Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 6.205
January 21, 1997

1) "a vort a tog," elektronish (sholem berger)
2) a lid tsu khamishoser (sholem berger)
3) Yiddish influence on German underworld language (Ruth Liberman)
4) Nartlen (Andrej Bredshtein)
5) Nartlen (Hugh Denman)
6) Erratum (Mikhl Herzog)
7) mordkhe kosover (dovid braun)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 18:31:41 +0000
From: bergez01@mchip00.med.nyu.edu
Subject: "a vort a tog," elektronish

mordkhe shekhter hot ersht afn "mendele" tsu visn gegebn vegn a nayer
program fun der yidish-lige--"a vort a tog."  azoy kenen opgetsolte
yidish-lige- oder yugntruf-mitglider zikh baraykhern di vokabular mit
tog-teglekhn, shprakhikn "nashvarg."

ist botn mir on dem "vort-a-tog" af an elektronishn oyfn. vi azoy?  s'iz
fun di gringe zakhn: shikt ayer blitspost-adres tsu mir (sholem berger,
bergez01@popmail.med.nyu.edu), vet ir ale tog oytomatish derhaltn a
frish vort, un es kenen nitsn teykef-umiyad.  ayere khaverim veln zikh
bavundern, ayere sonim--zikh opshrekn!

a dermonung: s'kenen onteyl nemen bloyz opgetsolte mitglider fun der
yidish-lige oder yugntruf.  (agev iz mitglid-gelt a metsie!)

ayer,
sholem berger

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 18:37:32 +0000
From: bergez01@mchip00.med.nyu.edu
Subject: a lid tsu khamishoser

a lid tsu khamishoser
(oder, t"u-bishvat in nyu-york)

epl, epl, vayntroybn, epl un marantsn:
khamishoser zogt undz on: "kinder, geyt shoyn tantsn!"

epl, epl, kavene, epl, epl, nus:
"zol freylekh zayn!" iz taytsh der yontev, af eyn fus.

trufkaskes un dinies, bananen un melonen:
der foygl zingt dem himen hoykh, di beymer heybn fonen.

ozhenes un malenes, fargosn mit zaft di lipn:
ze nor--di stremplekh afn dakh nemen zikh tsedripen!

sholem berger

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 23:10:48 -0500 (EST)
From: rql1220@is2.nyu.edu
Subject: Yiddish influence on German underworld language

A question to ethymology mavens:

Are there any assumptions/conjectures/hypotheses as to when Yiddish or
Hebrew might have entered the German underworld language (e.g.
ganef/Ganove; shmira/Schmiere stehen; isn't Hals und Beinbruch [break a
leg] also derivative of hazlacha ubracha?)????

Ruth Liberman

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 21:22:25 +0300
From: anbredstein@glas.apc.org
Subject: Nartlen

Zayt mir ale moykhl far shraybn belaaz; ikh bin ober gor nit shuldik in
dem - ikh entfer af an eynglishn briv un alpi-derekherets tu ikh dos
take af eynglish*.

Al Grand asks [6.203] about the origin of a word "nartlen". IMHO it is a
mistake brought in Yiddish by English-speaking people, even such great
ones as Uriel Weinreich with his brilliant dictionary. He translates
"ski" (noun) as "narte" and "ski" (verb) as "nartlen zikh", but Harkavi,
who had good knowledge of Russian, doesn't mention this word at all. The
same is in the Russian-Yiddish Dictionary (Shapiro, Shulman, Spivak;
Moscow, 1989), where we found three words for "ski" - "ski",
"shlitnshikh" and "lizshes" (the latter comes directly from Russian and
is used naturally only among Russian Jews). To my mind, the most kosher
word is "shlitnshikh".

The word "narte" came in Yiddish from Russian "narta". They use it
though much more often in its plural form "narti" (in Yiddish -
"nartes"). It means "sled", "sleigh" and stems from komi language (North
of Russia). Aborigines pronounce it "nurto" and use for a kind of long
and thin sled, pulled by the team of dogs or deer. (In the
Russian-Yiddish Dictionary you can find "hint-shlitn" or "hirsh(n)-shlitn"
for it.) And as far as I know, they (komi people) make it very simple -
actually it is a pair of ski connected with several wooden sticks. The
whole construction is tied with ropes and enough solid to hold a rider.
So, someone had just mixed these two things - ski and sleigh/sled. And
since there is a Yiddish verb "shlitlen zikh" derived from "shlitn", it
is possible to say "nartlen zikh" as well. But one should not forget
that it means not "go skiing" but "go sled-riding".

Andrej Bredshtein
Moscow, Russia

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 16:43:49 +0100 (MET)
From: h_denman@maier.vol.at
Subject: Nartlen zikh

One should compare Polish 'jezdzic na nartach' or Ukrainian 'bigaty na
nartakh' (both 'to ski'). There is a cognate Russian word 'narty', but
the meaning is 'sledge'. Russian, as the Slav language most frequently
studied in the West, can be helpful on account of its close relationship
with Polish and Ukrainian, but is otherwise, except for very late
borrowings of the 'poyezd' type, largely irrelevant. For the suffix
compare German 'kraenkeln', 'kriseln', etc. (No Yiddish examples spring
to the mind at the moment - Oh, for a Yiddish rhyming dictionary!
Stutshkov is supposed to have written one, but has anybody ever seen
it?)

Hugh Denman

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 97 11:25 EST
From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu
Subject: Erratum

Anno Siegel was good enough to point out my error [6.023] in identifying
Yiddish _la:fer_ as 'knight' in chess. It should be 'bishop', of course,
also known, regionally, as _zokn_ (i.e. < Hebrew _zaken_).

Mikhl Herzog

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 14:01:28 EST
From: dovid@mit.edu
Subject: mordkhe kosover

a mol-a mol veln mir zikh _ale_ kenen farbindn mit mordkhe kosovern.
dervayl ober zol er zayn vayt opgesheydt fun undz -- shoyn nito.
geshtorbn, oyb ikh hob nit keyn toes (nor se ken graylekh zayn iz ikh
hob ye a toes) in 1978.

dovid braun

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End of Mendele Vol. 6.205