Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.042 November 14, 1999 1) Yiddish in the European Educational Network Encyclopaedia (Dov Winer) 2) _man_ the guns! (Mikhl Herzog) 3) man - mentch (Jack Berger) 4) man - mentch (Anatole Beck) 5) lodzer dialekt (Feygl Infeld Glezer) 6) hurrah for Yiddish (Reuvan Stark) 7) 1000 years Yiddish (Oscar Antel) 8) "Muter Rukhel" (Rita Falbel) 9) personal stories about Molly Picon (sheila fox) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 21:01:22 +0200 From: Dov Winer Subject: Yiddish in the European Educational Network Encyclopaedia Dear Mendelyaner, I will appreciate your help with the following matter. I have succeeded in including Israel in the EUN (European Schoolnet) network. It connects all of the national educational networks of the European Union countries. One of the new project of the EUN is the European Encyclopaedia. It is a multilanguage project in which schools, colleges, universities and other educaitonal institutions adopt a Word and develop it in its language using Web based tools. The Word can be defined using texts, graphics, video clips, sounds and the like. I have insisted that Yiddish is the truly European Jewish language and should be represented among the languages supported by the Encyclopaedia. I am doing the translation of the 4 HTML pages and the Word (one and half page) requested by the EUN organizers of the project. I would appreciate very much if you could find somebody to provide the Yiddish translation. I will be able to put it in graphics if you are able to send me the translated pages in an RTF document. The only way to garantee that everybody, with or without support for Yiddish/Hebrew characters be able to read it is to publish it as graphics. The deadline is tight but I received the materials only in the beginning of this week. Best regards, Dov Winer 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 15:55:31 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mikhl Herzog" Subject: _man_ the guns! Wow! What a furor. And what an exhaustive list that Mordkhe Schaechter provides. The point about such lists, however, is that much as they represent the considerable efforts of the dictionary maker, such lists never repesent the lexical inventory of a normal speaker. As the response to my assertion demonstrate, there must be some individual variation in the matter. Concerning the matter of Yiddish _man_ and _mentsh_ and English 'man' and 'husband', It would be instructive to examine the data that he and I, among others, collected from hundreds of native Yiddish speakers, in the US, Canada, Mexico. You can be sure that _man_ 'man' is largely a US-Canada phenomenon. Being a native English speaker myself, you can imagine my own surprise in interviewing dozens of speakers in Israel, to discover that the translation of Hebrew _ha-ish im hayayin_ was (universally?) _der mentsh mitn vayn_ (/_vaan_/_van_). Of course, the point of the question (designed in America) was to elicit the conrast between long /aa/ and short /a/ (der man mitn vaan) in Poland, and between /a/ and /o/ (der mon mitn van) in the Southern Ukraine. IT JUST DIDN'T OFTEN WORK _man un vayb_/_froy_ 'husband and wife' _manen_ 'husbands' _mener un froyen_ 'men & women' _mentsh_ is, of course, human being--perhaps for all speaker. For some, as I've noted, it means _man_ And, _dos mentsh_ is female. Mikhl Herzog 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 20:15:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Jack Berger Subject: man - mentch Having read the various inputs, I believe the examples of 'man' as man (as opposed to 'husband') are exemplary, and I recognize them all (I just didn't think of them!). It appears to me that 'man' can be EITHER 'man' OR 'husband,' depending on the context (Feigel Glaser's point, although I am more taken by Norman Buder's examples than what it says in a dictionary). 'Mentch' (or 'mensch') can certainly be 'man,' but I cannot bring to mind an instance where it COULD BE husband. Regards Jack Berger 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 07:28:16 -0500 (EST) From: Anatole Beck Subject: man - mentsh I cannot believe the dispute over the matter of man and mentsh. Yiddish is fortunate, unlike English or French, but in company with Latin and German, to have a word for human being which is not specifically masculine(homo and Mentsch as compared with vir and Mann). This is exemplified in the concept of mentshlikhkayt (Mentschlichkeit in German), which tranlates as humanity, not masculinity. Of course, like the German from which it comes, man also means husband, as froy means both woman and wife. (Interestingly, in German, Frau means woman or wife, but the more common word for woman is Weib, which does not mean wife.) I thought EVERYBODY knew this. Anatole Beck 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 20:18:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Feigl I Glaser Subject: lodzer dialekt In response to Mikhl Herzog: According to my knowledge, people in Lodz said: di (or de) piter (puter) and in dative mit der (or de) piter (puter). Yes, yes, puter or piter are vayblekher min (feminine) I cannot answer for everyone in Lodz, because Lodz was a young city, and many inhabitants came from different provinces and many people from the surrounding provinces are claiming that they are from Lodz. My grandparents were also NOT natives of Lodz; they came from Piontke (Piatek), Dzhaloshits (Dzialoszyce) and Pintshev (Pinczow). I do not find in any decent dictionary that puter (or piter) is of neuter gender (zakhlekher min). Di poshete, nit-kulturele aynvoyner in Lodz, hobn aropgeshlungen di reysh (R) baym sof fun vort. Zey hobn gezogt aanvoyne (nit aynvoyner), mese (nit meser), tele (nit teler), pite (nit piter oder puter), de (nit der), un azoy vayter. Bimeyle hobn zey aroysgeredt "mit de pite arup" (nit mit der puter/piter arop/arup). Khotsh es iz shver, darf men kenen untersheydn tsvishn "DE" (di) un "DE" (der). Oyf dem darf men nit geyn lernen in di universitetn; a Lodzer veyst shoyn! Nokhamol, beste grusn, Ayer Feygl Infeld Glezer 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 18:08:53 -0400 (EDT) From: bob Stark Subject: hurrah for Yiddish It gives me greatr pleasure to hear of Yiddish music festivals, and exchanges of individuals onthe Yiddish language, but I am saddened that so many of these happen outside of Israel. I want Yiddish music and the Yiddish language to thrive but even more so I want the people who make Yiddish music and talk and write in Yiddish to be in Israel. I want to hear that Jews are in Israel are making music and using Yiddish. Although I was born and raised in America I am wretched thinking of the horrors that Jews lived through in Europe. That Jews are building Jewish communities in Europe gives me mixed feelings. That they are alive and well delights me , that they are not planning to leave Europe for Israel perplexes me. My heart dreams of Israel while I can live in an America that has been good to Jews. Shalom Reuvan Stark 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 15:25:55 -0500 (EST) From: oantel@escape.ca (oscar antel) Subject: 1000 years Yiddish Many communities are getting ready to celebrate one thousand years of Yiddish. Can somone inform me if there is actually a date or an event or series of developments on which we base the beginning of Yiddish one thousand years ago. Oscar Antel 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 16:24:57 -0500 (EST) From: Rita Falbel Subject: "Muter Rucjel" Has anyone heard of a song called "Muter Rucjel" or "Keyver Ruchel". The woman who asked me learned this song in third or fourth grade when she was a student at the Bais Yaakov in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, which was in those days a trilingual school. The melody is quite haunting, sad and dirge-like. The words she remembers are: Tvishen Khevron un Bais-Lekhem ligt a keyver in der midbar dortn ligt die muter Ruchel in der midbar gans aleyn dorten ligt die muter Ruchel in der midbar gans aleyn. Refrain: Muter Ruchel, muter Ruchel dayne kinder vaynen zeyer I'd appreciate any help with this. A hartstign Dank Rita Falbel 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 21:52:18 -0500 (EST) From: Sjofox@aol.com Subject: personal stories about Molly Picon I am a performer here in seattle and i am collecting personal stories people have out there about Molly Picon. Did you ever get to see her perform???? Please tell me about it. I am putting together a Molly Picon presentation for our Mameloshn Conference here and would love to hear from you!! sheynem dank, sheila fox ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.042 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