Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 5.029
June 21, 1995

1) A sakh (H. Helfgott)
2) Pripetshik (Bob Rothstein)
3) Pripetshik (Paul Pascal)
4) Naches (Patty Becker)
5) Yiddish at the Census Bureau (Patty Becker)
6) Elsa (Howard Sage)
7) Gzeyres takh vetat (Mikhl Herzog)
8) Gzeyres takh vetat (Michael Shimshoni)
9) Wexler and the origins of Yiddish (Yisroel Feldman)
10) Library of Congress Folklife Center Endangered (Henry Sapoznik)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 15:04:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: st941807@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: A sakh

My personal hypothesis about "a sakh": it may be a derivative from Sache,
which means "thing" in German. Sache may have acquired the same meaning
as "a bunch" or "a lot", just like "eine Menge" in modern German.

H. Helfgott

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 16:58:48 -0400 (EDT)
From : rar@slavic.umass.edu
Subject: Pripetshik

To understand the line "Oyfn pripetshik brent a fayerl" you have to have
a mental image of a so-called "Russian oven," the ceramic or brick
structure that took up a large portion of the peasant dwelling. It served
for baking, cooking, heating, drying clothing, and also had "shelves" on
which one could sleep.  The wood fire burned deep inside the oven, and
there was a kind of "antechamber" in front of the fire- chamber, onto
which glowing coals or ashes could be raked.  There was often a hood and
an exhaust pipe over this space.  This "antechamber" or "fore-oven" was
called _shestok_ in Russian and _prypichok_ in Ukrainian.  It was
sometimes used for cooking:  a fire was lit on the _pripetshik_ and a
kettle placed over it on a tripod-like metal structure.

Translations of the song usually use the word "hearth," but a hearth is
part of an English- or American-style fireplace and not what Varshavski,
the author of the song, had in mind.  (Incidentally, I think the original
questioner may have misread "heart" for "hearth.")

Bob Rothstein

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 20 Jun 95 20:46:31 EDT
From: 75332.2735@compuserve.com
Subject: Pripetshik

I too have often wondered about the relationship between pripetshik and
the Pripet river.  Since this came up in recent Mendele postings, I
finally tried to pin it down.

It seems that the root of pripetshik is NOT the Pripet (I had
half-assumed this kind of fireplace/warming device was indigenous to or
invented in that region), but rather the Russian word _petsh_ or
_petshka_, meaning "stove".  Or going back one step, _petsh'_, meaning
"bake".  The particle "pri" is commonly affixed to Russian words to
indicate "near" or "attached to" (as in, for example, "pribaltiiskaya",
referring to the land region near or attached to the Baltic Sea).

So "pripetshik" literally would mean "the attachment to the stove". How
to translate that into a simple English word or two is challenging.

My mother has described having such a device in her childhood home in
Slutsk (just before and just after the Revolution), saying it was the
favorite place to lie or sit on during the winter months.  However, she
does not describe it as being made out of metal, like the one shown to
Michael Shimshoni by his guide in Tsfat.  Rather it was made of parged
brick or clay.

Paul Pascal
Toronto

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 95 20:12:46 EDT
From: patty_becker@mts.cc.wayne.edu
Subject: Naches

It was written in Mendele today that "naches" is untranslatable.  This is
not true, or I haven't been doing a good job of explaining what
verbalizing my pride in my 20 year old's accomplishments means.  I
understand the phrase "shep naches" to mean to take pride and joy from
the accomplishments of others, usually one's children.  Historically it
has conveyed the idea that the children have gone beyond the parents--
graduated from college, become doctors or lawyers, made lots of money,
have a nice house, etc. etc. These days the children are happy to achieve
as much as the parents have, but that doesn't keep the parents from
shepping naches at their achievements.

Patty Becker

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 95 20:14:46 EDT
From: patty_becker@mts.cc.wayne.edu
Subject: Yiddish at the Census Bureau

For Zellig Bach and others who are interested.  I saw Barbara Bryant
(former Census Bureau director) at a meeting last week. She said that the
Yiddish translation was a bad subcontract--they just got, admittedly, an
incompetent person to do the job.  Unfortunately for us, it happens.

Patty Becker

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 21:17:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: sage@is.nyu.edu
Subject: Elsa

Please excuse this unscholarly and very personal posting. My Yiddish is
long gone despite seven years of Folk Shule.

In reply to a genealogical request I made to Israelitische Kultusgemeinde
Wien in Vienna, I was told that the only name matching "Bessie," my
grandmother's name, was the German/Yiddish (?) "Elsa."

My question: could/would Elsa actually be translated as Bessie? The
answer to this question is one important factor in determining if the
person the organization matches with my grandmother was in fact her.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Howard Sage

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 95  21:39 EDT
From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu
Subject: Gzeyres takh vetat

Meyshe-Yaynkl:

Not "sheynis" but "shnas' (the construct form of _shono/shana_ 'year'.
_shnas takh_ of the famous _takh vetat_ the years of the Chmelnicki
pogroms, 1648-49.

By the so-called 'short count' on the Jewish calendar, we get

tov = 400
khes=   9
TOTAL 409

to which we add 1240 to arrive at the date on our own western calendar.
Depending on the month in the year t"kh, it can either be before
Rosheshone 1649 or after Rosheshone 1648.

PS: Did you ever pursue the matter of the noxious terms for
'butterfly'?

Mikhl Herzog

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 95 09:34:02 +0300
From: mash@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il
Subject: The writing of Hebrew dates

In Mendele Vol.  5.028 Meyshe-Yankl Sweet asks how  in Bashevis's Sotn in
Gorey,  one gets  from "Sheynis  [shin-nun-tav] t"kh  [tav"ches] in
Gorey." to the translated 1648 in Gorey.

For some reason it is claimed that tav ches is non standard for 1648.
Actually  it  follows the  usual  date  writing  in Hebrew,  when  the
thousands are omitted (the prat qatan  method).  Thus here we have the
year (5)408 which is indeed the year 1648 (starting in late 1647).  As a
well known example I will bring that our War of Independence is also
called the war  of tav shin"ches (pronounced tashakh),  and it differs
from the  above mentioned  date by  the extra  shin which  equals 300,
getting us from 1648 to 1948.

As 1648 was the time of  the Chmielnicki murderous pogroms, I remember
from  my school  days  that this  period was  referred  to as  "gzerot
takh-tat"  which in  Yiddish might  have  been written  as gzerez  tav
ches-tav tes.

Michael Shimshoni
Rehovot

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 23:16:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: wexfeld@delphi.com
Subject: Wexler and the origins of Yiddish

For those Mendelniks who are interested, Professor Paul Wexler's thesis
about the origins of Yiddish (and of Ashkenazic Jewry) is now fully
developed in a book.  It is called "The Ashkenazic Jews:  A Slavo-Turkic
People In Search Of A Jewish Identity."  It is published by Slavica
Publishers, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, and is available for (I think) $15
in paperback. Wexler teaches linguistics at the University of Tel Aviv.
In addition to the previous discussion of Wexler's theories mentioned by
Khaym Bochner in Mendele 5.028, Wexler's theories were discussed about a
year ago in a series of articles by the columnist Philologos in the
English-language Forward.

I have no background in theoretical linguistics or in Slavic languages
(and I should disclose that Wexler is my wife's cousin), and I appreciate
that there are many who have disagreed with Wexler.  Still, to say the
least, I think he raises some interesting and provocative questions about
the standard theories concerning the origins of Yiddish (and of
Ashkenazic Jewry).  His book, though highly technical, is a bit more
accessible for a layperson than his previous articles in linguistics
journals.  It might be worthwhile to take a look at the book before
forming an opinion about Wexler's thesis.

Yisroel Feldman

10)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 01:07:17 -0400
From: sapoznik@aol.com
Subject: Library of Congress Folklife Center Endangered

I believe that despite the fact that the Folklife Center of the Library of
Congress doesn't present only Yiddish, , readers of Mendele might be
interested and help.

Henry Sapoznik

Subject: Folklife Center endangered....

I've just learned that the Library of Congress Folklife Center is in
danger of being eliminated. I received a call letting me know that an
amendment was slipped into a bill due to come up before the House for a
vote tomorrow. the amendment, introduced by Rep. Rom Davis (R) of
Virginia, proposes to eliminate the entire budget for the Lib. of
Congress Folklife Center. No need to tell any of you why it is important
to stop this. I hope there's enough time for people to hear about this
and contact their congressperson to express their opposition.

I have posted this to folktalk; if someone will post this information to
other lists on the internet, that will help.

Margo Blevin

______________________________________________________
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