Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 14.016 October 18 , 2004 1) borsht (Hinde Rubin) 2) James Cagney's Yiddish (Heynekh Sapoznik) 3) Yiddish Geography (Yechiel Ben-Natan) 4) pareve (Joachim Martillo) 5) prost un grob (Rick Turkel) 6) Is it a Yiddish idiom? (Ken Frieden) 7) Construction with 'ton' (Dina Levias) Visit Mendele on the Web: http://www.mendele.net 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 16, 2004 From: hirubin@starpower.net Subject: Re: borsht vegn borsht-- in di Sholem Aleykhem Hayzer hobn mir alemol gezogt, poshet 'borsht'. keynmol nisht borshtsht. ober mir hobn yo gezogt shyshav, nisht schav! Un tsu dertsu, hot di mame gekoyft rosl-- peysakh tsayt-- un es genutst az a "starter" far a peysakhdiker borsht. zi flegt koyfn rosl baym "appetizing store" oyf (bay undz--oyf, nit af) Moshulu Parkway. dos helft, tsi neyn? Hinde Rubin 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 17, 2004 From: Sapoznik@aol.com Subject: Re: James Cagney's Yiddish Al Grand's post about James Cagney's fluent Yiddish (learned on the streets of Yorkville where he grew up) reminds me of my long fruitless attempt to discover the identity of the Yiddish actor who plays opposite him in the 1932 film "Taxi!" He is not identified in the film credits, nor was I able to find any reference to him on IMDB, J. Hoberman's "Bridge of Light" or in any volume of Zylberzweig. Anyone? BTW: Cagney also snuck some Yiddish into his 1933 film "The Mayor of Hell" (1933) Cagney, in his eponymous autobio said of an all-Yiddish poster advertising "Taxi" "...I was one of the few, if not the only Irish actor able to read this Jewish-directed poster." His Yiddish helped him immeasurably with his always contentious relationship with his bosses the Warner Brothers (he noted they would slip into Yiddish during negotiations with non-comprehending non-Jewish actors/actresses. Needless to say, this ploy failed miserably with Cagney.) Heynekh Sapoznik 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 17, 2004 From: yechielwarsaw@yahoo.com Subject: Yiddish Geography: "Rayzn" There is a phrase sometimes found in sidurim and makhzorim "ke-minhag Lite, Zamot un Rayzn." Lite is Lithuania (more or less) and Zamot is Samogitia. Could someone give me a definition of the borders of "Rayzn"? Yechiel Ben-Natan 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 17, 2004 From: ThorsProvoni@aol.com Subject: Re: pareve [In reference to Alan Astro's citation, Mendele 14.016, of a possible link to the French 'pareil'.] The Westyiddish equivalent of pareve is menikh (from monakhos -- monk). Neither fleishik nor milkhik (fleishtik and milkshtik in Alsace) is like neither male nor female -- the status of a monk. If pareil or derivative was used like pareve or menikh in Judeofrench or Westyiddish, it was lost long ago without a trace. Joachim Martillo 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 17, 2004 From: rturkel@ameritech.net Subject: Re: prost un grob Not every use of "grob" is pejorative, as several correspondent have stated. How about "grobe zalts," the kind of salt required in kashering meat? There it simply describes the size of the salt crystals, with no negative connotations at all. I hesitate to disagree with my friend Michael Meckler (Mendele 14:15), but I think his grandmother's reference to "grobe lokshn" might well have been, at least in part, of the same type. Wide noodles are better for some dishes, thin ones for others; lokshn kugel would be very dense if made with thin lokshn, while wide ones tend to slide off your soup spoon. And wide noodles are chewy only if they're undercooked. :-D Rick Turkel [Not to mention grober finger which, in Yiddish at least, is thoroughly innocuous.] 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 18, 2004 From: kfrieden@syr.edu Subject: Re: Is it a Yiddish idiom? In answer to Todd Hasak-Lowy's query [Mendele 14.011]: Yes, the phrase "like a mouse rescued from a pitcher of milk" is based on a Yiddish idiom. The issue is slightly complicated by differences between the first version of _Benjamin III_ (1878), the Hebrew version (first published in 1896), and the final Yiddish edition that was published in Abramovitsh's lifetime (1911). Hillel Halkin's English translation is, for the most part, based on the 1878 text; however, he used both the 1911 version and the Hebrew for Chapter 14 and the Epilogue. The opening paragraph of Chapter 14 in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish (1911) is from the last part of Chapter 13, top of p. 95, in the Yiddish of 1878. Halkin's English phrase "like a mouse rescued from a pitcher of milk" is translated from the Hebrew _ke-akbar mutzal mi-kad halav_, in turn based on the Yiddish _vi a moyz vos men nemt aroys fun a ladeshke zoyermilkh_. What do the Mendele Yiddish language meyvinim have to say about the untranslated word "ladeshke"? Ken Frieden 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 17, 2004 From: dinale@bluewin.ch Subject: Re: Construction with 'ton' Regarding Yakov Blum's query [Mendele 14.015]: While I can say nothing about the "acceptability" of the construction in Yiddish, the usage is to be found in German : it is not considered "good style", has a slightly childish or humorous ring, but "tun" with an infinitive may be a matter of deliberate choice as it introduces a definite shade of meaning : "Ich tu dich lieben" is a timid way of avoiding the more assertive "Ich liebe dich" (contrary to English, where it creates emphasis : I do love you.) As for the use of "ton" in the song "Dona, dona" - ,- to my mind this is used primarily for rhythm and rime; but maybe "tut men bindn" also implies an action protracted in time, an aspect which would be absent if one said "bindet men" ? The same would then also be true of Manger's lines, "tu ikh lign" and "tu ikh batsoln"? I'd be interested to hear other views on this. Dina L‚vias ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 14.016 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu