[Mendele] Mendele Personal Notices and Announcements--death of Dina Levias

Victor Bers victor.bers at yale.edu
Sun Feb 16 12:49:55 EST 2014


Date: February 16, 2014
From: Victor Bers
Subject: Dina Levias

Several members have sent word of the recent death in Geneva of Dina
Levias, a frequent contributor to MENDELE.

This posting from 2008 seems an especially fine example of her enthusiasm
for Yiddish, her style, and the breadth of her knowledge:

......................................................................................

[Concerning a word for "spoiled"]

The word comes from the Russian verb balovat' meaning "to spoil (someone)."
In Yiddish it is probably "tserbalevet," the suffix "tser" stemming from
the German. "zer" (zer-reissen, zer-brechen, etc..) indicates an action
that is negative and also total. A "tserbaleveter yingl" is a child
spoiled through and through!

As for "tatele," I find Sylvan Beer's explanation less credible than the
simpler one, i.e. both "tatele" and "mamele" are terms of endearment
stemming from the love we bear our fathers and mothers: as a matter of
fact, I have heard "mamele" addressed to people other than children!
Romanians use the word "mamica" (mommy) as a term of endearment, and will
even use it for boys (or adult men!) in the masculinized form "mamicule"! I
have not heard them use the word for father "taticu" in the same manner.

Dina Levias

(From Vol. 18. 007)


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