Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 14.025
December 29 , 2004

1) Search for Yiddish author (Alex Jacobowitz)
2) Sweetbreads (Gershon Freidlin)
3) Gender of yortsayt (Andrey Bretstein)
4) Gender of yortsayt (Feygl Infeld Glezer)
5) Gender of yortsayt (Adam Levitin)
6) Etymology of berye (Jack Berger)
7) Serele un Berele (Marcia Gruss Levinsohn)
8) Mordecai Richler and Yiddish (Peter Gutmann)

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

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 22, 2004
From: alexbjacobowitz@yahoo.com
Subject: Search for Yiddish author

Around 1940, a Soviet author penned a Yiddish novel based on the biography of
Yechiel-Michl Guzikow, a 19th Century klezmer virtuoso on the xylophone. Does
anyone know the name of this author? Or the title in Yiddish? Please help!

A sheynem dank foroys,

Alex Jacobowitz

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 24, 2004
From: freidlin@verizon.net
Subject: Sweetbreads

Does anyone know another word in Yiddish for _sweetbreads_ other than
_grashitse_?

Gershon Freidlin

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 28, 2004
From: bredstein@mail.utexas.edu
Subject: Re: Gender of yortsayt

[Re: Mendele 14.024]

Di yortsayt oder der yortsayt?

Dos vort 'yortsayt' gehert tsu di verter, vos konen zayn i loshn-zokher, i
loshn-nekeyve. Ot, tsum bayshpil, afn veb-zaytl fun Yugntruf, hot ir a
kalendar fun gesheenishn http://www.yugntruf.org/srj/kalendar/, un es shteyt
dort "85ster yortsayt fun Sholem-Aleykhem" (zokher), ober mit tsvey teg
shpeter vert es shoyn gor vayblekh :"optsumerkn di yortsayt fun
Sholem-Aleykhem". Es git undz tsu farshteyn, az oyb afile aza
koshere-un-YIVO-getraye organizatsie vi Yugntruf iz nit zikher do, kon yeder
eyner zogn azoy vi er vil...

'Di yortsayt' iz glaykh vayl 'tsayt' iz dokh loshn-nekeyve. 'Der yortsayt' iz
oykh glaykh - Eli Falkovitsh hot geshribn, az ven me iz nit zikher un me darf
oysklaybn tsvishn 'di' un 'der', iz loshn-zokher a besere breyre.

Mit di beste grusn,

Andrey Bredstein
Austin, Texas

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 28, 2004
From: yiddish1@juno.com
Subject: Re: Gender of yortsayt

Dovid Braun iz take a feyiker, bagabter yidishist, ober ikh bin mit im nit
maskim vos shaykh dem min fun "yortsayt" ("di tsayt, nit der tsayt). bloyz
litvakes, vos zaynen bagrenetst in zeyer kenen dem yidishn min, spetsyel funem
zakhlekhn min, zogn az "yortsayt" iz fun menlekhn min un az "yingl" iz
menlekher min. loyt mir un dem verterbukh vun Arn Bergmanen iz "di yortsayt"
vayblekher min, punkt azoy vi "dos yingl" iz zakhlekher min.  afile loyt Uriel
Vaynraykhn zaynen "der' oder "di" yortsayt korekt. alzo: _yor_ is take
"neuter", _tsayt_ is "feminine", and the compound noun takes the noun "tsayt'.
nu, efsher zaynen amol "di eyer" (studentn)  kliger fun di hiner? the gender
here should follow the yiddish predicted gender.

Feygl Infeld Glezer

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 28, 2004
From: alevitin@law.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: Gender of yortsayt

Dovid Braun (mayn ershter yidish-lerer!) calls attention to the oddity of
yortsayt being a masculine noun, even though neither of its components are
masculine.  Perhaps yortsayt's gender is masculine because it is a liturgical
calendar event and therefore treated like a yontef, a category of nouns that
for whatever reason defaults to masculine, even when the original Hebrew
gender of the word is feminine (e.g. hannukah yafah, but der prakhtiker
khanike).

Adam Levitin

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 28, 2004
From: jsberger@optonline.net
Subject: Re: Etymology of berye

[Re: Mendele 14.024]

Like many such words, I believe this to be a slavism, and it comes from the
Russian, "barii" meaning lordly, or exalted.

A 'berye' is someone with the capacity to pull off feats that are difficult,
not necessarily with efficiency, but he (or she) gets it done, where 'mere
mortals' would likely fail. I think it implies a certain amount of daring as
well, since the feat in question may involve a certain amount of risk. The
task also is more likely to be physical than intellectual, but certainly not
exclusively so.

I seriously doubt that this word has any Semitic origin.

Jack Berger

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 28, 2004
From: mashinke@toad.net
Subject: Re: Serele un Berele

[Re: Nicole Taylor's request in 14.024:]

_der onheyber_ by David Bridger was first published in 1947 by Farlag Matones.
The 4th publication was "a fargreserte" and my copy lists 11 publications,
through 1964. It features the brother and sister Berele un Serele. The
Workmen's Circle schools used this book for their begining classes. I taught
with it in the 60s and 70s.20 In 1979 Frida Grapa de Cielak published her
delightful _Arele_ workbook (3) series for young beginners. This is from
Mexico. It was republished 1991.

Marcia Gruss Levinsohn

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 29, 2004
From: pegu1@web.de
Subject: Mordecai Richler and Yiddish

I am still working on Mordecai Richler's novels and need your help again. Now
that I have quite a firm grip of the way Richler uses Yiddish in his novels
(apart, of course, from _Barney's Version_, where he seems to do everything
"the wrong way", so this novel is probably going to give me some more
headache), I would like to shift my focus a bit on the Yiddish Richler used
himself. Unfortunately, available criticism has so far not been very helpful
for me in establishing an idea of "how Yiddish Richler actually was". Thus I
am looking for biographic information on Mordecai Richler as a Yiddish
speaker/writer as well as for general information on Yiddish in Canada
(Montreal).

Any help from your part will be greatly appreciated, and I promise a summary
to Mendele.

Peter Gutmann
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 14.025

Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu
Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu