Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 7.066 September 26, 1997 1) visnogge (R Harris) 2) Western Yiddish (A. Manaster Ramer) 3) A baker's donkey (David Herskovic) 4) Alsatian Yiddish (Paul Glasser) 5) Internationale (Marti Krow-Lucal) 6) Di zaitung fun der botvin-brigade (moishe kijak) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 11:11:01 +0200 From: rdeh Subject: visnogge I am currently helping compile the Oxford Food Companion, and felt that it should have an entry for fisnogge (fishnogge) - however, as I don't have access to a Yiddish dictionary or encyclopaedia, I wondered if you could help me with either information or a reference to this peculiar term consisting of the word "foot" in two languages. With very many thanks, R Harris 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:26:12 -0400 (EDT) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Western Yiddish The posting on Alsatian Yiddish is quite misleading because it confuses two different issues. On the one hand, it IS true that many Yiddishists such as Birnbaum and Weinreich treated any kind of Jewish German (excpt modern German spoken by Jews) as "Yiddish" and explicitly employed nonlinguistic argumetns for this position. Ont heother hand, those of us who confine ourselves to linguistics and who believe that there havebeen kind of Judeo-German other than Yiddish, e.g., Dovid Katz and myself, do have overwhelming linguistic evidence that so-called "Western Yiddish", incl. Alsatian, comes from the very same source as Eastern Yiddish. It is thus not a matter of ideology or definition but of fact. The largest list of linguistic features which argue for the unity of all of Yiddish, see my recent paper "The polygenesis of WY--and the monogenesis of Y". Katz's work of course has been out for over a decade and in a nuber of places, and I must say I am puzzled that it could be so cavalierly ignored. A. Manaster Ramer 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 23:46:08 +0100 From: David Herskovic Subject: A baker's donkey Er zetst vi a beker He (thumps) [phrases] like a baker This expression is used, especially by rebes in khayder, to mock someone misphrasing passages in Hebrew Misphrasing was probably a result of the way Hebrew used to be taught, and still is in some circles, in that children are taught to read without any understanding of what they are saying. They then progress to khimesh, sider and tehilim but often with little understanding of the meaning of the words. Another factor is the poor, if any, punctuation of holy texts. The baker's thumping (kneading) is not merely a pun as a baker, along with a shister and shnader (cobbler and taylor) are the archetypal ameratsim. As the rebe would say to a kartofel kop, 'vos vet fin dir vaksn? A shister? A shnader?' An hilarious example of zetsen vi a beker is the bal tfile who said 'milfoneykho mishpotayni, yaytsay ayneykho, tekhzeno mayshorim'. (From You my vindication [should emanate], may Your eyes bulge out, see my righteous deeds. see Psalms 17.2) Another saying on linguistic howlers explains how to make sense of homonyms, a not uncommon occurrence in the gemore where two languages are intertwined. When words of similar sound but different meaning are confused the explanation is given: 's'vendt zikh vi der khamer shtayt an: is es in keyler is es van, is es in shtal is es an aysel'. (It depends where the 'khamer' -meaning 'wine' in Aramaic, 'donkey' in Hebrew- resides: if it's in the cellar it's wine but if its in the stable it's a donkey. Or simply, put the word in its context.) David Herskovic 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:37:07 EDT From: paullaure@juno.com (Paul D Glasser) Subject: Alsatian Yiddish In answer to Prof. Joachim Mugdan's views on Alsatian Yiddish (as transmitted by the Leesons), specifically: "If we apply the criteria linguists normally use in deciding whether X and Y are different languages or varieties of a single language, the features of Judeo-German are not sufficient to classify it as a language separate from (gentile) German." However, he does not specify these criteria, because linguists "normally" do not take it upon themselves to decide where a dialect ends and a language begins. If "many scholars insist that what we've called Judeo-German should be named 'Yiddish' or, specifically, 'Western Yiddish.' As I see it, their reasons are essentially ideological," that is sensible, because ideology, otherwise known as politics, is what generally determines what is a language and what is a dialect. No linguistic criteria can explain why Czech and Slovak (which are so similar) are separate languages, but northern and southern Chinese dialects (so different) are the same one. It might be pointed out that Czechs and Slovaks use different literary languages, whereas Mandarin and Cantonese use the same one, but, of course, that is actually also the result of ideology/politics. In the case of Yiddish and German, the use of different alphabets points up the fact that these two different cultural groups use two different languages, although the different alphabets alone do not cause these two to be different languages. Prof. Mugdan undercuts his own argument when he writes that "as long as Jews in Germany (and Switzerland, Alsace, the Netherlands, etc.) continued to speak Judeo-German, there still was a certain linguistic unity between East and West, at least in the written medium. That unity was lost when (in connection with the Emancipation) Jews in Germany began to use Standard German in Latin letters for written communication and eventually gave up Judeo-German as a spoken medium, too." If there was "linguistic unity" between eastern and western European Jews, it must have been because they used the same language. If it is agreed that the language in the east was Yiddish, then the language in the west must have been Yiddish, too. Incidentally, in his "Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh" (History of the Yiddish Language), Max Weinreich has an interesting discussion of this matter, including the famous remark that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy." See vol. II, pp. 3-4 and vol. IV, pp. 3-5 in the Yiddish original, pp. 349-350 in the English translation (if you will forgive a plug, the English translation of vols. III-IV is being prepared by this writer and should appear sometime in 1998, at which point this reference can be completed). When the Leesons write: "Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish are not connected by virtue of their origins being German in both cases, but are, in fact, separated by this phenomenon," I am not sure I understand. It seems to me that what distinguishes Eastern and Western Yiddish is primarily the heavy Slavic influence in the east, in vocabulary, grammar, idioms, and phonology. What the two branches have in common is their German component. Paul Glasser (Hershl Glezer) 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 01:46:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Kromobile@aol.com Subject: Internationale Per the request of several Mendelyaner, a transliteration of the 1917 "revolutsionere rusland"/Bundist version of the Internationale follows. I have attemped to reproduce (in transliteration, obviously) the original spelling. "Shteht oyf, ihr ale, ver vi shklafen in hunger leben muz, in noyt! Der geyst - er kokht, er ruft tsu vafen, in shlakht unz fihren iz er greyt... Di velt fun gvaldthaten un leyden tsushteren velen mir un dan fun frayhayt, glaykhhayt a gan-eydn beshafen vet der arbeyts-man. Dos vet zayn shoyn der letster un entshidener shtrayt; mit dem internatsional shteht oyf, ihr arbeyts-layt! Neyn, keyner vet unz nit befrayen: nit got aleyn un nit keyn held-- mit unzer eygenem kle-zayen [=kof-lamed-yud zayen-yud-langer nun] erlezung brengen mir der velt. Di groyse shturm-teg zey velen yer far tiranen shreklikh zayn; zey konen ober nit fershtelen fun unz de hele zunen-shayn. Dos vet zayn shoyn der letster un entshidener shtrayt; mit dem internatsional shteht oyf, ihr arbeyts-layt! Der arbeyts-man vet zayn memshole [=mem-mem-shin-lamed-hey] fershpreymen oyf der gantser erd, un paraziten di mapole [mem-pey-lamed-hey] bekumen velen fun zayn shverd. Arop dem yokh! genug geliten, genug fergosen blut un shveys! Tsublozt dem fayer, lomir shmiden kolzman [=kof-lamed zayen-mem-langer nun] dos ayzen iz nokh heys! Dos vet zayn shoyn der letster un entshidener shtrayt; mit dem internatsional shteht oyf, ihr arbeyts-layt!" If something looks wrong or unclear, please feel free to e-mail me and I will be happy to check it again. The book is fascinating, with reproduced photos and/or articles of people from Sofia Perovskaya to Medem. Marti Krow-Lucal Sunnyvale 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 09:25:36 ARG From: "Gustavo Kijak" Subject: Di zaitung fun der botvin-brigade Tayere fraynt, mit etlekhe yior tzurik hob ikh zikh ongetrofn mit a broshur gedrukt in shpanie durkh der franko-regirung, vegn di internatsionale brigades. in dem dozikn broshur iz geven a kopie fun der ershter zayt fun a tzaitung oif idish vos di botvin-brigade flegt aroisgebn. veist emitzer fun aikh mer protim vegn ot det tsaitung un tzi es hobn zikh opgehit eksemplarn? a dank forois. ikh nutz ois di gelegnait tzu vintchn aikh alemen a gezunt un gliklekh yior. ayer fraynt fun argentine, moishe kijak ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 7.066