[Mendele] Mendele Vol. 20.0015

Tue Mar 15 07:25:35 EDT 2011

Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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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

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