Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.053 January 12, 2000 1) Zelda (Mikhl Herzog) 2) Zelda (Hugh Denman) 3) Zelda (George Feldan) 4) Zelda (Octavian Mocanu) 5) Zelda (Ruben Frankenstein) 6) shabbes and shobes (Geoff Nathan) 7) "Af zain treyd" (Yankev Berger) 8) litvish feminine (Dovid Braun) 9) Verner's Law (Nina Warnke) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 22:22:02 -0500 (EST) From: "mikhl herzog" Subject: Zelda Several Mendelisten have written to me in reply to my comments about the name "Zelda". Unfortunately, a recent computer disaster has wiped out my memory of my own posting and some of the comments as well. Perhaps the following will serve as a reply: Appearances to the contrary, Zelda is not likely to be related to Slavic-origin Zlate (or to other variants of that name that is sometimes realized as or paired with _Golde_). _Zelda_ is, on the contrary, better derived from the Medieval German _saelde_, which, among other things means 'blessing', 'health', 'good fortune'. Cf., the masculine _Zelig_. If you're interested in further elaborations (e.g., _Frau Soelde_, look up _saeldaerinne_, _saelde_, etc. in a Middle High German dictionary.) Mikhl Herzog 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 14:54:41 -0500 (EST) From: Hugh Denman Subject: zelda With reference to Mikhl Herzog's query [09.045:4] re the female first name Zelde, it seems to me that the most likely explanation is that this a relexification of Simkhe derived from the MHG saelde 'joy, beatitude, goodness'. Hugh Denman London, England 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 19:17:01 -0500 (EST) From: George M Feldan Subject: Zelda - Query about a name Mikhl Herzog" asked: Can anyone venture an etymology for the Yiddish/English name "Zelda"? A beginning is Benzion Kaganoff's entry in "A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History" which states that the family names Zelda, Selda, Selde, Zeldin and Seldin are all from the woman's name "Salida" which means "happiness." But that doesn't seem to be the whole answer. My Spanish dictionary does not say that salida means happiness and, of course, a complete response would include the Hebrew, Biblical or Yiddish equivalent. George Feldan 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 14:28:17 -0500 (EST) From: "octavian d. mocanu" Subject: ZELDA I got the following answer to the "Zelda" query. < GRISELDA ([fem.]) "grey battle" (Teutonic). This was the name of a patient wife in tales by Boccaccio and Chaucer.>> The information was provided by http://www.pacificcoast.net/~muck/etym.html (The Etymology of First Names - the Origin and Meaning of First Names). There are also an additional reference list where the content was taken from, and a contact electronic address of the page maintainer. Mit chawerschaft, Octavian Mocanu Barcelona, Spain 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 07:26:45 -0500 (EST) From: frankens@uni-freiburg.de Subject: Zelda To Mikhl Herzog's query about Zelda I propose the following etymology: the english Zelda must be the diminutive of Griselda/Griseldis, from the german gris-hild (=grey battle). The yiddish Zelda is the female form of Zelig, deriving from the german "selig" (= blessed, happy). Merry Chanuka or a likhtik Khanike! Ruben Frankenstein, Freiburg 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 09:01:43 -0500 (EST) From: "Geoffrey S. Nathan" Subject: shabbes and shobes In response to Mikhl Herzog (09.048): I can absolutely confirm Rov Mikhl's correction, as I was the originator of the query that Phil answered in the Forward. My father and my mother both knew the rhyme, he from Leeds and she from London. Alas, my interest in Yiddish arose after the death of my maternal grandmother, who had all sorts of other wonderful expressions that I haven't heard or seen elsewhere. Some of them are relatively obvious, such as shtik glomp for a clumsy oaf (actually our dog), and oser , meaning something like today's 'Yeah, right..' Alas, I have forgotten many more of them. Geoff Nathan Carbondale, IL 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 10:04:24 -0500 (EST) From: Jack Berger Subject: "Af zain treyd". In response to Alla Sokolova (09.048): You already have the English translation of "Af zain treyd:" It is as you indicated, "to walk over HIS footsteps." In my Yiddish, I might have said 'trayt' - a little harder on the end consonant. Regards Yankev Berger 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 11:39:32 -0500 (EST) From: David S Braun Subject: litvish feminine To add to Mikhl Herzog's posting: "real" litvish doesn't have tsu DER mamen but tsu DI mamen -- "the gynic" in U. Weinreich's terms. Btw, "real litvish" needs to be better defined, because for subdialects of litvish it is indeed tsu DER mamen. Dovid Braun Jerusalem 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 14:24:41 -0500 (EST) From: Nina Warnke Subject: Verner's Law A linguistics graduate student in my department asked me the following questions which I do not feel qualified to answer. I am wondering if any of our linguistics experts could repsond. If you want to respond to her directly, her email address is: jgranger@indiana.edu Here is Jammie's request: I am working on a paper on Verner's Law in Germanic, and I was hoping that you could give me some information about Yiddish. Does Yiddish preserve the alternations due to Verner's Law between voiced and voiceless obstruents? (/p t k s/ with /b d g r/) as in Gothic strong verbs wairthan and giwordan. Dutch preserves these in many strong verbs such as verliesen/verloren, kiesen koran gekosan. There is levelling in German and English (except for cases such as was/were). And are there any voiced/voiceless distinctions based on stress (i.e. when stress comes on the preceding vowel, you get a voiceless obstruent and when it comes afterwards, you get a voiced one). These new Verner's Law like alternations are found in German: Hannover /f/ and Hannoveraner /v/ and on the phrase level: das muss /z/ ich doch machen (because stress follows the [ss] and does not precede it). Can you think of any examples in Yiddish? There is one more example I can think of in German: nerven /f/ and nervoes /v/. Thank you, Nina Warnke ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.053 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