Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 17.011 October 1, 2007 1) petsha (Carol Zemel) 2) rezinyor (Shimen Neuberg) 3) rezinyor (Hy Wolfe) 4) rezinyor (Lyuba Dukker) 5) es toyg oyf kapores (Marvin Engel) 6) Yiddish food words for Jews (Hershl Hartman) 7) -(e)lekh (Marion Aptroot) 8) lokshn (Zevi Ghivelder) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 8, 2007 Subject: petsha My Ukrainian-Jewish family (from Izyaslavl) called it "p'tcheh." I still make it, as a hot soup, but with pipiks and chicken necks, as chicken feet are not available and, in any case, beyond what I can handle in the kitchen. Our family variant is the following: after cooking the pipiks forever in the broth with a chopped onion, add a lot of crushed garlic and 1 or 2 tbsp. white vinegar to 2 beaten egg yolks. Add a little of the hot liquid to the yolk mixture to balance the temperature with the hot broth, then add to broth and swirl through. The yolks should not solidify. Liquid will be opaque and a lovely pale yellow. (I discard the necks, after picking off the meat.) Enjoy. Carol Zemel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 31, 2007 Subject: rezinyor tsi meynt men nisht efsher gor "rezonyor" vi in Stutshkofs oytser z.373 kimat baym sof? dortn shteyt dos vort in aza grupkele: ]; foter-rolist, rezonir - rezonyor; ershter, tsveyter rezonir - rezonyor; intrigant; di frage iz geven: 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." Shimen Neuberg 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 31, 2007 Subject: rezinyor Martin Jacobs fregt vos iz a rezinyor. Er iz a man vos shpilt "foter-rolist" = "father or somewhat older leading man." Hy Wolfe 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 31, 2007 Subject: rezinyor Rezinyor (rezonyor) is one of the types (amplua)in the traditional theater, like hero, villain etc. If I am not mistaken, a rezonyor is something like a friend-helper of a hero. Regards, Lyuba Dukker 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 1, 2007 Subject: es toyg oyf kapores One of my mother's favorite and frequently used expressions, which connotes uselessness or helpless frustration, is "es toyg oyf kapores!" I grew up hearing it frequently and thought I always understood exactly what she meant in context. I never parsed out the obvious connection to the rejection of religious rites. I'd be interested in an exegesis of the origin of this expression. My hunch is that it may be broader and older than a late 19th or early 20th century product of Eastern European Jewish secularism. But I really haven't a clue. Marvin Engel 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 3, 2007 Subject: Yiddish food words for Jews Re: Jules Rabin's inquiry (v.17, no. 9): "Does anyone know of any Yiddish food words that are used in reference to ourselves, generically?" A somewhat-related term may be "a kosher kelbl (calf)," which was used -- especially among fiercely secular Yiddish-speakers -- to describe an overly-sheltered, naive, observant Jewish young woman. There was also implicit the expectation that the "kelbl" was fit for, or about to be, sacrificed on the altar of an arranged marriage. There's also a vague memory floating under mayn vaysn kop (my white-haired head) of "sherayim freser" as a negative term, from the same source, for heyse khsidim (fervent Hasidim). (Sherayim being the leftovers at a revered rebe's tish (rabbi's ceremonial table), for which his disciples would scramble; freser being those who gorge as animals do). Hershl Hartman 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 4, 2007 Subject: -(e)lekh The plural endings of diminutives may also be defined as -lekh/-elekh, rather than -ekh, which does not occur in another context in Yiddish (unlike some German dialects). In her "Historische Jiddische Semantik" (Historical Yiddish Semantics, 2005), Erika Timm devotes a small chapter to the diminutive plurals on -lekh and their historical development (p. 109-113). They do still occur in parts of Franconia, as Hugh Denman notes, but are unknown to many speakers of German. Their occurrence was more widespread in the Middle Ages, but nowadays they are restricted to small areas. In 1592 Elias Schadaeus already wrote that the diminutive plural endings on -(e)lekh were typical of the language of the Jews. These suffixes were not known to him in his native German since he lived outside the "- ekh territory." These plural suffixes (-lekh and early variants -likh and -likht) were standard in Yiddish even in most of the earliest (Western) Yiddish sources, but under the influence of more northern German dialects and of Dutch, the -kh diminutives eventually became more frequent in the Yiddish of the northwestern part of Europe (but as far east as a western strip of Poland). Marion Aptroot 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 4, 2007 Subject: lokshn Regarding the word "lokshn": please let me add that Brazilian Jews use it as a slang to mean American dollars. Zevi Ghivelder ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 17.011 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, choose one of these, as appropriate: Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language: mendele@lists.yale.edu Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements: victor.bers@yale.edu (in the subject line write Mendele Personal) Other messages to the shamosim: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu To signoff from the list, email to listproc@lists.yale.edu with the following request: signoff MENDELE or unsubscribe MENDELE Mendele on the web: http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/index.htm