Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.018 July 16, 1999 1) Yiddish of Alsace (Yosef Gilboa) 2) "Kol nidre" on the violin (Bob Rothstein) 3) "Voiture de place" (Harold L. Orbach) 4) shtetl profession (Mekhl Zlotowski) 5) Shylock and his daughter (Dror Abend-David) 6) Lodzher Goniff (Harold L Orbach) 7) Lodzher gonif (Bob Rothstein) 8) fargin, lefargen (Sema Chaimovitz Menora) 9) Mendele-history (David Sherman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 04:05:29 -0400 (EDT) From: AJ Gilboa Subject: Yiddish of Alsace Shalom, My "mehutan", Eli Sommer of Kfar Etzion, himself a descendant of Alsacian Jews, has pointed me to the website of the Jewish community of Alsace. www.sdv.fr/judaisme For information about the Alsacian dialect of Western Yiddish, select the "Dialecte" button. Yosef Gilboa 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 20:34:12 -0400 (EDT) From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: "Kol nidre" on the violin A colleague interested in the use of musical instruments in Jewish religious practice is trying to track down a Yiddish story that he vaguely remembers in which a violinist plays "Kol nidre" in shul. Can anyone help? (Since this may not be of general interest, please reply to me personally.) Bob Rothstein 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 07:01:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Harold L Orbach Subject: "Voiture de place" Jack Gottlieb asks about the "profession" of 'voiture de place' [09.010]: This is one (older) way of referring to a taxi or hack, so individuals with this listing were likely cab or hack drivers. Why they used a French expression in shtetl directories is another matter, except that in Poland, things French were quite common and indeed "chic." Harold L. Orbach Manhattan, KS 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 05:02:26 -0400 (EDT) From: "MZ" Subject: shtetl profession Re. Jack Gottlieb's question [09.010]: Your 1926 directory misspells it. It should read "voiture DE place" and it means "hackney, cab". The individuals were cab owners/drivers. Mekhl Zlotowski, Paris France. 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 14:38:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Dror Abend-David Subject: Shylock and his daughter For Tom Timmons, re: "Yiddish theater" [09.012]: The translation that you are looking for is available at the Harvard University library. Following is the complete record: Schwartz, Maurice Shylock and his daughter ; a play / based on a Hebrew novel by Ari Ibn Zahav; dramatized by Maurice Schwartz. English translation by Abraham Regelson. New York : Yiddish Art Theater, 1947. 146 p. ; 23 cm. Call Number MH ALA 6231.1090 Sincerely, Dror Abend-David. 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 12:04:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Harold L Orbach Subject: Lodzher Goniff Can someone explain to my poor head the discussion in Mendele about 'Lodzher Goniff'? As an original Lodzher-speaking child, I always -- as well as my parents and their landsmen -- have said Lodz with an 'L' sound, that is in Yiddish and by extension in English. But Polish friends and colleagues (especially during one conference in 1990) continually corrected me, pointing out that in Polish it's Wodz (with a 'W' sound not an 'L'.) So if the _Yiddish_ 'Lodzher Goniff' derives from the Polish sound... does that mean that Polish Jews used the Polish pronounciation when speaking to Poles and then transposed the sound joke into Yiddish where it doesn't make sense, unless one knows the Polish? Most of the replies seem to be treating the Polish pronounciation as if it were the same as Yiddish (though Bob Rothstein clearly referred to Jews "speaking in Polish..."). Or am I missing something here? Harold L. Orbach Manhattan, KS 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 21:41:03 -0400 (EDT) From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN Subject: Lodzher gonif In response to Harold Orbach's follow-up question on the Polish and Yiddish "l": Polish used to have (and for a small number of speakers still does have) two "l" sounds. One is represented by the ordinary "l" letter and is produced with the tip of the tongue touching the ridge behind the upper teeth (the alveolar ridge). It is similar to the "l" sound of German or French. The "slashed-l" letter (combining "l" or "L" and a shortened version of "/") used to represent a sound produced with the back of the tongue raised toward the palate. That sound is similar to the Russian "hard l" and can be approximated by the English "dark l," as in a word like "full." For almost all contemporary speakers of Polish, however, the "slashed-l" letter now represents the sound represented by the English letter "w," which is why _L/o'dz'_ (with the diacritics written after the letters for purposes of e-mail) is pronounced approximately [wootsh] (with apologizes to my fellow linguists for the non-standard, but I hope transparent, transcription). I'll leave it to Mikhl Herzog or another specialist to comment on the varieties of "l" in Yiddish. I'll point out only that of Tevye's two potential sons-in-law, one is in Polish "Lejzer" while the other is "Motl/" (once again the e-mail combination "l/" stands for one Polish letter). In any case, a Polish-speaking Jew could well use the Yiddish _lodzher gonif_ as an allusion to the Polish pun _z L/odzi_ 'from Lodz' = _zl/odziej_ 'thief,' which works regardless of whether one uses the older of newer pronunciation of "slashed-l." Bob Rothstein 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 01:01:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Lights4607@aol.com Subject: fargin, lefargen I recently heard an Israeli use the word "mefargen," meaning to hope for the best for someone. When I suggested that this might have come from theYiddish word "farginn," the Israeli, who also spoke Yiddish fluently, was somewhat surprised at the possible connection. Do any of our multi-linguistic Mendlists know if "lefargen" come from the Yiddish "farginn?" Sema Chaimovitz Menora Chicago, Il 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 20:04:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "David M. Sherman" Subject: Mendele-history In response to Ellen Prince [09.013]: Well, the mail.yiddish archives show that Noyekh felt that mail.yiddish was too flighty and non-serious, and that serious academics wouldn't join a list that had the stuff I was putting out (which included bad cross-language puns and Rechnitzer Rejects song transcripts). But I was happy to let Mendele take flight, and I folded mail.yiddish within a few months; I would never have been able to put in the time that Noyekh did to nurture the list. I still enjoy scanning each issue of Mendele with the knowledge that I had a part to play in its genesis. Meanwhile, I'm too busy with all my tax publications (see http://www.davidsherman.ca) to spend a lot of time on Yiddish. But we definitely get to Yidish-vokh every year with the kids (an annual tradition they've grown up with -- this year will be our eleventh). Maybe some of the long-time Mendelyaner like Ellen would like to come this year? August 25-31 at Copake, NY. David Sherman Toronto ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.018 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://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html