Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.203 December 27, 1995 1) The apostrophe in Romanized Yiddish (Zellig Bach) 2) Shamus and tokhes (Paul Ritterband) 3) Shamus (Susan Lerner) 4) Shamus (Bernard S. Greenberg) 5) Shamus (Stan Bernstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Dec 1995 21:19:35 -0500 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: The apostrophe in Romanized Yiddish In Yiddish, as in English, contractions are shown, in writing and in printing, by an apostrophe: Ikh'l (ikh vil or ikh vel), mir'n (mir veln), s'iz (es or se iz), and so on. In the possessive case, however, it is different: While English takes an apostrophe before the final /s/, Yiddish does not take one, and the final /s/ alone, the --samekh --, suffices to indicate the possessive: Zayn mames oygn [his mother's eyes]; Khanes bukh [Khane's book]; Moyshe rabeynus ki'ele [Moyshe Rabeynu's little cow]; Yankl Zlates [Yankl Zlate's, a husband who for some reason is called possessively after his wife]. I suggest that in _romanized_ Yiddish the apostrophe could play a special importance of phonetic clarification and thus gain a new and significant value. a) To highlight the _Yiddish_ pronunciation of a word or name, as distinct from another possible pronunciation. In a recent post Ron Robboy (5.181,2) wrote that Shmu'el, with an apostrophe, "is clearly less Yiddish, is it not?" [than without the apostrophe]. I do not think so. If one wishes to differentiate in writing between the Sephardic, modern Hebrew pronunciation of ShmuEl and the Yiddish pronunciation Shmu'el, that apostrophe is indeed helpful; b) To separate certain diphthongs, especially /ie/ and /oe/, for example: 1. In English the letters /ie/ are pronounced almost as if they were joined together, for instance _frIEnds_, but in romanized Yiddish these two letters should be separated by an apostrophe, for example "mi'es," [ugly], ki'ele [little cow], thus making sure that each vowel will be pronounced separately as two independent syllables; 2. Insert an apostrophe between the /i/ and /e/ in the two-syllabic Yiddish/Hebrew word "shi'er [lesson, limit], in order to emphasize the fact that it has two distinct syllables, as above, and thus differentiate it from the sound of the English monosyllabic "sheer;" 3. To separate by an apostrophe the /o/ from the /e/ in such words as "to'es (error, mistake), so that it would _not_ be read, or sound, as the English "toes," and each vowel will be read, again, separately and independently, for each syllable. Similarly, in the Yiddish expression (from the Hebrew) "nisim veniflo'es" (miracles over miracles), for the same purpose and reason; 4. In English the letter /k/ before an /n/ is usually silent. But if you wish the /k/ pronounced in a Yiddish word, an apostrophe would clearly help. Take, for instance, the word "knockers." In Yiddish it has a totally different meaning than in English. The /k/ is pronounced and the /n/ is soft, and should therefore be spelled with an apostrophe -- "k'nyakers" [derisively, "big shots," those who habitually make big noises about their own doings]. The apostrophe after the /k/ will serve as a clear sign that the letter should be voiced. 5. In Hebrew the _shvo_ or _shva_ (shown by the diacritic sign of a colon under a letter) means that that particular letter has no vowel. The convention in romanization is that an /e/ is inserted, in place of the non-vowel diacritic, for example "mevinim" while, if transliterated -- that is letter by letter -- it would be more correct to romanize it as "m'vinim." Another example: "Tehilim [Psalms]. The /e/ after the initial letter is inserted by convention, but it should not be pronounced as a separate syllable /te/, but only the sound of the /t/ made audible. The correct transliteration is therefore T'hilim. From the several illustrations above it is quite evident that the apostrophe has an important part to play in Yiddish romanization. Zellig Bach 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 04:40:33 +0200 (WET) From: uap@soc.haifa.ac.il Subject: Shamus and tokhes I have seen shamus as private detective in some author's detective stories and have come across it in movies based on the stories of the author. For the life of me, I can not retrieve the name at the moment but i vaguely remember Humphrey Bogart reciting the memorable word. Tokhes afn tish strikes me as a play on takhlis afn tish, let's get to the real stuff. The latter may have been used in card games, don't bluff, let's see your hand, put your cards on the table. Paul Ritterband 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Dec 1995 23:33:47 -0500 From: meydele@aol.com Subject: Shamus The "shamus" referenced by the NY Times puzzle [5.201] is pronounced sha mus, and is '20's and '30's American slang for "detective" , "private eye". It is a slang term used throughout Dashell Hammett's Continental Op stories. Hammett was a private Eye (actually, a Pinkerton!) in San Francisco in the '20's, so I assume it is authentic. I have always assumed that it has an Irish, not a Yiddish, derivation, given the difference in pronounciation. Unfortunately, I lack an American slang dictionary and can not tell you more. Susan Lerner [Partridge (1961):"..Ex the Irish name _Seamas_, there being so many Irishmen in America, and so many of them connected with police work." nm] 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 10:45:06 -0500 From: bsg@basistech.com Subject: Shamus I'd suspect that the Irish name "Seamus" has more to do with "shamus" than the Hebrew (off-the-cuff guess). I can also speak for a probably large class of people for whom the first association of the Hebrew "shamos" was the "top guy" Chanukah candle, maybe just a couple of leaps closer in semantic space to Dick Tracy than the Sexton... I always wanted Jaime to meet Hymie... Bernard S. Greenberg 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 14:06:15 EST From: hgvb87a@prodigy.com Subject: Shamus The quoting of "Shamus" In Vol 5.201 reminds me of the "hard boiled" detective stories of the 40's and 50's. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler frequently had the police use the term "Shamus" in a derogatory sense to refer to a private detective.These authors also invented terms like "gunsel" for a gunman which may have Yiddish roots. Stan Bernstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.203