Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.313 February 5, 1995 1) Hebrew Gender/Yiddish Gender (Paul Pascal) 2) The report too late (Shulamith Berger) 3) Mentsh (Martin Davis) 4) Syntax question (wh-infinitives) (Rick Turkel) 5) Mendele who-is-who (Anno Siegel) 6) A tchaynik hakn (Jack Feldman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Jan 95 18:25:49 EST From: 75332.2735@compuserve.com Subject: Hebrew Gender/Yiddish Gender Further to the thread on the gender of 'emes', here are a couple more that have puzzled me: Hebrew plural / Yiddish plural shabatot / shabosim talitot / taleysim Tangentially, why is it that the plural of 'doktor' should be 'doktoyrim'? Is it because the word connotes a higher education, as knowledge of Hebrew does? I can't think of a less convoluted explanation. Paul Pascal Toronto 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 09:34:24 -0500 (EST) From: sberger@yu1.yu.edu Subject: The retort too late More, although certainly not the final word, on "the retort too late." In Saul Bellow's novel Herzog, the main character states: ". . . in the Yiddish of his long-dead mother, trepverter - words that came too late, when you were already on your way down the stairs." Shulamith Berger 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 21:12:22 EST From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu Subject: Mentsh Louis Fridhandler writes concerning the word "mentsh": > (Only Yiddish has such a word.) The word "Mentsch" in German has much the same meaning. When a priest in Mozart's "Magic Flute" says of Tamino: "Er ist ein Prinz," Zarastro replies: "Mehr, er ist ein Mensch." Martin Davis 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 23:47:24 EST From: rturkel@cas.org Subject: Syntax question (wh-infinitives) Rex Sprouse (rsprouse@indiana.edu) asks (Vol 4.293, item 2) about the permissibility in Yiddish of constructions like: Ikh veys nit, vemen tsu fregn Derklert mir, vi tsu shpiln in dreydl Ikh freg zikh, vos tsu leyenen This sounds fine to me, but I'm not a native speaker. However, if song lyrics can be considered valid evidence of native-speaker intuition, I'd like to submit as an example the line from "Tumbalalaika" that reads: ... vemen tsu nemen, im nit farshemen. Rick Turkel 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 11:51:17 +0100 From: anno4000@w172zrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de Subject: Mendele who-is-who Dear Mendelniks, the who-is-who for Mendele, which has been available per ftp for a while, can now also be accessed via email. This way you don't have to fiddle with ftp. Also, you can selectively retrieve introductions from people you are interested in whithout having to download the whole file. Details on how to do this are included below. I apologize for another entirely technical posting. Anno Siegel Berlin, Germany ---------------------------------------------- Shtadlen is a service for mendele subscribers. To use it, you send email to shtadlen@w172zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE. A reply is automatically mailed back to you. There are currently two items you can request: - This help file (which may change over time) - Access to the Mendele who-is-who database You specify the service you want in the subject of your mail by saying either of request help request who-is-who If the subject doesn't begin with "request" (or "Re: request") your mail will be ignored. If you request help, a message body is not required, but doesn't hurt. However, it will probably never be seen by a human reader, since shtadlen handles mail automatically. If you request who-is-who, the message body may or may not be left blank. If it is empty, you will be sent a list of all the names for which an introductory article currently is available (a table of contents). Otherwise, each line should contain the full name of a Mendele subscriber. You will then receive the introductions (if available) for each of these. A name may optionally be preceded by a number and a closing paranthesis, which will be ignored. The names you get with the table of contens come in this format, and you can use them the way they come. Questions, suggestions etc. concerning this service should not be sent to shtadlen, but to siegel@zrz.TU-Berlin.DE instead. Suggestions on how to make this help file clearer and more readable are especially welcome. 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 11:42:37 -0800 From: feldman@math.berkeley.edu Subject: A tchaynik hakn Dana Keren has been kind enough to provide a question which even I can answer: "hak mir nisht ka (= kayn) tchaynik means - literallly - bang me no teakettle, aand is a way of telling someone to stop talking at me or nagging me about something. "vos hakstu mir a tchaynik?" Jack Feldman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.313 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. 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