Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 14.018
October 27 , 2004

1) Yiddish geography (Leon Levitt)
2) Yiddish geography (Joachim Martillo)
3) Genendl (Enrique Gildemeister)
4) Construction with 'ton' (Seymour Shenkman)
5) prost (Perets Mett)
6) "a kind firt dem veg" (Sylvia Schildt)
7) Rugby and Yiddish (Hershl Hartman)

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1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 18, 2004
From: llevitt151203mi@comcast.net
Subject: Re: Yiddish geography

Re Hugh Denman's fine detailing of geolinguistics, just one small
emendation:  Jews in Lithuania also speak Lithuanian, as so many are
intermarried; and only the children who are lucky enough to attend the
wonderful Jewish school (a public school) learn to speak Yiddish.

Leon Levitt

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 24, 2004
From: ThorsProvoni@aol.com
Subject: Re: Yiddish geography

Hugh Denman writes [Mendele 14.017]:

     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.

It is worthwhile to note that historically the rulers of the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, which includes modern day Lithuania, have been Polish speakers.

The territory of Raysn included Jewish populations that until the last
hundred years or so spoke Slavic languages and dialects as their native
languages. Judeoslavic dialects completely vanished only toward the end of
the 19th century when the last native speakers of Judeoslovak or Judeoczech
died and in the Subcarpathians only in the early 20th century when the last
native speakers of Judeopolessian (?) died.

It is worthwhile to point out that Judeoczech, Judeoslovak and
Judeopolessian were not nearly as distinct from the language of
coterritorial non-Jews as Yiddish was.  In some sense they were closer to
the historic norms of Judeofarsi, Judeoitalian, Judeogreek, Judeofrench,
Judeoaramaic and Judeoarabic.  If Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim were not the
predominant ethnic group among Jews, Yiddish would be something of an
historical anomaly among Jewish languages.

By the way in the territory of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Judeokipczak was
spoken among Karaite Jewish Tatars.  This language differed in only minor
ways from the Tatar languages spoken among Polish or Lithuanian Muslim or
Armenian Tatars.

Joachim Martillo

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 24, 2004
From: RGildem550@aol.com
Subject: Re: Genendl

Ikh gedenk layder nit vu, ober ikh hob geleyent az der nomen Genendl kumt
take fun dem altdaytshn vort "gnanne" = "bobe". Dem  doziken nomen ken men
gefinen tsvishn nemen vi "Alter", dos heyst, men hot gevolt opnarn dos
beyz-oyg, es zol meynen az a kleyn kind iz dokh an alter mentsh.

Enrique Gildemeister

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 18, 2004
From: shye_shenkman@msn.com
Subject: Re: Construction with 'ton'
In Mendele 14.017, Philip Muzlish writes that "ton nisht topn" was used to
describe a girl who would not allow a boy to explore her physique".It was
really someone saying "tor nisht topn" or "must not touch".

Seymour Shenkman

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 24, 2004
From:p.mett@open.ac.uk
Subject: Re: prost

Faina Furman writes [Mendele 14.017]:

     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".

However, 'common' can be used in English both with its simple meaning
and pejoratively. Just as 'common' can be used in the sense of
'unbecoming' so too does 'prost' have a similar meaning in Yiddish.

Perets Mett

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 24, 2004
From: creativa@charm.net
Subject: Re: "a kind firt dem veg"

As a young girl of 16 in lererseminar, under the direction of the late
Reuven Ben-Ari, I played the lead in the play version, which was billed as
"kidesh hashem". It was favorably reviewed in the Forverts at the time.
Several of the actors who played the male roles were also in the Actor's
Studio at the time and eager to work with Ben-Ari, who worked directly with
Stanislowski. One of them was Harvey Lembeck.

The author is Sholem Asch.

I never heard it referred to as "a kind firt dem veg" - but I recognized it
immediately as my "kidesh hashem".

One more detail, it was a religious girls school and they were going to use
it as a brothel for the German soldiers and that meant dishonor for the
girls - ergo the need for the mass suicide.

Sylvia Schildt
Baltimore, Maryland

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 27, 2004
From: hershl@earthlink.net
Subject: Rugby and Yiddish

The following paragraph is excerpted from an article by Huw Richards in the
International Herald Tribune on 10/25 about "league rugby" (don't ask!):

"The British historian Tony Collins once likened it to Yiddish,
because it has never been associated with a ruling class in any of
the countries where it is played. It has not, though, matched the
ability of Yiddish to cross national boundaries."

Hershl Hartman

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End of Mendele Vol. 14.018

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