Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 17.008
August 29, 2007

1) rezinyorn (Martin Jacobs)
2) Itsik Kipnis (Harriet Murav)
3) orthography articles (Yidl Tallmer)
4) Zlotshev (Ilana Zur)
5) shtotty (Ben Sadock)
6) Foreskin (Amitai Halevi)
7) Foreskin (Moyshe Levi Pinchever)
8) Foreskin (Sylvan Beer)
9) Foreskin (Vincent Homolka)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 24, 2007
Subject: rezinyorn

Can anyone tell me the meaning of "rezinyorn", which occurs in
Zylbercwaig's Teater leksikon?  The complete sentence is "er hot gehat a
sheyne tenor-shtime vos hot im meglekh gemakht tsu shpiln oykh andere role
fun andere zhanrn, bazunders rezinyorn."

Martin Jacobs

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 26, 2007
Subject: Itsik Kipnis

I would like to know the date of composition of Itsik Kipnis's novel
"Untervegns," published together with "Di shtub" in Tel Aviv in 1977.
Unfortunately the lexicon of Yiddish literature does not provide this
information. Web sources, which are often unreliable, give conflicting
dates: some say Kipnis wrote this work before his imprisonment in 1948, and
some say after. The work is set during the Russian Civil War, but when was
it written?

Harriet Murav

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 28, 2007
Subject: orthography articles

In preparation for a 1996 class presentation on Yiddish Orthography, I
amassed a stack of xeroxed articles for which I no longer have storage
space. They pertain to Yiddish and Hebrew writing, spelling, and
typesetting conventions. Most of them were sent by Zachary Baker when he
was running the library at YIVO. It seems a shame to toss them, if someone
wants to have a look--perhaps 300 pages in all. Please let me know as soon
as possible.

Jillian "Yidl" Tallmer

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 1, 2007
Subject: Zlotshev

I would like your help in reaching people from the Polish town (shtetele)
Zloczew (or Zlotchev, Zlotshev) near Lodz, not the town in Galicia.  I
belong to a group of second and third generation descendants of Zloczew in
Israel and we are trying to reach other people in North & South America,
Europe etc.,who have connections to Zloczew.  All help would be grately
appreciated. Thanks in advance,

Ilana Zur

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 6, 2007
Subject: shtotty

I've done a bit of research into the word "shtotty" in my ongoing quest to
find the Hasidic Yiddish word for "cool."  The leading candidates thus far
are "moyredik" and "rayserish." "Shtotty" is almost definitely from the
Yiddish masculine noun "shtat," meaning "pomp" or "ostentation." That it is
unrelated to the word "shtot" is clear from the /a/ vowel, instead of /u/
or /o/. Stutchkoff offers two adjectival forms in section 551 of his
thesaurus (yontef, parad): "shtatlekh" and "shtatne," the former marked as
"not recommended in cultivated speech," and the latter as "not accepted in
cultivated speech." Two separate Hasidic informants have told me they
thought the word "shotty" was English; this strongly suggests that they
encountered it only among non-Yiddish speakers. If this is the case, then
"shtotty" is similar to "gevaltik" (note the unvoiced /t/), also meaning
"cool" - both words are Yiddish-inspired English words unique to the
English speaking American Jewish communities generally referred to as
"Yeshivish" or "Litvish."

Ben Sadock

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 6, 2007
Subject: Foreskin

In response to Muni & Carol Basman's query (Vol. 17.006):

In Hannah Reicher's new (2003) Hebrew-Yiddish/Yiddish-Hebrew Dictionary,
the Hebrew term spelled ayin-resh-lamed-heh, was taken over into Yiddish as
is.  It is pronounced or-LA in modern Israeli Hebrew and  OR-lo in
Ashkenazi Hebrew, so I imagine (I am no Yiddish maven) that the Yiddish
pronunciation would be OR-le.

Amitai Halevi

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 6, 2007
Subject: Foreskin

The Yiddish word for foreskin is "orla" and a non-Jew is called "arel" or
"orel."  The female version is "orelte."  You can see it a lot in the
writings of Sholem Aleichem.

Moyshe Levi Pinchever

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 6, 2007
Subject: Foreskin

The Yiddish word for foreskin is "mile."

This brings to mind one of my mothers sayings that I have not heard of
elsewhere.

If she were to see someone obsessively carrying an object, she would say
"er trogt es arum vi avroum mitn mile." This alludes to the myth that when
Abraham sealed the covenant with God by getting circumcised, he kept the
foreskin in silver box that he carried with him everywhere to remind God of
their agreement.

Sylvan Beer

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 8, 2007
Subject: Foreskin

In response to the query from Muni & Carol Basman:

The Yiddish word for "foreskin" is "di forhoyt" (spelt: fey, komets alef,
reysh, hey, vov, yud, tes) according to Niborski & Vaisbrot's
Yiddish-French dictionary.

Vincent Homolka
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 17.008


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