Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.224 February 11, 1997 1) Shul memories (David Herskovic) 2) Kushel-Kushniel (Miriam Isaacs) 3) Beytsim and Irishmen (Eliyahu Juni) 4) Mezinke (Elizabeth Ehrlich) 5) Mezinke (David Lidsky) 6) Mendele's pseudonym (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Feb 97 18:27:13 EST From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Shul memories Sholem Alaykhem, somewhere in Tevye der milkhiger, quotes a Rashi on the posik in parshes mishpotim (last week's sedre) 'im begapoy yovoy begapoy yaytsay', 'az men laygt aran a kadokhes nemt men aros a krenk'. (Find the Rashi and win a lifetime's subscription to mendele free of charge!) Another one, also in Tevye, in the first part, is when Tevye's horse breaks down (if that is the right phrase) and he krekhtses, 'ayn khokhme, ve'ayn aytse ve'ayn tvine keygn a krank ferd'. Another one in Tevye is the same idea but in reverse. S.A. makes a gemore out of the yidish saying 'fin a khazerishn ek ken men kan shtramel nisht makhen'. In S.A.'s 'gemore' it becomes 'mezanavte dekhazarte loy makhante leshtramalte'. David Herskovic 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 21:07:00 -0500 (EST) From: miriamis@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu Subject: Kushel-Kushniel A frage vegn a nomen. Emetser hot mir gebetn ikh zol oysgefinen fon vanen shtamt a nomen, Kushel, Kushniel- efsher farbinen mit Yekutiel? Ver ken helfn? A dank faroys. The origins of a name, Kushel or Kushniel- or Yekutiel? Miriam Isaacs 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 02:33:38 -0500 From: e.juni@utoronto.ca Subject: Beytsim and Irishmen The use of beyts as a euphemism for an irishman reminds me of the use of "der kartofl" in Mexican (pan-Latin-American?) Yiddish as a euphemism for the pope, derived from the fact that the Spanish words for pope and potato are homonyms (Pa'pa and pa'pa). But my impression of this euphemism is that it's more Yinglish (could I call it Spandish?) than Yiddish; is the same true of "beyts"? Eliyahu Juni 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Feb 97 10:50:54 EST From: "Leon A. Potok" <73173.1134@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Mezinke Yes, there is a song. We used to have it on a Theodore Bikel record when I was growing up (early 60s). All I can remember of the lyrics is this: The happy father urging everyone to join the dance to celebrate the marriage of the youngest daughter, and his disbelief at same -- (and forgive transcription errors of an illiterate). Hekher, besser, Di rod, di rod makh greser -- Oy, oy, oy Ich aleyn Hob nit mayne oygen gezen Di mezinke oys gegebn! I learned this one about the same time I learned "Blowin' in the Wind." Elizabeth Ehrlich 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 22:31:24 -0800 From: fdlidsky@netvision.net.il Subject: Mezinke In Mendele 6.223 there is a posting from Fay Lipshitz about a Jerusalem custom connected with the marriage of the youngest child in the family. In the posting, as it appears in the list, it says that the child is known as the "mezinikl" but I happen to know (I'm Fay Lipshitz's husband) that in her original message she spelled the word "mezhinikl". She did so because her haredi informant pronounced the second consonant of the word not as a "z" but rather as that sound which is represented in Yiddish by the letter combination zayin shin (it is a sound which I think is absent from English except, perhaps, in words recently imported from other languages). It seems that the spelling was altered by the shames. I at first imagined that the word "mezhinikl" was a dialect variant of the Yiddish word "mizinik" (or "mezinik"): "a youngest child". The shames apparently drew a similar conclusion. That would be perfectly consistent with the context of the Jerusalem custom mentioned by Fay. However in some amateur research with the aid of a Polish dictionary (I don't know Polish or any other Slavic language) I came accross the word "mezniec" meaning "to become an adult" (there are several other Polish words from the same root with related meanings). A Polish native speaker has confirmed for me that the second consonant in "mezniec" is pronounced with the "zh" sound, and that could explain the "zh" in "mezhinikl". If "mezhinikl" means "somebody who has become an adult" then that is also consistent with the Jerusalem custom, though perhaps slightly less so. I should like to ask those Mendele participants who know about Yiddish etymology and dialectology (1) Has anybody else come accross "mezhinikl" (with the "zh" consonant)? (2) Are the words "mizinik" and "mezhinikl" two different words in Yiddish (two different lexemes is, I think, the techical way of putting that) or are they variants of the same Yiddish word? (3) Are the Yiddish words "mizinik" and/or "mezhinikl" cognates of the Polish word "mezniec" (perhaps they have quite another Slavic etymology)? David Lidsky Jerusalem 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 15:41:30 -0500 (EST) From: shirshan@aol.com Subject: Mendele's pseudonym Ken Frieden in his informative and engaging book, _Classic Yiddish Fiction_ (Suny Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12246, 1995, 364pp ISBN 0-7914-2601-7) states that there exists an abundance of writings about the persona of Mendele the Bookseller (Mendele Moykher Sforim), "sometimes erroneously called Abramovitsh's pseudonym" because Abramovitsh, he relates, was itself a fictitious name. His father's name was Chaim Moyshe Broyde. It then goes without saying that Mendele would have been called Sholem Yankev Broyde, but name changes were then an artful dodge among Jews, to avoid a 25 year military stint in the Czar's army. One creative subterfuge was to pose as an eldest son (who was exempt from the military) of a fictitious family. Sholem Yankev may have thus arrived at the name Abramovitsh, to be exempt. A second possibility Frieden proposes is that, after his father's death, Sholem Yankev traveled extensively with a beggar named Abraham (or Avreml) Khromoy, who had returned from faraway places with wonderful adventurous tales of lands flowing with milk and honey. Seventeen-year- old Sholem Yankev, imaginative and restless, decided to join his role model, Avreml, and wandered about the world with him. These travels broadened his horizons and increased his youthful devotion to Abraham, motivating him to take Abramovitsh as his name. Avreml's makeshift horse-drawn cart later appeared in the fictional renditions of Mendele the Bookseller's wagon, and he became the source fro the character of Fishke der krumer. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.224