that the Dutch drinking formula 'Daar ga je' (= 'there you go') came about as an imitation of 'lekhaim'. Two notes: (1) This vocabulary is supposed to have come into Dutch via a thieves' cant, known as 'bargoens'. This origin is obvious at least in the cases of 'bajes' and 'smeris'. Whether it applies to all the words above, I don't know. (2) There has been some discussion on Mendele recently about the high proportion of loshn-koydesh (as compared to Germanic) Yiddish words in such vocabularies (100% in the above list). One explanation advanced concerns the importance of cryptic language for a criminal underground. I would like to suggest (tentatively) another possible explanation, at least in the case of Dutch: Yiddish words of Germanic origin would generally have to compete for acceptance (so to speak) with similar-sounding Dutch cognates, whereas words of Heb./Aram. origin would have no such competition, and might be more readily felt to fill a need. For example, 'mazl/mazzel' won out against 'glik' because (according to this theory) the latter had to compete against the Dutch 'geluk'. (Another explanation, in this case, could be the absence of a hard [g] in Dutch.) Jeff Zucker 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 17:22:09 -0500 (EST) From: jones@widener1.mhs.harvard.edu Subject: Daytshmerish Could somebody please give me some information about the term "daytshmerish"? I always hesitate when I pronounce it, probably because I don't know the etymology. The problem is the middle syllable. Is the "mer" completely unstressed, like the third syllable, and therefore pronounced with a schwa? Or does it have its own "secondary" stress, so that it sounds more like German "mehr"? I suppose if I knew where the "mer" came from, I'd be able to guess. Unfortunately, however, I don't know of any other Yiddish words that have it. Are there any? Charles Jones 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 94 12:45:15 +0200 From: mash@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il Subject: No mere Coincidence Zellig Bach from whom we have all learned so much now informs us: >Well, I am a member of Mendele and, as many of you know, a frequent >contributor. But, just between us, I also have an additional special >connection: Mendele Moykher Sforim's birthday and my birthday fall on >the same date. Nu, that explains it! Biz 120! Michael Shimshoni 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 04:40:31 -0500 (EST) From: khellers@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Otwock and Bereza A sheynem dank aykh-- Gaston Schmir, Bob Rothstein, MIchael Shimshoni, Michael Steinlauf, and several others who wrote me personally (and to whom I will thus reply) for locating Otwock and Bereza Kartuska, circa 1923 and today. Kathryn Hellerstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.244 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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 Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. 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