Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 10.015 June 14, 2000 1) Spelling and neshome (Ellen Prince) 2) Spelling and neshome (Geoffrey Nathan) 3) kale gevorn (Mikhl Herzog) 4) kale gevorn (Ellen Prince) 5) kale gevorn (Mendy Fliegler) 6) yidish hot nisht inter zikh kain medine (Eliahu Toker) 7) Waiting for Mendele (Bob Poe) 8) orl (Rick Turkel) 9) nagan and Hirsh Glik (Hershl Hartman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:31:27 -0400 (EDT) From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Spelling and neshome Marjorie Hirshan writes [10.010] on the issue of whether new publications of Yiddish works should have the author's spelling or YIVO spelling. She says: 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. The problem with the analogy is that Chaucer was writing in Middle English and we speak/read/write Modern English -- two different languages. We can certainly still find recent publications of his Canterbury Tales in the original (Whan that Aprille...), as well as *translations* into Modern English. This is a *very* different thing from deciding that twentieth-century Yiddish writers didn't/don't know how to spell their own language. 'Correct spelling' is merely a convention -- Birnbaum had one, Moyshe Nadir had one, and YIVO has one, among others. If the publisher is YIVO, then I guess one would expect the spelling to be changed; if it isn't, then it would just be chutzpah (aka khutspe), in my opinion. All this notwithstanding, it would be nice to have SOME 'standardized' spelling in an electronic edition, so one could do efficient searches. I personally YIVO-ized Olsvanger's Royte Pomerantsn transliteration for my online corpus, which is as chuzpahdik as one could get, but I wouldn't want to see it published this way for a general audience. I would like those 'standardized' editions to be purely for this purpose and certainly not for reading for pleasure or research or for teaching. Just my two cents. Marjorie goes on: 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. Not adhering to YIVO's fiats does not necessarily constitute a 'free for all'. In other speech communities it is usually the (eminent) writers that *become the model* for spelling! Poor Yiddish writers, they don't get no respect. ;) Ellen F. Prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 10:38:42 -0400 (EDT) From: "Geoffrey S. Nathan" Subject: Re: Spelling and neshome Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan [10.010] wrote: [See identical quote in post above] Just to further complicate issues, I should point out that we indeed DO write (almost) Middle English. The English spelling system was frozen about three hundred years ago, before the Great Vowel Shift. Thus everyone else in the world pronounces the letter 'i' as 'ee', but WE pronounce it as a low to high diphthong. Similarly differences exist for the letters 'e' and 'a'. In addition, we continue to write the long-lost velar fricative 'kh' all over the place in words like 'cough', 'right' and 'through'. In some cultures (and the English-speaking one is the most so) spelling is very conservative, and people get extremely loyal to the 'old ways'. This discussion of what to do with old books using the 'wrong' spelling is fascinating--as a linguist I have no wisdom to offer, however. Standardization is certainly a good thing for languages which are vital and widely taught. As to whether Yiddish counts in that category I'd rather not get into... Geoffrey Nathan 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 13:10:30 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mikhl Herzog" Subject: Creative etymologies Milt Koosman's unique suggestion (Vol. 10.012) begs for an interpretation of _di kale iz kalye gevorn_. Milt? Mikhl Herzog 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 13:41:10 -0400 (EDT) From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: 'kale gevorn' I may have missed some replies so please excuse me if this has already been mentioned, but my understanding has always been that it's not 'kale gevorn' but 'kalye gevorn', i.e. become spoiled (literally 'lame'). Was this a folk etymology? Ellen Prince 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 15:55:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Mendy Fliegler Subject: 'Kale gevorn' Milt Koosman thinks that 'kale gevorn' describes a bride-to-be. Could be....However if something, such as a 'makherayke', or some machinery, 'tsum bayshpil', needs repair, that is something that has become 'kal-ye', or kalye gevorn. Note there is a difference in words...And if something is worn out, or goes bad, it also becomes: kalye. Mendy Fliegler 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 14:02:01 -0400 (EDT) From: tokere@abaconet.com.ar Subject: Yiddish hot nisht inter zikh kain medine... Libe mendelianer: Ikh halt far vikhtig tsu teiln mit aikh a veitiglikhe erfarung. Mit etlikhe monatn tzurik hot men mir ayngeladn ikh zol iberzetsn oyf yidish dos tshikave lid "An Anna Blume" fun Kurt Schwitters, a hanover poet fun onhoib tsvantsikstn iorhundert, kedei araitsugebn oikh di yidishe versie funem lid in a bukh vos di Hanover shtot hot geklert aroistsugebn un shenken di bazujer fun Hanover Expo 2000 vos fangt zikh on di teg. Inem dozikn bukh --hobn zey gezogt-- veln zey araygebn iberzetsungen funem lid in a por hundert vikhtige shprakhn. Ikh hob dos lid ibergezetst un betsaitns araingeshikt, ober es iz nit arayn in bukh vail, loit a briv vos zei hobn mir geshikt: "Tobias Burghardt was so kind to ask you for a translation of the poem 'An Anna Blume". You sent us your translation. Unfortunately, I have to inform you that we could not consider this poem in the book. The book is the official present of Lower Saxony for the guests of the state who will visit the world exposition in Hannover. Therefore we had to restrict the translations to the official languages of the diferent countries. This is the reason why we could not take your translation in Yiddish into consideration. I ask you for your understanding and apologise for the misunderstanding. Yours sincerely Dr. Gerd Weiberg." Ikh halt atsind dem aroisgegebenem bukh in hant un es klingt modne di logik fun azoifil farvorfene shprakhn fun kleine afrikanishe un aziatishe medinkalakh vos zenen fartrotn un davke yidish, nisht. Un davke in Daitshland. Oikh nisht "ladino" khotsh zei hobn planirt oikh betn a ladino iberzetsung... Yidish hot nokh nisht inter zikh a medine... Eliahu Toker 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 18:37:18 -0400 (EDT) From: poe@ekbos.com (Bob Poe) Subject: Re: Waiting for Mendele Martin Green has called attention to recent delays in publication of Mendele. Some of that, undoubtedly, stems from the temporary arrangements that have required one shames to substitute for another. Some of it may also be the result of the current practice of holding various contributions back so that several on the same subject can be published together, rather than simply distributing them in the order of submission. That said, it seems as though the delays are in the past and Mendele has caught up with current submissions. I suspect, however, that some items may have been lost along the way. For instance, I sent in a contribution on May 15 that was not published, nor explicitly rejected, nor even acknowledged, and the same may have happened to Mr. Green and others. Bob Poe [The temporary untershames adds ruefully: Bob Poe is exactly right. A small number of posts between May 15 and May 23 have gone astray. Posters affected are cordially asked to resubmit. nm] 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 16:20:47 -0400 (EDT) From: rturkel@cas.org Subject: orl Itzik Goldenberg [10.001] wrote: A question about Sholem Aleykhem's use of "orl" as a synonym for a non-Jew. This term appears many times, in context, in the story "Oylem habe," which just appeared in The Mendele Review. For those who might not know, "orl" is a foreskin, (though spelled without the "hey" at the end of the word when the actual foreskin is meant). The term seems to us now humourous at best, perhaps somewhat derogatory at worst. I was wondering whether a native yiddish speaker, especially at the time Sholem Aleykhem was writing these stories, before 1916, would find this term amusing, or was it the matter-of-fact term used in a non-derogatory sense? Just a couple of comments on "orl." It's not a "foreskin," but rather "an uncircumcized male." It comes directly from the Hebrew "`arel," and can be found in several contexts in Tana"kh, including the description of Moyshe Rabeinu as "`aral sefatayim (sefosayim)" literally "of uncircumcized lips," i.e., having some sort of speech impediment. The Hebrew word for foreskin is "`orla," which explains the final "hey" cited by Itzik above. Given that background, I don't find this usage the least bit humorous. I wasn't around in 1916, but my guess is that this would have been a more or less ordinary way for a Yiddish speaker of the time in eastern Europe to refer to a non-Jew. There's no doubt in my mind that it's a pretty derogatory term, but don't forget that this would have been some eighty-odd years closer to the time of frequent pogroms against Jewish communities, well within living memory at the time, so such derogation wasn't totally unwarranted. Hope this helps. zayt mir gezunt un shtark. Rick Turkel 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 17:23:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Hershl@aol.com Subject: Re: Nagan and Hirsh Glik Paul Glasser, substituting his own intuition for "overstating sources," (that Glik used "shpayer," "nagan" and "pistoyl" to symbolize international anti-fascist unity) should be aware that the sources are Ruth Rubin, quoting her informant Shmerke Katcherginsky. The latter was the leading collector of ghetto and resistance songs and Hirsh Glik's mentor. It was to him that Glik first sang "zog nit keynmol," according to Katcherginsky's letter to the literary critic Nakhman Mayzel and quoted by him in the monograph "hirsh glik un zayn lid 'zog nit keynmol'" (Hirsh Glik and his Song, "Never Say" [The Partisan Hymn]) Ykuf, NY, 1949, pp. 14-15. Sometimes, the "simplest explanation" flies in the face of fact. Hershl Hartman Los Angeles ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 10.015 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