Mendele: Yiddish literature and language Vol.23.015 ____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 23.015 January 29, 2014 1) shabash (Dina Levias) 2) Mendele's "Dos Kelbl" (Hershl Hartman) 3) roundtable at YIVO on Jewish-Lithuanian relations (Leah Falk) 4) tekse (Meyshe Sweet) 5) Yiddish Romanization tool (Paula Grossman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: December 28, 2013 Subject: shabash In reply to Alexis Monaster Ramer, concerning "shabash": - "Does anybody know such a word in Yiddish and if so from where?" Well, Alexis, and Mendelyaner khaverim, the word sounded Turkish to me, but since I don't know Turkish, I thought I'd see whether by chance it might have been adopted in Russian.. a wild idea ! And, lo' and behold: it is mentioned in my 1961 edition of Smirnitsky's Russian-English dictionary, not once, but twice! With the tonic accent on the first syllable, SHAbash, it is "sabbath", and even "witches' Sabbath." With the tonic accent on the second syllable, shaBASH: 1) colloquially: "no more of this", "enough.." (in Brooklynese: enough already!) 2) Maritime: "ship oars!, way enough!" And 3) as a verb, colloquially: "leave off work, knock off work" -(i.e. to play hooky) Best New Year's wishes to you, linguists all! Dina Levias 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: December 27 Subject: Mendele's "Dos Kelbl" In reply to Dov Dukhovny, Mendele frequently revised his works in new editions, refining the Yiddish and often providing parenthetic explanations of Talmudic and other citations from sforim. Yiddish literary critics count these revisions as among Mendele's major contributions to the modernization of Yiddish literature. Based on its selection of a 1930s Warsaw edition of "Shloyme reb Khayims" for digitization, I'm assuming that the Yiddish Book Center selected its copies of Mendele's works that were in best condition. The cited edition, for example, transliterates Hebrew/Aramaic words, apparently for the benefit of a secularized readership. The library at UCLA has a much earlier edition, the pages of which are yellowed and the binding insecure. Hershl Hartman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 23 Subject: roundtable at YIVO on Jewish-Lithuanian relations We are pleased to invite you to YIVO on Thursday, February 13, 2014 for "Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians After the Holocaust," a roundtable with European Union Parliament Member, Leonidas Donskis, writer and political dissident, Tomas Venclova, and Chair of the Lithuanian Jewish community, Faina Kukliansky, to discuss the controversy surrounding the mainstream perception of the Holocaust in Lithuania today. For more details, please visit http://yivo.org/about/index.php?tid=154&aid=1263 We hope to see you at this important event. Leah Falk 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 8 Subject: tekse Mendelyaners, I've just read a Sholem Asch story "Di Yatishe Tokhter" with my leynkrayz and there is a word in the last (and crucial) sentence that has stumped me, couldn't find it in any dictionary: "tekse" (tes ayin kof ayin samekh ayin). The context is a young coachman who has doggedly worked, done well financially, and married into a very balebatish family in his shtetl. His upward mobility has distanced him from his khevre, and at the story's end he is going back into his house, after unsuccessfully trying to socialize with them, and his former best buddy tells the others that "di tekse geyt." A sheyem dank in foroys far ayere hilf, Michael (Meyshe) Sweet 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 26 Subject: Yiddish Romanization tool Hi! I have to transcribe yidishe oysies into Latin letters. Not only one single word but a lot of text. I know Yiddish and how it should be transcribed but it's a lot of text and I'd like to make life easier. Do you know of any tool available to do this? Very grateful for an answer. Sincerely, Paula Grossman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 23.015 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, direct your mail as follows: Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language, i.e. inquiries and comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature: [email protected] IMPORTANT: Please include your full name as you would like it to appear in your posting. No posting will appear without its author's name. Submissions to regular Mendele should not include personal email addresses, as responses will be posted for all to read. They must also include the author's name as you would like it to appear. In order to spare the shamosim time and effort, we request that contributors adhere, when applicable, as closely as possible to standard English punctuation, grammar, etc. and to the YIVO rules of transliteration into Latin letters. A guide to Romanization can be found at this site: http://www.yivoinstitute.org/about/index.php?tid=57&aid=275 Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements, i.e. announcements of events, commercial publications, requests to which responses should be sent exclusively to the request's author, etc., always in plain text (no HTML or the like) to: [email protected] (in the subject line write Mendele Personal) All other messages should be sent to the shamosim at this address: [email protected] Mendele on the web [interim address]: https://sites.google.com/site/mendeledervaylik To join or leave the list: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele _______________________________________________ Mendele mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele
