Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.027 June 19, 1995 1) Lobbes (Hershl Berman) 2) Yiddish in Halifax (Michael Falk) 3) The name Tevye (Dovis Braun) 4) Oyfn Pripetshik (Rick Turkel) 5) Oyfn Pripetshik and zshe (Morrie Feller) 6) Oyfn Pripetshik and Wexler (Arre Komar) 7) Syllabus for Yiddish literature in translation (Daniella HarPaz) 8) A sakh (Zev bar-Lev) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 17:22:35 -0400 (EDT) From: berman@phobos.senecac.on.ca Subject: lobbes In response to Mr. Mullish: The term lobbes is indeed used in North America. My grandfather used to claim when I was young that there was one running around inside me, although 20 years laterhe thinks it may be gone. Of course we live in Canada, so it could be a commonwealth thing. Of course, he is from Poland, so I suspect that it is a common enough term. I'm surprised no one in New York knows it... Hershl Berman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 95 20:58:00 EDT From: falkm@imb.lan.nrc.ca Subject: Yes, there is Yiddish in Halifax! Jonathan Dembling asked (Mendele 5.026) about Yiddish activity in Halifax. I am pleased to answer that there is indeed an active Yiddish club here, meeting weekly from September to June. The current secretary is my wife, Lilian Falk (who, incidentally, recently took early retirement from the English Department at Saint Mary's University largely to be able to pursue her special interests, one of them being Yiddish). Several club members are from the Sydney-Glace Bay area, so that further contacts should be easy to establish. For more information, either of us can be reached by e-mail and also by phone at 902-422-5173. Mit hartsike grisn, Michael Falk Halifax, Nova Scotia 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 00:24:24 EDT From: dovid@MIT.EDU Subject: toyvye, tuvye, tevye, teve, tevl, tevke With regard to the Tevye issue, all of the above are Yiddish names. _Tevye_ is spelled tes-veys-yud-hey, possibly because of a folk etymology relating it to the name written tes-vov-veys-yud hey (and pronounced [tuvye] and [toyvye]. Mordkhe Schaechter has hypothesized (I don't remember the written source -- for that matter, I'm not even sure whether it's written) that _tevye_ in fact has nothing to do with the other two forms. Instead, he suggests that it is a diminutive form of the Yiddish name _dovid_. "The diminutive of _dovid_?!" you might ask. "Meshuge mayne sonim?!" Well, here's the story: we know that in Western Yiddish voicing of stops in certain positions lost contrastiveness -- in non-linguists' terms that are relevant to this case: the sounds [t] and [d] sounded the same at the beginning of words, so that _tank_ and _dank_ are indistinguish- able (probably pronounced [tank]). Thus, /dovid/ is rendered as [tovid]. Diminutives in this dialect are generally *not* with [l] as in the Yiddish most of us are familiar with (e.g. tish ~ tishl ~ tishele) but with [Cye] where, by the symbol "C", I mean the German ich-Laut (the sound which corresponds to the letters "ch" in the German word _ich_ -- as opposed to the sound in Yiddish, which we transcribe as "kh" in _ikh_). For those dialects, it's [tishCye]. (This diminutive form made it into some of Eastern Yiddish as well, e.g. the Be,dzin area of Poland -- see Max Wein- reich's _History of the Yiddish Language_ for details.) The [o] in _dovid_ underwent a vowel alternation that is typical in Yiddish diminutiv- ization and pluralization, namely [o] --> [e], as in kop ~ kep ~kepl top ~ tep ~ tepl tokhes ~ tekheser ~ tekhesl Put 'em all together and you've got _dovid + Cye_ --> [tevCye]. For most of eastern Yiddish, the sound [C] is unavailable and it drops out, so [tevCye] --> [tevye]. Voila`! Anyway, such is the hypothesis. It would be interesting to find out (and if you know yourself, or have a reliable traditional khazn, for instance, please ask and then let us know): What is the _ufruf-nomen_ (the name by which someone is called to the _toyre_ for an _alie_ 'aliyah') of someone named _tevye_? "Yaymoyd tevyo/tuvyo/toyvyo/ dovid ben X"???? I think that in Modern Hebrew, Sholem-Aleykhem's _tevye_ became _tuvya_ based on the belief that _tevye_ is a related (but "mangled") form of the Biblical name tes-vov-veys-yud-hey. Under the assumption that _tevye_ is a Biblical name, it was further assumpted that this must be the Hebrew name with the vov and the name with the vov, furthermore, must be pronounced [tuvya'] in Hebrew. Shtelt zikh a kashe: why [tuvya'] and not [tovya']? The answer may be: of the two names, at least one -- the former -- is/was widely familiar to the Eastern European Jews who initiated Modern Hebrew, i.e. from the Yiddish name _tuvye_. I don't know how widespread the name _toyvye_ is/was, but I personally have never run across it. (Perhaps [toyvye] is specifically the name of the Biblical characters and of them only, whereas _tuvye_ and _tevye_ are/were contemporary personal names). So now here's yet another question for the readership and for your to ask your Yiddish-speaking acquaintances: do you know of any people by the name of _toyvye_? As for the way the Ukrainians refer to Tevye, viz. [tevel], I think this is no more than a Ukrainian pronunciation of the Yiddish [tevl], which, as noted above, is one of the forms of the name. (Why they should use a different form from that which Tevye calls himself is still puzzling to me, however.) Whether _tevye_ is related to _dovid_ or not, Sholem-Aleykhem nonetheless probably thought (or thought that his readers would think) that the name _tevye_ is indeed derived from the two Hebrew roots tes-(vov)-veys (meaning: 'good') and yud-hey (meaning: 'God'): no matter how God or the world messes with Tevye, Tevye's credo remains that "God is good". Dovid Braun 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jun 95 09:59:34 EDT From: rturkel@cas.org Subject: Oyfn Pripetshik Szalom-Lew Korbman asked in Mendele 5.026 about the words to _Oyfn Pripetshik_. I'm not sure I understand the nature of his first question. I've always taken it at face value - a fire burns in the fireplace and warms the room. I don't see it necessarily as anything sentimental, it's just an excuse for a rhyme with alef-beys. I doubt that it has anything to do with the Pripyat' River, where, I think, people might be more likely to say "hays" rather than "heys." As for "zhe," it's of Slavic origin. It's used as an emphatic particle in most of the Slavic languages in pretty much the same way as it is in Yiddish. zayt zhe gezunt un shtark. Rick Turkel 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 16:39:05 -0700 (MST) From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Pripitshek and zshe In response to Szalom-Lew Korbman's request (Vol.5.026), ten years ago when visiting Tsfat in Israel, we toured a synagogue, and the shamos who was taking us around pointed to a large, metal box. It was about 6' long, 2' wide, and 30" high. He said: "You have heard about a pripitshek? _This_ is a pripitshek!" Apparently a small fire was lit inside the box, and then the students would lie on top to keep warm. With respect to the word "zshe", in Mordkhe Schaechter's "Yiddish II", p.100, "zshe" is listed as a modal particle. It meaning, depending on context, is "so" or "then". I don't see why it has to be used only with a command. How about: "Vozshe vilstu ton?" - "What, then, do you want to do?", and the like? Morrie Feller Phoenix 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 15:09:30 -0400 (EDT) From: komar@yu1.yu.edu Subject: Pripetchik + Wexler I too often wondered about the association between Pripetchik and the Pripet marshes of Russia. I assumed that it referred to a village in that region. Is that in fact so? As to zhe, we have been through that on Mendele some time ago. It is an emphasizer of Slavic origen. Thus "gedenk kinderlakh" would gloss "remember children" while " gedenk zhe kinderlakh" would become " remember then children" or "remember now children." I want to raise a question of a deeper and perhaps more controversial sort for our Khokhonim. Despite the rather conspicuous and dominant relationship between Yiddish and German, i gather that a thesis was presented by Wexler that Yiddish is really a Slavic language which was "relexified" into German. Is there any merit to that point of view, or is it just narishkayt? Arre Komar 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 10:01:58 -0500 (EST) From: harpaz@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Subject: Syllabus for Yiddish literature in translation Khaveyrim, In onheyb funem letstn semester hob is gefregt etlekhe frages veygn lernen yidishe literatur af english (s'heyst ibergezetste). Etlekhe mentshn hobn geshikt briv tsu mayn perzenlekhn adres ful mit interesante eytses un derklerungen. A por fun zey hobn gebetn ikh zol zey shikn a "syllabus" nokhn semester. In mitn semester hob ikh gehat a komputer problem un a sakh "e-mail files" zaynen itst "nit mit undz". Oyb di vos hobn gevolt a syllabus veln nokh a mol shikn a brivl mit a bakoshe un an adres vel ikh in gikhstn shikn a kopiye. Friends, In the beginning of last semester I asked several questions about teaching Yiddish lit. in translation. Several people sent me letters at my personal e-mail address, full of interesting suggestions and comments. A few of these people requested that I send them a syllabus after the semester. In the middle of the semester I had a computer problem and many e-mail files are off in never-never-land. If anyone is still interested I am happy to send them a copy if they would only send a request to my e-mail address, including their snail-mail address (regular postal address). zayt ir ale gezunt, Daniella HarPaz 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 10:55:22 -0700 From: zbarlev@mail.sdsu.edu (Zev bar-Lev) Subject: a sakh sakh is hebrew for "sum", esp. as in sakh ha-kol "sum of all -- sum total". zev bar-Lev ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.027 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu ****Getting back issues**** 1. 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