Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.099 November 10, 1997 1) Yiddish poetry on Kristallnacht (Mark Zuckerman) 2) Eugene Victor Debs (Irv Justman) 3) baleytn/bagleytn (Hugh Denman) 4) Beni Warshawsky's dismissal of linguistics (Alexis Manaster Ramer) 5) Shlock, schok, and Shylock (Ellen Cassedy) 6) Sholem Asch (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 7) Baleytn/Bagleytn (Al Grand) 8) zaynen "shlock(?)/schoch(?)" yidisheh verter? (Frida Grapa de Cielak) 9) Der soykher fun venedig (Gilles Rozier) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 17:48:29 -0500 From: Mark Zuckerman Subject: Yiddish poetry on Kristallnacht I am a composer looking to write a piece using a Yiddish text commemorating Kristallnacht. I would be grateful for any suggestions about a possible text. Mark Zuckerman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 03:34:08 -0500 (EST) From: IRVMIL@aol.com Subject: Eugene Victor Debs Sometimes I no longer am sure whether I remember something that really happened to me or whether I am merely remembering an apocriphal story that I have heard many times. Anyhow, I recall an incident one summer Sunday in 1927 or 1928 at the Workmen's Circle Childrens Camp in Pauling NY, when our favorite perennial presidential candidate appeared unexpectedly during a concert and was introduced tsu zugen a pur verter. After a few general remarks, he switched briefly to yiddish, concluding with: Ikh ken nisht zine a guter yid. Ober ikh vel nisht zine a shlekhter goy. The applause was long and thunderous. Irv Justman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 13:26:29 +0000 From: Hugh Denman Subject: baleytn/bagleytn First Andrey Bredshteyn [0.7097:6] regales us with the bizarre idea of Uriel Weinreich sitting at his desk in NY inventing Yiddish words, an idea which is quickly refuted by Mordkhe Schaechter [0.7097:7] who with his accustomed erudition demonstrates the yikhes of "baleytn". But now Louis Fridhandler writes [0.7098:2]: "It seems obvious that the German _begleiten_ is the root. Yiddish not only changed the vowels (very ordinary), but (for some) dropped the g. Any other examples?" There will not be any more examples of khaver Fridhandler's putative g-dropping law, because 'baleytn' is no more derived from 'begleiten' than Yiddish is from New High German (or any other form of contemporary German for that matter). And anyway, why should it seem "obvious"? When one bears in mind that 'leiten' means 'lead' and 'gleiten' means 'glide', it seems prima facie more reasonable to regard 'baleytn' as the older root form and to start wondering where NHG acquired the extra g. Actually, both 'baleytn' and 'begleiten' come from MHG 'beleiten', which is in turn derived from OHG 'bileiten'. At a much later stage NHG acquired the extra g as the result of conflation with the variant 'geleiten' of the same meaning. True enough, largely as the result of the maskilic fascination with occidental culture mediated through German, modern Yiddish has absorbed a relatively large number of neologisms mostly designating recognisably new-fangled concepts like 'libe' and 'shul(e)' (often flagged, as in these cases, by the -e ending). An exaggerated esteem for all things German can also lead to daytshmerish "corrections" of good old Yiddish words as in the present case with 'bagleytn'. There is probably nothing we can do to counter the widely held misapprehension that Yiddish is a corrupt form of (modern) German, but at least we Mendelyaner should be aware that Yiddish has a venerable history going back about a thousand years and that Yiddish and NHG are parallel independent languages that both developed out of MHG. The fact that both languages have borrowed from each other in modern times does not affect the general principle. It should never be our reflex response to derive basic Yiddish words from NHG. Hugh Denman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 11:36:00 -0500 (EST) From: manaster@umich.edu Subject: Beni Warshawsky's dismissal of linguistics I must say that it is really quite upsetting to be in effect told that one's whole professional life has been a waste of time, because instead of linguistics all we need, to find an etymology, is ask a native speakers. I wonder though whether Mr. Warshawsky would be kind enough to ask a non- linguistically trained Yiddish speaker for the etymology of ikh and whether he would get anything more than that it comes from German. And if so, should we ignore the results of comparative linguistics which tell us where the German comes from. Likewise, how about asking about where bentshn comes from. I doubt that a linguistically naive speaker would come up with anything. Nor is it a matetr of linguistics only. As far as I know, historians, archeologists, anthropologists, lexicographers, and several other groups do accept what linguistics has to say about the origin of words and languages.Certainly, Max Weinreich knew and used linguistic methods, and would never have dreamed of asking Mr. Warshawsky or his informant for etymological information. Does Mr. Warshawsky wish to dismiss all of them as well? Perhaps instead of Webster's, we should ask passersby on the street for the etymologies of English words. Until the early 19th century, etymology was a well-known joke among the scholarly disciplines, and many suspect that Plato's dialogue dealing with it (Cratylus) was intended as a spoof. The discovery of comparative linguistics in the late 18th and early 19th cent. made a major change, which all scholars of Yiddish as well as other languages have accepted. It is true that there remain areas of obscurity and disagreement, but it is precisely the kind of discussion that MeyerWolf, Dovid Braun, and I havehad here that leads to progress. This does not mean that we will necessarily succeed in explaining davenen to everyone's satisfaction. But that as it should be. Scholarship begins when we realize that the world is not as simple as "common sense" and that goes double for anything to do with language, where native speakers' ideas are almost always false. Alexis Manaster Ramer 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 12:34:19 -0500 (EST) From: CassBlum@aol.com Subject: Shlock, schok, and Shylock With the recent entrance of the Merchant of Venice into the conversation, we now have an opportunity to explore the relationship between Shakespeare, cruddy merchandise, and sukkah coverings! Any takers? ;) Ellen Cassedy Bethesda, MD 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 18:33:48 -0500 (EST) From: SHirshan@aol.com Subject: Sholem Asch I've just returned from an exciting stay in Evanston, Illinois, where Northwestern and the abundance of booksellers enabled me to come closer to completion of my collection of Sholem Asch's works in translation. Tucked into a like-new edition of "Mottke the Thief" (doesn't Mottke Gonef sound sweeter?) was a jagged yellowed page torn from the Chicago Sun Times of Thursday, July (number is obliterated), 1956 - the obit for Asch (most definitely not written by Ab Cahan!). Its headline read "Sholem Asch, Novelist, Dies On London Visit". I was suddenly recalling the many heated discussions from my youth that started with, "Sholem Asch hot zikh geshmadt. Zey nor vos er shraybt!" Though not a master craftsman, he always moved me deeply, especially his respect for women, and yes, for the Jew. Some excerpts from his obit follow. "Special to the Sun-Times London- Sholem Asch, noted Jewish author, died Wednesday. Mr. Asch, 76, was on a visit from Israel. "Widely accepted as one of the great writers of his generation, Mr. Asch was, at the same time, a highly controversial figure in Jewish life. "Although he spoke several languages fluently, he wrote exclusively in Yiddish, and his works were widely translated. He was deeply preoccupied with the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and the themes of many of his books reflected this. ..... "Mr. Asch was born in Kutno, Poland, on Nov. 1, 1880, the fifteenth child of Moses Asch, a cattle and sheep dealer, and Malka Widavska Asch. He received a rabbinic education, but while still a youth transferred his interest to writing. "An ardent Zionist, he visiited Israel in 1906...... He came to the United States in 1910 and worked for the "Jewish Daily Forward" as well as writing novels. "Explaining his interest in Jesus, Mr. Asch once told an interviewer: "My attitude toward Jesus was that I felt he was part of us. Everything I have done I feel I have done for the comfort of the Jewish people. I consider myself a ver y good Jew. "In answer to charges that his writings indicated he had abandoned Judaism, Mr. Asch said, "I have never done anything in my life to justify the rumor that I have left the Jewish religion." "Mr. Asch lived in Europe frequently, contending that the tempo of American life..... made creative writing difficult. More recently he had made Israerl his home. "He married Mathilda Spira in 1901. They had three sons, Nathan, Moe and John Asch, and a daughter, Ruth." "Der Tilim Yid" is called "Salvation" in the translation. If you're inclined to read only one, I would root for "East River" in any language. A shayle: What is the Yiddish name for his book translated as, "A Passage in the Night"? Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 22:40:36 -0500 (EST) From: Savoyid@aol.com Subject: Baleytn / Bagleytn I'm thankful to those who pointed out that in the Yiddish to English section of Weinreich's dictionary it does indeed indicate his preference for _baleytn_ over _bagleytn_. I somehow find the sound of _bagleytn_ aesthetically more pleasing and am rather disappointed to learn from Mordkhe Schaechter's response that Max Weinreich considers it to be a daytshmerism. But here's an interesting curiosity: While Weinreich favors _baleytn_ in his dictionary which was published in 1968 I see on the very first page of the Britannica World Language Dictionary (1971 edition) _BAGLEYTN_ in the Yiddish column for the word _accompany_ in Part One "English to Other Languages." I call it a curiosity because none other than Uriel Weinreich is listed as the Yiddish Editor on the page listing the editorial staff ! Al Grand 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 00:31:31 -0600 From: arele@enter.net.mx (FRIDA Grapa de CIELAK) Subject: zaynen "shlock(?)/schoch(?)" yidisheh verter? Der dakh fun a sukkeh, the covering of the sukkah, its branches on top, as the roof of the sukkah, have always been called: "SKHAHKH" (samakh, khof un a langer khof). Vos tut zikh epes in Mendele, miht dem veln shraybn "schoch" un "shlock" un diskutirn azoy fil oyf dem zelbn yinien? "shlokh"(nisht "shlock"), shlokh iz ah meydl, ah foyler-zak vos iz nisht reyn un halt nisht dih zakhn in ordenung. "shlak" iz ah 'stroke' or a bad person,evil. "schoch"? (samakh,tes, shin, kometz-alef, tes, shin) klingt ingantzn nisht yidish far mihr! Un far ahykh, mendelyaners? Freydl Cielak, Mexico City note: a groysn dank dih aleh vos hobn zikh opgerufn un tzugeshikt dih verter fun "dih grineh kuzineh", a groysn dank, FC 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 08 Nov 1997 17:11:12 +0100 From: Bibliotheque Medem Subject: Der soykher fun venedig About Shylock theme, Leonard Prager mentionned "Shylok lakht" fun Moyshe Broderzon. There is another work by Broderzon in which Shylock has a role. The puppet play "Tsungenlungen" (Tsungenlungen : maryonetn-shpil, Lodz, Yung-yidish, 1921, 32 p.), Shylock is a vagabond who comes in the palace of a Spanish princess, Maria. He recognizes Maria as his daughter Jessica, and one can understand that Jessica maried a non-jew, decades ago. About Movevski's essay "Shaylok un Shekspir", also mentionned by L. Prager: it was first published in the periodical Globus (red. Arn Tseytlin and Yitskhok Bashevis, n. 11(17) (November 1933), pp. 66-85 and n. 12(18) (December 1933) pp. 50-78. Gilles Rozier ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.099 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://mendele.commons.yale.edu http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html