Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 10.010 June 11, 2000 1) Chernohuz (Shaya Mitelman) 2) tshernohuz (Hugh Denman) 3) Sholem Aleichem's funeral (Abe Chasid) 4) Bontche Shveig (Elly T. Margolis) 5) Spelling and neshome (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 6) The etymology of 'grenets' (Hugh Denman) 7) Translating a Yizkor Book (Jack Berger) 8) gevir (Felicity Bloch) 9) amolik (Sam Kweskin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 From: Serge Mitelman Subject: Chernohuz Stork appears to be one of the most diverse Yiddish birds! Lucas Bruyn (Vol.10.005.6) is right that chernohuz is stork in Ukrainian and local (Sholem-Aleykhem's) Yiddish. Vladimir Dal's Russian Dictionary reads: "Chernoguz - aist, busel". And perhaps every region in our Yiddishland has its own word for this bird. Here's what I found: shtorkh (shterkh), bochan (buchan, botsyan), bushl (bushlik), chernohuz (chernoguz), and finally in my own homeland it was called kukastyrke. Shaya Mitelman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 From: Hugh Denman Subject: tshernohuz with reference to Lucas Bruyn's query [10.005:6] re 'tshernohuz', there can be little doubt, but that in the context cited the meaning is 'stork', the bird's long beak parodying Mendl's "spitseke noz". Mendele has just 0slightly Russified the Ukrainian term 'chornohuz', not surprising given the relative status of the two languages at the time. Hugh Denman London 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 From: Abe Chasid Subject: Sholem Aleichem's funeral I read the following sentence in an introduction about Sholem Aleichem at http://www.mottel.com/intro.html. "His funeral in New York was the largest ever seen up until that time, over 200,000 people walked with their Folkwriter from the Bronx, down Broadway in Manhattan, to his internment in Brooklyn. His will is considered one of the great ethical wills in History, and was read into the Congressional Record." Can any maven or mumkhe give me or refer me to further information on Sholem Aleichem's ethical will & epitaph on his stone?? BTW -- where is he buried -- in which cemetery ?? Abe Chasid 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 From: ChassiElly@aol.com Subject: Bontche Shveig Allow me to enter the "Bontche Shveig" fray. I believe I was the first to have a translation into English published .....a very long time ago. The discussants have what I believe is a misunderstanding both of the story and of its author. Peretz was definitely not anti-religious. True, he was a leading light among the burgeoning secular, socialist-oriented Jewish movement; but he observed traditional Jewish customs and respected the right of the religious to their beliefs. Early on Peretz demonstrated his respect for tradition in a spectacular way. Having set up a brewery, he found himself with a large inventory of beer in process at Pesach. Rather than be part of ongoing fermentation, he poured his entire inventory down the drain and went bankrupt. Much of Peretz's writing concerned the Jewish way of compensating for their harried existence through believing in redemption in the next world. Bontche was Peretz's allegory for the downtrodden Ashkenazim so acceptive of their destiny that even their dreams of redemption in the next world had little scope. One more facet on Peretz. He was probably the first male writer in any European language to defend womankind. His "Sholem Bayiss"(domestic peace) is usually considered his version of the Romeo and Juliet story. I disagree. It is a story of a hardworking, poverty-stricken illiterate man rebelling against the fate of Jewish women in both this world and the next. Elly T. Margolis 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 From: Marjorie Hirshan Subject: Spelling and neshome Noyekh Miller poses a deeply neshomedike question: Should a Yiddish book, upon reissue, conform to the author's spelling, or should YIVO spelling be invoked? Azoy vi tsugeshikt fun himl, the day after the question was posed, iz ongekumen a bikhl in post, a matone fun Lanskyn, Harkavy's _amerikanisher briefen-shteler_, digitized. Iz dos bikhl geshribn altmodish, daytshmerish, un ven ikh hob es bakukt, iz take gekumen tsu mir forleyenen mayn bobe in ir fatsheyle mit di bloye blimelekh. Just as Noyekh indicated, its old style spelling adds an enriching dimension to its reading. Proof positiv, on the one hand, that all art is timebound, and those boundaries must be respected. But as Tevye would say - on the other hand, if not for standardizations, we would still be reading when that Aprille with its shoures soote (or a reasonable facsimile)..... I must voice my hope that standardization is what happens after centuries of developmental changes in speech and/or spelling, and that these standardizations are based upon the words that prevail in the neshomes of the people in the marketplace of the day. These rules create a base for academics and for 'right' and 'wrong' in fine-tuning language through time. Only a gazlen would veto or give up copies (Shakespeare, Browning...) with the wouldsts and shouldsts and thees and thous. But only a gazlen would let choice of word become a free for all between both stages. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 From: Hugh Denman Subject: The etymology of 'grenets' With reference to Al Grand's query [10.005:7] re the etymology of 'grenets', there is no doubt that this etymon is of Old Slav origin and that the German (modern 'Grenze') was borrowed first of all in the Prussian marches around the middle of the thirteenth century. It is also clear for reasons that have been aired in "these columns" by me and others many times before that the origin cannot be Russian. Ukrainian and Czech are, of course, excluded by the initial 'g'. The present form of the Yiddish word appears to be equally compatible with a borrowing from the MHG 'greniz(e)' or from an Old Polish (initially stressed) 'granica'. It would be hard to prove, I think, from which of these two it derived and it is probably unnecessary to do so, since it is not uncommon for Yiddish words to have mutually reinforcing multiple origins. Paul Wexler would, no doubt, wish to appeal to a putative Old Sorbian origin and might just be right in doing so. Hugh Denman London 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 From: Jack Berger Subject: Translating a Yizkor Book Ben Fogel's commentary concerning the Brzezin Yizkor Book are all too true. I am the Chronicler of the Freidin Family of Zelva (Belarus). Beginning in 1985, I addressed this problem, when I received a then recently published 'Sefer Zikaron Zelva,' from Israel. I successfully translated this from Hebrew into English and published it in 1992. In 1998, landsleit from the shtetl of Dereczin, adjacent to Zelva, provided me with the largely Yiddish (some Hebrew) Yizkor book for their shtetl. I successfully translated this into English, and published it this past March, 2000. This is not difficult work, but suffers from being extremely tedious. I am not done: I am just launching a translation of a trilogy of Yizkor Books for the town of Volkovysk. After that, members of my father's family have requested that I tackle the Zamosc Yizkor Book. My plate is full for the forseeable future. In my translator's forward to the Dereczin Memorial Book, I make mention of the great irony attached to the decision by our forbears to record their memories in mameloshn. A formidable wall has descended between the generation who set down their memories, and their progeny, who were often denied the requisite language facility, in the rush to assimilate into the mainstream of their newly found homeland. Time inexorably is running out for those with adequate linguistic skills to tear down that wall, because our ranks are not -- repeat-- not being replenished in a sufficiently meaningful way to overcome this problem in the large. Regards Jack Berger 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 From: "Sidney Bloch" Subject: gevir 1. Does anyone know the etymology of the Yiddish, "gevir" wealthy man, patron and by implication boss of the shtetl? Is it related to the Hebrew/Yiddish gevura power, mastery, which is in turn related to "gever"male, gibor hero, etc? 2. If that is the correct derivation, how does it impact on the meaning of the word? Does the derivation imply that Yiddish speakers always had a realistic grasp of the relationship beween power and wealth, or more concretely, the power and control assumed by wealthy individuals in shtetl affairs? 3. This question arose for me with regard to the role of Australian mining entrepreneur Joseph Gutnick, a controversial powerbroker in Israeli politics, who bankrolled the election publicity which won Netanyahu the last but one election.(He financed the controversial "Bibi is good for the Jews" slogan.) In a recent biography, Diamonds and Demons: the Joseph Gutnick story, by David Bernstein, Gutnick, a passionate adherent of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, justifies his role in politics and religion as that of the traditional "gevir". He repeats over and over that this role was designated for him by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was chosen to be the Rebbe's "gevir", or wealthy patron. Gutnick is clearly proud of the title, which has no negative associations for him. But, my own feeling is that in colloquial Yiddish , the concept of "gevir", is an ambiguous one. When Jews were an impoverished and oppressed minority, leadership of the shtetl was vested in the gevir who had the skills and means to protect their community from hostile authorities. Would I be correct in sensing that the word has gradually acquired negative or ironic "godfather"overtones, i.e. implying aspirations for political control by oligarchic elites, which still remains a problem for modern Jewish communities? 4. This question is political. On the strength of a personal appointment by the Rebbe, his gevir, Joseph Gutnick uses his wealth to influence politics in Israel. Does this mean that Lubavitch and other ultra-orthodox movements are stuck in a time warp, trying to revive the power structures and relationships of the shtetl where Jews were an oppressed minority, on the modern state of Israel? 5. Is one justified in pursuing such an argument based on the semantics of a single word? Felicity Bloch 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 From: ESSAIKAY@aol.com Subject: amolik Lomir zikh shoin areinmischen in der debate veygn "amolik" usv!(Mendele Vol 10 #2). Far vos keiner hot nit areingevorfen der vort "ehemals" (fun Deitsch ), vos bedeit "formerly, of a time" kenn ikh nit farshteyn! B'avadai iz "ehemahlig" nur a kurtsen tritt (alts adverb) biz "ehemalik>ehemolik>amolik". A gruss faroys Ezra Shmuel Kweskin Let me mix into the debate over "amolik" (Mendele Vol.10,No. 2). Why no one has thrown in the word "ehemals": (from the German), which means "formerly, of a time" is something I can't understand. It's just a short adverbial step into '"ehemalik>ehemolik>amolik" Greetings to all Sam Kweskin ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 10.010 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