Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.113 September 17, 1995 1) Introduction (Shimke Levine) 2) Yiddish to children (Morrie Feller) 3) Teaching materials for children (Zalman Berman) 4) Secular Yiddish Schools of America Collection (Joshua Fishman) 5) Klipn (Keyle Goodman) 6) Zalbander etc. (Stanley Werbow) 7) Henry James (Lee Goldberg) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 8:57:16 GMT+5 From: stanl@aiken.scarolina.edu Subject: Introduction Heysn heys ikh Shimke Levine un voynen voyn ikh vayt fun yidn, in South Carolina. Ober fun itst on vel ikh voynen mit ale yidn glaykh a dank mendele. Ikh shrayb nit azoy tsu zogn azoyne narishkeytn, nayert tsu entfern af der frage vegn yidish-materialn. S'iz geven a zeyer raykhe multi-media lern program aroys in Pariz dakht zikh. Ikh veys nit tsi men ken es nokh alts gefinen. Mit a por yor tsurik hob ikh gelernt a kurs yidish (mit gole goyim) un a talmid mayner hot gefunen a serie tashmes af tsu lernen (onheyber) yidish, fun audioforum. Es kost $21.95. Der adres iz: Audio-Forum, Suite C2; 96 Broad St.; Guildford, CT 06437. Stanley (Shimke) Levine 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 14:18:58 -0700 (MST) From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Yiddish to children Marti Krow-Lucal's comments in Mendele 5.111 gives me the opportunity to quote the lines from my recent post (Mendele 5.102) on teaching Yiddish to children which were inadvertently left out of the original post, and which address the problem mentioned by Marti: I realize that there are many practical problems such as a shortage of qualified Yiddish teachers, lack of modern teaching materials, and the like. Therefore, what we need is a master plan which addresses all the problems, and which develops a Yiddish curriculum for children and young adults which will fill the gap which now exists in Jewish education. In that same post I mentioned the textbook _Yiddish_ by Sheva Zucker. This comes close to what Marti is looking for: a modern text with exercises. Sheva has also written an answer manual which is available now, and she has indicated to me that an audio cassette is forthcoming. There is also another modern text: "Learning Yiddish in Easy Stages" by Zuckerman & Herbst. It has excellent practice conversations, and when I taught a class using this text, I recorded all the conversations on cassette for the class. In transliteration there is a very entertaining book: _A Sheyner Gelekhter_ by Ruth Levitan. In the past, on Mendele, there has been some discussion about Yiddish on CD-ROM. This would put it on a par with other foreign languages which are available on CD-ROM (I have Spanish and Russian). Perhaps it is only a matter of time before someone does produce such a CD-ROM for learning Yiddish which will have Hebrew characters, sound, and which will also be interactive. Morrie Feller Phoenix 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 18:54:50 +0200 (IST) From: berman@mars.senecac.on.ca Subject: Teaching materials for children Modern teaching materials in Yiddish are becoming available as we write this. We just received 2 floppy disks of a Hebrew, Yiddish English picture dictionary for windows called Aryeh to Zebra. It is an interactive program allowing children to see a picture and the word for it in all three languages, as well as hear it spoken. It provides a choice of three levels of vocabulary and several modes of presentation (games) whereby the student is involved in capturing the proper letters to spell the word. It is at the introductory level and can be used by children who can use a mouse, they don't even have to be able to read. For more information: Tangram Associates Inc. 120 Concord Ave. Toronto, Ont. Can M6H 2P3 on www http://www.execpc.com/~rtis/hebrew Saul (Zalman) Berman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 15:45:04 -0700 (PDT) From: fishman@csli.stanford.edu Subject: Secular Yiddish Schools of America Collection Gella Schweid Fishman writes: All those who were farvalters (school board menbers), treachers, parents or students in one or more Yiddish secular schools (Mostly: arber ring, farband, ordn, or sholem aleykhem) are asked to send originals or xeroxes of their memorabilia related to these schools to the archival collection that has been established at The Stanford University Libraries. The Secular Yiddish Schools Of America Collection is open to use by qualified researchers, as well as to all those who have contributed to the collection. All materials are being processed by topical categories and listed under donor's name. For further information contact: The Secular Yiddish Schools of America Collection, Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections, Stanford, CA 94305-6004; Attn: Margaret J. Kimball, head of Special Collections and University Archivist. Joshua Fishman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 14:45:22 -0700 From: ac939@lafn.org Subject: Klipn I came across the word "klipn" to rhyme with "lipn". Lipn is of course "lips" but I am unfamiliar with the word "klipn." I know that a "klipe" is a shrew or a tsore, but the plural for klipe is klipes. Is it poetic license or is there indeed such a word as "klipn"? A gut yontev aykh alemen--a gezunt yor un a gmar khesime toyve! Keyle (Kay) Goodman 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 22:04:14 -0500 From: s.werbow@mail.utexas.edu Subject: Zalbander etc. With respect to the question about the source of zalbander and similar constructions in Yiddish [cf. 5.110], once again these occur in Middle High German and in recent German as well. Kluge-Goetze-Mitzka has under selbander a citation from Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival "Gawan saz, selbe funfte nider". So the expresssions with selbe are at least as old as the 13th century in German. Stanley Werbow 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 95 23:24:00 -0400 From: lee.goldberg@neteast.com Subject: Henry James Kh'hob shier nit gekaykht far gelekhter leyenendik di letste "Henry James" briv fun undzer balibtn shames (a khokhem beYisroel!), zol gezunt zayn. Mir zaynen spetsyel gefeln di fun Trotskin un "Mikhl" Proust! Fun aza freyd vos hot farshafn ba mir dos leyenen di dozike briv, zoln genisn, say undzer madriakh, say ale Mendelyaner, haynt un a gants yor! Lee Goldberg ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.113