Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 13.035
April 25, 2004

1) Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive (Harold L. Orbach)
2) mayontek (Martin Jacobs)
3) golgl mogl (Itsik Goldenberg)
4) mayofes tants (Nochem Reinhartz)
5) Yiddish on Macs (Hershl Hartman)
6) nebbish and nebbich (Jeffrey Jampel)

Visit Mendele on the Web: http://www.mendele.net

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 15, 2004
From: hlo@ksu.edu
Subject: Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive

This story appears in the current Chronicle of Higher Education and should
be of interest to Mendele readers.  I also attach the opening web page of
the Dartmouth Collection which can be found at
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~damell/hebrew/news_djsa.html

Harold L. Orbach
Manhattan, Kansas

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 12, 2004
From: marjacobs1@juno.com
Subject: Re: Mayontek

It has been suggested that "mayontek" is derived from loshn-koydesh.  It is
actually taken from Polish.  This does not rule out an ultimate
loshn-koydesh origin; so the Polish "kielbasa" is said to be from the sign,
in Hebrew, over Jewish butcher shops, "kol boser".  But mayontek is also
found in Czech ("majetek") and the linguist Carl Darling Buck indicates that
it derives from (or is cognate with) Church Slavonic "imenije", from the
verb "imeti", to have.

Martin Jacobs
Brooklyn, NY

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 13, 2004
From: rgoldenberg@sympatico.ca
Subject: gogl mogl

Does anyone know the origin of the term "gogl mogl," a concoction of hot
milk, an egg, honey, and possibly other ingredients--an old time treatment
for cold symptoms? I remember hearing  the term as a child, and seeing it
made and used. Can't recall whether it was ever forced down my throat. I
can't imagine that I took it willingly. It was recently recommended to me by
an 80-year old friend, who moved to the USA 8-10 years ago, from Czernovits.

Aside from my curiosity about the etymology of the term I wonder whether any
Mendelyaner can comment, from their own experience, on its efficacy. I can't
imagine anything other than a placebo effect.

Besides gogl mogl, I remember mustard plasters. We never used "bankes." My
wife remembers as a child being forced to wear a cloth bag of mashed
potatoes & lots of garlic around her neck. This was supposed to be a good
treatment for a sore throat. Does anyone recall Yiddish terms for these
medical miracles?

Itsik Goldenberg

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 14, 2004
From: her.nor@sympatico.ca
Subject: mayofes tants

I am trying to find out what "mayofes-tants" or "tentsl" means specifically.
Dictionaries list "mayofes-lid" but not "mayofes-tants". Is it a funny,
servile dance that a Jewish tenant was forced to perform for the amusement
of the "porits" from whom he leased the inn? A dance imitating the
performance of a dancing bear?

Nochem Reinhartz

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 15, 2004
From: hershl@earthlink.net
Subject: Yiddish on Macs

The background to the following information is that, under Macintosh
Operating System X, NisusWriter, the preferred word processor for those who
write Yiddish on their Macs, cannot run right to left, while OS 9.x can do
so. Apple has not yet acted on its promise to solve the problem.

The message below comes from Garry Margolis, a Mac guru in L.A. and a
yidish-kener.

"FYI Apple replaced the existing eMacs with new ones today, and while they
are very nicely priced and featured, they won't boot OS 9 and, thus, won't
work with Yiddish or other right-to-left text. The only OS 9-bootable Mac
left in the line is a dual-processor G4 minitower.

"If you know of anyone who wants to write in Yiddish on a Mac and doesn't
already have one that's Yiddish-capable, they should move quickly to find
the last of the previous generation eMacs."

Hershl Hartman

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 25, 2004
From: JJJSJ4@aol.com
Subject: nebbish and nebbich

In the Collected Poems of Primo Levi the word "nebbich" appears in the poem
Leavetaking (Page 30).  The translators, Ruth Fellman (who recently died)
and Brian Swann are both highly respected translators. They translate the
word nebbich as "foolish, useless, inept" in a footnote (page 74) leaving
the word "nebbich" to stand on its own in the body of the poem.

My own understanding would have them distinguish between "nebbich" and
"nebbish".  The latter being translated as one who is inept, foolish, a sad
sack and/or someone about whom one feels a combination of pity and,at times,
scorn; someone toward whom one feels superior. As well this individual could
evoke "rachmonis."

Nebbich, on the other hand evokes pity which could be directed to a person
or group of people that suffer a terrible sorrow through no fault of their
own and by implacable forces that are beyond one's control. Invariably here
one extends "rachmonis."  There is to "nebbich" no connotation of
superiority, rather an untainted recognition of a plight that could befall
any of us. There but for the grace of God go we so to speak.

All the above emerges out of my translation of the manner in which my mother
would use the word "nebbich".

At the same time might it be the case that the words are interchangeable and
rather only dialectical differences?

I have also been told by an expert in Yiddish translation the the word comes
from the Hungarian words for nothing good.

Thanks,

Jeffrey Jampel

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End of Mendele Vol. 13.035

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