Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.269 March 6, 1996 1) Looking for klezmer citations (Jonathan Dembling) 2) Syllable onsets in Yiddish (Neil Jacobs) 3) Glaykhn (Alan R. King) 4) Daytchmerisms (Arre Komar) 5) Ober/oder (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) 6) Khone Shmeruk's prize (Michael Shimshoni) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 05 Mar 1996 16:07:04 -0400 (AST) From: j_dembli@husky1.stmarys.ca Subject: Looking for klezmer citations I am currently working on a paper investigating the relationship between language and musical expression, and I would like to include a discussion of Yiddish and its connection to klezmer music. Indeed, any scholarly references which speak to the connection between Yiddish and any sort of cultural expression would be valuable. Please contact me directly with any specific references or general hints. A sheynem dank, Jonathan Dembling Halifax, NS 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:26:36 -0500 (EST) From: njacobs@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: Syllable onsets in Yiddish I would like to hear some thoughts about syllable onsets in Yiddish in the Loshn-Koydesh component, which involve the adjacency of two obstruents with (paradigmatically, in Hebrew) a conflict in voicing. I'll give a couple of examples, using the romanization and examples from Uriel Weinreich's dictionary. With an onset with (original, in Hebrew) voiced obstruent, followed by a voiceless one, we get anticipatory DEVOICING, thus, [Note: All these examples involve loss of a "Hebrew" schwa. However, our concern is the schwa-less *Yiddish* form, with the consonant cluster.] psure 'message, tidings' ( < *bs-), psule 'virgin', tkhak ( <* dkh-) extremity, straits' (cf. dakhkes 'want'), ksise 'agony of death' (< *gs- , cf. goyses) On the other hand, in Weinreich we generally find NO ANTICIPATORY VOICING given; thus: kdushe, not **gdushe 'saintliness', sdorim, not **zdorim (plural of seyder), pgam, not **bgam 'dent, blemish, flaw'. Now, Weinreich does give [zgule] 'remedy, solution' ( < *sg- ). Observations about this from Mendele readers would be appreciated. Naturally, I am NOT talking here about the well-documented anticipatory voicing assimilation in Northeastern Yiddish. However, in reading the really fine phonetic descriptions of Viler, Gutman, Prilutski, I find only mention of how Central Yiddish (or, at least, non-Northeastern Yiddish varieties) lack the anticipatory voicing assimilation. What I am looking at is morpheme-internal clusters. Generally, these do show a tresolution of voicing conflict in, I think, all Yiddish dialects. Thus, even Central Yiddish has a voiced [zh] in khezhbm. Is there published work out there on the morpheme-internal devoicing in d-khak to tkhak, but the supposed non-voing of, say, p- in pgam? Or does all this have to do with some transcription or romanization convention? Thoughts or advice on this much appreciated. Neil Jacobs 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:57:18 GMT From: mccay@jet.es Subject: Glaykhn In answer to Miki Safadi's question [5.242], I learnt that "to like" was 'glaykhn' (as in 'Ikh gla:kh dus nisht') from my London-born-and-bred parents. Even as an English-speaking but linguistically-oriented young boy I remember thinking this sounded a bit "fishy", considering that 'glaykh' also corresponds to English "like" in the (completely unconnected) meaning of "similar to", but that's what they used. I remember reading something about different colloquial Yiddish variants of this somewhere, but I don't know where. Besides the question of lexical choice ('gefeln' or 'glaykhn'), there is the issue of its syntax to consider: '_dos_ gefelt _mir_', '_ikh_ glaykh _dos_'... Alan R. King Gipuzkoa, Basque Country 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 20:12:20 -0500 (EST) From: komar@yu1.yu.edu Subject: Daytchmerisms Thank you and hear, hear Ellen Prince [5.263]! About 2 years ago, when I first strated communicating with Mendele I was severely chastized for using "daytschmerisms" such as lezn, monat, etc. I was informed in no uncertain terms that to use such words was a "baleydigung" to the speakers of Yiddish. I was puzzled since I learned this vocabulary from my parents who came to the USA from kleyne shtetlakh in Belarus and Ukraine at the turn of the century. I was firmly convinced that the language that they spoke was a proper dialect of Yiddish. Since I was suspicious of the critics I requested information with regard to the nature of the dialects spoken by the current speakers of the living language (as opposed to the academic theoreticians of Yiddish). My initial request fell into a black hole of silence. Instead I was treated to dogmatic convoluted theoretical arguments laced with scorn. In the past year I raised I quietly raised the same question, What do the Khsidim speak? Finally we learn that they indeed speak the same so-called "daytchmerish" Yiddish that my parents spoke. But again we are being treated to hypothetical reasons as to "why" the speakers of the living language are wrong or misled. Isn't it time to end such khutspah? A language is determined by what the native speakers speak, not by what academic theoreticians claim that they should speak. If students in the various college programs are being misstaught so that they think that they are learning Yiddish and they arrogantly proceed to "correct" the native speakers, isn't it time to disabuse them of such error? Yiddish is not regimented by an academy as is French. That is one of its strengths and beauties. Arre Komar 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 23:57:33 -0500 From: wolfim@chelsea.ios.com Subject: Ober/oder Mikhl Herzog's comment on Ober = oder usage in German dialects is well taken. In the entry for 'aber' in Goetze's 'Fruehneuhochdeutsches Glossar" there is a general gloss "wieder" (cf. Yiddish 'ober un vider') and specifically for Central German: "oder; sondern". Meyer-Leyb Wolf 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 06 Mar 96 15:45:59 +0200 From: mash@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il Subject: Khone Shmeruk's prize In 5.260 there were some comments on the mistake of the Jerusalem Post in referring to "Khone Shmeruk" as "Hana Shamrock". Mikhl Herzog reports an especially humourous telephone exchange he had with someone who looked for the (female) Khana Shmorak. May I make a few comments: First Mazal Tov to Khone Shmeruk, and clearly every person is entitled to have his/her name to be pronounced and written correctly. As others pointed out, the pronunciation of not Hebrew words when spelled in the usual Israeli method (without vocalization) is difficult. No Hebrew speaker would have any problems in pronouncing correctly my name Shimshoni. :-) Mikhl Herzog gave of course the correct Hebrew spelling (as K.S. likes it): "Khone Shmeruk (khes-nun-alef shin-mem-reysh-vov-kuf)", but for a Hebrew speaker "khes-nun-alef" is pronounced the same as that of female "khes-nun-heh", i.e. khana. Israelis might be excused for not being very familiar with that name of a pretty obscure gemara sage from Babylion. Someone else (not Mikhl) thought that it was the same name as that of Khoni Hama`gel, who lived in Israel many centuries earlier and his name is "khes-vov-nun-yud". As to the mistake which M.H. Herzog reported about the family name which was thought to be Shmorak, this can be explained by the fact that quite a few years ago we had in Israel a fairly famous Dr Shmorak who was active in the Jewish Agency (as comptroller?). Finally, the name Khana ("khes-nun-alef"), while as said is obscure as a Jewish male name, is quite common among Arab males. Strange world! Michael Shimshoni P.S. In order to avoid confusion I used throughout the Yiddish way of denoting Hebrew letters as Mikhl Herzog did, and not the way I usually write them. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.269