Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 14.017 October 22 , 2004 1) Yiddish geography (Leybel Goldberg) 2) Yiddish geography (Hugh Denman) 3) Ladeshke (Bob Rothstein) 4) Construction with 'ton' (Philip Muzlish) 5) prost un grob(Moyshe-Shaye Steinlauf) 6) prost un grob (Faina Furman) 7) Genendl (Khane-Faygl Turtletaub) 8) Esther Frumkin (Aaron Taub) 9) "a kind firt dem veg" (David Weaver) Visit Mendele on the Web: http://www.mendele.net 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 18, 2004 From: leybl_goldberg@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Yiddish Geography In a nutshell, _Raysn_ means Ukraine-Byelorussia-the Carpathians. Raysn nowadays generally means White Russia (Belarus), but evidently was equivalent in those days to 'Ruthenia' or 'Rus', meaning the Eastern territories of Poland-Lithuania, where the majority of the population were Eastern Orthodox (and later Slavonic rite Catholic) slavs who spoke what in Polish is still called "ruski" (Byelorussian or Ukrainian) and used Old Church Slavonic as their official and liturgical language (also "ruski"; compare "rosijski", [Great] Russian). Lee Goldberg 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 21, 2004 From: h.denman@ucl.ac.uk Subject: Re: Yiddish geography In Mendele 14.016,3 an enquiry was posted as to the meaning of the Yiddish geographical term "Raysn". The simple answer, as recorded in all the dictionaries (Niborski, Weinreich, Harkavy etc.), is that the meaning is "White Russia/ Belorossiya/ Belarus". However, more may be said. The fact is that the toponyms Russia, Raysn and Ruthenia are all cognate and originate, somewhat curiously, in the Norse word for oarsmen that was imposed on this vast territory by the Vikings who crossed the Baltic and fearlessly navigated the river basins of Russia and the Black Sea as far as Byzantium. But since then there has been much semasiological usage, and in its Yiddish form "Raysn", it's meaning was restricted to those parts of Russia accessible to Jewish migration since they lay in the the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and not in the Muscovite lands from which Jews were excluded, i.e. White Russia (meaning Western Russia, according the the scheme of chromatic designations of points of the compass which the Slavs had borrowed from the Mongols. n.b. this has nothing whatever to do with the political terms "White Russian" and "Red Russian" that came to designate the opposing sides in the Civil War). The name "Ruthenia" meanwhile is derived from the mediaeval Latin word for Russia and was applied by the the Austrians to that part of the Western Ukraine that fell within the confines of the Habsburg Empire. The Austrians found it expedient to eschew the term "Ukrainian" in describing Ukrainian speakers within their borders, so as to discourage irredentism. And, of course, their Ukrainians differed culturally from those under Tsarist control in that they owed allegiance to the Uniate Church in communion with Rome, rather than to the Orthodox Church whose writ ran further east. Interestingly enough, it is in old Ruthenia, now a part of newly independent Ukraine, that the Ukrainian language is still a vibrant cultural force, since it has "enjoyed" several centuries less Russian assimilatory pressure emanating from St Petersburg. "Raysn", it follows, forms the southern portion of that other important Yiddish geographical entity, "Lite", which corresponds to what in Polish used to be called "Litwa", or the ancient Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was incorporated into the huge united Commonwealth consisting of "Litwa" and "Korona" (or the Kingdom of Poland). It is important to distinguish clearly between Raysn (where the goyim speak White Russian) and Lithuania proper (where the goyim speak Lithuanian), that is to say the territory of today's (and the inter-war) Lithuanian Republic or "litvishe republik" as we must call it, if we intend to refer to Lithuania in its modern, more restricted sense. Hugh Denman London 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 19, 2004 From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Ladeshke Ken Frieden (14.106) asked about "ladeshke" in the phrase _vi a moyz vos men nemt aroys fun a ladeshke zoyermilkh_. Harkavy lists _ladish_ from Belarusian _hladysh_ (stress on the last syllable), meaning a pitcher without a handle. The Belarusian word may be from Polish _gladysz_ (with slashed "l"), meaning a clay pitcher without a handle, especially for milk. Bob Rothstein 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 18, 2004 From: zumlif@netscape.net Subject: Re: Construction with 'ton' Dovid Katz in "The Grammar of the Yiddish Language" equates "ton a" with "geven a". Quote "It too designates a single event, rather than an ongoing affair". There is no mention of its origin. 60 years ago when I was a young man, "Ton nisht topn" was used to describe a girl who would not allow a boy to explore her physique. Philip Muzlish 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 19, 2004 From: msteinlauf@earthlink.net Subject: Re: prost un grob Certainly not every use of grob is pejorative; it simply means big, thick, fat, etc. The word is pejorative when used to describe a person. Moyshe-Shaye Steinlauf 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 22, 2004 From: Subject: Re: prost un grob I've just started learning Yiddish which was the language I heard from grandparents in my childhood, so I don't yet know in which context the words "prost" and "grob" are used in Yiddish, but since both words seem to have Slavic roots, I hope my knowledge of Russian and Ukranian may help: 1. "prost" probably derives from "prostoy" (adj)/ "prosto" (adv) meaning "simple", "common", "usual". E.g., some Russian phrases as translated into English: "a simple question", "just so" ("prosto tak") 2. "grob" sounds like "grubo" (adv) / "grubyi" (adj) / "grubiyan" (n) with a vowel change which is quite common both in Slavic languages and Hebrew ("vav" pronounced either as O or U. The word means "primitive", "rude", "vulgar". This adjective's collocation with "word" means "a rude word, curse", with "flour" not refined, whole-wheat; with "cloth" or "noodles" mentioned in one of the letters home-made (i.e. primitive) as opposed to thin, factory-made, refined. When related to people, a clearly derogatory "grubyi" means "rude, vulgar, harsh, cursing", whereas "prostoy" is a stylistically neutral word describing a person's origin or status: "a simple man, commoner" as opposed to "aristocratic, cultured, refined". Faina Furman 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 21, 2004 From: doctorkf@gte.net Subject: Genendl Tsi veyst emetser fun vanet kumt der nomen Genendl? Khane-Faygl Turtletaub 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 19, 2004 From: atau@loc.gov Subject: Re: Esther Frumkin In response to Dan Goodridge's query (10/16/2004) regarding information on Esther Frumkin, I would like to suggest: Sheperd, Naomi. A Price below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels and Radicals. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. Aaron Taub Washington, DC 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 22, 2004 From: dpweaver@mindspring.com Subject: "a kind firt dem veg" I am trying to remember who wrote this short story. I read it about 10 years ago. It was about a girls' boarding school whose campus is to be overtaken for the purpose of quartering German troops. The students there perform kidush hashem. I was thinking it was by Peretz, but I also (perhaps mistakenly ) recall the intruders as Nazis, which makes the time period incompatible. The most likely alternative is Sholem Asch, but I have not seen the story in any of his collections since then (not that I've seen many). I don't know if it has been translated, but if so, its title would possibly be "A Child Leads the Way". Can someone confirm? David Weaver ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 14.017 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu