Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 14.042
April 19 , 2005

1) balebos (Lucas Bruyn)
2) balebos (Barney Martin)
3) balebos (Lucas Bruyn)
4) balebos (Joachim Martillo)
5) kuni-leml (Lucas Bruyn)
6) kuni-leml (Zulema Seligsohn)
7) kuni-leml (Rick Gildemeister)
8) hant un haynt (Zulema Seligsohn)


1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
From: Marion <mtroia36@freeler.nl>
Subject: balebos

I would like to add to the discussion about the meaning of balebos(te)
that the translation of balebos in context is not always easy.' House
owner' often does not do. It sometimes seems to indicate the members of
a social class, like the german Burger, or the 'haves' as counterpart
of the 'have nots'.

Lucas Bruyn

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
Subject: RE: balebos and boss

Ruben Frankenstein speculates concerning boss in English, which is
presumably derived from baas in Dutch, that it and its Dutch original may
be borrowings from Hebrew or Yiddish Beis / Beit (house).

The Dutch Etymological Dictionary I consulted ('Nederlands Etymologisch
Woordenboek' (Jan De Vries, fourth printing (1997), published by
Koninklijke Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands) says this (freely translated):
noun, middle Dutch Baes, according to Kiliaen 'friend, pater familias',
cogn. Frisian Baes 'boss, master'. Original form assumed *basa, of which
origin is unclear. > late middle Netherlandish 'bas' - overseer at dike
repair.

Further: "Hellquist 56 presumes a Coastal word, and suspects as origin a
nickname [cut]".

I deem Mr. Frankenstein's speculation that it was borrowed from Yiddish or
Hebrew not at all impossible, given that mist covers the trail, but by the
same token it is as or more likely that it derives from Turkish basha or
pasha (head, hence 'headman') used as a title or appellation.

It was several centuries after the Rhineland massacres of the high middle
ages before Ashkenazim were present North of France and West of the Saxon
lands (other than the occassional wanderer), by which time the Dutch had
become a trading nation, with a Sephardic minority that maintained contacts
with their cousins and co-religionists who had found refuge in Ottoman
lands and the Arab world. The term pasha/basha, therefore, might not only
have come into Dutch with reports of the Turkish campaigns in the Balkans,
but also have snuck into the language as a term for headman or straw boss,
in Sailors cant from the Mediterranean fleet.  The 'sha' ending would have
seemed to your average nautical Dutch ignoramus of the time no more than
the diminutive suffix of his own tongue (sje), yielding the undiminutized
form 'baas'.

Barney Martin

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
From: Marion <mtroia36@freeler.nl>
Subject: Re: balebos and boss

Ruben Frankenstein sugests in Vol. 14.038 a connection between balebos(te)
and Dutch baas / English boss. According to thr 'van Dale Etymologisch
woordenbook' the etymology of 'baas' is unknown, though it was first
attested in 1280 as a personal name in the form 'Baes'. However, Dutch has
the word 'bolleboos' - , boss,, a very clever person, a student top of his
class.(1866) and, related, but less common, bollebof. Bollebof is thieves
language for: the big man. prison director (1858). The dictionary explains:
Jiddisch bal(le)boos <Hebrew ba'a' ha bajith {the boss of the house, master
of the house] (compare Ba„l).

Lucas Bruyn

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
Subject: balebos and boss

One would have to check whether balebos was commonly used in Dutch forms of
Yiddish at this time period.

In any case, boss/baas seems of nautical origin, and indeed in the
Mediterranean lingua franca words derived etymologically from pasha, bashi
etc. seem to have the sense of chief and boss.

Joachim Martillo

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
Subject: kuni-lemi

Hershi Hartman asks in vol. 38 about kumi-lemi. I never heard or read the
word and my Harkavy is of 1922, so just a wild guess: Could it mean: whose
client?, i.e. someone nobody in the shop wants to serve? (because he is a
fool). Anyway, a leymener goylem might be a lame fool, but leym is the clay
the goylem was made of.

Lucas Bruyn

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
Subject: kuni-leml

Herschl Hartman is incorrect as to the meaning of "Leymener Golem."
"Laymener" means made of clay, not "lame."

Zulema Seligsohn

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
Subject: kuni-leml

Hershl Hartman raises the question of the meaning of "kuni" in kuni-leml,
and says that leml comes from "lam".

Having spent my early childhood in a German-speaking environment, when  I
first heard the word kuni-leml, I assumed that it had something to do
"comical" or "mischievous".  My father always used to say to me, "Du
loemmel, Du!"  And kuni, I had always assumed it came from Yiddish "kundes"
or German "Kunzen" somehow having to do with "joker" or "trickster".

Well, so much for assumptions!  Having now had exposure to the  kuni-leml
character over the years, most notably Mike Burstein's  characterization, I'd
agree with Hershl that the kuni-leml is more innocent than sly.

I've meandered a bit here, but maybe the conclusion I'm coming to is that
you have to be very careful with possible cognates with German.

Rick Gildemeister

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 19, 2005
Subject: hant and haynt

[Regarding Rochelle Eissenstat's reading "hant" as meaning "haynt"
(14.038)];

I would disagree.  Yes, it is a common pronunciation but does not carry
over into literate writing, and the syntax would not work as it does with
"hand."

Zulema Seligsohn

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