Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.009
June 7, 2005

1) parkh (Lyuba Dukker)
2) Yiddish komputeray and UYIP (Mark H. David)
3) kakt mir bkherem (Elye Palevsky)
4) The 'death' of Yiddish (Dovid Braun)
5) dray niselakh (Marvin Engel)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: June 1, 2005
Subject: parkh

Just want to comment on Lucas Bruyn's hypothesis [Mendele 15.008] about
Slavic origin of porkhe deriving from parkh/porkh. Based on my guts feeling
I doubt it very much, because parkh/parkhaty is a specifically antisemitic
insult. I have heard the zhid parkhaty - zhidovka parkhataya expression
addressed to me only too often. I doubt it was used in Yiddish in the sense
of wanderer.

Lyuba Dukker

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: June 1, 2005
Subject: Yiddish komputeray and UYIP

tayere Mendele khaveyrim!

For the past several weeks, since the switch to using web pages to display
Mendele postings, there has been a notice to send email to
uyip@world.std.com for technical issues.  This was not the right thing to
do, and resulted from a misunderstanding.  The shamosim were right to refer
people to the UYIP mailing list for technical issues related to problems of
using Yiddish on their computers.  However, (a) mail cannot be sent
directly to the UYIP address unless the sender is subscribed to UYIP, and
(b) not all technical issues should be discussed on UYIP, only those
related to Yiddish Kompyuteray. For example, if you're having problems
getting your email and browser to function even for English text, it's not
a problem for UYIP. If, on the other hand, you can go to the web page, and
English text looks OK, but you find that Yiddish text is displayed, say,
left-to-right when it should be displayed right-to-left, that could be a
problem for UYIP. I, as moderator of UYIP, want to sincerely apologize for
the major part of the misunderstanding.  Below is the introduction to UYIP
from its "info page".  For more info, please visit the UYIP home page:
http://www.uyip.org

Mark David

Shames/Moderator, UYIP (Understanding Yiddish Information Processing)
http://www.uyip.org

----

The UYIP mailing list is for Understanding Yiddish Information
Processing.  This list is primarily for people interested in
discussing and learning the technical details of using computers for
various aspects of processing information in the Yiddish language, as
well as such related topics as Yiddish computer terminology and using
Yiddish on the Internet.

First, a bit of administrative trivia.  To subscribe or unsubscribe at
any time, send an email message to

	uyip-request@world.std.com

and leave the subject blank, and just put the following text as
the body of the message:

	subscribe

to subscribe, and

	unsubscribe

to unsubscribe.  Note that, for those new to Internet mailing lists,
"subscribing" to a mailing list does not cost any money.  Note that
only email from subscribed persons will be accepted on the list.
Other email will automatically be returned to the sender.  Also, if
your email address stops working, you may be automatically removed
from the list; if this happens by mistake, just subscribe again.

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: June 1, 2005
Subject: Re: kakt mir bkherem

 .פֿרעגט מיר בחרם קען איך אײַך ניט זאָגן װאָס איר װילט װיסן

fregt mir b’kheyrem ken ikh aykh nit zogn vos ir vilt visn.

Even under threat of kheyrem, I’m unable to tell you what you want to
know.

The expression b’kheyrem is often used conversationally to emphasize a
state of utter inability, rather than unwillingness. It’s the severity of
the treat rather than its religious-communal implication that is invoked.

I’ve heard קאַק זײ אָן / kak zey on, used instead of קוק זײ
אָן / kuk zey  (  look at them)  as a derisive coarse word
play.  As to the pairing, פֿרעגט מיר בחרם, fregt mir bkherem.

Elye Palevsky

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: June 2, 2005
Subject: The past and the future of the death of Yiddish

Harriet Weinstein (vol. 15.007) inquires about the quote that makes
reference to the past thousand years and the future thousand years of the
death of Yiddish.

I don't believe Sholem-Aleykhem ever *directly* contributed to the
death-of-Yiddish rhetoric.  I recall, in the documentary film about the
_Forverts_ (late 1980s), that the Yiddish linguist and language
preservation activist Mordkhe Schaechter was interviewed about the language
and used a line (his own?), which was approximately: "di yidishe shprakh
shtarbt shoyn toyznt yor; lomir hofn az zi vet shtarbn nokh toyznt yor".

David Braun
dbraun@fas.harvard.edu

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: June 7, 2005
Subject: di mame hat dray niselakh

I recall a children's song that my mother used to sing. Can anyone
identify it and/or check the lyrics? Thank you.

ikh gedenk a kinder lid vos mayn mame flegt zingen. veyst emetser vos es
heyst, ver der compoziter is un tsu ikh hob ale verter? a sheynem dank.


mayn mame hut dray niselakh,
dray niselakh gehat.
dray gute sheyne niselakh,
dray niselakh a prakht.

iz eyns geven far berelen,
dos tsveyter far khayem shmerele.
dos drite, beste nisele,
hut  zi gelost far zikh.

ir vunderzikh a bisl,
farvos nisht mir a nisl?

ikh hub aykh opgenart,
ikh hub gevust ir vart.
vayl nisl, nisl, nisele,
dos nisele bin ikh.

Marvin Engel

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End of Mendele Vol. 15.009


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