Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.018
July 11, 2005

1) Soviet orthography (Bob Rothstein)
2) Soviet orthography (Dovid Braun)
3) Soviet orthography (Joel Maxman)
4) Yosele Klezmer (Felicitas Payk)
5) parkh revisited (Felicitas Payk)
6) shtadlen (Meyer Wolf)
7) Yiddish in Los Angeles (Lori Cahan-Simon)
8) Yiddish in Los Angeles (Noyekh Miller)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Re: Soviet orthography

Two footnotes to Lucas Bruyn's comment (15.017)"that the Soviet orthography
of non-Hebrew Yiddish words is basically the same as the Standardized YIVO
Orthography and that the Soviet spelling of Hebrew words according to the
phonemic system is identical to the system used in Weinreich's dictionary."

1. Among the minor differences between the Soviet and YIVO standards are
   a. The prefix or particle spelled alef-vov-yud-fey in the latter is in
the former spelled to reflect the pronunciation [uf], while the preposition
with the same YIVO spelling is spelled in the Soviet standard to reflect
the pronunciation [af]. This distinction corresponds to the YIVO orthoepic
(pronunciation) standard rather than to the widespread spelling
pronunciation of [oyf] for both prefix and preposition.

   b. The preposition spelled in the YIVO standard to reflect the
pronunciation [bay] is spelled to reflect the pronuncation [ba] in the
Soviet standard.

2. "[I]s identical to the system used in Weinreich's dictionary" could be
reformulated slightly more precisely to read "is based on the same
orthoepic standard reflected in the transcriptions in Weinreich's
dictionary."

Bob Rothstein

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Re: Soviet orthography

Lucas Bruyn's statement below is quite incorrect:

"For clarity I would like to remark that the Soviet orthography of
non-Hebrew Yiddish words is basically the same as the Standardized YIVO
Orthography and that the Soviet spelling of Hebrew words according to the
phonemic system is identical to the system used in Weinreich?s dictionary."

Some differences that come to mind:

diacritic marks on the letters (in Soviet system:  total absence of _pasekh
alef_; presence of _khirek_ under _yud_ when representing UNstressed /i/
abutting a vowel as in _aviatsye_ -- the first yud has a _khirek_; absence
of _rofe_ over fey);

deletion of root-initial _shtumer alef_ when "converb" preceeds root (e.g.,
_tsu+ayln_ is written without an alef);

phonetic spelling of prepositions _ba, af_ and of "converbs" _uf,
fanander_;

deletion of double consonants when they'd otherwise appear as a result of
prefixation (_on+nemen_ is rendered: onemen, _far+ratn_ is rendered:
faratn);

spelling of adverbial stock phrases as one word (_ineynem [without a second
alef!), inderfri [not the noun], inovnt, mitamol, fundosnay_ etc.)

Dovid Braun
Cambridge, MA

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Re: Soviet Orthography

In the Yiddish Forverts published this past Friday is an article about
Jews in Russian Asia.  A photo of a monument to Sholem Aleichem shows his
name spelled in Soviet Yiddish Orthography:
shin kometz-alef lamed ayin mem (not shlus-mem)
alef lamed tzvey-yudn khes ayin mem (again, no shlus-mem)

Joel Maxman
NYC

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Yosele Klezmer

I am searching for a poem with the title "Yosele klezmer". I don't know
the author, but I do know that it can be found in a Hebrew book about
klezmer life by Stutchewsky, which was printed in Israel in 1959. If
anyone can provide the words of this poem for me, I would be most
grateful. You can either write to the list, or to me personally.

Thanks in advance.

Felicitas Payk
Hannover, Germany
felicitas.payk@t-online.de

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: parkh revisited

A few weeks ago, I submitted a posting asking about the use of "parkhes"
and "parkhim" in Zachary Baker's post in Mendele (Vol. 15.011). I wanted
to know whether the suffixes "es" and "im" were both used as plural
suffixes, or whether "parkhes" denotes the infection and "parkhim" is
referred to those infected.

I'd be happy if someone could clarify this for me.

Felicitas Payk
Hannover, Germany

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Re: shtadlen

Midrash l'Pirkey-Avot by Anshl Levi is a manuscript written in Italy in the
year shin-lamed-tet (circa 1579). It was brought to press in the volume:

Yaacov J. Maitlis
An Old Yiddish Midrash to the Chapters of the Fathers
Jerusalem, 1978

The author is an Italo-Ashkenazic Jew and the text is written in Western
Yiddish and incorporates many Italian elements.

In it we find the verb mishtadl zayn and the noun mishtadlonim (twice).
Like many other words in the text, these words are pointed.

Meyer Wolf

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Yiddish in Los Angeles

Here is an update on a new program to teach Yiddish in the L.A. Jewish day
schools and a link to a story that the LA Times published prominently on
July 7th.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-yiddish7jul07,1,4131140.story?coll=la-headlines-california+

Lori Cahan-Simon

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 11, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish in Los Angeles

Friends of Yiddish everywhere have reason to rejoice at the news that
Yiddish will be taught in 3 Los Angeles high schools.  The program will be
administered by an organization called Yiddishkaytla.  Knowing nothing
about them, I decided to look up their web page, http://yiddishkaytla.org/.
The first thing that struck me about their logo--which includes the legend
'a revolution in Yiddish'--was that of the five Yiddish words there was
something wrong with four of them.

I chose one of them, a word written 'avada', and wrote to yiddishkaytla
asking why not 'avade' as is given in Weinreich and in Niborski's
_verterbukh_.  An unsigned answer came back promptly. Here it is in full:

     We tested it and found people were pronouncing the second 'a' in 'avade' as
     a long 'a' sound.

     'avada' got us closer to where we wanted to be.

After recovering from that I wrote again but there have been no further
replies.  Maybe they're out buying a copy of Weinreich.  Maybe they're out
doing (rakhmone litslan) more testing.

Noyekh Miller

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 15.018


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