Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 5.016
May 29, 1995

1) You call that qvetshing? (Zellig Bach)
2) More translation queries (Joseph Sherman)
3) Who-is-who update (Anno Siegel)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 22:50:09 -0400
From: zellig@aol.com
Subject: You call that qvetshing?

Patty Becker, my friend and member of the Mendele khavruse, was very kind
to send me a copy of the comment that Barbara Everitt Bryant, former
director of the 1990 Census, made in her recent book _Moving Power and
Money:  The Politics of Census Taking_.

Ms. Bryant's comment referred to the Yiddish translation of the 1990
Census Questionnaire.   This translation, she wrote, "triggered
_kvelling_ and _kvetshing_ for its grammatical lapses and fractured
vocabulary."

I never heard of any supposed "kvelling" about this scandalous
translation, and cannot by any stretch of the imagination think of anyone
"kvelling" about it.

Whoever undertook this translating task had more gall, nerve, and khutspe
than the required rudimentary knowledge of Yiddish.

And as to "kvetshn," I most sincerely believe that this term is totally
misapplied to any serious critique of this translation.

Maybe the two "QV" verbs ware simply paired together for the effect of
their alliteration.

"Kvetshn" is chronic complaining, without rhyme or reason.  But with
reference to this blatant pretense of a Yiddish translation there was an
overabundance of reasons to complain about.

My professional criticism of this unfortunate translation was published
in several magazines, among them the language quarterly _Verbatim_ (Vol.
XVII, No. 2), and the _Congress Monthly_ (Vol. 59, No.1), with the title
of the paper on the front cover.  (This monthly is published by the
American Jewish Congress.)

In my paper I outlined the multiple gross errors in the translation --
errors in grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc., etc.  (I cited,
for example, among many other points, that the first paragraph of the
translation, one single line, contained four errors, the second
paragraph, nine errors, the third paragraph, 17 errors, the fourth
paragraph, 19 errors.)

The misguided translator even "enriched" the alefbeys with a new letter:
To transcribe the word "zip,' as in zip code, he used the lange fey (word
final f) with an added dot in it, thus "creating" a lange pey (a
non-existing word final p)...

I likened the entire translation to the play of a child who, having found
several pages of a Yiddish book, cut them whimsically up with his plastic
scissors into tiny pieces of various shapes and sizes, and then randomly
pasted them together, for the innocent fun of it...

But there can be no playing around with the translation of a Census
questionnaire into a foreign language because it is specifically designed
to assist citizens not yet fully versed in English in the performance of
their civic duty.  A botched up translation, as the one in Yiddish turned
out, was more liable to have the opposite effect by obfuscating the
meaning of even simple questions, and thus confuse and discourage anyone
attempting to follow the translated guide.

I considered my critique highly justified in all respects, and my
analysis of the Yiddish translation as a very serious diagnosis to such a
degree that I urged the official in charge of foreign-language
translations at the Census Bureau to contact Mr. Sol Steinmetz for a
_"second_ opinion."

Mr. Steinmetz is a well-known lexicographer, author of the book *Yiddish
and English:  A Century of Yiddish in America,* and of the extensive
study "The Labeling of Yiddish- and Hebrew-Origin Lexims in Several
English Dictionaries" (Jewish Language Review, Vol. 2, l982).  He is also
Executive Director of Random House Dictionaries.

Mr. Steinmetz was indeed contacted by the Census Bureau, and he described
it in _Verbatim_ (Vol. XVII, No. 4) as follows:

"... I received a call from an official of the Census Bureau, asking me
whether I concurred with Dr. Bach's negative comments on the Yiddish
Guide [Questionnaire].  Having seen the (translated) Guide, I replied
that I indeed agreed fully with Dr. Bach's assessment.  I explained that
the Yiddish Guide was riddled with atrocious spelling, syntactic, and
semantic errors.  Though printed in the traditional Yiddish/Hebrew
alphabet, most of the words were misspelled, as though the writer
[translator] had never seen a Yiddish dictionary:  the syntax was garbled
almost beyond recognition, and the lexical content made little sense."

The total affair was to me not just a question of correct and proper
Yiddish, but bore also a negative socio-economic factor since, as a
result of the useless and incompetent translation, thousands upon
thousands of elderly Yiddish-speakers remained uncounted, and thus "fell
between the cracks," so to speak, in the official count, with an eventual
loss of economic entitlements and support.

Zellig Bach
Lakehurst, NJ

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 07:18:05 GMT + 2:00
From: 071JOS@muse.arts.wits.ac.za
Subject: More translation queries

My grateful thanks to all those who took the trouble to answer my last
translation queries so fully and generously. My warm appreciation also to
the shames for permitting them.

I take advantage of all your kindness to ask for translations of the
following words and phrases which are totally unavailable to me:

1. What is a "shviti" (shin, tsvey vovn, yud, tes, yud). From the context
  I have, it is an item of furniture found in a besmedresh. It is given
  in this context in quote marks, so must evidently be a colloquialism.

2. In derogating the Hasidim of Williamsburg, a speaker in my context
  speaks of Williamsburg "lapatsanes". Evidently a word of contempt. What
  does it mean?

3. What are "geshmoynene heldishkaytn"?

4. The meaning of the following sentence, please: "dos vayb hot gehat
  ergetz a pasmen OR pasten" (the typeface is broken so I can't be sure:
  either way, the word is in no dictionary of mine)

5. What are the following, please: (a) halb-farhorente negl (b)
  shtilveletn mit nute/note (evidently footwear worn in Eastern Europe,
  not available in America, but exactly what kind?)

I apologise for taking up so much time and space, but since everyone was
so willing to help, I take advantage again -- and will again, and again,
as long as your patience holds up.

Vareme grusn tsu ale.

Joseph Sherman

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 May 95 09:10:27 +0200
From: anno4000@w172zrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de
Subject: Who-is-who update

The latest version was created on May 26 1995 and is current up to Vol.
5.013, containing those contributions to Mendele that were marked as
"Introduction".  Please send comments, complaints, suggestions or
corrections to: (siegel@zrz.TU-Berlin.DE)

Anno Siegel

[The file is named who-is-who and is stored in the directory
pub/mendele/files.  See below for more information on anonymous ftp to
the Mendele archive. nm]

______________________________________________________
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