Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 13.023 March 17, 2004 1) a "toast" af yidish (Sheva Zucker) 2) shnorer, betler, yovn (Barney Martin) 3) shnorer (Cyril D. Robinson) 4) shnorer (Joseph and Ida Schwarcz) 5) meshulakh, ferd-ganovim, yovn, matem (Mikhl Herzog) 6) meshulekh (Gershon Freidlin) 7) matem zayn (Sholem Beinfeld) 8) matem (Justin Jaron Lewis) 9) matem (Moshe Taube) Visit Mendele on the Web: http://www.mendele.net 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 17, 2004 from: sczucker@aol.com Subject: a "toast" af yidish Moytse-Shabes pravet men dem 25stn yubiley fun undzer rov in undzer shul un me hot mikh gebetn ikh zol makhn a "toast" im lekoved. Dem emes gezogt bin ikh nit fun di groyse trinkers un efsher derfar oykh nit fun di groyse toasters un khuts "lekhayim" ken ikh nit di "toast terminologie." Efsher zaynen do tsvishn aykh gresere mumkhim af dem gebit vos kenen mir zogn vi azoy, mit vos far a verter, makht men a "toast" af Yidish? A sheynem dank. Oyb ir hot an eytse, zayt azoy gut un lozt bald visn. I find myself in the position of having to make a toast in Yiddish to celebrate our rabb's 25th anniversary as rabbi at our shul. I seem to be toast challenged and only know "Lechayim." Can anyone suggest other toasting terms? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please write me at sczucker@aol.com. Sheva Zucker 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 16, 2004 From: martin@wildplanet.com Subject: Re: shnorer, betler, yovn Perhaps a primary distinction twixt shnorer and betler is that the shnorer manages, whereas the betler cannot manage. Another distinction is how one interacts with a shnorer versus a betler. Men ret mit a shnorer, ober tsu a betler. Mechl Asheri mentions the shnorer who comes to his door regularly. Contrast that with streetcorner beggars, who are helpless, clueless, choiceless, and but for their expressions of need, voiceless. A shnorer has self-assurance, a bettler lacks even that much. A shnorer hot kuntsn un kvod, ober a bettler iz nebekh bekhol. To the list of possible English equivalents, let me add mooch, moocher, and finagler. Vulf Plotkin's contention that yovn was an appelation for soldiers actually also lends credence to the theory that the word derives from Ivan. In many European tongues, John is a term for any Tom, Dick, and Harry, eg: John Bull and John Company, Jan Alleman and Jan Soldaat (Dutch: everyman and the common soldier respectively), Les Jeans et le Jacquerie (French: the peasant rabble), and also, remarkably, in American English the word Ivan for the average Russian or the Russian everyman. [Note also Yankee, from Jan Kaas or Jan Kaes (John Cheese), the term for the Dutch settlers in New York, and a snarky referent for Hollanders in general (which still survives in Flemish as 'Kaaskop' - cheesehead).] Nevertheless, I believe that yovn probably did originally mean Greek. Compare Sanskritic Yuvanna / Yavanna and derivatives thereof in Indian and Indonesian languages (Yuwana, Yawan, Yuon barbarian, outsider, invading Greek soldiers during Alexander's time), and the word Yunani in several Muslim languages - all meaning Greek, Ionian, foreign. Note also correspondence of stress and meanings. I also suspect that Ivan would've been pronounced 'ivn' in yiddish. Barney Martin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 17, 2004 From: lunar@siu.edu Subject: Re: shnorer A couple years ago there was a Paris klezmer band called the Orient Express Moving Shnorers. They finally changed their name because they decided it had unfortunate implications. Cyril D. Robinson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 17, 2004 From: idayosef@barak-online.net Subject: Re: shnor/shnoder There is an interesting combination of the words shnorn and nadern. In many synagogues the honors of being called to the Torah were auctioned off and people "nadert", that is promised to donate sums of money. Sometimes the auctioning off of the honors was so crass, that when someone promised to nader it was said that he "shnodert", that is, he had been cajoled into making the donation. Joseph M. Schwarcz Ida Selavan Schwarcz 5---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 17, 2004 From: mherzog@bestweb.net Subject: Re: meshulakh, ferd-ganovim, yovn, matem Mechl Asheri Re: _meshulakh_, see the classic Yiddish film _Der Dibbuk_. The _meshulakh_ in question is central to the plot and can hardly be described as a _shnorer_. M. Abrams Re: _ferd-ganovim_. It was quite customary to designate the inhabitants of cities and _shtetlekh_ by (often) disparaging nicknames-- _Adeser zhulikes_ (Odessa), and numerous others. The archives of the Yiddish Atlas at Columbia University, in New York, lists several hundred. If I get the chance, some day, I'll check the files and post the list om Mendele. Meyer Zaremba Re: _yovn_. Applies to a Russian (i.e. specifically, Greek Orthodox) soldier. Martin Green The word seems to be related to _t'aam_ 'taste'. Mikhl Herzog 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 16, 2004 From: freidlin@earthlink.net Subject Re: meshulekh Re: the lowly meshulekh as shnorer: compare to the meshulekh in the Dybbuk..that's the term there, no? Perhaps an irony, that meshulekh is just about in the league of elyenove. Gershon Freidlin 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 16, 2004 From: sbeinfeld@comcast.net Subject: matem zayn The word that Martin Green (Mendele 13.022) found in Peretz's "Monish", spelled mem-tes-ayin-yud (and pronounced "matem") is no misprint. "Matem zayn", though not in Weinreich, can be found in Yitzkhok Niborski's Yiddish-French dictionary and in his indispensable Verterbukh fun loshn-koydesh-shtamike verter in yidish. In the latter it is defined as "batonen, aktsentirn"--i.e. "stress, accentuate". Sholem Beinfeld 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 17, 2004 From: jjl@post.queensu.ca Subject: Re: matem Regarding Martin Green's query about a word in "Monish", "metayim", mem tes ayin yud mem, is probably _not_ a typo but refers to chanting musically. Cf. "teamim", the Hebrew word for what we know more commonly as "trop". Justin Jaron Lewis 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: March 17, 2004 From: mstaube@mscc.huji.ac.il Subject: Re: matem mat'im zayn means to stress, to pronounce carefully (to put the ta'am) . It appears in Niborsky's excellent Yiddish-French dictionary, but neither in Weinreich nor Harkavy. Moshe Taube ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 13.023 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu