Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.238 January 31, 1996 1) Occupational names and women (Ellen Cassedy) 2) Soviet Yiddish Songs (Hershl Hartman) 3) Badkhones literature (Zachary Baker) 4) Needed: Info on parent to child Yiddish (Yankev Lewis) 5) Life and death of Yiddish (Arnie Herschorn) 6) Life and death of Yiddish (Morrie Feller) 7) Yiddish letterpress type (Itsik Goldenberg) 8) Yoo-hoo (Ellen Cassedy) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 15:51:10 -0500 From: cassblum@aol.com Subject: Occupational names and women In response to Zellig Bach's call for a proper term of respect for the First Lady -- "prima pane"? As for Bill Clinton's next in line, I would suggest, mit a nign, "der vaytse-president, gor." Ellen Cassedy 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 17:40:50 -0500 From: hershl@aol.com Subject: Soviet Yiddish Songs Bob Rothstein's quoted lyrics (5.236) coincide with the song as I heard it sung in Polish Jewish youth homes in 1949, in Lodz and Wroclaw. Hershl Hartman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 14:33:44 PST From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu Subject: Badkhones literature In the wake of the recent discussion of badkhones/marshelikes, I would like to offer a bibliographical postscript (I hope I'm not repeating something that was already noted here): Ya'ari, Abraham. "Sifre ha-badhanim" [Badhanim literature], in Kiryat sefer, vol. 35, no. 1 (December 1959), pp. 109-126. Ya'ari's article cites a total of 168 titles of published badkhones, by 28 badkhonim (6 citations are for anonymous badkhones chapbooks), plus several invaluable references to scholarship on the subject. Most of the entries are for materials printed in Yiddish, but Ya'ari's introduction and annotations are in Hebrew. Zachary Baker 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 18:15:40 -0500 From: justin_lewis@stubbs.woodsworth.utoronto.ca Subject: Needed: Info on parent to child Yiddish A grus tsu ale Mendelyaner fun tsvey naye khaveyrim in Toronto, Yankev un Yoyne-Brayne. Mir zenen alt 34 un 38 yor. Yankev iz a student in yidishe limudim un a profesyoneler mayse-dertseyler. Yoyne-Brayne iz a lererin fun kinderlekh un oykh a dertseylerin un zingerin. Mir dertseyln mayses oyf english, ober zey zenen tsum merstn fun yidishe mekoyrim. Yoyne-Brayne zingt a sakh lider oyf yidish. Yankev ken gut leyenen yidish un lernt zikh redn yidish. Mir zenen mitglider fun "Fraynd fun Yidish" in Toronto un mir hobn zeyer lib di yidishe shprakh. In etlekhe tog, im yirtse Hashem, veln mir zayn tate-mame, mit der geburt fun undzer ershtn kind. Mir hobn an ambitsiezn plan: mir viln az undzer kind zol fun onheyb kenen yidish. Derfar vil Yankev mitn kind redn bloyz yidish. Vegen dem hobn mir a FRAGE far ale Mendelyaner. Mir beyde hobn in der heym bay undzere tate-mames nisht geredt keyn yidish. Derfar visn mir nisht vi azoy me redt yidish mit an oyfele oder a kleyn kindele. Lemoshl: vos far gramen zenen do oyf yidish, vos me zogt tsu kleyne kinderlekh, azoy vi "nursery" oder "Mother Goose" gramen oyf english? Un lemoshl: vi redt men mit a kind vegn di private teyle fun kerper? (In Vaynraykhs verterbukh gefinen zikh nor di visnshaftlekhe verter far "penis" un azoy vayter. In andern mekoyrim gefinen zikh grobe verter. Ober vos zenen di kindishe verter far azelkhe zakhn?) In algemeyn zenen mir farinteresirt tsu visn vi azoy eltern redn mit kinderlekh oyf yidish. Mir zenen in faroys dankbar tsu yedern vos ken undz a bisl helfn mit dem. Yankev Lewis 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 16:33:48 -0500 From: henryc@perceptix.com Subject: Life and death of Yiddish This message is in answer to Ellen Prince's response to me in Mendele 5.233. Ellen - No substantial disagreement. However, 1. A tear ought to come to the eye even if the abandonment of Yiddish had been entirely voluntary. A tear comes to the eye when the last member of an endangered species perishes - no matter how that came about. A language is like a species. When there is one fewer in the world, the world is that much poorer. 2. The Chasidim are a good example for your thesis. Many of them are determined to live their lives as if time had frozen several hundred years ago, like a mammoth preserved in ice in the wastes of Siberia. I cannot deny that, as long as they succeed in their project, Yiddish will still have a vestigial life. 3. I still think that there is room for a concept which straddles sociology and linguistics, in which the present sad state of a language is compared to its former glory. A language is not fully alive if it is the language of the last of the Mohicans. Arnie Herschorn Toronto 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:01:58 -0700 (MST) From: feller@indirect.com Subject: Life and death of Yiddish In response to Susan Lerner's post in Mendele 5.236, this is yet another example of the argument that, alas!, Yiddish is dying, and this process is unfortunately unidirectional and irreversible. Of course, if enough people were to feel this way, it would naturally bring about the demise of Yiddish. Fortunately there are those who do not agree with this prognosis, and time alone will tell who is right. With respect to the status of Yiddish in Israel she states: "Until recently, Yiddish was avoided in official Israel for the same reasons." As far as I know, Yiddish was not tolerated in Israel because it represented a threat to the as yet not secure Hebrew. However, once Hebrew became well established as the language of the land, the attitude toward Yiddish changed and became more accepting. Perhaps it is time to inject a bit of humor in these discussions. I offer the following anecdotes: One day Bialik went into a shop to buy some cigarettes which he asked for in Yiddish. The storekeeper, somewhat surprised, said: "Bialik! You are a famous Hebrew poet. Why do you ask for cigarettes in Yiddish?" To which Bialik replied: "Yiddish is faster." One day on a crowded bus in Tel Aviv, a woman and her young son were standing in the aisle and carrying on a conversation. Her son spoke to her in Hebrew, and she replied in Yiddish. A sabra who was standing next to the woman became very irritated by this exchange. He nudged the woman and said: "Your son is speaking to you in Hebrew. Why are you answering him in Yiddish?" To which she replioed: "I want he shouldn't forget he is a Jew." Morrie Feller Phoenix 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 22:21:52 -0500 From: goldenbe@cataract.nfss.edu.on.ca Subject: Yiddish letterpress type Do any of my fellow-Mendelyaner know where I could locate Yiddish letterpress type, for use with an old printing press? All type formats and sizes would be useful. How strange that one would want to use this old technology when Yiddish fonts are available for computers! Yiddish or Hebrew brass type or handle letters for hot stamping in bookbinding are also needed. (Lakh nisht af mayn tsebrokhene idish. Ikh tu di beste vus ikh ken.) Efsher veyst emetser fun mayne Mendelyaner-fraynt vu ikh ken gefinen idishe tipe, in farshidene formatn i groys i kleyns, far an alter drukmashin. Umgeveyntlekh as eyner vil nitsn azayne alte tekhnologye ven me ken yetst gefinen moderne metodn mit kompyuters un vort-protsesers. Ikh zikh oykh meshe tipe, idish oder hebreyish, far bukhbinderay. A sheynem dank. Itsik Goldenberg Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:53:49 -0500 From: cassblum@aol.com Subject: Yoo-hoo How do you say "yoo-hoo" in Yiddish? A book by Michele Slung called "Hear! Here!" (Clarkson Potter, 1994) is a compilation of these and other exclamations in various languages. "Peekaboo" in Danish, for example, is "borte-borte-teet-teet," and "Wow!" in Russian is "Noo-ee-noo." Yiddish is not included, for reasons which may or not bear on the is-it-dying question. In addition to Yoo hoo, peekaboo, and wow, I'd be interested in these: uh-oh, tsk! tsk!, achoo, brrrr, whoops, upsy-daisy ("hopp" in German), thud!, Boo! -- and any other such quasi-words. I guess "yuck" ("igitt" in German, "bert" in French, "usch" in Swedish, "fu" in Russian) might be "feh"? Zitsndik af shpilkes -- Ellen Cassedy ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.238