[Mendele] Mendele Vol. 20.007

[Victor Bers]

Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 20.007
October 10, 2010

1) ayngeshpart and learning Yiddish (Freda Hodge)
2) ayngeshpart (Mike Hirsch)
3) Shoemakers, Rabbis, and High Foreheads (Norman Buder)
4) "Szal a Kakas Mar" (Perets Mett)
5) "Der groyser verterbukh" Online (Refoyl Finkel)
6) "Cwiszn" (Yale J. Reisner)
7) Yiddish version of "The International" (Gila Brodsky)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 12, 2010
Subject: ayngeshpart and learning Yiddish

A gut yor tsu ale Mendele-mitglider.

In response to the comments about the meaning of "ayngeshpart," I remember 
my parents always using it to mean obstinate, immovable. As children, we 
were often called ayngeshpart when we refused to cooperate. My father came 
from Odessa and my mother from Lithuania, so this usage seems to have been 
widespread.

Apropos of teaching and learning the Yiddish language, here in Melbourne, 
Australia,  there appears to be  a solid core of interest in the language. 
This core is not huge in numbers, but a number of groups meet informally 
just to have the opportunity of talking Yiddish. Monash University runs a 
Yiddish course, and a number of Jewish schools offer Yiddish as a subject. 
In 2008, I took part in a summer school Yiddish program at Tel Aviv 
University, and there were more than a hundred students enrolled in the 
course. They were of all ages, and from many different countries including 
Israel itself. Everyone was immensely enthusiastic, and keen to see 
Yiddish flourish. I found it very encouraging.

Freda Hodge

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 20, 2010
Subject: ayngeshpart

The expression my bubba (from Ukraine) used was akshn meshimit (stubborn 
ox).

Mike Hirsch (Shija Myer)

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 4, 2010
Subject: Shoemakers, Rabbis, and High Foreheads

Shoemakers, Rabbis, and High Foreheads

In his story "The Little Shoemakers," Isaac Bashevis-Singer begins to 
describe his main character thus:   "Er iz geven, vi ale, a kleyner, a 
diklekher, mit a breyter geler bord, mit a hoykhn shtern un tife vinklen, 
vi s'hobn nor rabonim un shusters."  "He was, like all [of the men in this 
family], short, chubby, with a broad yellow beard, with a high forehead 
and deep [bald] corners, such as only rabbis and shoemakers have."
Here are two questions, both suggested by Professor Yitshok Niborski, one 
for those knowledgeable in Jewish folklore, one for those widely read in 
Yiddish literature:

1. Does Yiddish folklore note any such alleged similarity between 
shoemakers and rabbis?

2. Can you cite any other examples from Yiddish literature in which 
shoemakers and rabbis are thus compared, or in which shoemakers are 
depicted as having high foreheads or having other characteristics 
associated with rabbis, thinkers, etc.?

I am indebted to Professor Yitshok Niborski for one example of the latter 
in Sholem-Aleykhem's story "Tsvey Toyte" -- "Two Dead Ones":

"Er glet dem hoykhn vaysn shtern (ale shusters hobn hoykhe vayse shterns) 
un redt fartrakht, mayse filozof."
"He strokes his high white forehead (all shoemakers have high white 
foreheads) and speaks thoughtfully, like a philosopher."

Norman Buder

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 September 2010
Subject: "Szal a Kakas Mar"

The song "Szal a Kakas Mar" =  "der krayendiker han" was composed by the 
Kalever Rebbe in Hungarian.

I don't know whether there is a Yiddish version of it.

Perets Mett

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 21, 2010
Subject: "Der groyser verterbukh" Online

You can now find a searchable version of the 4 volumes of "der groyser 
verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh" at

http://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/yiddish/searchGroys.cgi

Some notes:

1. The search term must be in Yiddish letters.  There are some clickable 
letters near the
top that you can use if you don't have a Yiddish keyboard.

2. If you put diacritics on your Yiddish letters, they will be required in 
any match, but if you leave them off, the letter will match with or 
without diacritics.  For example, you can use a bare fey to match either a 
rofe-fey or a pintl-fey = pey, but if you use a rofe-fey, it will not 
match a bare fey or a pintl-fey.  You do need to distinguish final letter 
forms from medial letter forms.  You can use two yuds, two vovs, or a vov 
followed by a yud instead of the corresponding ligatures tsvey-yudn, 
tsvey-vovn and vov-yud.  Or you can use the ligatures.

3. My software currently limits its output to 10 matches.  It shows exact 
matches (full words) with a yellow background and partial matches with a 
pink background.  It expands some (but by no means all!) abbreviations to 
fuller text with a green background.  It tries to show exactly one 
dictionary entry per match, but the technique it uses to determine the 
start and end of a dictionary entry is sometimes wrong.

4. The groyser verterbukh usually spells words with a shtumer alef 
whereYIVO would use diacritics such as a melupm-vov or a khirik-yud. 
However, for citations before about 1800, it uses the original spelling, 
whatever that may have been.  My software does not attempt to adjust 
spelling.

5. The OCR (optical character recognition) program is my own invention (I 
sound like the white knight in Alice through the Looking Glass!).  It is 
by no means perfect.  I hope to keep improving it, and as I do so, I will 
every so often re-generate the data files behind the search page.
It takes about 4 hours of computer time to generate those files.

Refoyl Finkel

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 6, 2010
Subject: "Cwiszn"

It might interest Mendelyaner to know that a new publication has appeared 
in Poland. It is entitled "Cwiszn" [tsvishn - In-Between] and it is a 
handsome, glossy, Polish-language quarterly (with short texts in Yiddish) 
about Yiddish literature and art issued by the Shalom Foundation of 
Warsaw. Its premier double issue is dedicated to Avrohom Sutzkever and 
Gilles Rosier, but includes a range of topics.

Its website -- also in Polish -- is at www.cwiszn.pl

A hartsikn grus alemen fun varshe,

Yale J. (Yekhiel) Reisner

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 21, 2010
Subject: Yiddish version of "The International"

I am looking for a Yiddish version of "The International" that is not the 
versions that I find on the internet.

It was sung at Camp Naivelt - a New York camp in the 1940's - I just 
remember the first lines which began -

Der arbet iz der tags gezangen

Der ruh, der troime fun der nacht..

Please excuse the transliteration - I am doing the best I can to convey 
the Yiddish...
I would appreciate any information.

Thank you.

Gilda Brodsky
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 20.007

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