Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 15.016
July 7, 2005

1) shtadlen (Meyer Wolf)
2) shtadlen (Dovid Braun)
3) shtadlen (Amitai Halevi)
4) a rusish lidl (Shaye Doris)
5) Soviet orthography (Zelda Kahan Newman)
6) shepn nakhes (Elye Palevsky)
7) balagole (Zulema Seligsohn)
8) balagole (Leizer Gillig)
9) nisht/nicht angedacht (Lynda Kraar)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: shtadlen

The earliest attestation I have found in a Hebrew document is the text of a
hatarat-kherem issued by R' Eliyahu Mizrachi (the Re'em), dated 1519. The
Re'em was born in Constantinople in 1450 and in  1498 became Chief Rabbi of
Turkey. shtadlen in the document glosses the Turkish ka^hya, which in
modern Turkish does not mean 'intercessor'; I do not know what it may have
meant in the 15th cent. in Jewish circles. The office of  the ka^hya,
ka^yalik is glossed as shtadlones. shtadlen and shtadlones are of course
spelled in the Hebrew manner; what their actual pronunciation was is moot.
I am not sure whether the glosses were found in the original document.

The earliest attestation of shtadlones in an Askenazic Hebrew document I
have  found is in the tshuvot of R' Moshe Isserles, born around 1525 in
Cracow and died in 1572.

The earliest attestations I have found in Yiddish texts are from the 19th
century. In the  Brantshpigl (1602) the verb "mishtadl zayn", in the sense
of 'intercede", is attested.

hishtadel/mishtadel are found in the Talmud. I would guess in some earlier
works too, but I have not checked.

The etymological story of shtadlen is obscure, but it is likely derived
from mishtadel through the loss of the mi- afformative, resembling, for
instance, shalekhmones from the Ashkenazic form of mishloakh-manot -- an
equally obscure derivation.

Meyer Wolf

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: shtadlen (noun; verb)

I have nothing to contribute directly towards Perets Mett's question re the
etymology of _shtadlen, stadlones_, but I do have this:  just the other
day, while leafing through the Satmer-oriented weekly newspaper _Der Yid_
of a few years ago (an issue probably from 1999 -- I didn't take down the
bibliographic information), I came upon a use of _shtadlen_ that I was
unfamiliar with.  It was used as a verb, so that _shtadlen_ was the
infinitive, with a past participle _geshtadlt_ and a 3rd person present
_(er/zi/es) shtadlt_.  Up to now, I was only aware of the verb _mishtadl
zayn zikh_.

Dovid Braun

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: shtadlen

Not that it is of crucial importance, but my reference via  Ben Yehudah is
the same as Moyshe Taube's via Even Shoshan. The term "shtadlan" appears in
the minutes of the Council of Four Countries for the Hebrew year 5441,
which is 1680-81 C.E.  Moyshe Taube got it right; I lost a decade in the
conversion.

Amitai Halevi

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: a rusish lidl

Do any of you Mendelayer know the words of a Soviet propaganda song that I
heard before WW2.  The melody is a well known gypsy song.

di gutar vert geshpilt fon tsigayner,
full mit umet un --------  .......,
anerkent zaynen zey ale brider
fraye folk in sovietn farband.
to vozhe zorgn far dem morgn,
gis dem becher on mit vayn, etc,

Could someone please fill in
the blanks.

Shaye Doris

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: Soviet orthography

The great Yiddish linguist, Aizik Zaretski, was the one who personally
oversaw the de-Hebraization of Yiddish.  (He was also a member of the
Yevsektsia). He suffered greatly in his later life.  The Soviets put him up
to a "trial" at which he confessed to a multitude of sins.  He was
nevertheless sentenced to years of banishment in Siberia.

In case you're wondering how I know this, my doctoral dissertation was an
annotation of Zaretski's Praktishe Yidishe Gramatik.  When I wrote it, I
had to dig out the biographical facts of his life; his name was banished
from Soviet encyclopedias. (BTW, I am under the impression that his son
emigrated to Israel, though I am not entirely certain of it.)

Zelda Kahan Newman

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: shepn nakhes

I know no quick translation for "shepn nakhes."  One explanation is: to
take proprietary delight  in the achievement of another person and perhaps
to bask in reflected glory.

Elye Palevsky

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: balagole

To the question of it not being in Harkavy, it is, of course, but spelled
as in Hebrew:  bet, ayin, lamed -dash- ayin, gimel, lamed, he. It would
still take me very long to write this in Yiddish or Hebrew, I haven't
worked that out..  It's on page 129 in my edition.

Zulema Seligsohn

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: Re: balagole

Of course "balagole" means coachman or wagon driver. It is from the Hebrew
ba'al ha-agalah, "master of the wagon"  which, in fact, is listed in
Harkavy's with its Hebrew, rather than its Yiddish spelling.  How does one
spell it in today's Yiddish, anyway?

Leizer Gillig

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 7, 2005
Subject: nisht/nicht angedacht

I am thrilled that my 15-year-old daughter has taken an interest in
mamaloshen. She has been delving and would like to know more about the
expression, nisht/nicht angedacht, which we hear quite often in the shtetl
of  Toronto. We know the German definition, but would like to know how this
expression made its way to become such a central part of conversation,
usually  in a hushed tone, amongst bubbies and mamehs. I will be e-mailing
to my daughter  all of your replies and I thank you in advance,

Lynda Kraar
LyndaKraar@aol.com

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 15.016


Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, choose
one of these two:


Messages for posting on Mendele
Personal and other messages to the shamosim