Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 18.002
June 3, 2008

1) origins of "Ashkenazic" and "Sephardic" (Robert Lapides)
2) Buzi (Ellen Cassedy)
3) s'glign tuenish (Martin Jacobs)
4)  term for bridegroom moving in with in-laws (Thalia Gur Klein)
5) fligels in a gazerem (Michael Teitelbaum)
6) song lyrics sought (Avraham Yehoshua Kahana)
7) hobn fling in/unter der noz (Norman Buder)
8) strange duck (Jack B. Zeldis)
9) visn fun tsores (Irwin Mortman)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  May 15, 2008
Subject: origins of "Ashkenazic" and "Sephardic"

When were the terms "Ashkenazic" and "Sephardic" first used as designations
for the separate communities and/or cultures?

Robert Lapides

[Moderator's note:  it is suggested that readers consult the Encyclopaedia
Judaica or the recently published YIVO Encyclopedia of Eastern European
Jewry for information about this subject.]

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  May 20, 2008
Subject: Buzi

I had a cousin (male) who as a child in 1930's Brooklyn was called "Buzi."
I believe his real name was Walter.  My mother told me the nickname was a
Yiddish-flavored pronunciation of "pussy," like "pussy cat" - "buzi ket."
But now I learn that a leader of the Far East Jewish settlement of
Birobidjian had that name.  The pussy cat explanation wouldn't make sense
there.  Any ideas?

Ellen Cassedy

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  May 22, 2008
Subject: s'glign tuenish

Can anyone tell me the meaning of "s'glign tuenish," which occurs in a
saying collected in the town of Gombin?

"ven a gombiner yid hot gevolt epes zogn oder dertseyln, hot er dos
ongehoybn mit di verter: kh'hob gevolt epes zogn, s'glign tuenish."

Martin Jacobs

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  May 24, 2008
Subject: term for bridegroom moving in with in-laws

For my research, I have the following question:

What is the Yiddish term that describes a marriage where it is the
bridegroom who moves to his bride's home?  I mean the model described in
Bashevis Singer's story "Yentl," where a yeshiva-bokher (poor) moves to his
father-in-law's. A similar case appears in Yoshe Kalb by I. J. Singer. Are
there specific conditions attached?

thanks in advance,
Thalia Gur Klein

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 24, 2008
Subject:  fligels in a gazerem

My daughter's second grade teacher asked, "how many fligels are in a
gazerem?" I know what fligels are (so I told her 2) but what's a gazerem?

Michael Teitelbaum

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  May 25, 2008
Subject:  song lyrics sought

I thought maybe one of you could lead me to the name and or/the lyrics of a
song my mother once sang to me.  She stated that she could remember that
her father used to sing it for her and her sister at home.

It goes somehow like this (I don't speak Yiddish, so probably many "words"
would at best sound close to something):

Zingt zhe ale kinderlekh
Zingt zhe ale yidelekh
Dem nign un dem naye
Dem nign un dem naye
Oy oy oy
Yo bo boy
Fun (?!) Yerushalaym oy oy oy... (the chorus again).

Then there's something like a bridge, from which I don't have any words to
share. Unfortunately, the only thing I can tell is that the pitch goes
higher.

If there's an expert here or anyone would like to give it a try, I would
gladly sing the melody or play it and e-mail it to you privately.

I received the following reply from another list.  It is the closest I
could get to this song. But I'm just not sure it is the same. I wonder what
is sung in the bridge.

Zingt zhe ale kinderlekh (2)
Dem nign dem nayem (2)
Lernt zikh di lidelekh
(*Third and fourth lines sung together twice, not
one line at a time)
Fun yerushalayim
In tsien nit fargesn  (2)
Freylekh veln mir zayn   (2)
Peyres veln mir esn    ( * same instructions as above)
Un trinkn veln mir vayn.

Thank you in advance,
Avraham Yehoshua Kahana

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 26, 2008
Subject:  hobn flign in/unter der noz

Yiddish seems to have two idioms that differ in only one word: "Hobn flign
in der noz" and "Hobn flign unter der noz."

1. Uriel Weinreich in his dictionary renders "Hobn flign in der noz" as
"have a bee in one's bonnet."  I don't have Harkavy'sYiddish-English-Hebrew
dictionary at hand, but I recall that it gives a slightly different
translation.

2. A friend in Israel has learned from a colleague the expression "Hobn
flign unter der noz" in the sense of "putting on airs."  Since the
colleague is from South Africa and his ancestors probably came from
Lithuania, it is possible that this idiom was more common in Lithuania than
elsewhere.  I asked a woman from Vilna what the more common idiom, "hobn
flign in der noz," means, and she immediately responded: "Stuck up."  Even
if she mistook one idiom for the other, her answer suggests that my
friend's South African colleague is right about how "hobn flign unter der
noz" was used in Lithuania.

Can anyone authoritatively confirm the meanings of these two idioms and
offer a convincing theory of how they originated?

Norman Buder

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  June 2, 2008
Subject:  strange duck

The following passage appears in a new biography by Paul Ogden:

"Rabbi Ira Sanders got up and went over and put his arm around my father's
shoulder, and said something in Yiddish.  Then he explained: "In Yiddish
you can call an unusual person "a strange duck."  Well, Mr. Ogden, you ARE
a strange duck."

Can anyone guess what Yiddish expression R. Sanders had in mind?

Jack B. Zeldis

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  June 2, 2008
Subject: visn fun tsores

If one is asked a difficult question the response can be, "Visn fun mayne
tsores." I know what each word means but I haven't been able to translate
it into colloquial English phrase.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Irwin Mortman
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 18.002

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