Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.031
October 20, 2005

1) Yiddish and the Past Conditional (Felicitas Payk)
2) sklotshe (Bob Rothstein)
3) di tsukunft fun yidish (Al Merkrebs)
4) Stanley Werbow z"l (shamosim)
5) tsvey lider (Al Grand)
6) gehakte bankes (Khane-Faygl Turtletaub)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 29, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish and the Past Conditional

I just wanted to make a peripheral comment regarding the ongoing discussion
about past/present conditional in Yiddish. Recently, someone (actually, my
grandmother) asked me: "Wenn du nicht studiert hE4ttest, was wolltst
machen?", meaning what I would have done if I hadn't wanted to study. I
made her repeat this, because it sounds familiar to me in Yiddish, and yet
so strange in German. That made me wonder: Has the past or present
conditional with "voltn" originally been a  German dialectal usage? Or a
Middle High German usage? Any comments on this? Maybe, by throwing light on
this aspect, we can get closer to an answer as to what extent it is wrong
to use a present conditional in Yiddish.

Felicitas Payk
Hannover, Germany

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 30, 2005
Subject: Re: sklotshe

The lines quoted by Shimon Frank (15.030) are the slightly misremembered
refrain from David Meyerowitz's "vu zaynen mayne zibn gute yor?" The
version given in the Yiddish text of the 1924 Kammen edition reads:

          vu zaynen mayne zibn gute yor?
          oyb nit zibn, zol khotsh zayn a por.
          epes fun dem lebn khotshe.
          iz mayn neshome den fun klotshe?
          vu zaynen mayne zibn gute yor?

(The transliterated version has "...fon [sic] a klotshe.")

Weinreich glosses  _klotshe_ (or _klyotshe_) as "oakum," and Harkavy offers
"tow, oakum."  The American Heritage Dictionary explains oakum as "loose
hemp or jute fiber, sometimes treated with tar, creosote, or asphalt, used
chiefly for caulking seams in wooden ships and packing pipe joints." Tow is
"coarse broken flax or hemp fiber prepared for spinning."

Bob Rothstein

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 1, 2005
Subject: di tsukunft fun yidish

זײַט מיר מוחל, עס אַרט מיך װאָס ביז איצט
דיגאַנצע רײד װעגן צוקונפֿט פֿון ייִדיש
איז אױף ענגליש געװען, נישט
ייִדיש.

ס'איז איראָניש, נײן?  װי קען
ייִדיש בלײַבן לעבן אַז מען רעדט װעגן
ייִדיש אױף ענגליש?

איך בעט אײַך מיר
זאָלן רען דאָ מער ייִדיש און װײניקן
ענגליש.

אַל מערקרעבס



4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 12, 2005
Subject: Stanley Werbowz"l

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2005/10/12/University/Colleagues.Remember.Professor-1017895.shtml


5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 12, 2005
Subject: tsvey lider

Turn on your speakers and click here to hear two lively Yiddish
duets:


http://216.69.177.101/images/litvak_galityaner.wmv


Al Grand

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 17, 2005
Subject: gehakte bankes


Tsi veyst eyner fun di
Mendelistn vos 'gehakte bankes' zaynen?  Avade veys
ikh vos bankes
zaynen, ober mit vos zayen 'gehakte' andersh?


Khane-Faygl Turtletaub
doctorkf@gte.net

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End of Mendele Vol. 15.031


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