Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 20.0015 March 13, 20011 1) Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" (Ellen Cassedy) 2) Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" (Eli Mishulovin) 3) Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" (Hershl Hartman) 4) Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" (Stuart Filler) 5) songs sought (Jane Peppler) 6) Yiddish educational opportunities (Jordan Kutzik) 7) origins of Yiddish (Michael E. Kovnat) 8) translating Yiddish terms not in dictionaries (Michael E. Kovnat) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 21 Subject: Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" Russell Block (February 16) asks about a line in Dovid Hofshteyn's poem "Friling": alts gringer varft der kop zikh inderheykh un shnur farbrokhenem di busheles tsu tseyln . . . Could this be about throwing back one's head to count the storks flying high in the sky storks that are flying, as geese do, in the shape of V's or broken necklaces? Storks returning to the area now that it is spring. Ellen Cassedy 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 23 Subject: Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" A straight up translation of the last lines in David Hofshteyn's poem "Friling": *alts gringer varft der kop zikh inderheykh un shnur farbrokhenem di busheles tsu tseyln . . .* may be read read: Ever easier throwing your head up above and [leaving] the broken down daughter-in-law to count the bushels. *Shnur* daughter-in-law *Shnur* also meaning rope, might layer the meaning of the rope around the bushel broken opened but not dealt with in counting and sorting. Not having the Yiddish or the whole poem, and the context will help a lot here, perhaps it is *shnur farbokhnem*, hunched over daughter-in-law. So the lines are saying how easy it is to escape dealing with the mundane by floating into lofty thought and leaving the overworked woman to deal with the task at hand. Eli Mishulovin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 21 Subject: Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" Russell Block asks for the meaning of the last two lines of Dovid Hofshteyn's poem, "Friling," part of his 1912 (first published 1919) series of poems describing the changing seasons in the rural area in which he grew up, the most famous of which is In vinter farnakhtn--In Wintry Evenings. The lines in "Friling" may be translated as follows: "It's ever-easier to throw one's head back/to count the storks in their broken strings (of flight)." Hershl Hartman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 23 Subject: Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling" easy, comme l'habitude, head in sky counting the clouds on a knotted string Stuart Filler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 22 Subject: songs sought Hello friends, Sheva Zucker suggested that I subscribe to Mendele for the best help on the planet in matters Yiddish. I'm working with my friend Beth Holmgren, chair of the Slavic Languages Department at Duke University, on her book (and companion cd) project investigating Polish and Yiddish cabaret (kleynkunst, revi-teater) music in Warsaw between the wars. Here is my first question: I read in the Issachar Fatar book on Polish musicians that Zigmund Byalostotski had a great hit called "M'ken nisht tsvingen tsu keyn libe" and that Polish lyrics were subsequently written for it: "Nie mozna kogos zmusic do milosci," (by Zenon Friedwald). Bret Werb thinks no Yiddish text has survived. Has anyone heard of this "great hit" ?? Any pointers? And here is my second unanswered question on cabaret/kleynkunst music in Warsaw between the wars: Bret Werb at the Holocaust Museum intimates that a Yiddish text for the song "Oy, Madagaskar" finally showed up." I believe that Rebecca Joy Fletcher must have found a copy because she included an English-language version of it in her Kleynkunst show. Does anybody have sheet music or a recording or the Yiddish words to this song? Orother pointers? I'm also looking for the nightclub Azazel's theme song... Miroslawa Bulat wrote for YIVO (http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Kleynkunst): "Particularly celebrated was a number called the 'Azazel-Shimmy,' by Broderzon and Kon." ... and Bob Rothstein himself wrote (http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/printarticle.aspx?id=3D2195): " Azazel's theme song, the "Azazel-Shimmy" (words by Moyshe Broderzon [1890-1956], music by Henekh Kon [1898-1972]), was said to be so popular that people were whistling it on the streets of Warsaw. " Is it utterly gone? Any ideas? Best, Jane Peppler 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 22 Subject: Yiddish educational opportunities As I have done the last few years I have made a list of this summer's Yiddish educational opportunities. Please let me know if I am forgetting any. I have also started a Twitter account http://twitter.com/Yiddishclasses dedicated to publicizing Yiddish classes, summer programs, seminars, and immersion opportunities. Please follow the Twitter account and pass it along to anyone who would be interested, especially other Twitter accounts which tweet Jewish studies opportunities. I will tweet any Yiddish classes, programs etc anywhere in the world that are sent to me. Academic Yiddish Summer Programs: 1. University of Indiana (June 17-August 12):Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European and Central Asian Languages. Bloomington Indiana. http://www.indiana.edu/~swseel/program/languages_europe.shtml 2. YIVO/Bard College (June 20-July 29): Uriel Weinreich Program. At the Jewish Theological Seminary (NYC). http://www.bard.edu/bard-yivo/ 3. Vilnius Yiddish Institute (July 24-August 19) Summer Program in Yiddish Language and Literature. Vilnius, Lithuania. http://www.judaicvilnius.com/en/main/summer/introduction 4. Shalom Foundation/Center for Yiddish Culture (July 4-July 22) 9th International Summer Seminar in Yiddish Language and Culture. Warsaw, Poland. http://www.jidyszland.pl/index.php/en/yiddish-summer-seminar 5. Yiddish Book Center (June 12-July 29) The Steiner Summer Program. Amherst, Massachusetts. http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/steiner-summer-program 6. Institute For Jewish Studies (July 25-August 5) Summer Yiddish Seminar. Brussels, Belgium. http://www.ulb.ac.be//philo/judaism/calendrier.html 7. Goldreich Yiddish Institute/Beth Shalom Aleichem/Tel Aviv University (June 27-July 21) International Yiddish Summer Program. Tel Aviv, Israel. http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/yiddish/summer-index.eng.html 8. Yiddish SummerWeimar (Weimar, Germany). (June 9-August 22, Yiddish Classes August 9-14). http://www.yiddishsummer.eu/ Festivals where Yiddish is taught: 1. Jewish Music Institute (August 14-August19). Ot Azoy! Yiddish Language and Culture Crash Course. London, England. http://www.jmi.org.uk/ashkenazimusic/courses/10_KlezFestOtAzoy/10_Ot_Azoy.html 2. Klezcanada Summer Institute (August 22-August 28). Lantier,Quebec, Canada. http://www.klezkanada.org/ 3. Jewish Culture Festival Krakow (June 24-July 3). Krakow,Poland. http://www.jewishfestival.pl/index.php?lang3De20 4. Workmen's Circle (July 10-17). AWeek in Yiddishland. New York. http://www.circle.org/ Yiddish Immersion Opportunities: 1. Yiddish Farm Summer Program (July 13-August22). Reisterstown, MD. http://www.yiddishfarm.org 2. Yugntruf (August 23-August 29). YiddishWeek. Reisterstown, MD (Pearlstone Retreat Center). http://yugntruf.org I did in fact leave one program out of my list of Yiddish summer programs. It is the Yiddish Summer Program at Arizona State University as part of the Critical Languages Institute. The program runs from May 31-August 22. For more information see http://cli.asu.edu/yiddish All the best, Jordan Kutzik 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 21 Subject: origins of Yiddish I read a little of a few things by Dr. Paul Wexler, who is or was a professor at Tel Aviv University. One article was over 100 pages and called Yiddish: the 15th Slavic Language. He also wrote a thick book about how Yiddish started. His proposal is: Some Jews spoke a Slavic language, maybe old Sorbian, maybe in Bavaria. The local non-Jews spoke a Slavic language. Then speakers of a Germanic language migrated to the area. The Jews retained their sentence structure, word order and/or underlying grammar, but mainly just most of their Slavie word forms were replaced with Germanic word forms, but the original Slavic meanings were retained. But the Jewish religion made certain Germanic words unacceptable, so for these words, the original Slavic word was retained, or the original Slavic word was replaced with a word from old Hebrew. A second relexification might have happened somewhere farther east or North-East, among other Jews around Ukraine or maybe Poland or Lithuania or Russia. My B.A. degree was in Linguistics and Dr. Wexler's proposals about relexification in Yiddish and other communities makes intuitive sense to me. Michael E. Kovnat [Untershames Bers recommends reading through the many items in the Mendele archives pertinent to Wexler's hypothesis. They can be found by going to http://mendele.commons.yale.edu/wp/, and writing "Wexler" in the search box.] 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 21 Subject: translating Yiddish terms not in dictionaries Sometimes, a Yiddish word is spelled in a manner which suggests a pronunciation different from the standard in the Weinreich or Harkavy dicitonaries.After you know enough Yiddish you will start to recognize certain words as "different variations" of the standard words. Some words are actually a stem + diminutive, or a prefix + stem; for these words try to figure out which part might be the affix and which is the stem, look up each part separately, and then, try to mentally combine the meanings in a very literal manner, or a non-literal manner, as you wish based on your opinion of what makes the most sense. If you can't think of a nice single word English translation for a Yiddish word, just describe what you think it means and translate the one Yiddish word as a few English words or an English phrase or whole sentence. Alternatively, just put the Yiddish word in the main text with a footnote or glossary explaining the word, but don't do this too frequently. At least this is how I translate. Michael E. Kovnat ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 20.015 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. 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